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Moving ISPs

PowerFullMac

PowerFullMac

macrumors 601
Original poster
Oct 16, 2006
4,000
2
Right, my Mum is considering moving ISPs - from BT to Virgin because hey offer the same broadband we have now (2meg) for just £4 (£8 with the phone service) but we are paying £26 for the same thing!

So, what I want to know is: is Virgin broadband any good? Anyone got experience with it?

I have been reading other sites and have got mixed reactions to it so thought I would ask here :)

Thanks in advance!
 
There phone support is ****. Sorry but in my opinion it is.

When I had my windows computer my internet was never working but since I got my Mac I've had no problems.
 
Mikey- said:
There phone support is ****. Sorry but in my opinion it is.

When I had my windows computer my internet was never working but since I got my Mac I've had no problems.
Click to expand...

So your problems were with your computer, not the ISP?
 
PowerFullMac said:
Right, my Mum is considering moving ISPs - from BT to Virgin
Click to expand...

Dear god, No!! Don't do it! Virgin Media are possibly the worst internet provider I have ever used. Unfortunatly, they were the only option for three houses I lived in during and just after university (not in an ADSL area).

Their call centre staff are badly trained and totally enept. They reduce your bandwidth if you download anything during peak times - we paid for a 10Mb/s connection and only ever saw download speeds of around 100KB/s.

I am currently with Be. They are an excellent company - great support and really good speeds. We are a fair way away from the exchange and we get a solid 5Mb/s with a 1Mb/s upload. My downloads are always around the 500-600KB/s mark.
 
LouisBlack said:
Dear god, No!! Don't do it! Virgin Media are possibly the worst internet provider I have ever used. Unfortunatly, they were the only option for three houses I lived in during and just after university (not in an ADSL area).

Their call centre staff are badly trained and totally enept. They reduce your bandwidth if you download anything during peak times - we paid for a 10Mb/s connection and only ever saw download speeds of around 100KB/s.

I am currently with Be. They are an excellent company - great support and really good speeds. We are a fair way away from the exchange and we get a solid 5Mb/s with a 1Mb/s upload. My downloads are always around the 500-600KB/s mark.
Click to expand...

Is Be There not owned by Tiscilli?
 
I switched from BT to Virgin at the start of April. Have to say I'm happy so far.

Installation guys were fantastic, works a treat with my Apple TimeCapsule and not had any down time. Just waiting for them to do the free upgrade from 4Mbps to 10Mbps
 
scotthayes said:
I switched from BT to Virgin at the start of April. Have to say I'm happy so far.

Installation guys were fantastic, works a treat with my Apple TimeCapsule and not had any down time. Just waiting for them to do the free upgrade from 4Mbps to 10Mbps
Click to expand...

Have you noticed them slow down your internet speed?
 
My girlfriend is on Virgin Media (or whatever their big TV/Phone/Internet package is called). It's a good service since the TV doesn't lose quality during storms.

I'm quite happy with BT to be honest, pricing aside they were the only ISP to up us from 512kbps to 2mbps.
 
I'm with Be, and have been for years and years, ever since they started up. Download speeds have always been extremely high (about 16mb/s) and afaik they have no effective fair use limit - i hear about people doing 100GB in a week. I pay about £20 a month.

That's the good stuff. The bad stuff is their email service is flakey. I often have problems sending emails with attachments, which according to their forums, is something that only happens to people with apple macs.

They also restrict port 25 to only use their own mail servers, so when it's down, you're shafted. Fortunately you can use gmail as an alternative outgoing server, as it works off port 582 or something like that, but that's not ideal, as I worry about Gmail munging my headers.

Since they got taken over by o2 recently, people have said their quality of service has gone down. Also, o2 offer Be's speeds for cheaper than Be do themselves, but that may come with a different ToS, I don't know.

I do know I prefer not to have my internet come through a phone company - they're all control freaks.

That said, I'm seriously considering moving from Be, as I'm not sure if it presents value for money any more. I'm quite attracted by Vodaphone's 7.2mb/s usb 3G dongle for only £15 a month that I can use with my macbook anywhere there's mobile coverage.
 
OK, Be is off the list then... The main reason, in fact the only reason we are moving from BT is because of value - 2meg broadband for £26 a month!!! :eek:

So, here I am hearing mixed reports about Virgin, some say its good, some say its crap, and I am none the wiser...

Do you think going for it is a good idea? If it turns out to be crap then we can always go back to BT.

Also, if we do change to Virgin, would I have to change bunch of settings of the router (we dont really want to use their one as setting everything up all over again is very headache-y).

Thanks for all your help so far guys!
 
Sorry for digging up a old thread but there is no point starting a new one for same thing... We are now looking at Sky's deal where you get Sky TV with the Movie Package, phone with this free UK weekend call deal and the 2meg broadband for just £26 a month, just £5 more than what we are paying for broadband alone now! Also, I can upgrade to 8meg broadband for just a extra £5!

What I read elsewhere is mostly good but I wanted to see if anyone got anything to about it here?

Thanks in advance!
 
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