Superfast Home Broadband - BT, Virgin or others?

[Peter]

I have to get a new home broadband service and am struggling to decide between Virgin Media and BT at the moment.

I'm not interested in TV particularly, but that may change in the future (both)

I like the idea of more accessible and free wifi on the move, but only as upside and wouldn't 'pay' for it (BT)

I'm probably not in the market for 100mb, but mid tier speed at say 60mb would be good (Virgin 60mb, BT 76mb)

Free evening and weekend calls is good and probably essential with the kids (both)

We use wireless in the house, but I am also Cat5 cabled through the house and like to have a hard connection for work....not sure if this has any bearing on their offerings?

Both seem about the same price at £34-38 per month.

Any suggestions, experiences, etc?

[drummerboytom]

We have BT INFINITY , no issues with it since an initial external line problem that showed up on installation but took a couple of weeks to fix .

[mycar]

I have BT Infinity at work Peter and it`s everso quick..... unlike the installation palava.

Now it`s in I`ve got no complaints.

Regards, Mike.

[abzadams]

I have to get a new home broadband service and am struggling to decide between Virgin Media and BT at the moment.

I'm not interested in TV particularly, but that may change in the future (both)

I like the idea of more accessible and free wifi on the move, but only as upside and wouldn't 'pay' for it (BT)

I'm probably not in the market for 100mb, but mid tier speed at say 60mb would be good (Virgin 60mb, BT 76mb)

Free evening and weekend calls is good and probably essential with the kids (both)

We use wireless in the house, but I am also Cat5 cabled through the house and like to have a hard connection for work....not sure if this has any bearing on their offerings?

Both seem about the same price at £34-38 per month.

Any suggestions, experiences, etc?

Peter, were you an Orange customer too?!

[shambly]

Another thumbs up for Infinity.

We are so far from the exchange that we got 1.5 Mbps at best with normal DSL (before upgrading the master socket to include a filter and be the only point at which a DSL modem could be connected we got 384 Kbps).

We are on the cheaper option and get a solid 36 Mbps down and 8 mbps up.

Simon

[964RS]

oh to be able to get any superfast broadband......

[RSGulp]

We had BT Openworld/reach for around 8 years with absolutely no problems or downtime. Recently switched to BT Infinity and not have circa 55-60Mb/s download speeds and have had no issues in 4 months. Installation took around an hour (needs new wall socket).

BT Installer was excellent. He put the new socket on the wall behind the TV (replaced existing socket - we have tel sockets in every room) and we have now plugged the BluRay directly into the wall for Love Film streaming, YouTube, iplayer, etc. Can't fault it.

[smallspeed]

oh to be able to get any superfast broadband......

I'm with you.. Brand new housing estate, no fiber optic stuff.. Our exchange isn't even unbundled! 2.5mb broadband and full bt price

[KS]

Likewise!!

(Except for the brand new housing estate part...)

[Phil Parry]

We changed last month and went for BT Infinity over Virgin. Didn't bother with the TV option. Installation was fine and speed is much better. I only wish I had done the same as you and installed cat5 when we had building work done last year!

[Nige]

Just left BT and gone to Orange, £28.50 p/m (this is forever not a short term intro offer) unlimited download, unlimited UK landline calls inc 1000 FOC minutes to mobiles, also includes BT openzone for mobile connecting. Even getting over 1mb faster connection, was 2.5mbps now 3.5mbps, would be good to get it faster but I imagine our little street in the middle of nowhere is way down on the list. Still it's fast enough for me to stream Lovefilm, Iplayer, etc via the wifi.

Orange at the moment is a no brainer if you ask me.

Plug n play router with all the usual stuff you get thrown in.

[smallspeed]

This might be a weird sugestion but have you looked at sky? I had 16m download at our old house and it was only about 30 a month for internet phone and basic tv..
That was on adsl too, so not sure if they have a "fast" option these days

[Nige]

I looked at Sky it does cost more like £40+ with the basis TV package and unlimited download and calls, I just thought it was an extra £10-15 for more cr*p channels to flick through and moan about.

[smallspeed]

its been a couple of years since i was with them, but at the time (prior to infinity, etc) it was pretty quick.. i don't have sky now, and i don't think i'd pay the money for the tv anymore! unlimited downloads was nice though

[Viv_Surby]

Hey Peter - I've just moved to Virgin, but I've changed to TV and hpne from them too...apart from an initial problem when they couldn't find their own internal box into the block all good.....on the 100meg plan and getting about 38M, which is due for upgrade next month to up to 120M. Suspect they're not the cheapest tho!