Had a quick chat with man on phone, just asked why i was leaving, told me MAC would be with me soon.
Just have to ring them at least 7 days before the start date of new internet provider.
No incentives made to me to stay with O2, didnt ask for any either.
It's already starting to become this way if you exclude the business/specialist ISPs from the lineup.
Could be worse though. I've read a lot of horror stories from people in the states that are basically stuck with a single ISP. The lack of competition means the prices are through the roof and quality of service is poor. Aside from expensive satellite broadband they basically have no choice but to put up with it.
It could be worse I suppose, but then as I said before, I don't live in another country, so what they do in another country is not my concern.
What concerns me is that we could be stuck with the large Isps and that is it. We already lost so much choice in so many areas, do we really want to lose that choice of ISp or phone providers?
I think four IPSs is a good number, it's all well and good having hundreds of small IPSs but ISPs need to be a good size to be able to invest in their infrastructures. I think the current set-up is quite healthy. And let's not forget that as well as the big four, there are also players on the fringes like Tesco (£2pm unlimited ADSL with £14.90pm landline) who help keep prices reasonable.
At the moment, but how long will they be able to keep going? Even Tescos have their limits and find that they are making the money then they will quit.
TBH, i am not that fussed on any of the larger Isps, they all got issues of some sort.
Smaller ones normally give you better service, but because of BT and their stranglehold on the network, they can't compete.
At the moment, but how long will they be able to keep going? Even Tescos have their limits and find that they are making the money then they will quit.
TBH, i am not that fussed on any of the larger Isps, they all got issues of some sort.
Smaller ones normally give you better service, but because of BT and their stranglehold on the network, they can't compete.
Same with small shops really.
So what do you advocate, dozens of providers offering often nothing more than unreliable/mediocre services? I've been on the internet pretty much from day one and there used to be a load of ISP's that came and went; at least we now have a much smaller core of key providers who overall offer a great service(s) at prices to suit all budgets.
I would imagine Plusnet will get it eventually but it will be on the same terms as the other isp's.
At the moment BT will want to cream as many defectors from other isp's as possible. When uptake has died down and BT feel they have saturated it, then they will wholesale it to make that little extra revenue from it.
It will never be truly free to Plusnet. BT keeps all of it's Usp's to itself and who can blame them?
This part of the article doesn't make sense to me:
It’s worthwhile noting that BE Broadband customers have been allowed to keep their routers, with Sky also suggesting that they’re “working hard” to develop support for third party routers. At present Sky only ships a quite restrictive (locked down) and pre-configured router to their customers, although some people have been able to extract their passwords from older kit in order to use third party hardware.
As far as I'm aware- and there's dozens of posts on it on the Be forums - their routers have to be returned when leaving Be.
They actually charged me £38 approx. for the router when I left them until they realised I had returned mine.
So what do you advocate, dozens of providers offering often nothing more than unreliable/mediocre services? I've been on the internet pretty much from day one and there used to be a load of ISP's that came and went;
Oh yeah, I remember those days, but those was dial up days, so going from one ISp to another was easy and you did not have a contract with most of them. in fact I can't remember having a contract at all for dial up.
at least we now have a much smaller core of key providers who overall offer a great service(s) at prices to suit all budgets.
Depends what you mean by great service? they are all fine until something goes wrong and then the problem starts.
You say at prices to suit all budgets, but if we only had 4-5 providers, do you really think those prices would stay as they are?
You only have to look at sky with their TV service, every year they will add something onto the price, Bt is the same with line rental, but you never get any thing extra, in fact with line rental you now lose something.
I rather have the choice thank you very much, because none of the larger Isps float my boat.
This part of the article doesn't make sense to me:
As far as I'm aware- and there's dozens of posts on it on the Be forums - their routers have to be returned when leaving Be.
They actually charged me £38 approx. for the router when I left them until they realised I had returned mine.
But Be will not exist, so what would they do with all those routers?
sky uses MER to authenticate, which is why most normals routers can't be used with Sky broadband. there are ways around it, btu that depends if you think it is worth the hassle.
Myself, i prefer using my own equipment, which is another reason why i would not go to a Isp that makes that a hassle.
I can't help thinking that anyone who says they are leaving because of Murdoch is being a bit idiotic. Sky isn't owned by Murdoch, its not even owned by News Corpl. News Corp only have a 34% stake in Sky and Murdoch only owns 12% of News Corp. Although that 12% does equate to 40% of the News Copr shares with voting rights.
There are probally people just as repulsive with stakes in the other options that are much larger than murdochs stake in Sky.
The bashing of Sky because of Murdoch is just getting ridicioulous and reeks of people jumping on a misinformed bandwagon just because they think I makes them look trendy.
Sky in my experience provide a high level broadband service that is reliable and fast. There is no download limit, no graffic shaping and no FUP.The only real downside is their router restrictions (which aren't just due to MER as they had them before the switch too) but as someone who works in IT I can understand why they do it because its a lot easier to troubleshoot users issues when they are using set hardware with set firmware on the hardware than a free for all. And with most customers likely to be largely clueless about routers this makes sense as you can't expect your CS to be able to troubleshoot problems when the customer could be using anyone of the thousands of routers on the market. And if you are techs enough to want to deploy your own router then it can be done without too much trouble
Oh yeah, I remember those days, but those was dial up days, so going from one ISp to another was easy and you did not have a contract with most of them. in fact I can't remember having a contract at all for dial up.
Depends what you mean by great service? they are all fine until something goes wrong and then the problem starts.
You say at prices to suit all budgets, but if we only had 4-5 providers, do you really think those prices would stay as they are?
You only have to look at sky with their TV service, every year they will add something onto the price, Bt is the same with line rental, but you never get any thing extra, in fact with line rental you now lose something.
I rather have the choice thank you very much, because none of the larger Isps float my boat.
Prices would stay competative, they would all be after the customer base so I doubt they'd shoot themselves in the foot so to speak.
We all know your dislike of so many things including ISP's so feel free not to mention it again:rolleyes:
Depends what you mean by great service? they are all fine until something goes wrong and then the problem starts.
You say at prices to suit all budgets, but if we only had 4-5 providers, do you really think those prices would stay as they are?
You only have to look at sky with their TV service, every year they will add something onto the price, Bt is the same with line rental, but you never get any thing extra, in fact with line rental you now lose something.
I rather have the choice thank you very much, because none of the larger Isps float my boat.
There are times when lots of small firms are better but ISP's aren't one of them. The infrastructure costs are such that you need economies of scale to make the companies really viable.
You obviously don't want a situation like the TV side where Sky have very little real competition (mainly due to cable being crippled by forcing them all into many small companies rather than having a couple of big ones) but if there's a 4 or 5 options that should be enough to keep things competitive
There are times when lots of small firms are better but ISP's aren't one of them. The infrastructure costs are such that you need economies of scale to make the companies really viable.
You obviously don't want a situation like the TV side where Sky have very little real competition (mainly due to cable being crippled by forcing them all into many small companies rather than having a couple of big ones) but if there's a 4 or 5 options that should be enough to keep things competitive
Three of the best ISPs I have used have been smaller ones, Metronet, they was a fantastic ISp until Plusnet took them over.
ADSL24, another small ISp, great service, it seems like they are being gobbled up now as well.
Allpay, the one I am with now, all three of them certainly knocks the spots off BT, which could not even get me a decent connection.
Bt wholesale is the problem for smaller Isps, this is why I have always said that Bt should be split up and i mean split up , not the swiz we have at the moment.
I can't help thinking that anyone who says they are leaving because of Murdoch is being a bit idiotic. Sky isn't owned by Murdoch, its not even owned by News Corpl. News Corp only have a 34% stake in Sky and Murdoch only owns 12% of News Corp. Although that 12% does equate to 40% of the News Copr shares with voting rights.
There are probally people just as repulsive with stakes in the other options that are much larger than murdochs stake in Sky.
The bashing of Sky because of Murdoch is just getting ridicioulous and reeks of people jumping on a misinformed bandwagon just because they think I makes them look trendy.
People like what they like or don't like what they don't like, just because you don't agree with the reason, don't make it right or wrong.
A few years back before I had sky, some of my reason was because of Murdoch, the other reason was that I was not going to pay for installation. at the time, the only way you could get free installation was to have sky world. then they did a deal with just the basic package and free installation.
i only had sky Tv for 12 months or there about, cancelled it and have never had it since.
Sky in my experience provide a high level broadband service that is reliable and fast. There is no download limit, no graffic shaping and no FUP.The only real downside is their router restrictions (which aren't just due to MER as they had them before the switch too) but as someone who works in IT I can understand why they do it because its a lot easier to troubleshoot users issues when they are using set hardware with set firmware on the hardware than a free for all. And with most customers likely to be largely clueless about routers this makes sense as you can't expect your CS to be able to troubleshoot problems when the customer could be using anyone of the thousands of routers on the market. And if you are techs enough to want to deploy your own router then it can be done without too much trouble
I was given a choice with the ISp I am with now, I could buy a Belking or Netgear from them or get my own. i had my own, but they still helped me set it up
Different scale i know, Sky have a few more users. the problem with a lot of these routers that are given away is that they are built to a price and don't seem to last long and designed to stick out like a sore thumb, but Bt HH3 was better.
We are told not to chuck things away, but if we change ISps we get a new router. Isps should be forced to use the same one, simple as that, make it a standard. i am on about the larger ISPs now.
Would I have sky broadband if I had to change? not sure, but i would certainly give it a thought in front of the other larger ISps.
Three of the best ISPs I have used have been smaller ones, Metronet, they was a fantastic ISp until Plusnet took them over.
ADSL24, another small ISp, great service, it seems like they are being gobbled up now as well.
Allpay, the one I am with now, all three of them certainly knocks the spots off BT, which could not even get me a decent connection.
Bt wholesale is the problem for smaller Isps, this is why I have always said that Bt should be split up and i mean split up , not the swiz we have at the moment.
I didn't however say there wasn't any good smaller ISP, just that its hard for a market of lots of smaller ISP's to be that viable which is one of the main reasons we see them getting snapped up.
If you look at ADSL24 for example. I'm currently on Sky Fibre which gives me 40/10 with no limits, traffic shaping and no FUP for £20 a month. The closest ADSL24 can offer me is the Fibre 30 Pro which is 40/10 but with a monthly limit of 30GB during peak times and that costs £27.90. I doubt that's them being greedy just that being smaller they pay more for things so they have to pass those costs on.
Three of the best ISPs I have used have been smaller ones, Metronet, they was a fantastic ISp until Plusnet took them over.
ADSL24, another small ISp, great service, it seems like they are being gobbled up now as well.
Allpay, the one I am with now, all three of them certainly knocks the spots off BT, which could not even get me a decent connection.
Bt wholesale is the problem for smaller Isps, this is why I have always said that Bt should be split up and i mean split up , not the swiz we have at the moment.
How many wireless providers are there in your area?
I didn't however say there wasn't any good smaller ISP, just that its hard for a market of lots of smaller ISP's to be that viable which is one of the main reasons we see them getting snapped up.
If you look at ADSL24 for example. I'm currently on Sky Fibre which gives me 40/10 with no limits, traffic shaping and no FUP for £20 a month. The closest ADSL24 can offer me is the Fibre 30 Pro which is 40/10 but with a monthly limit of 30GB during peak times and that costs £27.90. I doubt that's them being greedy just that being smaller they pay more for things so they have to pass those costs on.
I agree with you. but something should be done so that smaller providers can compete with the larger ones. It is better with ADSL, I was paying ADSL24 just under £20 a month for up to 24Mb, the fact that I could not get anywhere near that speed was not ADSl24 or Cable and wireless fault and to be fair, the speed i had was faster than what I got using BT equipment.
The few disconnections I had was my own fault, I pushed the system by lowering my SNR too much to get a bit more speed.
So for around £30 a month, including my line rental i had the fastest speed i have evenr had on ADSL.
A mate of mine is with Vivaciti, on the same network, but he lives a lot closer to the exchange than me and gets about 16Mb/s, which he is happy with. He staying as he is, he was thinking of getting fibre from Sky, but now staying on ADSL.
Again he pays £20 a month or just under, line rental is paid for him.
so yes, ADSL and smaller Isps is fine, so they may not be as cheap as Talk Talk, Bt or Sky, if you add all the give aways, but you get a better service in my opinion.
But yes, FTTC is a different thing, if I was going for FTTC, i would have to look at a larger Isp, not that I really want to, but it comes down to money. I have said for ages, I will go to about £30 for broadband and line rental, but no more.
I am under that £30, i really don't see the point in paying more, certainly to a company I don't even like.
So you are paying just under £35 a month with line rental unless you are paying that every year. £5 more give or take a few pence more than what I am paying now.
The problem with these larger ISps is that their customer service is awful, most of them are stuck in another country, with a accent that is difficult to understand and they go through a script and ask you to do the same thing you have already done. I can understand them doing it for people who have no idea what they are doing, but even if you tell them you done what they are telling to do, they ignore you.
sky is slightly better or was slightly better than BT and Talk Talk, but not by much.
The ISP I am with, I phoned to ask why was everything going slow and a that same day I had a phone call from a engineer telling me why. He started off telling me in a way that your normal Joe public would understand, then I said something about the network switch and then he started telling me in a more technical way.
i know it is a little thing, but it matters to me.
I am under that £30, i really don't see the point in paying more, certainly to a company I don't even like.
Do you see the point in paying less for a better service? If you pay just £26.98pm including line rental you can get fast fibre and line rental from a British-based ISP and you won't spend your evenings phoning your provider asking why you're not getting your full 4Mb.
Package: PlusNet essential fibre upto 40Gb use, broadband & inclusive weekend calls. Broadband £15.99pm, line rental £10.99 when paid in advance. (£14.50 when paid monthly meaning £30.49pm)
2013 service awards: Which?, uSwitch, Broadband Genie.
I didn't dare suggest TalkTalk but think they have a comparable package!
But Be will not exist, so what would they do with all those routers?
sky uses MER to authenticate, which is why most normals routers can't be used with Sky broadband. there are ways around it, btu that depends if you think it is worth the hassle.
Myself, i prefer using my own equipment, which is another reason why i would not go to a Isp that makes that a hassle.
In the letter I got from Sky about the changeover it stated that I can keep using my own router (which is a tweaked Netgear).
Comments
Had a quick chat with man on phone, just asked why i was leaving, told me MAC would be with me soon.
Just have to ring them at least 7 days before the start date of new internet provider.
No incentives made to me to stay with O2, didnt ask for any either.
It could be worse I suppose, but then as I said before, I don't live in another country, so what they do in another country is not my concern.
What concerns me is that we could be stuck with the large Isps and that is it. We already lost so much choice in so many areas, do we really want to lose that choice of ISp or phone providers?
At the moment, but how long will they be able to keep going? Even Tescos have their limits and find that they are making the money then they will quit.
TBH, i am not that fussed on any of the larger Isps, they all got issues of some sort.
Smaller ones normally give you better service, but because of BT and their stranglehold on the network, they can't compete.
Same with small shops really.
Do you mean for free?
So what do you advocate, dozens of providers offering often nothing more than unreliable/mediocre services? I've been on the internet pretty much from day one and there used to be a load of ISP's that came and went; at least we now have a much smaller core of key providers who overall offer a great service(s) at prices to suit all budgets.
At the moment BT will want to cream as many defectors from other isp's as possible. When uptake has died down and BT feel they have saturated it, then they will wholesale it to make that little extra revenue from it.
It will never be truly free to Plusnet. BT keeps all of it's Usp's to itself and who can blame them?
This part of the article doesn't make sense to me:
As far as I'm aware- and there's dozens of posts on it on the Be forums - their routers have to be returned when leaving Be.
They actually charged me £38 approx. for the router when I left them until they realised I had returned mine.
Depends what you mean by great service? they are all fine until something goes wrong and then the problem starts.
You say at prices to suit all budgets, but if we only had 4-5 providers, do you really think those prices would stay as they are?
You only have to look at sky with their TV service, every year they will add something onto the price, Bt is the same with line rental, but you never get any thing extra, in fact with line rental you now lose something.
I rather have the choice thank you very much, because none of the larger Isps float my boat.
But Be will not exist, so what would they do with all those routers?
sky uses MER to authenticate, which is why most normals routers can't be used with Sky broadband. there are ways around it, btu that depends if you think it is worth the hassle.
Myself, i prefer using my own equipment, which is another reason why i would not go to a Isp that makes that a hassle.
There are probally people just as repulsive with stakes in the other options that are much larger than murdochs stake in Sky.
The bashing of Sky because of Murdoch is just getting ridicioulous and reeks of people jumping on a misinformed bandwagon just because they think I makes them look trendy.
Sky in my experience provide a high level broadband service that is reliable and fast. There is no download limit, no graffic shaping and no FUP.The only real downside is their router restrictions (which aren't just due to MER as they had them before the switch too) but as someone who works in IT I can understand why they do it because its a lot easier to troubleshoot users issues when they are using set hardware with set firmware on the hardware than a free for all. And with most customers likely to be largely clueless about routers this makes sense as you can't expect your CS to be able to troubleshoot problems when the customer could be using anyone of the thousands of routers on the market. And if you are techs enough to want to deploy your own router then it can be done without too much trouble
Prices would stay competative, they would all be after the customer base so I doubt they'd shoot themselves in the foot so to speak.
We all know your dislike of so many things including ISP's so feel free not to mention it again:rolleyes:
There are times when lots of small firms are better but ISP's aren't one of them. The infrastructure costs are such that you need economies of scale to make the companies really viable.
You obviously don't want a situation like the TV side where Sky have very little real competition (mainly due to cable being crippled by forcing them all into many small companies rather than having a couple of big ones) but if there's a 4 or 5 options that should be enough to keep things competitive
Just like with Sky TV and lets see, Bt line rental and energy companies
So I don't like every single Isps? Pretty difficult, since I have not had or seen every single ISP in operation.
Three of the best ISPs I have used have been smaller ones, Metronet, they was a fantastic ISp until Plusnet took them over.
ADSL24, another small ISp, great service, it seems like they are being gobbled up now as well.
Allpay, the one I am with now, all three of them certainly knocks the spots off BT, which could not even get me a decent connection.
Bt wholesale is the problem for smaller Isps, this is why I have always said that Bt should be split up and i mean split up , not the swiz we have at the moment.
People like what they like or don't like what they don't like, just because you don't agree with the reason, don't make it right or wrong.
A few years back before I had sky, some of my reason was because of Murdoch, the other reason was that I was not going to pay for installation. at the time, the only way you could get free installation was to have sky world. then they did a deal with just the basic package and free installation.
i only had sky Tv for 12 months or there about, cancelled it and have never had it since.
I was given a choice with the ISp I am with now, I could buy a Belking or Netgear from them or get my own. i had my own, but they still helped me set it up
Different scale i know, Sky have a few more users. the problem with a lot of these routers that are given away is that they are built to a price and don't seem to last long and designed to stick out like a sore thumb, but Bt HH3 was better.
We are told not to chuck things away, but if we change ISps we get a new router. Isps should be forced to use the same one, simple as that, make it a standard. i am on about the larger ISPs now.
Would I have sky broadband if I had to change? not sure, but i would certainly give it a thought in front of the other larger ISps.
I didn't however say there wasn't any good smaller ISP, just that its hard for a market of lots of smaller ISP's to be that viable which is one of the main reasons we see them getting snapped up.
If you look at ADSL24 for example. I'm currently on Sky Fibre which gives me 40/10 with no limits, traffic shaping and no FUP for £20 a month. The closest ADSL24 can offer me is the Fibre 30 Pro which is 40/10 but with a monthly limit of 30GB during peak times and that costs £27.90. I doubt that's them being greedy just that being smaller they pay more for things so they have to pass those costs on.
How many wireless providers are there in your area?
One, Allpay, when i said all three, I meant all three of the small ones I have been with. Metronet, ADSL24 and allpay.
I agree with you. but something should be done so that smaller providers can compete with the larger ones. It is better with ADSL, I was paying ADSL24 just under £20 a month for up to 24Mb, the fact that I could not get anywhere near that speed was not ADSl24 or Cable and wireless fault and to be fair, the speed i had was faster than what I got using BT equipment.
The few disconnections I had was my own fault, I pushed the system by lowering my SNR too much to get a bit more speed.
So for around £30 a month, including my line rental i had the fastest speed i have evenr had on ADSL.
A mate of mine is with Vivaciti, on the same network, but he lives a lot closer to the exchange than me and gets about 16Mb/s, which he is happy with. He staying as he is, he was thinking of getting fibre from Sky, but now staying on ADSL.
Again he pays £20 a month or just under, line rental is paid for him.
so yes, ADSL and smaller Isps is fine, so they may not be as cheap as Talk Talk, Bt or Sky, if you add all the give aways, but you get a better service in my opinion.
But yes, FTTC is a different thing, if I was going for FTTC, i would have to look at a larger Isp, not that I really want to, but it comes down to money. I have said for ages, I will go to about £30 for broadband and line rental, but no more.
I am under that £30, i really don't see the point in paying more, certainly to a company I don't even like.
So you are paying just under £35 a month with line rental unless you are paying that every year. £5 more give or take a few pence more than what I am paying now.
The problem with these larger ISps is that their customer service is awful, most of them are stuck in another country, with a accent that is difficult to understand and they go through a script and ask you to do the same thing you have already done. I can understand them doing it for people who have no idea what they are doing, but even if you tell them you done what they are telling to do, they ignore you.
sky is slightly better or was slightly better than BT and Talk Talk, but not by much.
The ISP I am with, I phoned to ask why was everything going slow and a that same day I had a phone call from a engineer telling me why. He started off telling me in a way that your normal Joe public would understand, then I said something about the network switch and then he started telling me in a more technical way.
i know it is a little thing, but it matters to me.
Package: PlusNet essential fibre upto 40Gb use, broadband & inclusive weekend calls. Broadband £15.99pm, line rental £10.99 when paid in advance. (£14.50 when paid monthly meaning £30.49pm)
2013 service awards: Which?, uSwitch, Broadband Genie.
I didn't dare suggest TalkTalk but think they have a comparable package!
In the letter I got from Sky about the changeover it stated that I can keep using my own router (which is a tweaked Netgear).