News - Almost half of Brits 'unhappy' with their broadband provider

[HEXUS]

And a third plan to swap ISP this year, says survey.

Read more.

[cameronlite]

...and who are they going to swap to? Another bad provider...

[aidanjt]

...and who are they going to swap to? Another bad provider...

This. British internet provision has been sliding down hill at a breakneck pace. They're all far too concerned with lining the pockets of their shareholders and not at all bothered about fitting network capacity to demand. Data caps and all that crap is mere patch work to service brazen greed.

[Ferral]

I am happy enough with Sky and have been for a while now.

However, the thing that really bugs me is the speed, There is 8 mile of cable between our exchange and where I live. Annoying thing is that the exchange is actually only 2 mile away by road, its the way its been done in the first place, taken round in circles before reaching us, we have been just tagged on the end of it.

So a lot of the time now I only get 2Mb at a push, most time its is around 1.75Mb

They were laying fibre round my way before christmas, havnt seen the vans since though. This cable has nothing to do with BT or Virgin Media (3rd party contractor laying it and I spoke to them when they were outside my house) so if it is for consumers or even going live somepoint in the near future who knows.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

The UK must be one of the few richer countries around the world where broadband is actually getting worse with regards to value for money than getting any better.

An example is BT and its two tier internet policy and phone providers cutting the mobile data allowances for their contracts.

[Jay]

Personally I have had 2 ISPs Telewest / Virgin Media and O2 and I hated VM it was at a point where I stopped calling about my issues because I would never be off the phone and they never fixed the issues anyway.

Moved to O2 about 2 years ago and have never had any issues at all. Very impressed indeed.

[capt_cornflake]

The UK must be one of the few richer countries around the world where broadband is actually getting worse with regards to value for money than getting any better.

An example is BT and its two tier internet policy and phone providers cutting the mobile data allowances for their contracts.

While I can't disagree that for the most part things seem to getting worse in terms of caps, traffic management and other general performance issues, I'm not sure I agree that things are getting worse in terms of value for money terms.

In my opinion the whole reason why things are deteriorating is because most consumers choosing a new ISPs are driven soley by price. And part of the problem here is that most providers advertise internet connections as an unlimited connection (subject to small print hidden away on their website which is subject to change at any point).

Not that I like to defend the practises of the big ISPs but for a lot of them there hamstrung by their low prices, and can't actually afford to provide the service as (apparently) advertised. The problem is that if they actually honestly advertise their product they instantly look bad compared to the competition and will lose market share.
It really needs OFCOM or someone to provide some kind of guidance on this (and if necesary kick some butt for those not willing to comply) but they seem unwilling to do so.
With most of the press seemingly seeing the only problem being "up-to" advertised speeds (which is a technical limitation rather than aqdvertisign BS) I doubt much will change.

More people expecting a better service and faster speeds but they continually want to pay less. Unless someone is willing to pay for investment in new infrastructure something's got to give somewhere.

I personally pay a bit more for a reliable connection and accept a known data cap.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

While I can't disagree that for the most part things seem to getting worse in terms of caps, traffic management and other general performance issues, I'm not sure I agree that things are getting worse in terms of value for money terms.

In my opinion the whole reason why things are deteriorating is because most consumers choosing a new ISPs are driven soley by price. And part of the problem here is that most providers advertise internet connections as an unlimited connection (subject to small print hidden away on their website which is subject to change at any point).

Not that I like to defend the practises of the big ISPs but for a lot of them there hamstrung by their low prices, and can't actually afford to provide the service as (apparently) advertised. The problem is that if they actually honestly advertise their product they instantly look bad compared to the competition and will lose market share.
It really needs OFCOM or someone to provide some kind of guidance on this (and if necesary kick some butt for those not willing to comply) but they seem unwilling to do so.
With most of the press seemingly seeing the only problem being "up-to" advertised speeds (which is a technical limitation rather than aqdvertisign BS) I doubt much will change.

More people expecting a better service and faster speeds but they continually want to pay less. Unless someone is willing to pay for investment in new infrastructure something's got to give somewhere.

I personally pay a bit more for a reliable connection and accept a known data cap.

It is because investing in new equipment costs money and the companies like BT are trying to get away with the least amount they can spend. It is entirely their fault.

Look at our rail network for example. If the Victorians were not so forward our rail network would have been in shambles years ago.

[Percy1983]

I personally will say i am happy with talk talk, had a couple of dropouts here and there but I pay next to nothing for it. I know if I want better I need to pay more, but what I have is cheap and works.

[capt_cornflake]

It is because investing in new equipment costs money and the companies like BT are trying to get away with the least amount they can spend. It is entirely their fault.

Look at our rail network for example. If the Victorians were not so forward our rail network would have been in shambles years ago.

While I don't want to defend BTs practises (which have historically been rather dubious) where exactly is the money for investment meant to come from if everyone is paying £5 a month for and "unlimited" connection?

For the most part, the majority of people (in towns and cities) can currently get a reasonably decent connection if they are willing to pay for it. There is an issue with rural broadband, but as far as I'm aware we're no worse off than in many other countries in this regard (and if I remember correctly rural broadband in the UK is actually better than in a lot of other european countries).
There are a lot of improvements that could be made, but things could be a lot worse, and unless cash for investment comes from somewhere (BT won't do something for nothing - and why should they?) then little will change.

[aidanjt]

That's a copout. BT has made billions from ADSL, and they've done sod all to increase carrier capacity, and little to improve national infrastructure. And for any significant planned improvements (which is a half-assed effort, at best), they want to milk the public cash cow. Why is the tax payer getting hit up for funding something a private company can, and should be doing by themselves?

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

While I don't want to defend BTs practises (which have historically been rather dubious) where exactly is the money for investment meant to come from if everyone is paying £5 a month for and "unlimited" connection?

The lowest I have ever paid for internet was £15/month for a 2MB connection including a phone line from Tiscali. This was not in a rural area and had usage caps.

It is more like £20 to £30 in most cases including a phone line and usage caps if you want something much better.

The current connection I am on is around 3MB(should be around 4.5MB and was 3.8MB for a while ) and is on Sky(comes to around £20 a month if you include a phone line) and this is because we are a few km from the interchange. It has usage caps too and if we don't remind periodically remind Sky we don't get anything near 4MB.

However,this is pathetic since I don't live in a rural area and we are closer to London too.

On top of this fibre connections are not even common in all cities and towns. In parts of central Manchester for example you cannot still get a fibre connection from Virgin. Luckily their ADSL is pretty good but you are still looking at around £25 to £30 for a 10MB ADSL connection with a 40GB usage cap.

[Devlin]

I've been with Sky for around a year now i think on their 20mb truly unlimited service and i have to say the service has been top notch, I was with BT for years and years and had one problem after another with slow service, they sent engineers to my house who continuously poked around doing nothing of any use and blaming my internal wiring or routers.

2 weeks after joining Sky i came home from work at about 6am and the BB was slow again, i phoned Sky and within 2 hours an engineer appeared, he went up the pole in my road and came down and told me that the wires were seriously rusted over and that was more than likely the cause of the problems, 10 minutes later he'd cleaned up the wires and said to expect the entire pole to be changed sometime in the next year, 6 weeks later it was changed, service has been flawless ever since.

I get around 1.1mbps DL and totally unlimited downloads with no "fair use policy" speed which is miles better than the 0.6 i was getting with BT.

Almost forgot to mention when the switch over was due BT managed to turn my line off and give it to someone else for a couple of weeks, i phoned my number and a very bemused woman answered who was shocked that she no longer had her old number and instead had mine, was the last cock-up in a long line from BT.

[sawyen]

About changing providers...

As they say in my home country,

Out goes a tiger, in comes a lion... they're all the same!

[abaxas]

Question is how many of that 50% are actually unhappy with their shyte 25 quid router?

[crossy]

About changing providers...
As they say in my home country,
Out goes a tiger, in comes a lion... they're all the same!

Like it!
I can currently get broadband from three suppliers - one on my phone, one on my netbook and my home broadband:

• Phone - ThreeUK - performance is "patchy", but when you get a strong signal (and I've had 100% signal in the middle of nowhere, and sod all when in the centre of a city - go figure), the thing flies. Support is outsourced and absolutely pathetic - if you dare to go off script then prepare for much frustration. Oh, and their billing is just total and utter (text removed to prevent me getting banned by the Hexus moderators)
  
• Netbook - T-Mobile - good support and good performance (even in the backwoods of Wales - which surprised me). It's only the high price at the time I was shopping around that stopped me giving them my phone business too.
  
• Home broadband - Virgin Media - performance varies from "acceptable" to "excellent", very reliable (total of three days outage in about 10 years) and technical support is barely there, customer support (billing etc) is okay, but very dependent on where you get sent - the obviously outsourced ones are useless, but the UK-resident ones are generally good.

Getting back to Sawyen's saying - I see the problem as that we've basically got BT or VM as the only choices. Sure, you can get broadband from Sky, Plusnet, etc but since they're using BT's infrastructure it's like comparing supermarket own brand baked beans. I'm unfashionable enough to think that if the net backbone is so critical then maybe it shouldn't be in the hands of a single commercial company. Those cretins in the Parli are always bleating on about "using best practise" so why can't we do that here?

Given that you've got everyone reselling BT's products (even VM with their ADSL product) can you be surprised that there's little difference in capability and folks end up choosing on price (exactly like the baked beans)? I'm also very concerned that BT seem to be slated for a big slab of public money, whereas surely some competition would be better all round? Okay, from a personal point of view, I'd like to see VM get some too, then at least some of their infrastructure might improve...

And don't tell me that better net provision couldn't act as a stimulus for business...