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[broadstairs]

After the recent spate of hacks at TT my wife is pushing me to terminate our dealings with them, although I am not prepared to do this until my contact ends around May/June 2016 as they expect cancellation charges.

So my question is what are the realistic alternatives. Bearing in mind hacks apart we have not had problems with TT since joining in October 2008. I am not keen on paying significantly more than I currently do for 80/20 FTTC which is £30.00 a month (plus line rental which I currently pay in advance). So I'm looking for peoples experiences using these ISPs not just opinions based on web searches which I have obviously done. I guess what I'm asking is who do others (not with TT) use and why?

I know BT/Plusnet are an option although I have not had good experiences with BT in the past which tend to make me exclude them. I do wish I could find an ISP with 100% UK based support as I currently have with my hosting company. I should add that we have no cable in our area.

Stuart

[Ronski]

I'm with PN and have been since 2003, and changed our works connection over to them a couple of years ago. They seem to have their fair share of problems looking on forums but I don't have any problems with our connections. I did have problems with my brothers line years ago but that was really down to BTOR

I'm not sure on current pricing but £30 + line rental seems a bit steep for what I would consider the lower end of the market. My unlimited 80/20 is £20 a month plus line rental, although with commission I only pay £15 a month + LR which I pay yearly. We don't bother with call packages.

Support is UK based, but I can't comment on what it's like as haven't had need to use it recently.

[broadstairs]

I should have made it clear that the £30 per month is for FTTC and unlimited landline calls although looking at our usage I might reconsider that in future as we dont make many landline calls.

Stuart

[d2d4j]

Hi

We have recently had a client use line of sight wireless broadband, and it so far appears stable, on a 30/10 connection, with pings to bbc.co.uk in region of 12ms.

However, I have no idea over pricing, and it is commercial connection, but just thought I'd mention it.

Our client has always had bt fttc 80/20, and pings to bbc.co.uk are around 25 - 29ms (again commercial fttc), which they have kept fttc as well as lol wireless  broadband and we dropped a multiwan router in place. Works very well

Many thanks

John

[jelv]

Have a look at Pulse8 for the phone.

Line rental £13.00 per month
Local/national day 1p per minute
Evenings 0.8p per minute
All calls charged to the nearest second with no minimum call connection fees.

No minimum contract period.

You'd have to make a hell of a lot of long calls to make the savings from inclusive call packages worth while.

If you went with Plusnet you'd also save more than the extra £2.50 they charge for not having your phone with them.

[Ronski]

Do you have mobiles with inclusive calls? That's what we use now instead of the land line, although being on an old package we do have evening and weekend calls free, which is now £3 with any time being £6 a month.

[jelv]

I've been reflecting on this:

After the recent spate of hacks at TT my wife is pushing me to terminate our dealings with them

If anything, recent events are probably a good reason to switch to TalkTalk. Now the spotlight is on them they will be dedicating a lot of attention on making sure all aspects of their systems are secure and they are big enough to have the resources to do whatever is needed.

Plusnet have a very, very long record of bolting the stable door after the horse has bolted and I haven't seen anything to suggest it's any better now. The only reason they have not been in the news for similar issues to TalkTalk is probably that no-one has made serious concerted efforts to break in to their systems. As they get larger (now around 900,000) users they must be becoming a more tempting target so it's probably only a matter of time.

[loonylion]

I've been reflecting on this:

If anything, recent events are probably a good reason to switch to TalkTalk. Now the spotlight is on them they will be dedicating a lot of attention on making sure all aspects of their systems are secure and they are big enough to have the resources to do whatever is needed.

They didn't after the last two hacks so why would this one be any different?

[burakkucat]

I have been with TalkTalk ever since 2007. If I was really concerned with the recent past events and was determined to migrate (which I'm not and which I have no intention of doing) I would probably look very closely at Andrews and Arnold.

The one company I would not (now) consider is Plusnet.

[Ronski]

But you don't give a reason as to why you wouldn't consider PN?

I'm sure Stuart said he didn't want to increase his cost's 

[burakkucat]

Sorry Ron. 

So why not Plusnet? My own reasons being the internal events over this last year, the problems with support, the replacement of senior management with BT appointed droids, etc. Events that have been documented by Plusnet users in various postings to this forum.

[NewtronStar]

TBH I just go for the cheaper broadband & phone deal from any ISP thats available to me, you only need good broadband support if your line has had a long history of issues in the past.

Touch wood for me this line has been faultless for 9+ years with just one OR visit to get moved off interleaved to fastpath 

One other thing to take into consideration is DLM profile at the moment you are on standard with TalkTalk now if you moved to Plusnet or BT the DLM profile would change to Speed that will be good to safeguard against any surge of errored seconds above 1440 it just gives you more ES headroom.

[Weaver]

Thanks to Burakkucat for saying it for me. I simply can't imagine being with anyone else but Andrews & Arnold.

[Weaver]

Andrews & Arnold use TalkTalk Business lines (wholesale) where they can, ironically. AA customers have a choice between a BT Wholesale line and a TT Wholesale line or even one of each for redundancy and hence greater reliability.

[jid]

I should have made it clear that the £30 per month is for FTTC and unlimited landline calls although looking at our usage I might reconsider that in future as we dont make many landline calls.

Stuart

We currently pay £25 per month for 80meg Fibre, unlimited landline and TV. Therefore I would say you'd be in a good chance of renegotiating quite a good new contract with them?

Personally will be staying with TalkTalk for broadband and phone. However had Sky installed Last Saturday and already realising should have ditched TalkTalk for TV a long time ago! They are good value for money - provided you don't have too many issues!