Unhappy with home phone and internet service

My husband and I both work from home. We both rarely use our cellphones.

We have home phone service and broadband/wireless internet on a business plan from XLN. We're not happy with the service, as our internet connection is extremely poor after 11 p.m. (and I am a night owl). We are charged for "extra downloads" (hubby and I download files every day, but nothing I consider excessive), and our basic (in-country) phone calls seem to be quite pricey.  So, we want to shop around. We wouldn't squawk about the price if the internet was at least *reliable* 24 hours a day. Honestly, if the urge strikes me to work at night, I can't, because I'd poke myself in the eyes in frustration due to the slow-as-snail-snot connection!

Anyone fantastically happy with their service? Again, not interested in mobile services as we rarely use them.

Thank you!

We suffered through more than a year with Virgin, who sucked (their fibre connection was fast but flakey). We swapped to BT Infinity this spring and haven't had any problems (knock on wood). It's fast, it doesn't lose its connection, and the speed doesn't seem to change based on time of day.

We had Sky when we first moved over in 2007, and it was awful.  From reliability to customer service to price - all of it was awful.

We switched to PlusNet about 2 years ago, and have been very happy with them.  We've only had trouble with our broadband connection a couple of times, and their customer service has always been very responsive.

I have had Virgin 5 years now,  and have never had a problem with it. Anytime it's been down,  it's never been down for long.

Sent from my GT-N7000 using Tapatalk 2

We have separate phone and ISP - we use BT for our phone and AOL for internet. It's never been down and we've never had a problem with it. Plus, it's pretty cheap for unlimited bandwidth - whichever ISP you choose, that's something you should look into if you do download every day.

(FWIW, I've had several friends who've had HORRIBLE problems with TalkTalk over the past year.)

We use Virgin and haven't a problem with it. 

I'm a ridiculously happy Virgin customer - we've had them for 10+ years (well, used to be NTL until Virgin acquired NTL). IIRC (I could be wrong), they offer the fastest speeds network available in the UK, and they are generous on downloads, etc.

We're in a TV-broadband-phone package with them. We've upgraded every few years for when they offered us faster speed or better telephone deal, etc. We don't watch much TV so we just keep a basic TV package in the deal. It's mostly about t'internet & phone for us as our mobiles don't have great reception inside our house.

Happy enough with Sky.  Currently pay nothing for it (they bought out o2) so that helps.

It's usually £10 per month (unless you take their TV in which case it's £7.50).  That's totally unlimited 24/7

Their line rental is about £20 with unlimited national calls.  So £30 all in isn't bad.

Another happy Sky customer here, no download cap & reasonable price.

We've been paying nearly 80 pounds a month, despite being told it wouldn't be more than 45.    Problem is, hubby has been so busy with work he hasn't had time to call them (my name isn't on it at the moment, so they won't talk to me). Seems there are all these extra charges he wasn't told about.

Thank you for all your suggestions. I will be looking into each one in the next couple weeks. Can't wait to be free of this company!!

We'vegot Virgin for internet and phone. They keep increasing my speed for no extra cost. Just done a test and it's running at 65mps at the moment.
Never really had any issies, occasional down time but pretty rare and usually not for long.
Been with them for phone and broadband for about 10 years, but have TV with Sky.

We've been paying nearly 80 pounds a month, despite being told it wouldn't be more than 45.    Problem is, hubby has been so busy with work he hasn't had time to call them (my name isn't on it at the moment, so they won't talk to me). Seems there are all these extra charges he wasn't told about.

Wow - that's crazy!

I thought the £40 a month I was paying with Sky was expensive (I had unlimited broadband, phone line, free evening/weekend calls, and their entertainment TV package with Sky+ HD box) because a similar package with Virgin cost only £30 a month.

I wasn't too happy with my Sky internet speed and my parents have been with Virgin for years and have had no problems, so when I get back to the UK in March, I'm planning on going with Virgin again.

Have you looked at http://www.uswitch.com to see hat might work best for you?

That seems beyond pricey. 

Hi,

I didn't see where your location is Fallgal - are you in a rural area?

Network connectivity and bandwidth are all issues every ISP needs to battle with in order to provide a service. As ever, some people have a terrible time with the big providers and other's have no problem and things like location can and does play a small/big part into any internet service.

Take a look at these sites to begin to look at deals and any packages etc available in your area.

http://www.thinkbroadband.com/
http://www.broadbandchoices.co.uk/

Like myself you work from home, I'd advise getting a 'pro' level service if any providers offer it in your area and a business physical line - BT most likely (I'm with Be Broadband, now owned by Sky and I've had the 'Pro' service for perhaps 4+ years now) Thing is, 'residential' phone lines might not have this level of service available and things like line contention etc all play a part. A small business package, again from providers who offer it in your area might be the way forward - it all depends on how much you'll scream/cry/worry about your connection if it goes down with regards to your business or professional/work level requirements. Business connections often have much faster resolution times, for instance, at our local exchange some months ago, an engineer mistakenly unplugged our line and mixed it up with someone elses - these errors can and do occur quite often - if you've ever seen inside the local phone exchange, you'll understand how/why! it took over a week before it was corrected - it's 'standard' for a 'residential' line support. So no internet for a week, business comms were severely affected. On a business plan/service, the error would've been rectified within 4 hours I think they mentioned. I'm not in a position to go for the business level service just yet, so my current backup plan in case it happens again is my mobile/cellular data plan on one of my lines which is unlimited data and which allows tethering to other devices (The One Plan from 3). If my home connection goes down again, then I can simply enable wifi on my handset and connect my laptop to it.

I can't quite remember the site for comparisons for business ISP's, but I think a quick search should see the providers in your area.

Hope this helps!

Cheers, DtM!West London & Slough UK!

TalkTalk are doing broadband and line rental for £12 per month now.  It's supposedly ok, not sure if I'd risk it as they used to be awful