Author Topic: Opinions on Broadband providers  (Read 34147 times)

Wowbagger

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Re: Opinions on Broadband providers
« Reply #100 on: 26 January, 2022, 02:14:56 pm »
Yes, I think it is very relevant. A neighbour did similar - just told them flat he wasn't paying more than £25 for a 100Mb broadband only service. The difference with me is that they are price-gouging so that they can recoup all the money that they owe me more quickly. Whilst that is going on, I'm a captive unless I make a clean break now.
Quote from: Dez
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Re: Opinions on Broadband providers
« Reply #101 on: 26 January, 2022, 04:54:30 pm »
Do you have a faster non-Virgin connection than we do, Del? Ours is rubbish.

Not sure yet Wow it gets installed this Friday. However it is the cheapest option so I am not expecting anything over 30Mb/s. I do not yet think BT fibre has made it here yet, although it has got to Fairfax Drive I think. Current VM connection is 100Mb/s
Hub arrived earlier and I set it up so I'll be connecting with it as soon as the BT eng. has left.


Wowbagger

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Re: Opinions on Broadband providers
« Reply #102 on: 26 January, 2022, 11:05:23 pm »
I had a reply to the email I sent on the previous page. Apparently, it's the OFCOM standard that refunds and compensation are added to the account to pay future bills. There was no answer as to why Virgin had taken >£54 from my bank account AFTER crediting my Virgin account with £393.35. However, where the account has been closed, then there will be a refund paid. However, it seems there is a Special Process required to close one's Virgin account: simply writing a really snotty letter telling them you want them to close your account and that you have already cancelled the direct debits isn't good enough.

I'll be very interested in your connection, Del. Our new SIM-based router is variable in speed, but mostly perfectly adequate for our purposes. I have found that there are antennae which ought to boost it a bit, and they are only £10, so I ordered a pair today and that nice Mr. Bezos has agreed to deliver them personally tomorrow, via rocket.
Quote from: Dez
It doesn’t matter where you start. Just start.

Re: Opinions on Broadband providers
« Reply #103 on: 27 January, 2022, 06:39:17 am »
I'll be very interested in your connection, Del.
I shall endeavour to keep you updated.

Wowbagger

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Re: Opinions on Broadband providers
« Reply #104 on: 27 January, 2022, 12:34:37 pm »
I'm in the Special Process to cancel my account. I was on hold for almost half an hour and now a guy with a Welsh accent and a terrible phone line - so bad that I'm struggling to understand him - is taking ages to cancel my contract. Although it seems to be done now.
Quote from: Dez
It doesn’t matter where you start. Just start.

Wowbagger

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Re: Opinions on Broadband providers
« Reply #105 on: 27 January, 2022, 10:09:53 pm »
The antennae arrived around 4pm whilst I was out for my constitutional. I fitted them when I got back.

Yesterday, I noticed a significant drop in speed around the time kids were coming out of school and others were on the move for one reason or another. Today, just around the time that I fitted them to the router, everything seemed to slow down. I'm not certain that the antennae will make any difference at all.

Ours is only a 4G connection. I could, at £40 per month, get an EE 5G connection giving me 200GB per month. My phone has a 5G EE SIM and out of doors I can easily get speeds of 200Mbps. It rather begs the question of why we are allowing so much disruption all over the place with Cityfibre digging trenches everywhere. There must be very few applications, domestically at least, where such speeds are necessary.

The router's own access point gave me an average download speed of 40Mbps for 20 tests taken at random times between 10.15am and 7pm. The upload speed was generally better than I would have expected. It would not surprise me in the slightest if, long before our 2-year contract is up, we are offered a 5G upgrade. I know there was a planning application for a mast less than half a mile from our house but I don't know what the outcome was. There was a petition doing the rounds, trying to stop it.
Quote from: Dez
It doesn’t matter where you start. Just start.

Kim

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Re: Opinions on Broadband providers
« Reply #106 on: 27 January, 2022, 10:53:22 pm »
I'm not certain that the antennae will make any difference at all.

If the signal's good enough without them, they probably won't.

Network congestion is independent of RF signal strength/quality.


Quote
It rather begs the question of why we are allowing so much disruption all over the place with Cityfibre digging trenches everywhere. There must be very few applications, domestically at least, where such speeds are necessary.

There's only so much radio spectrum, and if everyone tries to use it for everything, it won't be sufficient.  The work-around for that is to have more, smaller cells so you can re-use the same frequencies.  Which means you'd need to dig trenches to run fibre to all those cell sites.

Re: Opinions on Broadband providers
« Reply #107 on: 28 January, 2022, 09:54:46 am »
Morning Wow,
BT Kelly Communications/Openreach have been, connected and gone in about 30 minutes.
Speeds are:
Ping 11ms, Download 36.92Mb/s and Upload 9.07Mb/s.
Compared with soon to be gone VM:
Ping 16ms, Download 100.49Mb/s and Upload 9.30Mb/s

Although we now have a BT service the telephone line is in actuality VOIP. It works now when calling out but if we dial into the home phone number, which is still with VM, it is the VM phone that rings and will probably remain that way until mid February when our contract runs out with them (we cancelled the direct debit so if they want more money they will have to ask nicely).

Wowbagger

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Re: Opinions on Broadband providers
« Reply #108 on: 28 January, 2022, 10:47:03 am »
Sounds good. Much faster than we would get here in East Street. We have a neighbours' Whatsapp group. Most of us have a Virgin connection and pretty well everyone is dissatisfied with them.

There is a minor issue with the Three mobile hub we've got. It seems that the Smut Filter is turned on by default wit their SIMs. The account is in Jan's name and it seems the account holder has to make contact with them in order to turn it off. I asked Dez about it as well.

This brings an entirely unexpected meaning to the expression "Parental Control".  ;D

Edit: re phone number transfer, when I left Virgin for EE on my mobile, there was short time - maybe a couple of hours - after I'd activated my PAC code in which I could phone out on the new sim but incoming calls were still being received by the old one.
Quote from: Dez
It doesn’t matter where you start. Just start.

Kim

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Re: Opinions on Broadband providers
« Reply #109 on: 28 January, 2022, 01:51:27 pm »
Parental control n. Feature for preventing your parents installing malware on their computer, being radicalised by Fox News, etc.


Meanwhile, barakta's been suffering a nasty case of Hearing People's Crap Internet™ this morning.  Her poor student's connection was so terrible that it couldn't maintain a Teams call, even with all the video turned off (I eyeballed it at something of the order of 100kbps symmetric for audio-only).  Hard to work with at the best of times, but for bonus points the captioner hadn't turned up, and the student's situation was sufficiently fraught that they ended up crying at one point.   :(

Re: Opinions on Broadband providers
« Reply #110 on: 29 January, 2022, 06:18:00 am »
The new VOIP connection is now fully functional in receiving and sending calls on our "landline" number. Now that we have VOIP when Chris, our local energy advisor, calls now we can block his number(s).
Still have VM broadband although we only have it connected on one machine.

Wowbagger

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Re: Opinions on Broadband providers
« Reply #111 on: 29 January, 2022, 10:38:57 am »
Do you have the capacity to block the number or do you have to ask the service provider to do so? It's the latter in our case, unfortunately. It actually means speaking to someone to get them to do it.

Apparently the Virgin retentions team called yesterday. Jan took the call as I was in the bog at the time. I'm quite looking forward to them phoning back. I wonder quite how low a price they will offer.
Quote from: Dez
It doesn’t matter where you start. Just start.

Re: Opinions on Broadband providers
« Reply #112 on: 29 January, 2022, 12:53:40 pm »
Do you have the capacity to block the number or do you have to ask the service provider to do so? It's the latter in our case, unfortunately. It actually means speaking to someone to get them to do it.

BT have their own list of numbers* but if one does get through then we have a nuke them button that sends them to the Hell of the Un-listened to Voicemail Service. Which you can freely access to check if they really are unwanted callers.
I am now considering adding the Alexa portion of the handset so I can ask Alexa to dial out, check the weather and other things. I also have Siri which I do not use but can see the benefits of using both or either.

* I would hope this list is a merge of their customers blocked callers. Maybe it works like this: if enough customers block the same number then BT block it at the exchange end so it does not get too the end user.

Re: Opinions on Broadband providers
« Reply #113 on: 30 January, 2022, 10:56:43 am »
Speed not as good this time but BT say it could be ten days to settle down while they check the connection and do whatever they need to do.
Ping           Download           Upload
11 ms   21.88 Mb/s   9.08 Mb/s

See if post ten days makes a difference.

robgul

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Re: Opinions on Broadband providers
« Reply #114 on: 30 January, 2022, 11:56:07 am »
Speed not as good this time but BT say it could be ten days to settle down while they check the connection and do whatever they need to do.
Ping           Download           Upload
11 ms   21.88 Mb/s   9.08 Mb/s

See if post ten days makes a difference.

... when we finally resolved the BT BB transition when we moved house (same phone number, moved about 1.3km, on the same exchange cluster!) the speed did pick up after a couple of weeks.  Fingers crossed.

Kim

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Re: Opinions on Broadband providers
« Reply #115 on: 30 January, 2022, 02:14:27 pm »
Yes, it takes time for the DLM to assess the line performance and tweak the margins accordingly.  The important thing is not to switch off / unplug the modem more than absolutely necessary, lest it be perceived as instability.

Wowbagger

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Re: Opinions on Broadband providers
« Reply #116 on: 30 January, 2022, 02:17:57 pm »
Yes, it takes time for the DLM to assess the line performance and tweak the margins accordingly.  The important thing is not to switch off / unplug the modem more than absolutely necessary, lest it be perceived as instability.

Does that also apply to SIM-based routers?

I took the router into our bedroom last night, as it has pretty much the clearest view across nearby rooftops to the south. It was a very disappointing connection, under 10Mbps. It's back here now, facing NE and doing OK.
Quote from: Dez
It doesn’t matter where you start. Just start.

Kim

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Re: Opinions on Broadband providers
« Reply #117 on: 30 January, 2022, 02:18:22 pm »
Yes, it takes time for the DLM to assess the line performance and tweak the margins accordingly.  The important thing is not to switch off / unplug the modem more than absolutely necessary, lest it be perceived as instability.

Does that also apply to SIM-based routers?

No, it's an Openreach DSL thing.

Opinions on Broadband providers
« Reply #118 on: 30 January, 2022, 03:07:57 pm »
I'm quite restricted in options where I live.

No Virgin Media and all the major players can't guarantee me any  more than 10Mb. Thankfully one company,  Hyperoptic, provide FTTP and a few 1Gb synchronous connection. Thankfully they have been good in the 4 years I've been with them.

They supply quite a decent Nokia router and support VOIP. With the router positioned in a cupboard in the hall this places it near to the centre of the home thus giving good WiFi coverage and easy access to my CAT5e cabling and patch panel.

Re: Opinions on Broadband providers
« Reply #119 on: 30 January, 2022, 06:10:52 pm »
Yes, it takes time for the DLM to assess the line performance and tweak the margins accordingly.  The important thing is not to switch off / unplug the modem more than absolutely necessary, lest it be perceived as instability.

Does that also apply to SIM-based routers?

I took the router into our bedroom last night, as it has pretty much the clearest view across nearby rooftops to the south. It was a very disappointing connection, under 10Mbps. It's back here now, facing NE and doing OK.
Adding a decent external aerial can make a big difference. I have one at church about 0.5m per side facing out of a window to the nearest 4G post. Significant increase in signal strength and speed when I did it although I cannot remember the numbers now.

Wowbagger

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Re: Opinions on Broadband providers
« Reply #120 on: 01 February, 2022, 09:04:12 pm »
I haven't been able to identify where the nearest masts are to my house. Presumably this data is available?

I'm not dissatisfied with the speed I'm getting, but a little more would always be nice. I'm not planning to climb a ladder to fit an aerial, and I have a suspicion that, since Three have a planning application to place a 5G mast less than half a mile from my house, to the north of us, such an aerial would be of benefit for a limited time.

My mobile phone, with EE, received a 5G signal. I've just compared the two: 4G hub - 37Mbps. Phone: 94Mbps.

I have just revisited my dispute with Virgin and informed the arbitration service that they haven't complied with the ruling. They were given 20 working days to do so. They haven't refunded any money, and I have told Virgin I no longer wish to continue with their services. I did this in writing via the arbitration service before my contract expired, but the Virgin droid I was dealing with said that it was not possible for me to terminate my contract that way and I had to dial a number. I'm sure, legally, she doesn't have a leg to stand on, but I want shot of the bastards so I did phone them up. The guy I spoke to told me that I had to give 30 days notice. I told him I had already cancelled my DDs.

Since then, I have found this rather useful web page, of which I was hitherto unaware:

https://www.cable.co.uk/broadband/guides/contract-end/

Between 40 and 10 days before a contract is due to end, the service provider should send the customer an "End of Contract" notice. Virgin certainly haven't done this, because of course they had an incorrect set of contract dates in place, which they had to alter retrospectively. I shall speak to my bank in the morning and double-check that no more money will be paid to Virgin.
Quote from: Dez
It doesn’t matter where you start. Just start.

Re: Opinions on Broadband providers
« Reply #121 on: 01 February, 2022, 09:14:19 pm »
I haven't been able to identify where the nearest masts are to my house. Presumably this data is available?


Opensignal

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Wowbagger

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Re: Opinions on Broadband providers
« Reply #122 on: 05 February, 2022, 06:52:15 pm »
There were some rather dodgy/jerky/pixellated moments just then when I was watching live rugby and Jan was watching iplayer. But it was by no means intolerable. if push comes to shove, Jan has unlimited data on her phone and can use a hotspot. I have enough data on mine that I probably could as well.
Quote from: Dez
It doesn’t matter where you start. Just start.

Wowbagger

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Re: Opinions on Broadband providers
« Reply #123 on: 11 February, 2022, 02:58:14 pm »
Do you have the capacity to block the number or do you have to ask the service provider to do so? It's the latter in our case, unfortunately. It actually means speaking to someone to get them to do it.

Apparently the Virgin retentions team called yesterday. Jan took the call as I was in the bog at the time. I'm quite looking forward to them phoning back. I wonder quite how low a price they will offer.

I have received a cheque for £312.35 - £81 short of the total Virgin owe me. The £81 is what they said my bill would go up to at the end of my contract*, but I never accepted a new contract and told then I wouldn't. Furthermore, according to a website I was looking at (I think official - will have to find it again) telecommunications companies are now, as a result of some regulation introduced in 2021, obliged to let customers know when their contracts are about to expire (10 to 40 days' notice) to give them the chance of extricating themselves and finding another provider. Virgin failed to give me the prerequisite notice, almost certainly because they had unilaterally ripped up the contract I had agreed and imposed one that I hadn't.

Unless I receive an undertaking by 15th Feb (the date I originally set) for the repayment of the owed amount, then it's off to the small claims court I go.

*I told them that I only wanted 100Mb broadband with no frills. The price of that is £24.50 for new customers, rising to £44 after 18 months. They could have offered me £44 per month, but refused to do so.
Quote from: Dez
It doesn’t matter where you start. Just start.

Wowbagger

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Re: Opinions on Broadband providers
« Reply #124 on: 11 February, 2022, 10:06:49 pm »
https://www.ofcom.org.uk/about-ofcom/latest/features-and-news/firms-must-tell-you-about-best-deals

Quote
Broadband, phone and pay-TV firms must tell you when your contract is coming to an end, and must also tell you about their best available deals, under new rules announced today by Ofcom.

We want you to have choice when it comes to your broadband, phone and TV package, and also want you to be able to get the deal that best suits your needs. You could do this by switching provider or by agreeing a new deal with your current one.

To help you do this, broadband, TV, mobile and home phone companies must now send you information about your contract, when you need it, so you can choose the best package for your needs. These protections are the latest in Ofcom’s Fairness for customers programme.

So two breaches by Virgin: they didn't warn me of the impending end to my contract and they not only failed to let me know of the best deals available to me, but actively concealed the one I specifically asked for!
Quote from: Dez
It doesn’t matter where you start. Just start.