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Ghost of Clough

By Ghost of Clough
in The Jim Smith Room

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Ghost of Clough

Ghost of Clough

Posted
Posted

My contract with Virgin is due to end at the end of this month. I currently pay £32 pm for the 100Mbps option, but this is set to increase to £56.

So, I was debating whether to switch to Sky/BT/Now TV/EE/Vodafone all offering approx £30 pm plus c£100 cashback (equivalent to £19-24 pm) and speeds in the region of 59-67Mbps.
The other option is to go for 4G wifi with Three (3). Their offer is £25 pm with a Huawei AI Cube B900 (built in Alexa) but I have no idea what download speed I'm likely to get. One site says "The Huawei AI Cube supports LTE Cat 6, meaning that it’s theoretically capable of 4G download speeds of up to 300Mbps (37.5MB/s). That’s more than you’ll get in practice with current real world speeds topping out at around 80Mbps (10MB/s)". I'd also be tied into a 24 month contract.

Does anyone use 4G Home Broadband, and how does the speed and reliability compare with the traditional broadband options?

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Hinzy9

Hinzy9

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I've just moved house so don't currently have fixed Broadband yet. For now I'm tethering my unlimited 4g (three) mobile data to all my devices which works really well.  I generally get between 15-30 Mbps (apart from yesterday when the whole three network went down?), their dedicated 4g hub will no doubt give better speeds.

The only downside is when my girlfriend is staying over and I go out with my phone and take the internet with me. Will probably look to get a separate 4g wifi contract at some point. Hope that helps

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Stive Pesley

Stive Pesley

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Presumably your Virgin BB is fibre?

You won't find anything that performs anything like as reliably or quickly - but it gets pricey when the special offers run out. You may find when you come to cancel and ring them up that they offer you a decent price to stay. Especially if you are genuinely going to leave!

 

 

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ThePrisoner

ThePrisoner

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32 minutes ago, SchtivePesley said:

Presumably your Virgin BB is fibre?

You won't find anything that performs anything like as reliably or quickly - but it gets pricey when the special offers run out. You may find when you come to cancel and ring them up that they offer you a decent price to stay. Especially if you are genuinely going to leave!

 

 

Aye, I can't believe @Ghost of Cloughis going up to that! I pay £36 for 300Mbps from Virgin. Hands down, the best internet provider I've ever had. Won't touch anything that uses BT/Openreach backline.

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angieram

angieram

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28 minutes ago, ThePrisoner said:

Aye, I can't believe @Ghost of Cloughis going up to that! I pay £36 for 300Mbps from Virgin. Hands down, the best internet provider I've ever had. Won't touch anything that uses BT/Openreach backline.

I've just found that out to my cost, when trying to upgrade with EE. Thought I'd got a good deal for my first fibre broadband with EE. Openreach disconnected my very old but slow connection at 11.30 a.m. on 4th October, and the new connection was supposedly ready to switch on when I got in from work.

It took me about twelve lengthy telephone conversations and over 10 working days to get it resolved, because basically EE and all the other non cable providers are at Openreach's beck and call. I apparently, was not a priority.

EE were quite sympathetic and gave me loads of free data so I've learned how to tether devices (although my main laptop was too old!) They also appear to have refunded my full monthly cost twice so at the moment I'm quids in and my new broadband now it does work is amazingly fast in comparison to what I was using.

The Virgin price looks good but it rockets after a very short time. Also, I didn't want them digging up my garden to install it all!

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Ghost of Clough

Ghost of Clough

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1 hour ago, SchtivePesley said:

Presumably your Virgin BB is fibre?

You won't find anything that performs anything like as reliably or quickly - but it gets pricey when the special offers run out. You may find when you come to cancel and ring them up that they offer you a decent price to stay. Especially if you are genuinely going to leave!

 

 

Yeah, gave them a call not long ago. First offer they gave me was £35 for the first 6 months followed by £38.50 for the next 6. Turned that down and was offered a £30 discount on the first month taking the average to £34.25. That’s not bad, but I could switch to Sky and it would work out at about £21.50pm (or Vodafone / EE for about £19) so I turned it down.
I’ll give them a couple of days to come back with a better offer.

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alexxxxx

alexxxxx

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Got plusnet which seems alright. Had BT which was better. I think most Internet connection is really dependent on your location and the quality of the line etc. I had virgin before when I lived in a cabled area which wasn't that much better than the normal phone lines.. 

I'll be interested to see how well the 5G providers fare when coverage is rolled out - EE are offering it in some locations now but if its anything like 4G it'll be touch and go if it's any good depending on your precise location. 

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EtoileSportiveDeDerby

EtoileSportiveDeDerby

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I am on virgin broadband and tv. They wanted to up the prices at the end told them no i am off. They told me the price would need to go up but i got a rebate on the first month of renewal which meant there was no increase. Virgin i find are very good at headline figures. 100 Mb is only when wired. Upload speed is shocking, 5mb as opposed to 18 with BT, it does not matter to most people but it does in my line of work. WIFI is woeful, 70mb in the room where the router is, as soon as i walk out barely 20. I had to add a set of boosters to cover the house. I only stayed because of TV but broadband is not great i find

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Ghost of Clough

Ghost of Clough

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2 hours ago, EtoileSportiveDeDerby said:

I am on virgin broadband and tv. They wanted to up the prices at the end told them no i am off. They told me the price would need to go up but i got a rebate on the first month of renewal which meant there was no increase. Virgin i find are very good at headline figures. 100 Mb is only when wired. Upload speed is shocking, 5mb as opposed to 18 with BT, it does not matter to most people but it does in my line of work. WIFI is woeful, 70mb in the room where the router is, as soon as i walk out barely 20. I had to add a set of boosters to cover the house. I only stayed because of TV but broadband is not great i find

I get 110+ download and about 12 upload with Virgin. 

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Joe.

Joe.

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I've had three's 4g broadband for about a month, I didn't get the ai cube I went for the white router which I can't remember the name of, £16 a month unlimited data, would recommend.

the Sim is 5g ready but the router isn't.

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Day

Day

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Take a look at TopCashback, when I joined BT by going through them I got £60 cashback on top of the prepaid MasterCard and Amazon Echo BT were offering as sign up gifts.

Personally I go back and forth from Sky and BT, always get better deals as a new customer. Would chuck Virgin into the mix if they serviced our area but so far nothing. 

You can’t really go wrong with any of those 3, all providers have issues and all will have the chance of running into a useless customer service rep.

If you read reviews online of all providers you wouldn’t bother with any, only those with horror stories head online to rant, not the thousands that have no issues.

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