Best Broadband?

I have been with what is now Virgin since I moved here in 2003. In that time, there have been only 3 times that the internet has been down.  But it was back within 5 hours in each case.  I work from home and use the internet all day long, for email and for demos and customer support.  I can really depend it and so I won't move from Virgin.

I had a couple of customers tell me that BT was the worst.  One customer did not get his internet up and running for a MONTH!  That is so scary to me!

Our Virgin charge is £30 a month for Medium TV (we don't watch much so not as many channels & not HD), XL Broadband (one of the fast ones, but not the fastest) & our phone service.

I had a very uneven experience with Virgin. The TV was generally good, with few outages but the telephone and broadband services were spotty. Either was out at least one to two times per month. Sometimes for hours, other times for days. My telephone was out for over a week with no explanation.

The problem with Virgin was that when it worked, it worked fine. But when it didn’t I found their customer service extremely difficult to deal with. I’m sorry to say it was the first time my dealing with a company caused me to scream at one of their reps. It wasn't pretty.

When I moved flat recently the new place wasn’t wired for cable and I wasn’t allowed to put up a Sky dish so my only option was BT for phone and broadband and a Freeview box for the TV. I’m happy to report that the service from BT has been great. My broadband is faster than the one offered by my Virgin plan and cheaper.

I started out on a special 3 for £30 deal with Virgin, which was fine for the first year but then the deal expired and my bill crept up to £70-75 a month on average. My current bill with BT is around £35-40 (without TV though)

But all of this is subjective. I think the service you get very much depends on the area in which you live.

I think the service you get very much depends on the area in which you live.

I hear such a variation of good and bad things about all the different carriers, that I have come to this conclusion as well.

I started out on a special 3 for £30 deal with Virgin, which was fine for the first year but then the deal expired and my bill crept up to £70-75 a month on average. 

The thing with that is you need to threaten to leave their service, and they will find a way to make it cheaper.    Our plan is month to month though, not a contract.

Glad you're happy with BT! 

Our Virgin charge is £30 a month for Medium TV (we don't watch much so not as many channels & not HD), XL Broadband (one of the fast ones, but not the fastest) & our phone service.

Thanks for mentioning that, as I was paying more than that for L broadband and M phone inc international calling plan.
Phoned them up and they reduced my monthly bill and upped me onto XL broadband!

Also, whilst in the mood of phoning places, I contacted T-Mobile and got on a better plan for me which has dropped my bill to a quarter of what it was!

Not a bad days work!

We're looking to make a decision on this matter shortly, as well. We've asked around and it seems that for every person that is dissatisfied with their experiences with Sky, you'll also find one that hates Virgin.

At this point I think we'll go with Virgin (our short-term house has Virgin broadband and cable currently and it seems o.k., although the dynamic ip thing is a bit of a pain), if for no other reason than to avoid having a satellite dish.