Kitz Forum
Broadband Related => ISPs => Topic started by: chenks on September 08, 2018, 06:21:19 PM
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so i have a bit of a conundrum.
moving shortly and the new property can be serviced by both FTTC and Virgin.
i currently have FTTC 80/20 from Plusnet and sync pretty much as damn near at the max available.
the new property suggests very similar results for FTTC using BTs dslchecker site.
so i could play russian roulette and go thru a move via Plusnet, which could take god knows how long.
or i could get Virgin internet - it would be internet only with a landline (which wouldn't have a phone connect) as again it is cheaper overall to get it with a landline included than it is to have internet only.
the snag with Virgin is that to get parity (or close to) with upload speeds compared to FTTC is that you need to get one of the top end packages.
200 down with "average" of 12 up at £37pm for 12 months
or
350 down with "average" of 21 up at £42pm for 12 months
now, i don't need or really even want downstream speeds that fast, 80 down is more than enough for me. but to get the desired upstream then you have no choice.
the bonus with virgin is that the cables are already inside the property and it's like a 2-3 day turnaround to get it active (via the self install).
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Does the current occupier of the house have broadband? How soon Plusnet can get you up could depend on that.
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the property is currently empty.
based on what i've seen my thoughts are that is was previously Virgin supplying services.
there is virgin cabling feeding living room and bedroom, and a virgin telephone socket in the living room.
there is a BT socket in the hall.
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80 down is more than enough for me. but to get the desired upstream then you have no choice.
I think I would be in a similar dilemma.
>> £42pm for 12 months
You may also have to consider how much you would pay with PN and if you are within any contract period. If its a move then it could depend on how much you are currently paying rather than new customer price. When my daughter moved to the house previous to where she is now, she was still within an 18m contract from a property prior to that... so rather than having to pay exit fees etc.. it was cheaper to move with PN rather than start afresh with another ISP.
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I moved to Virgin earlier this year, and took the Vivid 350 package purely to get the 20Mbps upload speed. I'm pretty certain if I could get 80/20 on FTTC I would have stayed with that so long as the price was much cheaper. Can't fault the service from Virgin though.
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it's just really annoying that they force you to the top tier packages just to get a half decent upstream.
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Yes it is, their upload speeds are really rather poor in comparison to the download speeds.
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Hi
I believe the upload is restrictive to stop high bandwidth from users using the dsl for commercial purposes
At 20 up, this is reasonable high enough for most users but slow enough to stop abuse
I could be wrong though sorry, and if so, I might move all our public facing servers from our Datacentre to office and hope BT don’t stop petrabytes of data per month
Many thanks
John
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20 up is all i want though.
what i don't need is the 300Mbps down.
note that we are talking about Virgin cable here, not DSL.
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I’d suggest sticking with Plusnet if you don’t need the higher speed. Do you know if there is any hint of congestion with Virgin at the new property/area? If there is (a postcode check on the VM forum sometimes helps), then stay well away from Virgin. They aren’t exactly quick at acknowledging congestion and then fixing it.
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no idea to be honest (regarding congestion).
what would be complicated with plusnet (and what would most likely make it end up as a cluster-f**k knowing plusnet) is that it wouldn't be a "normal" move.
the current situation is landline and internet with seperate suppliers.
the internet would be coming with me, but the landline wouldn't.
so plusnet would need activate a "new" line at the new property (master socket already there), and then move the existing internet to that new line.
plusnet don't have a great track record in dealing with moves.
and lookin at it, i'm not quite sure the overall cost of keeping plusnet (with landline now included) would be all that different to virgin vivid 200 (although that would result in a potential drop of upload to an "average of 12Mbps").
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My last move was more complicated with me moving both BT line rental and Plusnet broadband from old to new house. By booking well in advance with both parties and getting a sim provide code lined up correctly, both moved correctly with it taking less time than it took me to unpack the router & computer to see if it was working!
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in the end i went with Virgin 200.
the total cost comparison was almost the same, but virgin could activate within 2 days.
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not too shabby (tested over WIFI on phone).
(https://image.ibb.co/gr9LEK/Screenshot_20181002_114322.png)
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Can't argue with that!
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well i could argue about the upstream, but hey-ho :)
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Out of curiosity, what would you do with more upload?
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well i'm used to having 19-20Mbps upstream.
it makes all the difference when syncing to cloud services.
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Makes perfect sense.
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well a month or so in and it's been a flawless experience.
the virgin install went live on the day they said it would, it required no home visit and the router was delivered on the day they said it would (some days well in advance of the install). i connected the router and and tested everything was working (as it was).
i then set the virgin router into modem mode and connected it up to my existing network config (edgerouter/unifi AP), and with a couple of tweaks of the edge config (changing from pppoe to dhcp) everything works as it should.
i'm on the vivid 200 package but any time i test my speed is averaging at around 215Mbps down (~26MB/s down). upstream averages at 12.4Mbps
is it possible that a plusnet migration would have been just as flawless? quite possible. did i have any faith that it would have been? not so much.
in the end i've got a much faster downstream for the around the same price as what i would have paid plusnet. upstream has dropped by about 6-7Mbps, but that can be managed.