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| Rich broom Member Since: 26 Jul 2015 Location: Tiverton Posts: 78  |
I have just done the same.
Have a look at utility warehouse. I'm saving £500 a year. Got mobile as well, and electric |
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29th Oct 2015 8:30pm |
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| shaggydog Member Since: 12 Aug 2012 Location: Kent Posts: 3347  
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My boss has plusnet and is always complaining about them strangling his broadband speed down to 1mb/s unless he rings up and threatens to leave which pushes it up to 5mb/s but is still terrible. On that basis I wouldn't recommend them. Running Restoration Thread http://www.defender2.net/forum/post323197.html#323197
Self confessed mileage hunter  |
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29th Oct 2015 8:35pm |
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| DuncanS Member Since: 06 Dec 2013 Location: Cumbria Posts: 299 
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Be very careful with Utility Warehouse. A few people have had nightmares with them after they transfer to them and try to leave, they won't actually give you your phone number back and turn it into a sales number apparently, so you have to get a whole new phone number. North Cumbria Search and Rescue - Team Leader
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29th Oct 2015 8:39pm |
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| custom90 Member Since: 21 Jan 2010 Location: South West, England. Posts: 20634
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Think there is sat some satallite suppliers too, issue there is a reason why you cannot get service like remote location / supply.
What I can say though is avoid like a plague a company called a7vant4ge t3l3com. I've spelt it like this to avoid Internet search key words but they try and tie you to 5 yr contacts given the chance and masquerade as being BT and they aren't. Just a warning. Right now I'm with Sky, previously talk talk as aol who I was eith got taken over. Glad to be rid of TT, expensive, poor service and just looking at the hacking scandal.  a 15yr old.  |
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29th Oct 2015 8:40pm |
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| gilarion Member Since: 05 Dec 2013 Location: Wales Posts: 5115  
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I have an EE package which includes unlimited broadband usage free phone calls to all landline and mobile numbers and international calls for £10.95 a month, plus £12.95 a month line rental, not had any problems.
I was with BT but left when they started to raise prices, should have done so years ago as I now save myself about four hundred pounds a year. For those who like Welsh Mountains and narrow boats have a look at my videos and photos at.. http://www.youtube.com/user/conwy1 |
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30th Oct 2015 11:41am |
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| Lost for Words Member Since: 18 Jun 2015 Location: Warminster, Wiltshire Posts: 200 |
I'm with Plusnet and would highly recommend them.
They're far better to deal with than any other companies of similar nature that I've known and the couple of technical issues that have occured were dealt with very quickly - I think this is helped hugely by being BT in disguise. Not had any issues with speeds (their upload speeds provided on fibre are particularly good), and I like the fact their network management policy is open and honest (because they all use them - there's no choice otherwise half of us would end up with nothing - but some ISPs try to pretend they don't ). 
Talk Talk's service seems to amount to tin cans and string (another family member's experience). Sky will put up your price like no other company, and they somehow caused problems with my connection - got very slow speeds and lots of downtime so switched to O2 who were good. Roll on time and within hours of Sky taking over from O2, the problems were back, so no surprise, I told them to get stuffed. 
What speeds etc. you get is only partly down to the ISP (if the line's poor, it's poor), so customer service is king to me, and Plusnet have certainly been a great change on that front. Visiting from DISCO3.CO.UK
Discovery 3 TDV6 Auto HSE Zambezi Silver  |
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30th Oct 2015 12:13pm |
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| jonnyboy Member Since: 15 Oct 2014 Location: Wiltshire Posts: 161 
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Zen Internet here.
Like the OP, sick of dealing with BT with both me and my wife working from home and needing good solid internet access. Have had a couple of issues over the years (usually with the BT infrastructure) but Zen have taken the issue and proactively sorted it. No dialling India, no explaining the issue 20 times to 20 different folks. Recommended |
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30th Oct 2015 12:40pm |
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| ken Member Since: 18 Aug 2009 Location: Banging Birds with my bitches !! Posts: 4328
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I have no problem with BT however as its a business account it might be the reason
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30th Oct 2015 1:05pm |
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| Cupboard Member Since: 21 Mar 2014 Location: Suffolk Posts: 2971 
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The most recent PC Pro had some discussion of them:
Zen came out on top by miles. PlusNet cheap but slow (they're owned by BT anyway). Thing is most of them still have to use BT's copper. At work we've got wireless internet from these guys: http://www.thinkingwisp.co.uk/ but that's only a Norfolk thing. There may be an equivalent locally to you. This time last year BT were pulling fibre past our village (we're not getting it) and rather than looking at the ducts and saying "these are a bit full, lets put some new ones in" they said "theese look a bit full, let's pull harder". That broke half the phone lines to the village in weird and wonderful ways, at work we lost one of our voice lines which had our ADSL service on it, but not the other one. At home (which is just across the road) I lost voice but the internet kept going, albeit at 1MBit/sec rather than 3. After a few days of BT  around we still didn't have anything working on the farm, so ran a network cable under the road to my house so we could pay wages and send out invoices (you can't pay wages without an internet connection, even if you give people wads of cash you still need to tell HMRC there and then).
BT fixed most of the lines within ten days, but not the farm's and by that stage we were getting seriously off with them. They kept sending guys out by themselves who would come and say to us "I know where the fault it but it's in the middle of the road, and there's only one of me so I can't do anything". Then the next day we'd get someone else come out with the same story. That happened loads of times. We'd been talking about moving away from BT for a while, and were on the ThinkingWISP list, but after the issues we had they managed to bump us up the list. That got installed about 2.5 weeks after BT broke the line.
Two months later, BT still hadn't fixed it so we cancelled the service. We've now been with ThinkingWISP a year and getting a far more reliable and faster service than we ever had with BT. It's 2-3 times the speed, and whilst it does get slower when it rains it does keep working, which it didn't with BT. We did have one problem with the service when a tree somewhere in the village grew in the way of the signal, so we moved the receiver and got going again. It's nice being able to ring up a bloke in Norwich who will say "left a bit, right a bit, that's bang on" and on the few occasions we have had an issue it's been sorted really quickly and easily by them. So yes. We don't like BT's service. Or BT's pricing. Or BT's network. I still have a standard ADSL line at home (through a different company in Norwich, Comm Tech) which means that should there be some issue with the airwaves we've got a completely separate backup. The few dealings I've had with them have been fine, and it's something like £15/month for an unlimited data package, 12 month contract and a TP-Link router rather than a crappy BT one that doesn't work properly. Oh yes, my parents in Suffolk have been with BT a while and the service they get is next to useless. The router (and they've had replacements) keels over if more than 3 things try to connect. Did I mention I didn't like BT? |
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30th Oct 2015 1:21pm |
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| SimonDavies Member Since: 15 Mar 2012 Location: Swansea Posts: 244 
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Plusnet here.
I have just moved in with my gf and decided to put in broadband. After searching on the internet, I found a decent deal with plusnet which had good fibre speeds in the area. I payed for the full phone line rental (making it cheaper) and an extra £50 for install. In two weeks the engineer was coming. The day arrived and my father in law waited in for the eng who would be there between 1 and 6. No show. Not even a phone call. Anyway, I am in the middle of waiting a further two weeks for someone else to fit the line. BT couldn't do it anytime sooner and plusnet were happy to accept that. I still don't know why noone showed up. My predicament is, do I wait the two weeks and hope for no more problems or start shopping around again. Oh, and the wait time for cust services is 20 minutes onwards from my experience. And then all they do is apologise and not sort the issue. |
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30th Oct 2015 1:33pm |
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| JOW240725 Member Since: 04 May 2015 Location: Suffolk Posts: 7908 
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I'm certainly no expert but i thought all providers used BT lines, hence the separate compulsory line rental charge? I'm with TalkTalk and I know they use BT as its always Openreach vans that repair the line. For what it's worth, barring this weeks slight dependency
, I've been pleased with TalkTalk. Having said this I've not add any major problems, so haven't really used there customer services. The only issuse we have is connection which is down to a poor BT line to our remote location. We have Line rental, Telephone (all calls) , Fibre (ish), TV package for £34/month, i don't think this is bad?!?! |
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30th Oct 2015 1:50pm |
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| mse Member Since: 06 Apr 2008 Location: UK Posts: 5070 
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We did Sky for years, on their own kit great, then the village didnt have sky kit and its awful - moved to BT and its great and standard speed is 18mb unlimited Mike
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30th Oct 2015 3:01pm |
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| Lambley Member Since: 20 Apr 2013 Location: Mid Devon Posts: 1435 
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Ours is with BT Business too, I think it's been so bad because it was never set up correctly in the first place, they took £321 extra last month for things that didn't add up, (I'm waiting for that to be credited back), extra call charges for all calls that should have been included, letters addressed to my company at my address - to people I don't even know, details of another person on my account who happens to live in Bradford, login details wrong and bills that are for things I've never had. I've made a complaint and they have admitted it's been a total up, but even after all this they don't seem bothered, I've asked to leave with no penalties and they have OK'd it.
The broadband and telephone work fine, it's just the billing, account setting etc etc. So far Plusnet are looking the most Likely, I did have a quote from EE but they were £45 per month for broadband alone. |
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30th Oct 2015 3:08pm |
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| PaulMc Member Since: 17 Jan 2009 Location: Kent Posts: 504 
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This site is useful - https://www.samknows.com/broadband/
It will tell you what services are available from your local exchange, and whose equipment is installed there. . Paul. 1989 Arles Blue 2.5TD 110 Hardtop 1999 Epsom Green Discovery II 4.0 V8i 'XS' |
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30th Oct 2015 3:58pm |
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