So whose worth considering?

[Hicks12]

For broadband?. Not sure on how long are contract has left but shouldnt be more than a few months, VM were good but now its going down hill as recently ive been having really unstable speeds ranging from 0.5mb/s to 8mb/s (mostly the lower end) and only just has it been back to 8-10mb again but ive noticed every time im throttled my ping goes to about 150 which is way to high for games like CSS. So since this company is a piece of crap who should i go for? Things need to be consider which are:

Dont have a BT line at this point in time
Needs to be fast (10mb+)
Reliable and low pings
Cheap or the same as VM (£12.50 a month for 10mb)


Now the main problem i see is the BT line and since i dont own the connection(my dad does) he doesnt want to split everything up as i suggested (BT phone/Sky tv/O2 BB) so any suggestions for goodish tv pack/phone which is just free evenings+weekends + good broadband?.

edit: Oh and also, anyone know where/how i can check the max speeds i can get in my area with just postcode etc?(No BT line ).

Helps appreciated, thanks.

[LuckyNV]

You can get it all from Sky now I thought? Phone line, TV and broadband

check if your exchange is Sky LLU enabled
http://www.samknows.com/broadband/search.php
If not then see if Be/O2 LLU is available

Speeds will largely depend on distance from the exchange, there is a map for you to estimate straight line distance, however underground cabling will be longer and I guess you could try out Sky/Be/O2 speed checkers but they are not always accurate (you need to enter phone number, so no idea if you need a BT line for this check to work)

O2 probably has the best value especially if you have an O2 phone (£15 for upto 20Mbps, or £10 with O2 phone), even if you can only achieve 8Mbps or so, its unlimited with no throttling, your upload is better with O2/Be too @~1.3Mbps

[Hicks12]

Yeh im thinking of going with O2 because it works out ~ £7.5 a month during the first 12months as its 3 months free +£40 quidco and this includes the £30 topups . Just need to be able to get my dad to see this as a pro against having 3 different bills. Sky are here aswell but i dont really like them, they used to be unreliable and they keep pestering my area to join them which is incredibly annoying (they couldnt beat what we pay for VM!). Ill keep looking around.

[Apex]

O2/Be - avoid Sky if your a gamer.

Number of friends where on Sky and while download and upload speeds where ok the ping times where horrid, most of them have moved to O2/Be, One went to Zen and couldn't be happier ( pay a bit more then the others but hes willing to do that )

Am on VM 10Mb, while customer service is poor, it's been reliable even if the speeds have been a little vague at peak times.

[Blitzen]

BT phone/Sky tv/O2 BB

Exact combination i have and i wouldnt want it any other way.
SKY TV = Great
O2 BB = Best i have ever used (and the cheapest)

[Hicks12]

Yeh i want todo that but seems to much of a hassel for my dad . I know sky sucks in my area as my mates always got a ping of 80-150 on css which sucks(i get 10-60). Anyone know what sky package is similar to VM Xlarge tv package?.

[Jay]

O2 are fantastic... I can get free sky BB and free BB from work but O2 are so good I would rather pay to use them.