best internet providers in London, UK

silk186

silk186

[H]ard|Gawd
Joined
Feb 26, 2008
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On Friday I will move into my new flat in England, specifically in the area or Broadway, Ealing. I want to get internet set up as quickly as possible but it seems that England has 14 different providers. I want 30Mb+, what are the good ones and which ones to avoid.
 
I personally use Virgin Media 120Mb service. Personally do recommend this service as the speed is incredible, there is no downtime and the ping is usually under 12ms
The bad points is the customer service isn't the best, personally I have never had any issues but know of friends who have had endless calls going round in circles on the phone. Also if you download over a certain amount during peak hours they throttle your connection. http://www.thinkbroadband.com/news/5895-a-little-less-throttling-from-virgin-media-on-uploads.html Happened many times to me and never really notice it.

But being in a flat you might be limited to ADSL, depends what's installed in the flat or if you can get additional installs approved.
Personally would avoid Sky broadband (ADSL) where they use to go down 2-3 times a day. My experience with Plusnet was horrific where they tried to get more money out of me every month!

ADSL Be Broadband came recommended to me by a few also...
 
I actually had great experience with Sky (ADSL). Now i'm on Claranet business FTTC which is also really good and reasonably priced.
 
Plusnet has been pretty good to me, the real issue is Openworld who just answer to no one. Saying that when my connection went down (a cable wasn't crimped properly in the cabinet, so it was their fault), a good engineer arrived 9am the next day, it's all luck of the draw who turns up. If you're not in a cable area Fibre to the Cabinet is a very good second option!

Surprisingly you may only be able to get ADSL, I have friends who can't get the faster speeds in the capital..

edit: two miles from the exchange:
 
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The only way you'll get 30Mb or more is virginmedia's offerings, you may touch lucky with one of the adsl offerings from sky, plusnet or BT but the absolute Max I've seen from an adsl service is around 22Mb down but barely 1Mb up.

If you are in their service areas, you may be able to get bt infinity (upto 38Mb down and around 10Mb up), or bt infinity 2 (up to 76Mb down and around 20Mb up), can you see how that worked out?

It's advertised as a fibre service but it's not fibre to the home, the last mile or so is good old copper.

Sky also have Sky Fibre, with similar options as the bt infinity.

Unfortunately, they, as far as I am aware, are the only way you'll get 30 Mb or more in the UK.

You could go for a 100/100 leased line, but they're around £700/month with a £900 one-off installation/setup fee. Trust me, I know, I checked for my home address.
 
hmm, my reply disappeared.

I've been doing some reading: BT plusnet and virgin all offer more than 30Mb.

I also read that consumers have a right to ask for a realistic speed estimate for a specific flat and they are legally required to give a reasonably accurate answer.

I guess I will be on the phone for a while.
 
Lol, I highly doubt you'll get anywhere near 30Mb from anything other than virgin media or the fibre options of bt infinity/infinity 2 or Sky fibre.

Just be aware of the 'up to' part of their estimates.

But by all means let us know how it pans out.
 
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