Alternatives to Virgin Media's 200Mb/s?

MiSJAH · 30 Nov 2018 at 04:43

After consulting the U-Switch site for my postcode BD10 the maximum speed from an alternative provider is 76Mb/s.

Are there any smaller lesser known fibre providers for the Bradford area?

Only thinking of leaving as I started off paying £39 a month less than a year ago and it's been ramped up to £56 with no extra benefits.

Thanks.

Avalon · 30 Nov 2018 at 12:14

So why not renegotiate your deal with them when you renew your contract? The small number of fibre providers we have in the UK are not likely to target areas with existing high speed options unless they have existing infrastructure on your doorstep.

MiSJAH · 30 Nov 2018 at 15:25

Avalon said:
So why not renegotiate your deal with them when you renew your contract? The small number of fibre providers we have in the UK are not likely to target areas with existing high speed options unless they have existing infrastructure on your doorstep.

When rural farmers can get symmetrical gbit broadband provided by a cooperative I wouldn't consider 200Mb/s to be 'high speed'.

But will try and renegotiate with Virgin. Thanks.

ScoTTyBEEE · 30 Nov 2018 at 15:35

MiSJAH said:
When rural farmers can get symmetrical gbit broadband provided by a cooperative I wouldn't consider 200Mb/s to be 'high speed'.

But will try and renegotiate with Virgin. Thanks.

When you can talk your neighbours into rolling their sleeves up and installing fibre you can have anything you want. Until then you’re stuck with buying from someone that’s already done the work.

Avalon · 30 Nov 2018 at 17:32

MiSJAH said:
When rural farmers can get symmetrical gbit broadband provided by a cooperative I wouldn't consider 200Mb/s to be 'high speed'.

But will try and renegotiate with Virgin. Thanks.

Wow, you clearly haven’t grasped how broadband is provided, or the most basic principles of how/why the rural broadband projects operate and are funded. You’re in an FTTC enables area that also has VM and moaning about paying ‘normal’ rates because you haven’t been bothered to renegotiate a contract price.

Try living in the sticks where 512k ‘best effort’ is all you can get and if you complain and have repeated faults, BT or whoever will simply remove the product altogether. That’s why the likes of B4RN exist, they also have the massive advantage of the communities they serve owning/leasing huge chunks of land and not being averse to digging a trench or allowing others to do so on said land. Wayleave is a nightmare in the urban world, chuck in street works permits and in some cases the daily charge, and its horrifically expensive to do even basic construction works (used to deal with wayleave and cons for VM in a former life).

In your case ask for a price on FTTPOD, the rental is usually twice what are complaining about a month in most cases and the build cost is usually in the tens of thousands, or you could just do the sensible thing and take a new contract at current incentive pricing. Either way 200Mbit to the vast majority of the country is ‘high speed’, most can only get up to the 80/20 offered by FTTC and a lot of them will never see anything like those sync speeds in the real world.

MiSJAH · 1 Dec 2018 at 00:42

Avalon said:
Wow, you clearly haven’t grasped how broadband is provided, or the most basic principles of how/why the rural broadband projects operate and are funded.

Obviously not. I look forwards to you sharing your knowledge on the topic.

Avalon said:
You’re in an FTTC enables area that also has VM and moaning about paying ‘normal’ rates because you haven’t been bothered to renegotiate a contract price.

"After consulting the U-Switch site for my postcode BD10 the maximum speed from an alternative provider is 76Mb/s.

Are there any smaller lesser known fibre providers for the Bradford area?

Only thinking of leaving as I started off paying £39 a month less than a year ago and it's been ramped up to £56 with no extra benefits."

Which aspect of my post do you consider moaning?

Avalon said:
Try living in the sticks where 512k ‘best effort’ is all you can get and if you complain and have repeated faults, BT or whoever will simply remove the product altogether.

Who would I want to do that? I have unlimited data tethering for when I'm out in the sticks with around 50Mb/s download speeds.

Avalon said:
That’s why the likes of B4RN exist, they also have the massive advantage of the communities they serve owning/leasing huge chunks of land and not being averse to digging a trench or allowing others to do so on said land. Wayleave is a nightmare in the urban world, chuck in street works permits and in some cases the daily charge, and its horrifically expensive to do even basic construction works (used to deal with wayleave and cons for VM in a former life).

Interesting, thanks for this.

Avalon said:
In your case ask for a price on FTTPOD, the rental is usually twice what are complaining about a month in most cases and the build cost is usually in the tens of thousands, or you could just do the sensible thing and take a new contract at current incentive pricing. Either way 200Mbit to the vast majority of the country is ‘high speed’, most can only get up to the 80/20 offered by FTTC and a lot of them will never see anything like those sync speeds in the real world.

The reason for making the post in the first place was based upon a couple of providers I know of (Hyperoptic - £60pm and Gigaclear - £75pm) offer symmetrical gigabit broadband already in my area but only to multiple occupancy dwellings, so hoped there may be another small company that actually provided gig to a standard house. So the cost for faster broadband is not as you claim double the price but between £4 and £19 per month, for 5 x the download speed and 50 x the upload speed. That's an acceptable cost.

If you could clarify your purpose as to posting in this thread I would appreciate it.

Thanks.

ubern00b · 10 Dec 2018 at 16:42

I think you are being a little obtuse in your replies and what you think you can get. There are no "little known providers", everything other than Virgin is Openreach. Regardless of who they may dress up as. Hyperoptic offer EADs from Openreach for instance.

Call up Virgin and cancel and wait. You will get a drastically reduced offer a couple days before the cut off. It's an unnecessary game that needs to be played but not doing it only does yourself a disservice.

Caged · 10 Dec 2018 at 16:56

You need to ignore every provider serving apartment units as the economic model is entirely different. Hyperoptic's baseline cost just for the fibre that goes into the building is £130.50+VAT per month, excluding backhaul to their network and then actually delivering internet access over it.

r7slayer · 11 Dec 2018 at 08:17

Can you not get FTPoD? Then if you want faster speeds, then pay for it.

Avalon · 11 Dec 2018 at 16:45

r7slayer said:
Can you not get FTPoD? Then if you want faster speeds, then pay for it.

Op is quibbling about a £17/m rise because they chose not to make 1 phone call and take out a new contract, FTTPoD install costs will normally be in the thousands at the low end (even allowing for vouchers) and much more likely to be in the tens of thousands based on what others have been quoted recently.

The point about farmers having gigabit was just them detracting from the choice they made and highlighting a lack of awareness of how those in actual rural areas have to deal with lack of connectivity, as well as being completely irrelevant to the actual issue.

MiSJAH · 11 Dec 2018 at 17:50

Op is quibbling a 30pc price hike.

Call made, resolved to a max dl speed of 350mb/s for £30pm with tv and phone thrown in.

Who'd have known a quick call would have made such a difference.

ubern00b · 11 Dec 2018 at 18:08

MiSJAH said:
Who'd have known a quick call would have made such a difference.

Literally everyone in this thread?

MiSJAH · 11 Dec 2018 at 21:22

ubern00b said:
Literally everyone in this thread?

Awesome, I posted in the right place then.

Thanks

Shawreyboy · 12 Dec 2018 at 13:47

MiSJAH said:
Op is quibbling a 30pc price hike.

Call made, resolved to a max dl speed of 350mb/s for £30pm with tv and phone thrown in.

Who'd have known a quick call would have made such a difference.

Do you not do this with your vehicle/house insurance or any subscription service for that fact? :confused:

I'd have thought its pretty much common place to make a call to the provider if you aren't happy with the price..

Shawrey

MiSJAH · 12 Dec 2018 at 15:12

Shawreyboy said:
Do you not do this with your vehicle/house insurance or any subscription service for that fact? I'd have thought its pretty much common place to make a call to the provider if you aren't happy with the price..

Shawrey

None have have tried to stiff me with a 30pc price hike. That brings it to my attention pretty rapidly. Sub 10pc per year I likely wouldn't notice or be concerned with.

Avalon · 12 Dec 2018 at 16:08

MiSJAH said:
None have have tried to stiff me with a 30pc price hike. That brings it to my attention pretty rapidly. Sub 10pc per year I likely wouldn't notice or be concerned with.

You've got this the wrong way round entirely, they didn't increase your price, they stopped applying a discount for customers who are in contract. £59 is the retail price for the service, you were given a discount as a new customer who took out a contract, when that was due to end you will have been notified via the message on the bottom of your bill and likely a letter/email, you ignored them and continued on a 30 day rolling contract, based on that you paid retail pricing without discount. Many industries do this, TV/telecoms/internet/energy/banking etc.

Also I'm not aware of any company who recognise percentages as a form of payment, as such it's a pretty meaningless comparison.

MiSJAH · 13 Dec 2018 at 06:36

Avalon said:
You've got this the wrong way round entirely, they didn't increase your price, they stopped applying a discount for customers who are in contract. £59 is the retail price for the service, you were given a discount as a new customer who took out a contract, when that was due to end you will have been notified via the message on the bottom of your bill and likely a letter/email, you ignored them and continued on a 30 day rolling contract, based on that you paid retail pricing without discount. Many industries do this, TV/telecoms/internet/energy/banking etc.

That's interesting so VM have been applying a continuous discount to my bill since I had this house built in 2014?

Avalon said:
Also I'm not aware of any company who recognise percentages as a form of payment, as such it's a pretty meaningless comparison.

Increase in prices and remuneration are often measured in percentages, what you may be "aware of" is irrelevant.

What was your intention in making this post?