Broadband recommendations?

Tue 16 Oct 2018, 14:55

Have you thought trying aol.Simon? We have used it for years with no problems, which is just as well because I have no idea what all this is about.

Tue 16 Oct 2018, 06:55

Our TalkTalk router dropped out a few months ago. Got stroppy with TalkTalk over the phone. After a short conversation the lady the other end asked if we 'had tried turning it on? Et voila we found for the first time that there is an on/off button on the side of the router - technology not my forte.

Mon 15 Oct 2018, 17:01 (last edited on Mon 15 Oct 2018, 19:32)

Simon,

I connect to the box on Dyers Hill, use Plusnet and get an incoming speed of around 75Mbps. The router resets around once a fortnight. Any problems I have had beyound that (other than line noise) have been on my side of the BT Master Socket. The only resolution is to logically work through your system starting at the Master Socket until you find the gremlin. In your case my money would be on the BT Mesh.

Mon 15 Oct 2018, 16:16

Thanks Huw. I've found the BT Whole Home system pretty good. The app that runs it is friendly; the firmware self-updates and on the whole it's fast and reliable. But of course it's another potential weak link in the chain. Ho hum. I'm starting to wish I'd never asked...

Mon 15 Oct 2018, 12:29

I have an old stone house with walls that are 500mm thick - so wifi does not travel well. I have added two TPlink powerline adapters so I have full speed at corners. The one thing with the TPlink powerline adapters is that they need to be pinged every 10s or so. I have written a simple .bat file that runs in the background and does the trick.

Mon 15 Oct 2018, 11:03 (last edited on Mon 15 Oct 2018, 11:20)

Simon,

my experirnce with BT mesh early this year was very problematic, despite their technical advice team being very knowledgeable and easy to get hold of.
I now use two hard wired wireless access points to get coverage throughout the house. Before that I persevered with BT mesh (early 2018) - at that time there was an inherent problem with the firmware (version 1.02.04 build10) which caused drop out on a regular (daily basis). That issue may have now been resolved, but I found the system at best to be very flakey in its operation. Suffice to say BT refunded the purchase cost in full after 10 months with no questions asked. So I guess I was not the first to exoerience problems

Mon 15 Oct 2018, 10:49

My experience of the BT Hub (2 and 5) is that it conks out and needs to be restarted every 24 hours or so. And the wifi coverage is poor.

Mon 15 Oct 2018, 10:30

Points about the router well taken. I'm using the PlusNet one (aka BT Hub 5 I think), not for wifi but to route to a BT MESH wifi setup. Maybe a dedicated 3rd party router would be the way to go. And maybe it's worth trying the chaps in Sheffield (though my experience with them could also be described as suboptimal...)

Thanks for all the ideas!

Sun 14 Oct 2018, 18:22 (last edited on Sun 14 Oct 2018, 18:23)

Simon, have you contacted Plusnet about the 'dropouts'? I had similar problems about a year ago. Rang and spoke to one of the gentlemen in Sheffield. Result was a new deal and replacement of the Thomson router which I had had for several years. Regardless of Hans comment about 'junk', the new router has given flawless service.

Sun 14 Oct 2018, 17:25 (last edited on Sun 14 Oct 2018, 17:28)

The router comment is also valid. Routers supplied by the ISP is generally junk, I always bin them and install a TPLink. Mine's been rocksolid for 3 years, no glitches, no disconnects. There are of course other good routers out there. Oh if you are on Superfast you need a VDSL router. From the usual suppliers.

Sun 14 Oct 2018, 16:22

Simon,

Two points:

Are your sure that the issues you are experiencing are not router related? The standard Plusnet Router is not the best of routers available on the market.

If you want to try another provider as a "test" to rule out the above use SSE - their service is monthly with not contract commitment.

I think you will find that the comments from Hans are spot on. It is all the same, only the price and ability to contact the provider differs.

Sun 14 Oct 2018, 15:51

It's true that the last few hundred yards (or whatever) are the same whether you have "fibre" or ADSL and that BT provides that to everyone but I can't escape the suspicion that Plusnet, the cheaper cousin of BT, may make more economical use of that service than, say BT itself. I'd rather not be guided in my choice by suspicion though...

Sun 14 Oct 2018, 14:18

The dropouts we experience are quite short - a couple of minutes at most.

Sun 14 Oct 2018, 14:07 (last edited on Sun 14 Oct 2018, 14:52)

That's interesting Hans, thank you. We've always stuck with BT and we have the whole package - telephone, broadband, and TV. We've only had one drop out this year and that was during a storm. Up and running again within 30 minutes.

Sun 14 Oct 2018, 14:00

A couple of points. No-one has fibre to the home in Charlbury, it's fibre to a street cabinet (dark green box, there's one on Dyer's hill). And from there a thin copper wire to your home. BT through Openreach owns the whole network and is responsible for maintenance and repair. Other internet service providers use their network (and pay Openreach for it). So you won't get any difference in uptime and connection speed by changing ISP. When things go wrong the ISP has to call out Openreach (you can't contact Openreach). Some ISPs have appalling customer services. Check Trustpilot. There is nothing technically specific in the internet network in Charlbury, so bad reviews from other locations would be valid here as well. For me, Gigaclear has run a fibre past us and I'm very tempted when they go live, which should be soon.

Sun 14 Oct 2018, 13:18

As I said recently somewhere on this forum, we get a very good service from EE, one of the ISPs that is sometimes vilified for bad service. We do not seem to get the "dropouts" that some complain of, and in the last 6 months I can only remember one occasion where we lost broadband, and a reboot of the router fixed that immediately.
I pay for the 38Mb/s speed and regularly get 37Mb/s when measured at www.speedtest.net/

Sun 14 Oct 2018, 13:14

Are these dropouts in a "high speed" fibre service or ADSL? I seem to remember that on ADSL we didn't get this but perhaps that's just unreliable memory...

Sun 14 Oct 2018, 12:47

Drop-outs seem to correlate roughly with poor weather. I wonder whether the telecoms knitting isn't quite water-tight.

Sun 14 Oct 2018, 12:33

I'm glad you've said that Helen as I was thinking it was just my mother's house that was affected. She's had dropouts for the past year and periods when it's really slow (slower than dial-up), phone co-op don't appear to be able to do anything about it. Before that her house has had a great service from them for the past 10 years or so.

Sun 14 Oct 2018, 12:09

We seem to get a lot more temporary drop outs as well recently - we're with Phone Co-op.

Sun 14 Oct 2018, 11:38

Thanks for this recommendation. My experience with the Plusnet fibre service is that there are mysterious dropouts in the service, often in the afternoon, usually for less than a minute but perhaps several times a week. Also there appear to be contention issues in the evening, e.g. when streaming on the BBC iPlayer. I wonder if this is endemic to Charlbury or if it's a feature of Plusnet. Any thoughts?

Sat 13 Oct 2018, 20:19 (last edited on Sat 13 Oct 2018, 20:22)

I gladly recommend the Phone Co-op too. I've had several accounts with them over some years and have always received excellent service. You get to speak to real people, many of whom are based in Chipping Norton.
As well as being a customer, I am a member of the co-op.
www.thephone.coop/

Sat 13 Oct 2018, 10:26

Simon - try the phone co-op - https://www.thephone.coop/ - based in Chippy no less so a friendly local voice when you call them!

Fri 12 Oct 2018, 12:56

I know this is a recurring issue but with my broadband contract up for renewal I'm keen to leave PlusNet and would welcome recommendations for a good deal in Charlbury. Any ideas?