Cable broadband

[Gouldy]

I have been trying to find out about cable broadband, we have a land line but is purely so we can have broadband (a waste of money). I am interested in cable broadband (Virgin are the only company I know that do it?) but apparently it's not available in my area yet.

Is there a way that I can find out when it will be available in my area?

I asked virgin but they couldn't say.

 

[SC03OTT]

There is Smallworld Cable as well. I have no idea on their coverage area however, or anything else about them for that matter.

 

[sbridgey]

Only virgin will know but in my experience ADSL broadband (over telephone cabling) is very good and is quick enough for gaming and in my experience seems much more reliable than our Virgin Media cable connection that often drops out and has silly issues.

Check for BT infinity, they seem to be rolling it out in many areas and i believe it is very good.

 

[Gouldy]

I have ADSL2+ at the moment and it's not bad tbf. It's the fact that I am paying £12 a month line rental for a land line and home phone that never gets used.

 

[sbridgey]

You may find that you just have to grin and bear it until Virgin or BT install their cable service to your property unless you fancy paying them a large sum of money to do it for you.

 

[Gouldy]

BT don't do cable do they?

 

[sbridgey]

Yep its fairly new and its called infinity.

http://www.productsandservices.bt.com/consumerProducts/displayTopic.do?topicId=29017

 

[Gouldy]

That's FTTC, not FTTP.

I live in a FTTC area and I can get fibre but because it's only to the cabinet, I still have to have a phone line. This is what im trying to avoid

 

[sbridgey]

I am pretty sure they just stick a coax from the cabinet to the property so not using your phone line but BT seem to like to charge for line rental which seems a bit odd. If you compare the prices including line rental i am fairly sure virgin is not much cheaper, I pay £45 a month for 100Mb from virgin so its about the same form BT.

 

[Gouldy]

£45 PCM!

Christ on a bike!

My current ADSL2+ package is £11.49 a month plus line rental. I'm trying to bring it down if I can, I can't find any info on when FTTP is available.

 

[sbridgey]

Doubt it will be anytime soon, fttc is fast enough for pretty much any home user virgin media can push 120Mb across FFTC.

I think maybe you should shop around for a cheap adsl deal.

 

[Gouldy]

I have a one of the cheapest ADSL deals going tbh, I have a 14 Mbs download, 1 Mbs upload service with a 60 gb usage cap (free use from midnight to 8am) for £11.49 PCM.

Its a pretty good deal tbf

 

[sbridgey]

Thats plusnet and i have just changed my £45pcm to that and its being installed next week.

 

[Gouldy]

Bingo, it is plusnet.

Once the teething problems have been sorted out they are actually a very good company. I have had some bother with them but they are quick to fix any issues you may have.

 

[Gouldy]

Why are you changing from virgin ?

 

[sbridgey]

Because its too expensive and i don't need the extra bandwidth anymore.

 

[Gouldy]

I used to be with virgin at my old house before I moved. For some reason when we moved they wanted to charge a fortune to reconnect us at the new property and to add insult to injury, they put the price of our package up £10 a PCM. After they tried pulling that one we moved to plusnet, I'd recommend them tbh.

 

[sbridgey]

Yeah i am not really impressed with virgins customer service at all, we've had loads of issues and for the first 3 months the service barely worked during this time and they refused to believe it was their issue. I would choose BT over virgin for fibre and plus net for ADSL.

 

[Gouldy]

Why?

 

[sbridgey]

Because in my opinion i have never had an issue with a BT service, i know people with the BT fibre service who tell me great things about it, I have found virgin media to be awful to deal with, the tech support is woeful and the customer service spoke to me like s**t so i don't really want to give them my money.

I like plusnet because they're from yorkshire! and they are cheap and they seem to be a cleverly designed company with uk tech support which is very rare.

 

[Gouldy]

Why would you choose BT over plusnet for ADSL/ fibre?

 

[sbridgey]

I wouldn't lol, well i would if i wanted the TV services but thats it. Plusnet seem to be the best ADSL provider at the moment so would choose them for ADSL.

Just to clarify i would choose BT for fibre as they are the only alternative to Virgin and i would only choose that if i wanted a high speed internet connection which at the moment i don't.

 

[Gouldy]

BT own plusnet, it's the same company on the same network.

Both companies services are near identical, apart from plusnet haven't doubled their fibre speeds yet. The advantage of plusnet is the English call centre, that and they have a forum which is very good for sorting any problems you may have.

 

[sbridgey]

Really i didn't know that, i thought they would be using another ISP's network but really didn't think it would be BT, its obvious if you think about it though!! Do plus net do fibre then i haven't really looked around the site? I think they are better than BT 100% if they do decent fibre speeds.

I feel like an idiot now.

 

[Gouldy]

Yes, plusnet do fibre. Their packages start from £16.49 PCM for their value fibre package plus line rental.

 

[Gouldy]

See here; http://www.plus.net/

 

[sbridgey]

Thats reasonable, i have just been checking it out and i have an issue with it being an 18 month contract which is too long in my opinion. I bought a rolling contract so i can cancel when i feel like it so as i am not a fan of being tied into these deals.

 

[Adam]

I am pretty sure they just stick a coax from the cabinet to the property so not using your phone line but BT seem to like to charge for line rental which seems a bit odd. If you compare the prices including line rental i am fairly sure virgin is not much cheaper, I pay £45 a month for 100Mb from virgin so its about the same form BT.

BT Infinity is FTTC and uses VDSL2 to deliver the service from the cab to the premises using existing copper pairs.

 

[Cookie]

BT are testing FTTP at the mo, I wouldn't expect to see them rolling it out properly til 2013. Up to 330mbit down is quite appealing.

 

[Adam]

Indeed.... sign me up

 

[sbridgey]

That sounds nice but i doubt many servers could cope with a user requesting data at that rate! Would be good for several heavy users sharing a connection though.

 

[Gouldy]

I got fed up and Amy can now claim for the internet through work. Because of this I placed an order for fibre yesterday, it's getting installed on the 7th so happy days.

 

[Gouldy]

Well what a f**k about.

A BT engineer turned up this morning on behalf of plusnet to install the new box for the fibre. Plusnet didn't bother to send out the router or any of the equipment I've paid for so the engineer could not install the equipment and complete the order.

I am now left with no internet and no phone but I am being charged for fibre broadband. Another plusnet balls up.