Electronic Utilities

[ewx]

NTL's clever customer retention strategy means that their contract here is ending a bit after LNR moves out. I'm thinking of switching to BT for phones, Freeview for TV[1] and some as-yet unknown ADSL provider for Internet connectivity.

Phones: NTL's reliability has been less than stellar - we had to call them out to fix the phone line three times and only the third time did it stay fixed for more than a few months. BT's cheapest monthly rate (which implies online-only billing, which is fine by me) is only slightly cheaper than NTL's.

Freeview: I mainly watch Channel 5 and BBC channels, so there shouldn't be any problem with channel availability in moving away from NTL here. NTL's TV service is somewhat flaky (probably the fault of the awful STB but whatever.) I was thinking of getting a digital box with hard disk and dual tuner (Life On Mars is clashing with CSI at the moment l-)

ADSL: NTL's internet service has probably been the most reliable of the three for us (I know other people have found it unreliable). However I'll be glad to get away from their intercepting web and DNS proxies (the latter are particularly broken). The BT availability checker thinks my postcode could get 1.5Mbit/s which is a bit less than NTL seem to be providing right now but I reckon is plenty.

So, anyone got any advice/recommendations/disrecommendations?

Comments

[beingjdc.livejournal.com]

I continue to evangelise for Zen (http://www.zen.co.uk/) ADSL. It's not exactly cheap, but it works. Properly. In my experience.

[reddragdiva]

Seconded. We have Sky for TV, so I considered Sky's free broadband offer (they bought EasyNet and offer free DSL to any TV subscriber) - but looking at the numbers, I would have been paying about £5/month less for the same service I get now and not get a static IP. And have to use Sky's router.

[sesquipedality.livejournal.com]

I have used Zen in the past and can testify to their 'just works' status. However, I've been looking at the pricing again, and I'm not sure Zen makes much financial sense, since they have now moved to metered bandwidth and the 'cheap' packages (which still cost more than the Virgin 2Mbit service) have very low (2GB/mth or lower) usage caps.

If possible I will likely be taking the Virgin phone and Internet bundle at £20/mth. I don't like them as an ISP, but when they're £15/mth cheaper than the competition, it's hard to know what else to do.

[sparrowsion]

Virgin phone and Internet bundle

That's probably what I'll try switching to, although they say they're only offering it to new customers or as an upgrade, and I don't think "Switching to Freeview will get me working interactive services, so it is an upgrade as far as I'm concerned" will wash. At which point, it'll be time to go down the same route as ewx (with the added complication that 1ngi can't risk having the phone number go).

[beingjdc.livejournal.com]

Yes, we're still on unmetered but relatively slow. At some point we will upgrade to the faster but metered service. The 2Gb is a specific light user option - we'd be going to the 20Gb for the same price we're currently on. http://www.zen.co.uk/Broadband/S_Business.aspx?page=518 - we used 20.54 last month though.

[nunfetishist.livejournal.com]

Snap. Zen are excellent. And one of the few ISPs these days that also provide a news server.

[sunflowerinrain.livejournal.com]

Interesting. I really miss posting to NGs (google being rather crap for it).

[mtbc100.livejournal.com]

There are some third-party ones you can use, no need to use your ISP's; e.g., http://news.individual.net/