Be Excellent To Each Other

Help!

Who do I go to for broadband? We're currently with BT, who have been... well. Ok. I could live with continuing to pay them £14.99 a month for 8meg*, but ideally I'd like to pay a bit less and get a slightly more reliably fast line.

SO. Who else could I go with (without jumping through annoying hoops or signing up to anything more than 12 months)? Yes, I've tried all the comparison sites but they're all "Ooooh £4.99 a month!" *click* "Ah, for two months, then it's £189.99 per month for a fixed 200 year term", and I hate them.

I am neither a Virgin or Sky customer, so no joy there.

Alternatively, if I phone up BT and say "we're due to come off our contract next month, I'm off unless you offer me a reduced rate", does anyone have any experience of that approach having gotten them anywhere?



*Up to 8 meg. Depends on distance from exchange and how tired the hamsters running the internets are.

Another strikedown for orange, my ex-flatmate couldn't get the bastards to release their hold on the line for MONTHS after he cancelled with them.

BT tactic should work, imo.

O2 seem ok, especially if you have an O2 mobile.

I'm thinking of changing to them from Zen internet because despite their top notch customer service (they really can't be faulted on that) I feel like I'm paying rather too much.

I've seen lots of positives for O2, and it's £7.50 for customers, but I'm not one, and can't be bothered to remember to top up an O2 phone with a tenner every couple of months to remain eligible. And the £12.50 for non-customers doesn't seem a big enough drop for the time we'd be spending trying to make sure the transfer happened properly...

I shall avoid Orange though, thanks all.

Don't they also offer ADSL2? Should be faster than your current connection as well as cheaper.

O2 is a rebadged Be wherever that's available and Be are the best thing ever.

I've heard good things about Be, but they're only 99p a month cheaper than BT, and I'm not sure that's worth the hassle.

Maybe I should bite the bullet and get an O2 PAYG phone and get O2/BE broadband for cheap. Problem is I'll forget to top up as I use my work phone for everything. GAH.

I just phoned Zen to ask for my MAC code, I felt really bad, Zen have always been excellent but they're too expensive and I can't turn down the speeds (especially upstream as I work from home) of ADSL2. I think they must be losing out a lot to the ADSL2 thing, she didn't even ask why I was leaving just sounded a bit sad