View Full Version : Is switching to O2 broadband a no brainer.
I currently pay £37 per month for my never upto 20meg Virgin broadband, but I do always get the 768K upload speed. (woohoo:rolleyes:)
O2 broadband is also upto 20meg and an upload speed of 1.6Meg all for £15 as I'm an O2 customer. http://broadband.o2.co.uk/home/packages.jsp
Has anyone else moved across? It seems dumb to stay with Virgin, unless O2 offer a dire service.
Any thoughts?
O2 are on the Be network (they actually own Be). As with other ADSL providers, your connection speed is limited by both line quality and distance from the exchange.
Also, you'll be signing up for a 12 month contract.
However, it's worth noting that as with all LLU ADSL providers, Be and O2 do not cover the whole country. A good site to check who can give you service is http://www.samknows.com
And yes, I personally find Be far better than NTL was. However, I do live about 400 metres from the exchange.
demented
23-09-2008, 20:55
As Stuart C implies through Sam Knows (excellent site) there are only a few exchanges in North Yorkshire on Be e.g. Acomb, Melrosegate, Selby, Harrogate, South Milford, Starbeck etc.
I was on the melrosegate exchange for Sky/Easynet and Be speeds were reported as being good there. Where I am now Be would almost be sub 10Mbs speeds even though I'm close the exchange.
Andrewcrawford23
23-09-2008, 21:08
I currently pay £37 per month for my never upto 20meg Virgin broadband, but I do always get the 768K upload speed. (woohoo:rolleyes:)
O2 broadband is also upto 20meg and an upload speed of 1.6Meg all for £15 as I'm an O2 customer. http://broadband.o2.co.uk/home/packages.jsp
Has anyone else moved across? It seems dumb to stay with Virgin, unless O2 offer a dire service.
Any thoughts?
There technical support is very good as well and honest :)
I'm in one of those listed, so it looks like game on.:D
dont forget you will need a BT line if you dont already have one
It's better to go with Be, you can get the £14 month package, with £40 cashback and no install charge if you go through Quidco. Then if you want to cancel you can upgrade to the £18 package and give 3 months notice.
I'm very happy now I've switched over to Be. Even though I'm on 8mbit I haven't really noticed the slowdown and have already used 400gb according to Tomato this month!
Zhadnost
25-09-2008, 08:34
I'm on both Be and Virgin (different locations). With Be I sync at just over 7Mbit down 1.2Mbit up and experience frequent packet loss.
With VM I mostly get full speed (20Mbit).
The Be tech support seem to be very good, although there have been a lot of outages since signup. (2 exchange upgrades and a few that haven't been explained). In the same period of time I have had no problem with VM.
If you have more than one line, Be are experimenting with bonded ADSL which may be of interest.
Unfortunately with all broadband providers, it seems to be a postcode lottery, so you'll only know how good a provider is once you're bound to them.
You could try and get a better deal from VM. (move your phone line to them and get a discount package or similar).
Mick Fisher
25-09-2008, 11:21
I'm on both Be and Virgin (different locations). With Be I sync at just over 7Mbit down 1.2Mbit up and experience frequent packet loss.
With VM I mostly get full speed (20Mbit).
The Be tech support seem to be very good, although there have been a lot of outages since signup. (2 exchange upgrades and a few that haven't been explained). In the same period of time I have had no problem with VM.
If you have more than one line, Be are experimenting with bonded ADSL which may be of interest.
Unfortunately with all broadband providers, it seems to be a postcode lottery, so you'll only know how good a provider is once you're bound to them.
You could try and get a better deal from VM. (move your phone line to them and get a discount package or similar).
I am in the same situation and your experience with Be almost exactly mirrors my own.
CrowmanUK
25-09-2008, 15:52
I've been with BE for a few months now, i'm getting 13meg down and just over 1 meg up, havent had a spot of bother with it, although I did do a bit of tinkering as it started up at 8meg down. Nothing too difficult though.
O2 was enabled at my local exchange last month. I will be moving over. £10 for Virgin 2MB or £7.50 for O2 8MB, yes it is a no brainer. :Sun:
I spoke to Virgin today and the woman said "who's making those claims" about the O2 spec I listed. I said it's on the O2 website, you can go and check it. Best she could do for me was drop my package to 10meg for £17. I said "looks like I'll be cancelling then"
I checked with O2, they said I may only get 10meg max where I am. That's a downer as I wanted to stay on 20meg, but as the only big downloads I do are updates, I might be able to live with it for £7.50. I bought the O2 stuff, just need to wait for them to activate me now.
Zhadnost
27-09-2008, 09:16
IME you can normally only get a good deal from them if you have more than one service or if you are adding a service to your package. Ie if you port your landline to them you may not need to pay for it (or something similar).
CrowmanUK
27-09-2008, 10:15
Heres a bookmark for you then mate to get a bit more oomph out of the line
http://www.beforum.co.uk/showthread.php?t=8152
took me from 8meg ish to 13 ish
Virgin are up to 50mbps now with be and broadbond.com bonding adsl to match this (broadbond can bond virgins 50mbps connections to give you 200mbps w00t!)
Zhadnost
23-12-2008, 09:29
Heres a bookmark for you then mate to get a bit more oomph out of the line
http://www.beforum.co.uk/showthread.php?t=8152
took me from 8meg ish to 13 ish
Sadly, there is nothing in the ring cap socket, and I have got that filter.
The biggest problem is probably the distance from the exchange and that the pair coming into the building shares it's space with another 19 pairs or so (no screening), at least 4 of which have an ADSL service on them.
I wish I lived close enough to my exchange to have the luxury of the choice between adsl and cable, but when I was upgraded to maxdsl my speed maxed out at 512Kbit/s and support told me that with my attenuation that was the best I'd get. That said, my three months of dire cable speed have finally been resolved in time for Christmas, so things are looking up for me.
Good luck with O2.
cook1984
26-12-2008, 13:46
I live 2.2km from the exchange and have Be, but I'm leaving in January.
At first it worked okay at about 12mb/1.2mb, which I would have been happy with since it's a lot better and cheaper than VM's 10 meg service.
After a week or two though I started getting a lot of drop-outs. Spoke to Be technical support who tried all sorts of things but in the end couldn't fix it. It's probably an issue with the line that only BT can fix, but BT only supply a line capable of normal voice use and if you can get broadband too then good for you.
It's a real shame as if I could have kept a reliable 10 meg I would have stuck with it.
Zhadnost
26-12-2008, 16:56
My Be service has suffered from the odd drop out, but mostly the problems with it are periodic packet loss. (which goes unfixed/solved)
Out of 8 ADSL services I've set up (with various providers), none of them have been as stable or reliable as my home cable service.
tsinc80697
10-02-2009, 17:40
was going to get O2 broadband but turns out I cant. After testing the phone number/post code in store, buying a modem I got home to register it. Then it turns out I cant have O2 bb because theres too many users on the exchange or theyre waiting for more unbundled users or something?
Looks like its virgin adsl for me. More expensive and slower speeds :/
Perfect Choice
10-02-2009, 17:47
ADSL2+ only gives me 3.5mb where I live just outside Nottingham, so 10MB as I have with VM (and achieve 9mb+ regular) is a no brainer to me. Everybody's situation is different of course.
chickendippers
10-02-2009, 18:30
tsinc80697 I'd avoid Virgin ADSL to be honest. Just because O2 don't have the capacity, doesn't mean other ADSL2+ suppliers aren't available.
Failing that there are plenty of other DSLMax suppliers out there who are better.
sniper007
10-02-2009, 21:02
Sam knows reckons that:
You are approximately 2.01km from the exchange. Note that this is the straight line distance - the actual cable length will be longer!
So is that good? Bad? Average? I am moving house soon to accross the road so will be the same distance but I obviously have a good chance to leave virgin and try ADSL. To be honest I dont have an issue with cable and could live with the STM if the prices weren't so high. Be looks tempting as it reallyis unlimited for half the cost. I'm paranoid though that if I left virgin and tried ADSL it would get bad speeds. Sam knows, reckons I can get 4mbps, but I dont know how accurate that is or if it could go quicker. My exchange has O2 / BE enabled.
Milambar
10-02-2009, 21:29
I always feel that its a bit inaccurate to compare costs like this.. Comparing costs don't take into account the line installation costs, or the BT line rentals.
When you factor those in, BT Installation - £120 = £10 a month, and £11 a month line rental.. So thats £21 you haven't factored in.. Add that to the cost of the service..
£15 + £21 = £34
Fairly comprable in terms of price point, I'd say. The only time it will be advantageous to move, is if you already have a BT line, and are already paying rental on it.
sniper007
10-02-2009, 21:33
I always feel that its a bit inaccurate to compare costs like this.. Comparing costs don't take into account the line installation costs, or the BT line rentals.
When you factor those in, BT Installation - £120 = £10 a month, and £11 a month line rental.. So thats £21 you haven't factored in.. Add that to the cost of the service..
£15 + £21 = £34
Fairly comprable in terms of price point, I'd say. The only time it will be advantageous to move, is if you already have a BT line, and are already paying rental on it.
Good point and well reminded. I always forget that £11 line rental. The £120 activation I am aware of and this is basically what makes me always end up staying with VM to be honest. Locked in as I'm too tight to pay £120 so someone can click a mouse at BT.
Stabhappy
10-02-2009, 21:44
Err.. Pretty sure they can do it for very little if you refer to it as a 'reconnection' - the £120 is a new line install.
cook1984
10-02-2009, 22:23
When you factor those in, BT Installation - £120 = £10 a month, and £11 a month line rental.. So thats £21 you haven't factored in.. Add that to the cost of the service..
Most people already have a BT line to the building, so re-connection is free.
Also, you can't really include line rental in the cost. VM don't include a free phone line if you have just broadband. Also, I can't have a VM phone line anyway, because they don't support Caller ID in Portsmouth.
I'm basically locked in to VM for broadband and BT for a phone line. There is no competition at all.
Milambar
10-02-2009, 22:34
But there again, you don't need a phoneline to get broadband with VM, whereas with everyone else, a phoneline is needed. Therefore, the cost of line rental should be factored in imho.
As for the free connection, we have a phoneline to this property, it was installed when my mother was alive, less than 4 years ago. Yet BT insist it needs replacing. "Please give us £120 NAO!"
Basically reconnection is only free if you get the right person at the end of the phone. Most will try and tell you it needs replacing, in order to charge you £120.
sniper007
10-02-2009, 22:46
But there again, you don't need a phoneline to get broadband with VM, whereas with everyone else, a phoneline is needed. Therefore, the cost of line rental should be factored in imho.
As for the free connection, we have a phoneline to this property, it was installed when my mother was alive, less than 4 years ago. Yet BT insist it needs replacing. "Please give us £120 NAO!"
Basically reconnection is only free if you get the right person at the end of the phone. Most will try and tell you it needs replacing, in order to charge you £120.
Yep, exactly this. We have one in our house. Was there when we moved in. Always has been there and worked, only we chose NTL at the time for everything so never used it. If I phone now to get it "connected" it's apparently £120.
ofcom need tell VM to Fix there web site as depending on what packages you take the £11 for the phone is charged for or not like 50mb BB the web site says phone+50mb=35 but it is £46 for both (or thats what last customer support sayed it was) but thay are been told by there customer support staff but they will not fix the prices on the web site to show the correct prices
in any case i would not use bt for broadband as its to slow even with the STM on virgin i would always go cable (if i was on 20mb/5mb STM or 50mb)
caller ID is not what i call important as most of us use mobile phones now the phones there now just for spam or bank accounts or other things like that (there is no Caller ID full stop on VM at all) in any case your only getting charged an extra about £5 for not taking an phone with cable (thats the difference for 10mb VM + bt phone)
Stabhappy
11-02-2009, 01:03
It's quite clearly stated on the website that the £35 a month is when you take a virgin phone line for £11 a month.
thetitletrack
11-02-2009, 01:23
This might be a good time to pop into this thread and say that I work for O2 Broadband in Glasgow, I'm part of the Broadband Tech Support team and I've been there for one year.
I'm in 1st Line just now but think that 2nd Line is just around the corner for Glasgow and I'll be moving there.
If anyone has any questions they don't want to post feel free to PM me :-)
yes after it was in all big letters you got to look down the page to find the £11 phone charge but the top of it but its says 35+11=35 (i know what i am doing and i had to ring them up as the offer does not tell the truth)
still if they are saying 35+11 does not make £35 as that is How the web site is showing it does not matter at all if it has an star on it saying now its an extra £11 when the deal says 35, it is £46 in any case it make alot more work for the customer support as once they see the price has jumped £11 on the web site they then have to pester customer services ring them up to ask why its £11 more, be interesting how many users buy services from the web site
in other food for thought some how my 50mb bb ended up been £1 cheaper then 20MB bb total bill
chickendippers
13-02-2009, 13:38
No other ISP includes the price of BT line rental in their pricing, so Virgin Media are only doing the same. This way it's easier to compare the pricing of their broadband products with other ISPs.
However it is a little bit sneaky to list the package as including Phone M, but the big red price doesn't include that. However they aren't doing anything illegal.
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