Getting New Broadband

[Steve-UK]

Me and my new housemates will be having to invest in broadband for our house soon. Got any recommendation on who to go with? We're thinking O2 broadband possibly as it is dirt cheap... anyone with them?

ADSL is the only real option, doubt our landlord would be thrilled if we installed cable

[rob7b]

depends on what your needs will be? bandwidth? price?

plus unless your already in a cabled area, virgin wont actually lay a cable just for you unfortunately.

i used this site when choosing an ADSL provider while back.

your guide to Broadband in the UK - broadband.co.uk

[qasim]

Ive got Sky and its only £10 for 16mb connection

[Dave H]

o2 broadband is offered via BeThere, who I am with. Now whilst the infrastructure is great, I can only comment on the support from BeThere (as o2 is separate).

In all honesty, I'd probably suggest go with BeThere.
Why not sign up through Quidco? £40 cashback for joining!

Quidco ftw!

[Steve-UK]

Sorry I forgot the crucial details :P We're all students... so cheaper the better (as long as the service is acceptable) And the area we're living we are too far from the exchange to get anything faster than 6mbit.

Thanks

[RnRDave]

20MB Fiber Optic from Virgin is £26 a month.

Thats what we have in our student house.

Its the shizzle.

[RnRDave]

Originally Posted by Steve-UK

Sorry I forgot the crucial details :P We're all students... so cheaper the better (as long as the service is acceptable) And the area we're living we are too far from the exchange to get anything faster than 6mbit.

Thanks

Plus with Fibre optic it doesnt matter how far you are from the exchange.

[rob7b]

Originally Posted by RnRDave

Its the shizzle.

yeh until you reach your "daily download limit"

i have noticed that once you get to a certain point, virgin media drop your bandwidth. Take for example at the moment i can get 1.3mb/s but when you reach a certain download limit it knocks you cown to around 150kb/s...

hardly a shizzle service

[claire80]

i have the up to 16mb sky but if you dont think you are gonna get that much the up to 8mb is only a fiver i believe but that might be when you have a package im not sure

[RnRDave]

Originally Posted by rob7b

yeh until you reach your "daily download limit"

i have noticed that once you get to a certain point, virgin media drop your bandwidth. Take for example at the moment i can get 1.3mb/s but when you reach a certain download limit it knocks you cown to around 150kb/s...

hardly a shizzle service

Ive never had that problem.

And we always have up to 3 computers downloading at same time.

[omairt]

Originally Posted by rob7b

yeh until you reach your "daily download limit"

i have noticed that once you get to a certain point, virgin media drop your bandwidth. Take for example at the moment i can get 1.3mb/s but when you reach a certain download limit it knocks you cown to around 150kb/s...

hardly a shizzle service

Virgin Media does that, but it's not as bad as that.

Their's is still better than BT/Sky, etc, as you still get unlimited usage. BT's fair usage policy just cuts you off.

Here's Virgin Media's limits:

On 2mbps, your speed will be capped at 1mbps after downloading 350MB.
On 4mbps, your speed will be capped at 2mbps after downloading 750MB.
On 20mbps, your speed will be capped at 5mbps after downloading 3GB.

[omairt]

Originally Posted by omairt

On 2mbps, your speed will be capped at 1mbps after downloading 350MB.
On 4mbps, your speed will be capped at 2mbps after downloading 750MB.
On 20mbps, your speed will be capped at 5mbps after downloading 3GB.

too late to edit:


On 10mbps, your speed will be capped at 2mbps after downloading 750MB.

They don't do 4mbps anymore

[rob7b]

Originally Posted by omairt

Virgin Media does that, but it's not as bad as that.

I guess it must vary from area to area, but i to confirm mine does actually drop from 1.4mb/s to around 150-200kb/s...thats not exaggeration. I can usually get 2Gb downloaded before the cap comes into force. Then the cap is generally lifted around 1am.

They are good in the sense that it it unlimited and they dont charge you any extra bandwidth.

[domel9]

So frustrated at the moment. Haven't a clue what to do about our house's broadband. Most of the broadband providers are telling us that its not available in our area, BT are saying our phone line isn't a BT line, so how are we meant to find out what it is?!

[Jon]

If the landlord will let you install virgin (most do so long as they can specify were the box goes etc) I would suggest going with them, yeah there are download cap's in place but you can easily schedule downloads (if you need to) to take place during the early hours and onwards etc. If you play online to, I have always had better pings with cable compared to adsl

[Jon]

Originally Posted by domel9

So frustrated at the moment. Haven't a clue what to do about our house's broadband. Most of the broadband providers are telling us that its not available in our area, BT are saying our phone line isn't a BT line, so how are we meant to find out what it is?!

I think its because other companies can use teh exchanges for their phone line services, i.e in my flat I have a BT line and a BT customer. Next door has a Carphone Warehouse phone line - he wanted to go with BT but was told would have to pay a fee to do this, even though the previous tenant was the one who made the switch. Thing is out flats are only 4 years old and obviously the phone lines were installed at the same time

[-null-]

One thing no one has asked and you haven't mentioned is do you live in a cabled area. I assume if its a student flat it will be since universities and colleges tend to be in built up areas but thought I'd make sure.

A lot of the deals from like Sky and some of the other companies (Carphone Warehouse?) were only available if it was cable broadband.

I found this website pretty useful thinkbroadband :: The UK's largest independent Broadband / ADSL comparison & review website

And since whilst getting that url I ran a quick test on my broadband speed and found it slower than it used to be I'm going to be spending a while tomorrow trying to find out why. I mean I live about half a mile from the exchange so should have something a little closer to the 8mb broadband I'm on.

[Jimboo]

Consider Be broadband as advised previously. 24Mb/s and that costs around £25 per month. It's fantastic!