ASDL from Virgin any good?

[DerekRothwell]

Unfortunately, we are about to move house to an area not served by cable.

Having been with NTL/Virgin since the days of the 500 broadband, I have been completely happy with all aspects of NTL/Virgin's services.

I'm loathed to use either Sky or BT, so I was wondering if any of you good folks actually use the National ASDL service, and what are your opinions of it?

Edit: Just seen the thread about the £5 a month increase in price in October - £26 a month for ASDL? me thinks not!

[Peter_]

Use this to find out what is available in your area http://www.samknows.com/broadband/broadband_checker

[Tezcatlipoca]

Why won't you consider Sky? Sky's LLU broadband is excellent - cheap, reliable, and truly unlimited. If not that, consider O2 if you have an O2 mobile or BE if you don't (both use BE, which is owned by O2).

[qasdfdsaq]

And Be is also truly unlimited, and has no traffic shaping or limitations.

[DerekRothwell]

Thanks chaps - I've just heard a lot of bed things about sky - been doing some reading up, and O2 or BE seem to be the ones to have a serious look at

[Tezcatlipoca]

Sky's "Connect" service (for customers whose exchanges haven't been unbundled by Sky) is... not at all well thought of (to put it kindly).

Sky's LLU broadband, however, is excellent. I pay £7.50 per month for the "Unlimited" package, and it truly is unlimited. No usage limits, no FUP limits, no throttling/shaping/management. It costs more if you do not have Sky's "Talk" package* (bringing it to £12.50) or Sky TV (bringing it to £15), but even then it is still very cheap.

*[The free Sky Talk Freetime call package is enough to allow the £7.50 charge, which is all I have so I still get it for £7.50 even though I don't have a paid-for Sky Talk package. Also, from the 1st of September I believe new subscribers need to take out line rental with Sky (£12.25) instead of BT.]

If you're going to be getting Sky TV, due to being unable to get VM TV, and Sky has unbundled your exchange, then I'd give serious consideration to Sky.

If not, then take a good look at O2 ("unlimited", with an FUP with an excessive usage limit) and BE (unlimited, with an FUP, but with no specific excessive usage limit).

[again, assuming they've got an LLU presence in your exchange].


http://www.sky.com/shop/broadband-talk/broadband-options/

http://www.o2.co.uk/broadband

https://www.bethere.co.uk/web/beportal/beunlimited

[Chris]

Unfortunately, we are about to move house to an area not served by cable.

Having been with NTL/Virgin since the days of the 500 broadband, I have been completely happy with all aspects of NTL/Virgin's services.

I'm loathed to use either Sky or BT, so I was wondering if any of you good folks actually use the National ASDL service, and what are your opinions of it?

Edit: Just seen the thread about the £5 a month increase in price in October - £26 a month for ASDL? me thinks not!

It all depends whether your telephone exchange has unbundled services from the likes of Sky, O2 etc. If it does, then you have some genuine choice; if not, then whatever brand you go with, all you're really getting is re-branded BT Wholesale broadband and it's arguable these days whether it's actually worth going with anyone other than BT.

I have just switched to BT from Virgin National ADSL because Virgin tried to hike up my monthly bill by £5. This, I think, was because I was on an old product they no longer sell, whose monthly subscription was actually pretty good value especially with it's lack of any hard download limit. The price I would have ended up paying was much closer to the unlimited ADSL they are selling these days, which is around the £25 mark. Not good for an up to 8Mb service when I can get an unlimited phone calls and broadband bundle direct from BT for about the same price.

I believe Virgin don't offer unbundled ADSL except in a few areas using Cable and Wireless kit so the chances are you are not going to be able to consider Virgin. I certainly wouldn't.

[AbyssUnderground]

Go with BE not O2, O2 have throttling and other silly gimmicks, BE do not. Been with BE for 11 months now and not had a single issue or a single slow down. If you know someone else with BE you can get recommended by them too and get a small discount off your first bill :)