Re: Should I stick with VM or Change?
 

I think most people have a phone line anyway, be it VM or BT.

VM: £11p/m
BT: £10.50p/m

If you have a VM phone line, switch it to BT, if you have no phone line, stick with VM.

Re: Should I stick with VM or Change?
 

If you change from VM to BT phone won't you have to pay for installation?That's hardly cheap.

Re: Should I stick with VM or Change?
 

True, but I can honestly say that I've never been in a house or lived in a house or flat without a BT phone line already installed.... I'm sure there's one or two out there but I would guess the majority of properties have a BT line.

But this is getting a little out of hand. My comment was simply questioning the comment that o2 was overpriced broadband when it is quite clearly not, especially compared to VM (who are my current broadband provider btw)!

Re: Should I stick with VM or Change?
 

It can still be a challenge to get a BT line reconnected without paying the fee.

Re: Should I stick with VM or Change?
 

BT are stuck in their ways of ripping people off with the added bonus of poor customer service.

Re: Should I stick with VM or Change?
 

Oh dear, looks like my return to VM has been too soon,

Reconnected on Monday on 10Mb package, all fine Mon-Weds 9.7Mb/s download... Tonight, browsing is hell, 10% packet loss and download speeds peaking at 465kb/s....

Not STM'd as upload remains at 487kb/s (theres a first, I'm on UK cable and have a higher upload than download !)

According to status page my area has had 5 days worth of upgrades to increase capacity... ah well... maybe back to o2... £8.50 p/m cheaper and sync at 5Mb/s with no STM.

I've given newsgroup support a nudge but as this problem has been ongoing since September 2007 I'm not holding much hope..

Makes the BT line install fee seem almost worth it !

Re: Should I stick with VM or Change?
 

You're telling me, I've been trying for months to get them to take back a bulldog line.

Re: Should I stick with VM or Change?
 

I recently switched from Virgin's 20mbit service, actually it goes offline on the 11th of next month, to Be. I'm only synching at 7.6mbit down, 1.2mbit up with SNR tweaking. But I'm happy with that. I've down graded to the 'Value' service since that's 8mbit max, with same upload speed. With the £8 a month till end of the year + £40 cash back from Quidco the 12 month contract works out at only £8.50ish a month! I can cancel with 3 months notice by upgrading back to to the 'Unlimited' tariff too if things don't work out.

Now Virgin/NTL have provided me with absolutely outstanding service. Think I only ever had one issue with them in 2 years and I'm a heavy downloader (200-500gb a month), speeds were always maxed out. But £37 a month, or what I was offered £17 a month for 10mbit for 12 months with only 512kbps I decided to see what Be had the offer.

I had a much better setup before Be though. Free SkyBB on the ADSL line, 20mbit Virgin. The Sky was a nice backup and good for other people in the house to use to browse with. But £8.50 a month for 7.5mbit/1.2mbit up is too good a deal though so I had to switch.

Re: who
 

O2 (and Be) are less than half the price of Virgin's 20 meg service, for a service that is nearly as fast (or in Be's case, faster) assuming you have a good line and are near the exchange.

How on earth is that over priced?

Re: who
 

Thankyou ! My point entirely.

Re: Should I stick with VM or Change?
 

You have to see it that if your lines bad then you could be paying £8.50 or whatever they charge for a 1mb line

Re: Should I stick with VM or Change?
 

The same applies (but for different reasons) to cable. If you have a bad connection or modem, it can be a bitch to get VM to fix it (I know this from experience), the same way it can be a bitch to get BT to fix their lines.

Ok , so both technologies can potentially suffer from area oversubscription, but most of the ADSL ISPs have newer equipment and/or are smaller than Virgin so are not suffering this at the moment. Virgin is.

The difference is that if your fault does not appear within 30 days, you are commited to a 12 month contract with VM, where as if you are on Be (O2 also requires a 12 month contract), you are on a 3 month contract. Oh, and for those 12 months, your monthly fee for cable will be nearly twice that of Be.