BB Providers

[Drezha]

Any recommendations or who to avoid?

New flat only has a BT line, so no cable so I can’t move the Virgin deal I’m on up to Manchester. In fairness, the current BT packages look reasonable – 52Mb fibre for the price of 38Mb plus the basic TV package for no extra cost (other than £10 for the box, which is probably cheaper than getting a freeview box elsewhere).

Though it is BT and I’ve hated them in the past when I’ve needed to deal with them (i.e. setting up the phone line!)

"Everything looks interesting until you do it. Then you find it’s just another job" - Terry Pratchett

[Drezha]

So it seems I can’t edit my original post.

Vodafone looks reasonable – £31 for 76Mbps and only £1 setup fee. Better than the £32.50 and £107 setup fee that Plus Net are looking at!

"Everything looks interesting until you do it. Then you find it’s just another job" - Terry Pratchett

[JayCeeDee]

Dave has recently ( still in the process – activation date 28/3 ) moved off sky and has chosen TalkTalk. See page 4 of Tesco Mobile topic for full details and logic.

[Dave Rice]

That deal has gone, but the new one looks similar. £27 for 38mbps (set for 24 months, plus £5 for 80mbps) is the same but now has a £30 set up fee.

I added 24 x 7 calls for a fiver, evening and weekend was £2.50. I can’t see what that offer now is as I’m an existing customer.

[Drezha]

Calls we don’t need – everything is either done via the mobiles or via FaceTime. We’re only required to have a landline for the broadband 🙁

"Everything looks interesting until you do it. Then you find it’s just another job" - Terry Pratchett

[JayCeeDee]

Drezha wrote:

Calls we don’t need – everything is either done via the mobiles or via FaceTime. We’re only required to have a landline for the broadband ?

That’s what our son thought, until recently, when he had to call BT to sort out a problem with the hosting for our website. He spent 6 hours in total with them trying to resolve the issue. Unfortunately as he discovered today when he got his bill, that was on an 0845 number that has cost him over £100. Landlines ( and a package ) do still have their uses.

[Tippon]

Drezha wrote:

So it seems I can’t edit my original post. Vodafone looks reasonable – £31 for 76Mbps and only £1 setup fee. Better than the £32.50 and £107 setup fee that Plus Net are looking at!

I’ve recently switched to Vodafone and had no problems. I’ve gone for the 40Mb package, but because of my location I get about 15Mb. Still much better than Sky, who gave me 8 on a good day with nothing but the router changed

[Dave Rice]

I’m surprised you got more speed out of the same fibre from a different ISP as it’s all the same Openreach product.

[Ed P]

Dave Rice wrote:

I’m surprised you got more speed out of the same fibre from a different ISP as it’s all the same Openreach product.

Lower contention on a fixed chunk of bandwidth?

[Richard]

Or bigger claims via a desk check with a dash of optimism? I have known second tier players offer services that are not available via Open Reach as next door found. Even BT can offer services that are not yet available on the ground with delivery pending.

[Tippon]

Dave Rice wrote:

I’m surprised you got more speed out of the same fibre from a different ISP as it’s all the same Openreach product.

I’m guessing that it’s just down to crappy Sky hardware. I had to set up a Sky repeater in one end of the house because the signal would get really spotty, no problems since I’ve switched though, and a fraction of the dropouts I used to get from the tired old copper lines between us and the cabinet.

[Dave Rice]

My new (Huwaei) TalkTalk router has arrived. I fired it up to tweak the DHCP pool and wireless password and noticed how strong the signal is. SKYBF64E is the Skyhub and it’s 3 metres closer than the TALKTALKCDFBAF, both a floor below. NCC is the Ubiquiti UAP a floor above and is even further away.

Also look at the clustering around Channels 1 and 11. All those routers are supposed to be using auto channel. My Sky I shifted myself, it set itself to 1.

[Tippon]

That’s a bit crowded! :wacko:  This is what Aberdare looks like:

The ZyXEL has literally just been turned on for the first time, while I was scanning for this post. What are the odds? :unsure:

[Dave Rice]

It’s not like I live in a highly densely populated area.

I just think everyone has BB. The all number SSID is Infineon’s opposite. My 5Ghz scan looks more like your 2.4Ghz, but even then has more APs.

[Richard]

Wow, I cannot draw the pretty pictures you can, but not much point, most of the time I can get two WiFi points on the mobile and both are mine. There are one or two others that pop and and go down again but its a pretty silent place otherwise.

[Tippon]

Richard wrote:

Wow, I cannot draw the pretty pictures you can

You can now that you’ve got a smartphone  :yahoo:

[Richard]

Well only if I down load a program that I tried only to find it had the same two/three links that showed without the program. I removed it as it added nothing much.

I will add another access point, hopefully at the other end of the house t improve coverage at that end.

[Dave Rice]

Wifi Analyzer for Android

Wifi Analyzer for Windows

This is the Windows one. You can see even more SSIDs as the laptop has a better antenna.

[D-Dan]

I’m constantly surprised at the bad press BT get. I’ve been with them in one form or another for 5 years or more, and have consistently good speed (close on the best they can offer on Infinity 2), and on the two or three occasions it’s caused a problem in that time, a call gets it fixed, without a paid for call out.

Granted, my last three addresses have all been in the general proximity of a town (Oldham, Bolton, Warrington), but with the exception of Bolton, not town centre, maybe 2 – 3 miles from.

For mobile internet, I’m with O2, who are rolling out 4G across the network, and have done so here, so I can’t complain about that, either.

Arch Linux, on a Ryzen 7 1800X, 32 GB, 5 (yes -5) HDs inc 5 SSDs, 4 RPi 3Bs + 1 RPi 4B - one as an NFS server with two more drives, PiHole (shut yours), Plex server, cloud server, and other random Pi stuff. Nice CoolerMaster case, 2 x NV GTX 1070 8GB, and a whopping 32" AOC 1440P monitor.

[Drezha]

Maybe BT have changed since I had to deal with them over 5 years ago.

Anyhow, I’ve got with them this time. £28.99 for 52Mb Infinity and the basic TV package. £70 upfront for line activation, the router and the TV box to be delivered.

£150 reward card from BT (once it’s set up) and Quidco has tracked cashback at £150 as well…. :whistle:

"Everything looks interesting until you do it. Then you find it’s just another job" - Terry Pratchett

[Author]

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