david.dakota Posted October 2, 2011 Share Posted October 2, 2011 Its contract renewal time, and I'm shopping around for broadband. In the past, I've had TalkTalk, Orange, BT, Tiscali and all have suffered terribly at peak times; so I'm considering paying for better service than all-in-one bundles. Any thoughts on who I could try? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shorty Posted October 2, 2011 Share Posted October 2, 2011 I was with O2 for a long time, and really happy with them, if you have an O2 mobile you get a discount. It's fast and the customer service is great, and the call centre is in Scotland so it's never a problem to discuss anything. However, I moved house and they quoted me 16MB when I was working through my home move. What I actually got was closer to 3MB - a mistake they claim came from the speed BT quotes them. Anyway it was a shame but I jumped ship at that point. So if you want fast broadband that won't suffer at peak, go for Be or O2 (same company) and check out their pro packages. I never noticed the speed drop below 1Mb/s downloads before I moved. But if distance from the exchange is an issue and you get bad speeds with all those networks, check if you get cable in your area. I've just moved to Virgin and so far the speed is great. If you decide to go with Virgin, give me a shout, I can refer you and you'll get free installation. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sheikah Posted October 2, 2011 Share Posted October 2, 2011 I would avoid O2, they openly state that they use traffic shaping (absolutely hampers P2P around normal times). Most broadband companies traffic shape actually. Be broadband doesn't though, and they use O2 broadband's network basically. Around the same price as O2 and with considerably better upload speeds, as well as some pretty decent customer service. We use them and they're very good. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wesley Posted October 2, 2011 Share Posted October 2, 2011 Viiiiiiiiiiiiiiirgin. They have good adverts. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jimbob Posted October 2, 2011 Share Posted October 2, 2011 (edited) I'm with BT at the moment, pretty decent i think. Speed is good, get at least 15mb depending on signal strength. Had no issues with them since going back, and the customer service is ok/decent as well. Viiiiiiiiiiiiiiirgin. They have good adverts. But what do you think??? Edited October 2, 2011 by Jimbob Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wesley Posted October 2, 2011 Share Posted October 2, 2011 But what do you think??? *mind blown* Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shorty Posted October 2, 2011 Share Posted October 2, 2011 I would avoid O2, they openly state that they use traffic shaping (absolutely hampers P2P around normal times). Most broadband companies traffic shape actually. Be broadband doesn't though, and they use O2 broadband's network basically. Around the same price as O2 and with considerably better upload speeds, as well as some pretty decent customer service. We use them and they're very good. Hm, as I mentioned I consistently got about 1.2Mbps download speeds on torrents, ftp, gaming and streaming with O2... for well over a year peak and off-peak. BE don't just use O2's network, they are effectively the same company, so it's funny to say you like one but not the other. The only differences are: O2 has customer support centres in Scotland and Be's are in mainland Europe, Be provide the better wireless router unless you pay a little extra and with O2 you can get a discount if you have a mobile contract. Also O2 can provide you home phone for £9.50/mo with free evenings and weekends (great if you hate BT with a passion like I do) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sheikah Posted October 3, 2011 Share Posted October 3, 2011 (edited) Hm, as I mentioned I consistently got about 1.2Mbps download speeds on torrents, ftp, gaming and streaming with O2... for well over a year peak and off-peak. BE don't just use O2's network, they are effectively the same company, so it's funny to say you like one but not the other. The only differences are: O2 has customer support centres in Scotland and Be's are in mainland Europe, Be provide the better wireless router unless you pay a little extra and with O2 you can get a discount if you have a mobile contract. Also O2 can provide you home phone for £9.50/mo with free evenings and weekends (great if you hate BT with a passion like I do) The reason I say I like Be but warn against O2 is the same reason I like Giffgaff over O2 phone network. In both cases, we have the same company and network, but in both cases the service is importantly different. O2 do traffic shape, they admit this on their website, and their phone network has more expensive calls/texts, worse tariffs value wise and non unlimited internet. Contrast this to Be, which openly confess to not traffic shaping (as well as giving much faster upload speeds), and giffgaff who don't limit 3G internet (at least not unless you use something crazy like 20GB) and have very cheap rates/goodybags. Put simply, same overall company but quite different policies/service. Also note, speed under traffic shaping is subject not only to time of day but where you live and the number of people connected to your exchange/using the internet at that time. So it's quite misleading to use your example to convince him as if he got O2 he could find the opposite to be the case, whereas that could never happen if there is no traffic shaping to begin with. Edited October 3, 2011 by Sheikah Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shorty Posted October 3, 2011 Share Posted October 3, 2011 My one last note is, I once downloaded about 55GB in a month on O2's middle package (their fair usage policy says 40GB), but they didn't cap me or anything. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sheikah Posted October 3, 2011 Share Posted October 3, 2011 My one last note is, I once downloaded about 55GB in a month on O2's middle package (their fair usage policy says 40GB), but they didn't cap me or anything. Well that's a risk, one that paid off for you. Why bother with risks? Be don't set a GB limit in their fair usage policy. Let's be honest, the topic creator comes in saying he's had peak traffic issues with bb companies. Chances are his exchange is quite busy. The solution is obviously a good company that doesn't traffic shape, which Be is. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shorty Posted October 4, 2011 Share Posted October 4, 2011 If his exchange is busy or far away, Virgin is the solution :p On the other hand, we could argue this back and forth for a week and OP could never return. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr_Odwin Posted October 4, 2011 Share Posted October 4, 2011 It's my understanding that O2 only traffic shape their ADSLMax offering (the Access/"Up to 8Mb" package) and the LLU (The Be stuff) is untainted. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sheikah Posted October 4, 2011 Share Posted October 4, 2011 If his exchange is busy or far away, Virgin is the solution :p On the other hand, we could argue this back and forth for a week and OP could never return. I don't think you understand the difference between the two companies. Whatever the maximum speed you can possibly get on ADSL2 on your line is what you will get with Be. But if your exchange is busy on other networks they will use traffic shaping, and many of them have GB limits hidden in their fair usage policy (which not all act on, but it's one of those things you wouldn't know until it was too late). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shorty Posted October 4, 2011 Share Posted October 4, 2011 That's true. Or it is if you ignore what Odwin said above you Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sheikah Posted October 4, 2011 Share Posted October 4, 2011 *facepalm* Shorty...what do you think they mean by legacy package? :p Old customers on old packages. As a new customer he'd be restricted to one of the new packages! The legacy packages are from days of old. Making Odwin's comment pretty redundant in terms of recommending O2 to others. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shorty Posted October 4, 2011 Share Posted October 4, 2011 This is the first time you've mentioned legacy packages. Or do you think I went away and read all the companies' Terms & Conditions for the sake of this thread? You need to learn to concede a little. You can't argue with the sheer fact that I was on O2 for two years, never got capped, never dropped below my quoted 12MB speed (during or out of peak hours) and received great customer service. Just because you've got a boner for Be doesn't mean other people aren't allowed to share their experiences. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sheikah Posted October 4, 2011 Share Posted October 4, 2011 This is the first time you've mentioned legacy packages. Or do you think I went away and read all the companies' Terms & Conditions for the sake of this thread? You need to learn to concede a little. You can't argue with the sheer fact that I was on O2 for two years, never got capped, never dropped below my quoted 12MB speed (during or out of peak hours) and received great customer service. Just because you've got a boner for Be doesn't mean other people aren't allowed to share their experiences. Here is what I can argue (no conceding required). Odwin's comment (that you pointed out as the reason I was wrong) is in fact wrong itself, at least for the new customer that the op clearly is. They traffic shape on their new packages. I am happy that you had a good experience with O2 and that you shared that opinion! That is what forums are all about. But when giving your experience, if someone has more relevant, current information about a service than yourself (that you said you couldn't be bothered to find out) it's usually best to concede yourself, especially if your experience isn't available to new members anymore. I have no 'boners' for any company. If you read the original post in this topic you will see he is looking for a company that does not traffic shape due to bad experience. Be is one such company! If you know any others, feel free to suggest! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr_Odwin Posted October 4, 2011 Share Posted October 4, 2011 I have old knowledge, cos' I'm old/my knowledge was right when I looked into it a year or so ago. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sheikah Posted October 4, 2011 Share Posted October 4, 2011 Yeah as far as I know if you took out the contract a while ago the old conditions still apply (for now). But new customers get shaped. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rummy Posted October 4, 2011 Share Posted October 4, 2011 Virgin depending on the speeds they can get in your area. I believe mostly BT are limited up to 8MB(correct me if I'm wrong) unless it's the new infinity? The new infinity is apparently quite high speedy, though. Personally I've been with Virgin for years, and whilst they do now apparently traffic shape/manage I'm not sure I ever notice. I'm on such an old package I'm actually at 20Mbps which they don't do anymore, and a recent speedtest.net test came up at 18Mbps if not closer to 20. I can't comment on anybody other than Virgin or put it into any sort of perspective, quite simply because I've never been with anyone else. Irony, maybe. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eddage Posted October 5, 2011 Share Posted October 5, 2011 I'm getting 30Mbps with Virgin. First day I got it I downloaded all the TV Shows I had missed out on - 9 GB in about 45 minutes, it's freaking amazing! Although according to my last speed test it's actually 30.5Mbps Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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