looking for a good broadband provider

[Russ Michaels]

Can anyone recommend a good broadband provider that has a reliable service and decent customer support that is actually based in the UK and a decent router with good security.

I used to be with ZEN, but had to leave as their support went down the toilet. Moved to BT, which was a huge mistake, absolute nightmare to deal with them, all based in India.

The only good thing I can say about BT is that their business hub router does have amazing WIFI. It reaches every part of the house, which even my expensive £300 SUUS and netgear routers have failed to do.

 

[Ozzy]

I'd say it depends on your overall needs and also your technical ability; I always tend to go "wires only" as I like to use my own router and modem, and sometimes I do like to tinker with routing too. However, here's my headline thoughts.

If you are in an area covered by these guys, then I'd recommend Gigaclear. I have them at home and have a nice 1GB internet connection with low latency with fibre to my desk...not just to me house, literally to my desk. The 1st level support is a bit basic and script based but the couple of times I've needed to speak to them I've been very quickly escalated to 2nd tier who I can talk to on a level.
If you aren't in an area they cover then I would either stick with BT and hope you don't need their support, which is always boiler plate factory restore your BT router and hope that does the trick, or just about anyone else. The underlying connection doesn't vary much from ISP to ISP, but if support is what you are after then...

If you want proper level support from technical people who know what they are talking about, then I would highly recommend Andrews & Arnold. They are the internet provider for technical people, well known in the tech industry but not well known by the general public. Be warned, if you have a support problem because of something stupid you did they'll tell you . I previously used them for years.

 

[cjd]

Broadband is a really tough market. All the main brands are competing on price and selling at wholesale prices or below, going for market share and hoping for content sales (sport, film etc). It doesn't really matter who you pick from the likes of BT, Talk Talk, Sky etc you'll get the same service (?) and a product that is entirely dependent on where you are.

The smaller, independent providers that used to be mid-market are struggling because they don't have the same buying power or loss-leading business models - they're getting squeezed.

Ozzy mentioned A&A and that was the name that came into my head when I read your post - the geeks network - but you pay for it. They're selling at what is actually the price that's needed to make a living and have a good product with good service.

We've built our own broadband network ... just saying

 

[Russ Michaels]

I would disagree they are all the the same.
I used to be with sky many years ago, and they were the worst in every way possible.
They required you to plug your router directly into the master socket, or the broadband did not work.
The support/customer service was so bad I couldn't even describe it.

Zen Internet on the other had used to be amazing, really great support and I never had any problems. Then it all went down hill and they stopped being great, and when I had a line issue, they just kept feeding me BS and refused to fix it, thus why I had to move.

I was actually looking at A&A before I moved to BT, especially due to the fact they promise to fix line problems, which I was having at the time. My only issue was the bandwidth limit. There are 6 people in my household, which is a lot of Netflix and youtube usage

 

[JEREMY HAWKE]

I stick with BT I might pay more but I need the reliability

 

[Ozzy]

When I said this....

hope you don't need their support, which is always boiler plate

I mean't because of this...

They required you to plug your router directly into the master socket, or the broadband did not work.
The support/customer service was so bad I couldn't even describe it.

and it is because of this...

It doesn't really matter who you pick from the likes of BT, Talk Talk, Sky etc you'll get the same service (?) and a product that is entirely dependent on where you are.

I was an Ops Director for an Internet company who bought my web hosting company from me in the backend of the 1990's, in the early days of broadband and OpenReach being launched. I oversaw the unbundling of the BT network and broadband rollout for the telco division on the ISP and I imagine not a huge amount operationally has changed in that time. The provision of the service is fairly much the same, except for with @cjd who have built their own. The customer service for them all is down skilled and outsourced to keep it cheap, which is why I say for typical broadband it doesn't matter who you go with, so make your choice based on who you want to deal with if something goes wrong - the technical/customer service...because the actual broadband doesn't change much between providers.
Although not entirely accurate (before someone in the industry corrects me on the technicalities) an easy way to explain it, they are nearly all "resellers" of BT broadbrand.

 

[KM-Tiger]

If you want proper level support from technical people who know what they are talking about, then I would highly recommend Andrews & Arnold.

Second (or is it third?) that.

A&A are the Rolls Royce of broadband suppliers, but like a Rolls Royce they don't come cheap.

I actually have 2 internet connections, ADSL from A&A and fibre from Virgin Media. The difference in the quality of customer service could not be more extreme.

 

[gpietersz]

I still use Zen and their support has been excellent so far. I recently had a line issue and they were very helpful (as were Openreach). They also throw in good routers with 12 month contracts (or you can use your own).

Never rely on Virgin. Costs are good but customer service is awful and they can be slow to fix line issues.

If I was disatissified with Zen I would probably go to A & A. Very geeky (even the navigation bar on their website! love the /etc ).

@Ozzy they are all resellers of BT broadband for the local loop, but I thought they used different networks upstream of that?

 

[Stedurham]

Daisy communications, used them for 8 plus years, service is excellent on rare occasion had issues and very cheap

 

[Ozzy]

they are all resellers of BT broadband for the local loop, but I thought they used different networks upstream of that?

I've not been in that industry for quite a few years so happy to acknowledge I can be wrong, and it would make sense that the upstream handovers from local loops to network would become self contained. Only way for ISP's with the money to do that would be able to improve their margins, or as Gigaclear did - get paid millions in funding to lay fibre to every single outside of town household in an entire county.

 

[Russ Michaels]

I still use Zen and their support has been excellent so far. I recently had a line issue and they were very helpful (as were Openreach). They also throw in good routers with 12 month contracts (or you can use your own).

FYI, This is why I left Zen... copy of my review on trustpilot below

On top of this, any time I contacted them for any reason, it tooks weeks of chasing to get any response.... all depts, support, customer service, billing, none of them ever responsed.
I almost always had to resort to sending a complaint on twitter to get someone to reply to tickets.

I had now reached the end of my tether with Zen
I had now reached the end of my tether with this provider and am now transferring to a new provider.

Not only has their service gone down hill over the last few years but has now reached absolute rock bottom levels of unprofessional and unethical customer service.

For the last 10 years my line has been unable to get the speeds claimed and Zen have just fobbed me off with excuses claiming that it was because I was too far from the exchange etc, even though neighbours were able to get those speeds.

However after having a 2nd line installed, this line was able to get the full speed which Zen had claimed was impossible, thus proving that the original line did in fact have a fault.

I finally got them to send an engineer out.
The first one changed the BT socket, which mad ethe first improvement and got my speed up from 25Mbps to about 30 Mbps.
Since the line was still not reaching the expected speed, a second engineer was sent, who actually got up on a ladder and checked the physical line into my property and found that it was corroded on both end, fixed the problem, and voila I was suddenly getting the speeds that Zen said were complete impossible.

However after the original issue was resolved, I then started getting line stability issues and it was up and down like a yoyo. They stated this was due to the router they provided had a chipset that was not compatible with my line, which was also causing problems (their words).
Yet they refused to take any responsibility for this and provide me with an alternative router, even though they provide both the line and the router, and told me that it's my problem.

Zen are now blatantly lying and denying all previous conversation and denying that either of the engineers ever found any problems at all and never fixed or changed anything.

They are also now falsely claiming that the reason for my complaint is that I am trying to get speeds greater than the line is capable of (38Mbps), which of course is not true.

I watched the engineers replace the socket and fix the line with my own eyes, he explained the problem to my face, he reported the problem to Zen, and I discussed it with Zen on both occasions.

I have the emails/tickets with the previous conversations, recorded phone calls, Plus the fact that the line speed increased after the engineer visits, was this by magic?

Do they think they can wipe my memory with Jedi mind tricks or somehting?

Since I moved to BT (also not fun) , it took many engineer visits to fix the line stability issue which Zen has refused to fix. The engineers also told me the excuse about the router chipset was total nonsense.

 

[Rossm79]

Hi,

In my opinion of supporting multiple business with their IT. Don’t go with Virgin, as above, poor service and scheduled maintenance during business hours on business internet lines.

If you need reliability get a business line, they generally come with financially backed SLA’s. Remember the SLA only starts when logged with the ISP, not with the reseller!

BT have been very good with our clients. We have them all around the UK.

No need to pay for static IP addresses.

Also if the worst happens and your line goes down (which it will at some point), you can also tether to your mobile device.

 

[gpietersz]

@Russ Michaels I think you might have been happier with A & A - its where I plan to swtich if I want better than Zen.

Zen seems to have messed up badly with you, but it seems atypical, and the line stability issues are down to Openreach.

@Rossm79 with regard to BT, are you are talking about their business lines, not consumer? Given the price difference is fairly small it sounds well worth the extra even just for work from home. Any downside to it?

I bought a mobile hotspot from O2 after Virgin nearly cut me off for a week a few years ago (the only reason I got the problem fixed immediately was that I saw the guy who had accidentally disconnected me getting back into the van and called him back) a few years ago. Its proved very useful in other ways too (especially when moving house). That said, BT and Vodafone (and I would guess others) offer broadband with mobile backup as a package

Some of us find static IPs useful! I imagine that most people who need them know they need them so not arguing with what you said.

 

[Rossm79]

Hi,

Yes BT have been brilliant for us and our clients. Their FTTC business lines are around £28 per month on a 24 month contract. Static IPs are useful, especially if you need to access your devices remotely, or like me use it to co tell certain aspects of my Smart Home. For me I would put the extra for the speed and the Static IP.

Leased lines have the guaranteed fix SLAs….although these can go over the SLA if someone cuts through a gas pipe and the fibre line for example. However you can pay £300+ per month for a line like this.

Virgin’s SLA on their 500Mbps connection is 24 hours….however I would avoid Virgin like the plague. On the three sites where we have them (due to lack of decent fibre and unable to afford a leased line) we have nothing but issues with them!

BT offer a free upgrade to FTTP if it becomes available but this will increase your monthly payments, which could be around £90 per month. If you don’t need the speed or low latency it isn’t worth it.

 

[Rossm79]

One other thing is that some ISPs use BT infrastructure to deliver their internet. If they do I would go with BT themselves. It helps avoid comms issues and delays in getting any faults resolved.