[KarlRW]

Hi guys,

Ive just bought a flat (biggest impulse buy ive done so far....) and need to sort out the phonelines and internet.

Can anyone recommend a good company to go with? i want a decent connection, but without a £40/month pricetag.

I did consider looking at sky, to get a TV package as well, but what is their internet like?


Karl

[montyzuma]

Check out some of the comparison sites

[KarlRW]

I have looked at them, and its let me compare pricing, but that doesnt really help service wise.

[RotHeissPfefferStreber]

Whoever you go with, there will be someone who says 'X' is great and someone who says its crap.

I know you aren't interested in Virgin cable (its the one that's up around your £40 a month price tag), but if you trawl the web sites dedicated to it you'd be forgiven for turning your back on it. Big companies always have a following of very loud whingers.

But I have the top-speed Virgin cable service (now with phone and cable TV on my package at no extra cost). Ignoring the phone and TV part, which I don't really use that much, the Internet service is blisteringly fast.

Down time (that I notice, or which affects my work) is a maximum of one day a year.

I've been with NTL (now Virgin) for some years. In that time I have had two faults which have been down to the modem - both times an engineer was out with a new one within 4 days (allowing for my availability and weekends), and the service was running again before he left. So, in my experience, customer service is second to none. The only thing you have to put up with is the non-UK location of the call centre (this is a major problem to many people who frequent those anti-something websites). I've always found the call agents to be helpful and efficient, and quite honestly find them a hundred times easier to understand than I do Sky's agents (based in Livingston).

The hidden detail on all those websites where people moan about NTL/Virgin is that they are frequently serial moaners (they did the same with BT before they switched to cable), and often somewhat computer illiterate (though they like to think otherwise). To them, bad service is when NTL/Virgin don't send a bloke round within 2 hours because they have got a virus, or can't copy photos of their jack russells from their new digital cameras (I know its like this because I worked in support for a computer retailer, and I know EXACTLY what some people complain about ).

Its also worth pointing out I fix computers for people with the Virgin cable service and they are always happy. Also makes getting up and running again a breeze, as if you have to do a clean install of Windows (my favoured approach to broken systems whenever I can use it), you are immediately online once you plug in the ethernet cable, so getting system drivers after reinstall is easy (no installation of USB drivers for the modem etc.)

Virgin do a DSL package or two, but I can't comment on those.

Definitely recommend the fibre optic/cable service, though.

No one will ever persuade me to switch to DSL from cable. The forseeable future does not see a traffic limit on cable, but its already there with DSL. DSL is always 'up to' as a result of proximity to the exchange, state of the wiring up to your house, and traffic on a very narrow system.

[KarlRW]

Hi RotHeissPfefferStreber

Thanks for the reply. The sort of thing i was after. What speed cable do you have with them?

Karl

[RotHeissPfefferStreber]

At the moment its 20MB in my area but they are rolling out 50MB soon as a free upgrade (some areas already have it). Its cheaper than I remembered, too:

http://www.broadbandinternetuk.com/broadband_provider_reviews/virgin_media_broadband.asp

http://allyours.virginmedia.com/html/broadband/50Mb-difference.html

With 20MB, depending on the website, download speeds are literally at 2,000 kb/s. I can download a whole album in about 20 seconds and whole movies in HQ DIVX in less than an hour (to less than 20 minutes depending on the speed and traffic on the target site).

[RotHeissPfefferStreber]

Oh, I must poiint out that those 2,000kb/s speeds depend on the other site and the time of day, etc.

It is not unknown to end up with a download speed of only about 50kb/s (old modem speed) or less - AC'97 drivers from the Taiwan home site being a prime example. And CNET went through a phase of being ultra-slow (when downloading AVG for example - I always get this direct from Grisoft's servers)

Normal sites are fine though.

[KarlRW]

Thanks for the advice.

I am currently lookng at them, but i need to make sure i can get it in my area, so i will speak to them tommorrow.

Will also be looking at my phoneline options with them.

Karl

[RotHeissPfefferStreber]

Don't forget they have the postcode checker on their site somwehere.