For help, advice and discussion about stuff not related to aviation. Play nice: no religion, no politics and no axe grinding please.
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By Colonel Panic
#1860248
rikur_ wrote:
Colonel Panic wrote:Line Rental is £16.50 pcm (inc Unlimited Calls), FTTC via PlusNet is £16.00 pcm.

Negotiate harder next time. You're about £8 over ;-)


PlusNet renewal time; starting in September they have offered for either 12 or 18 months ...

    6.77 Unlimited FTTC broadband (28 up / 8 down is what I normally get)
    9.41 UK Calls (landline & mobile)
    21.22 Line Rental (from Oct, after which AIUI paying up front for a year is not longer an option)

Total £37.40 (less referrals £2.50) = £34.90

My "needs" are fairly simple - static IP is a must, as is "unlimited" data. Free calls to mobiles isn't. STRONG preference for UK call centres.

Starlink isn't likely to arrive for 6 months or more, and will PROB90 want to keep FTTC going then anyway. Who else should I be looking at? I've always been more than happy with PlusNet, but a quite comp shop shows offers of ~£23-28 are available (but haven't checked the static IP bit.
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By rikur_
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1860322
I'm on Plusnet at £23.99 per month (negotiated price May 2020) for line rental and unlimited fibre (FTTC). (That doesn't have any inclusive calls, as I don't use the landline as a phone).
I have Zen in the other house at £36.50 for line rental, unlimited fibre (FTTC) and includes unlimited landline calls.

I've been with Zen for over 10 years. Includes static IP (/29 range when I joined), IPv6 support (including /48 static range), PTR record management, UK support that are tech savy, portal that shows raw line stats/profile - basically a proper internet provider. I don't experience any congestion.

I've been with Plusnet for about 5 years, in my head I have them as 'good no nonsense basic internet'. Includes 1 x static IPv4 for a £5 one-off charge, but no IPv6 support. Aside from the pantomine every 18 months where I have to pretend to be leaving to get a sensible price to stay, I've had few issues. There does appear to be some evening congestion, and a few unexplained short network outages. I'm not entirely clear if these are Openreach issues, or Plusnet's, but it's not as stable as the Zen connection.

What I've learnt from 16 months of remote working and trying to help colleagues with their issues ....... colleagues on Virgin Media seem most prone to dropping out of calls or turning into daleks; most ISPs seem to give their customers the run around and have dire first line support. Invest in a good router and wireless access point (as you have already)

ps: I *think* Sky don't allow you to use your own router - might be worth double checking.
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By riverrock
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1860329
rikur_ wrote:ps: I *think* Sky don't allow you to use your own router - might be worth double checking.

Technically they don't, but they don't enforce that. You can google for the username / password needed to connect a third party router, or you can use a Sky Router as the access point, and plug a different router into an ethernet port.

I left Sky as the router they provided froze / stopped working for 90 seconds every time someone external ran a port scan on it (according to its logs) and they wouldn't send me another one without an upgrade or provde a firmware upgrade. Wasn't worth my time hacking it.
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By townleyc
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1860486
rikur_ wrote:I've been with Plusnet for about 5 years, in my head I have them as 'good no nonsense basic internet'. Includes 1 x static IPv4 for a £5 one-off charge, but no IPv6 support. Aside from the pantomine every 18 months where I have to pretend to be leaving to get a sensible price to stay, I've had few issues. There does appear to be some evening congestion, and a few unexplained short network outages. I'm not entirely clear if these are Openreach issues, or Plusnet's, but it's not as stable as the Zen connection.


I I have said previously I am jujst waiting for my Plusnet contrevt to end, when U will be moving to Zen.

Interestingly a friend (who is a senior chap at Openreach) recently said that Plusnet's problem is that they will not invest in capacity, which ties in with my results - it is for me a pretty carp service!

KE
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By Sjoram
#1868118
Very off-topic of Starlink, but as reading a few posts about other ISPs, just thought I'd drop in my setup, that I've been very happy with...

https://uno.uk - based in Sheffield (see also their other brands - Xilo, VOIPify)
Services based on either BT or TTB wholesale xDSL - you can choose.
All current packages are unlimited, but one of mine is on legacy pricing with a monthly quota.
2 x Line Rental, including 'Care Level 2' - 24hr fix vs 72hr fix on Openreach. No inclusive calls, but very cheap rates incl. international. (£14.82 each, £12.90 for standard Care Level 1)
1 x TTB ADSL w/ Annex M (faster upload) (parents) - upgraded to unlimited last year - £32.39
1 x BTW VDSL/FTTC (mine) - 400GB (down/up M-F 8-8) - £31.79 (Equivalent unlimited is £39.59)
Both the above including a routed /29 subnet along with static WAN IP.
All-in at £93.82 monthly.

Small team - last time I asked, about 10 employees working across the brands. Not unknown for the MD to be involved with/responding to support tickets. Willing to share technical details when problems arise, either in their own network or wholesale providers.

Moved to them as Xilo after leaving Be shortly after the Sky acquisition, they migrated all of their broadband products to their Uno brand a few years ago. Moved my domains/hosting to Xilo last year.

I'm also in the camp where I very much support the likes of A&A, but just a little too pricey for me. Would absolutely be interested in their L2TP service if I had a need/use for it though.
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By stevelup
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1868141
I very much support the likes of A&A, but just a little too pricey for me


A&A are only marginally more expensive than the prices you quoted - you're definitely at the premium end of things there already.

(ps., my quote tags are definitely correct there... no idea why it won't quote!)
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By Sjoram
#1868173
stevelup wrote:
I very much support the likes of A&A, but just a little too pricey for me

A&A are only marginally more expensive than the prices you quoted - you're definitely at the premium end of things there already.


It has to be said since they moved away from their units model a while ago, their pricing has become more competitive. When I initially moved providers, they were still on the units model I think, otherwise I would have absolutely considered them.

I think where they come unstuck for me is their quota is for the entire month, not just peak hours. So my FTTC line would exceed their SoHo::1 800GB quota by quite some margin when including the off-peak hours, despite being comfortably within my existing 400GB peak hours quota.

PRTG has my current monthly average in the last 12 months at 783GB, but in the last 6 months or so, increased use of off-site backup replication has increased that average - last 30 days 921GB. So the 5TB Home::1 is about an extra £10pm on my current costs or 8TB SoHo::1 about an extra £33pm.

I'd consider taking the hit on the extra £10pm if service levels from my current ISP ever deteriorated.
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By stevelup
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1868200
All throughout lockdown, they have been automatically resetting the quotas - not sure if they're still doing that or not as 99% of my traffic is via Starlink.

My VoIP phones and office VPN are over the DSL still.
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