Picking an ISP

[cliveb]

After being on cable broadband (NTL, then Virgin) for about 20 years, we are soon moving to an area with no cable.
So I need to find an ISP that does fibre (eg. BT Infinity or similar).

Customer service is more important to me than price. A few years ago I'd have gone with Plusnet - my mother-in-law has them and they used to be great. But since the BT takeover their service has gone to the dogs.

I don't need any services other than a raw pipe to the internet. I have my web and email hosting provided by a third party.

Any recommendations for an ISP with good customer service?

 

[hairball_89]

I'm with Plusnet. Have been for 2 1/2 years or so. Absolutely no issues at all with their service for me, to the extent I moved our phone contracts over to them too. And the internet I'm receiving beats Sky hands down, who they replaced.

 

[cliveb]

I'm with Plusnet. Have been for 2 1/2 years or so. Absolutely no issues at all with their service for me, to the extent I moved our phone contracts over to them too. And the internet I'm receiving beats Sky hands down, who they replaced.

I may not have phrased myself properly. The aspect of Plusnet's service that I think has got worse is when you need to call them about a problem. Several years ago, I would phone up, get straight through to an actual engineer and be able to discuss technicalities with someone who knew what they were doing. Last time I had to call them for my mother-in-law, I was on hold for ages and eventually got through to someone who really didn't have much clue and just wanted to go through their standard scripts - just like you get with Virgin, BT, etc.
I'm a retired IT professional and get irritated when I'm asked to try all the basic stuff that I've already checked.

 

[hairball_89]

I may not have phrased myself properly. The aspect of Plusnet's service that I think has got worse is when you need to call them about a problem. Several years ago, I would phone up, get straight through to an actual engineer and be able to discuss technicalities with someone who knew what they were doing. Last time I had to call them for my mother-in-law, I was on hold for ages and eventually got through to someone who really didn't have much clue and just wanted to go through their standard scripts - just like you get with Virgin, BT, etc.
I'm a retired IT professional and get irritated when I'm asked to try all the basic stuff that I've already checked.

OK yes. that's poor, I'll give you that!

 

[ScienceBoy]

Can’t fault BT for our FTTH. Been superb, no frills and a decent router.

Also customer service has been great, barely hesitated to knock money off at the slightest inconvenience. I got the highest speed for the cost of the lowest for a couple of years, now it’s just a small discount but it all helps. Switched over the mobiles and saved even more!

Hard to quantify the full savings as I’m so far into it now but vs an off the shelf alternative I have saved significantly.

 

[GG26]

Been with BT for a number of years now and have had no issues, so fortunately I’ve had no need to deal with customer services.

 

[Ethan]

For customer service, I strongly recommend Zen Internet. Very good service and helpful customer service. I was with them previously, but decided to switch to BT to get BT Sport on a deal and BT completely cocked it up. Installed a second line, and then denied they had done so or that there was any problem, and I couldn't get it to work. Zen, despite the fact I was leaving, figured it out for me and gave me detailed instructions to tell BT, which I did and they went 'Oh, yeah, that looks right ...' and fixed it. Then BT cocked up the billing, double charging me for months. Never again. Went back to Zen after the contract ended and not looked back.

Zen

 

[happyhacker]

If you want the best it's AAISP. You'll pay for it but widely regarded as the best small service ISP.

 

[PJ87]

I may not have phrased myself properly. The aspect of Plusnet's service that I think has got worse is when you need to call them about a problem. Several years ago, I would phone up, get straight through to an actual engineer and be able to discuss technicalities with someone who knew what they were doing. Last time I had to call them for my mother-in-law, I was on hold for ages and eventually got through to someone who really didn't have much clue and just wanted to go through their standard scripts - just like you get with Virgin, BT, etc.
I'm a retired IT professional and get irritated when I'm asked to try all the basic stuff that I've already checked.

I think you will struggle with all of them tbh

If you have any knowledge it's frustrating to be told the basics and being a retired engineer it will be worse.. but then again I'm sure you can fix the basics and calls will be less often

I'm with bt and the app does basic fault checks

 

[cliveb]

Can’t fault BT for our FTTH. Been superb, no frills and a decent router.

My golf club has FTTP and a 100mb symmetric leased line on a BT business contract, and yes, the service is superb - you can talk to actual engineers to discuss issues. But I can't justify the cost of that.

I only need FTTC. But if BT has a FTTH domestic offering I might be interested - was there a significant install cost?

Edit: ok just checked and FTTH isn't available at the new address.

 

[GreiginFife]

I may not have phrased myself properly. The aspect of Plusnet's service that I think has got worse is when you need to call them about a problem. Several years ago, I would phone up, get straight through to an actual engineer and be able to discuss technicalities with someone who knew what they were doing. Last time I had to call them for my mother-in-law, I was on hold for ages and eventually got through to someone who really didn't have much clue and just wanted to go through their standard scripts - just like you get with Virgin, BT, etc.
I'm a retired IT professional and get irritated when I'm asked to try all the basic stuff that I've already checked.

I'll wager that the vast majority of their customer base aren't retired IT professionals and need that more basic help.
They also don't know if you are an IT Professional (whatever that means) and they sure can't tailor the level of support or knowledge needed for every one of their million plus customers.

Same goes for any large ISP that has huge customer bases.
They ask you to check all the things that you may or may not have tried to ensure that they follow and give the right advice.

Back when I worked for Sky we always asked if the router had been tried in the master socket, loads of folk just said yes and when line tests failed and engineers were called we ended up with (July to Dec 2009) 65% of customers billed for unnecessary call outs as the master hadn't been checked.

Yes, you probably know this but as I say, millions don't.

 

[cliveb]

I'll wager that the vast majority of their customer base aren't retired IT professionals and need that more basic help.
They also don't know if you are an IT Professional (whatever that means) and they sure can't tailor the level of support or knowledge needed for every one of their million plus customers.

Yes, I appreciate that. The thing that irritates me is that even once you've explained you've tried all the basic things, they STILL insist on going through their script.

Luckily the service I've had from Virgin has been pretty reliable, so I rarely needed to call them and could live with it. (I recall one time several years ago I tried to explain to the CS rep that one of their routers in Watford was down. I even gave her the IP address. She didn't seem to understand. About half an hour later it came back up. Probably because their engineers noticed - I doubt if my call had any effect).

FYI, my career was in database design and application development. I wasn't a network specialist, but over the years I acquired a reasonable level of knowledge in that area.

Thanks to everyone for their suggestions. I think Zen are probably the people to go with. Their Fibre2 deal appears to offer everything I need, it's £10 cheaper than Andrews&Arnold, and when I did a quick test by calling their technical support line it got answered in less than 10 seconds.

 

[KenL]

I have been with Plusnet for 12 years.
Excellent service when I have needed it and they always offer me great new deals when my existing one comes to an end.

 

[jim8flog]

I have been with BT with about 4 years I have never needed their customer service only their sales department to negotiate a new contract at renewal.

I did have a slight problem with my mobile contract with them and got a good extra of double data as a 'sorry'.

 

[spongebob59]

I'm with BT, never had a issue (apart from the cra p router, so bought my own) and negotiate a deal on renewal each time it's due.

Live on an unmade road so no chance of FTTP so it is what it is.

 

[PJ87]

I'm with BT, never had a issue (apart from the cra p router, so bought my own) and negotiate a deal on renewal each time it's due.

Live on an unmade road so no chance of FTTP so it is what it is.

I find it annoying their routers dont work in modem mode so my mesh system isn't perfect because goes through 2 routers

Would get rid but bt sport via it is the sticking point

 

[ScienceBoy]

Been BT for 4 years+ now and generally well treated, very quick to discount if anything went wrong. I was on the highest speed for the lowest cost for 3 years due to a delay in setting up the account. I hadn't even moved into the house so couldn't use it anyway! I was only without the internet for about 5 days in the end and most of that was doing moving stuff and sorting the house so didn't even miss it.

Been so good we moved our mobiles over and pretty much given free data to the point we pay less and get way more data than we can even use, even a weeks holiday without Wi-Fi didn't deplete them!

Just can't fault out BT experience.

 

[Wilson]

If you want the best it's AAISP. You'll pay for it but widely regarded as the best small service ISP.

I know the family who own AAISP, great to see them getting a good review.

 

[sunshine]

My golf club has FTTP and a 100mb symmetric leased line on a BT business contract, and yes, the service is superb - you can talk to actual engineers to discuss issues. But I can't justify the cost of that.

I only need FTTC. But if BT has a FTTH domestic offering I might be interested - was there a significant install cost?

Edit: ok just checked and FTTH isn't available at the new address.

I have FTTP at home with BT. Minimal installation cost (maybe £50?) and we were on a basic fibre tariff but enjoyed speeds of 1000meg. Unfortunately when the contract ran out and I renewed it they cottoned on so I’m now on a more average speed for £20 a month.

If it’s available it’s worth getting FTTP, because BT are being encouraged/ subsidised by the government to roll it out cheaply and quickly.

 

[BubbaP]

I'm with BT, never had a issue (apart from the cra p router, so bought my own) and negotiate a deal on renewal each time it's due.

Live on an unmade road so no chance of FTTP so it is what it is.

Used to be with BT, spoke to them and they were very clear they were not planning on putting fibre in my area within the next 15 years (am on a single track road). Thankfully Gigaclear came to the rescue, have been on fibre since 2014 ??