What would you do?

[Amraam]

I just can't decide which ISP to go for. Currently with Sky 17Mbps at my girlfriend's house (I've moved in about 3 months ago) and the contract is up for renewal. I've never been impressed with them - the CS was poor, we had dropouts, speed was often down to 2Mbps or less.

I was going to go for VM superfast 50, but now the FTTC services that the likes of BT and Plusnet are offering have caught my eye. My local cabinet is ~200m from our house and is FTTC enabled according to the openreach site, however I have no idea if it is vector enabled. 38Mbps is fine for me but I'm concerned that it'll drop over time when more and more people sign up with BT being more and more popular for broadband.

Both VM and BT have plans for gigabit connections in the coming years, and everyone is raving about how VM is going to be amazing when they go to DOCSIS3.1... Are we talking within 5-10 years, or next year? If the latter, would I be best investing in the company that's going to have faster, more reliable connections long term, or just go FTTC now?

VM is more expensive overall but on paper it's faster. BT is technically slower but many are saying that a decent FTTC connection is better than more bandwidth.

Random question, but do any reputable ISPs have affordable FTTH/P services yet?

Thanks!

 

[Amraam]

I've had BT infinity since shortly after it came out and it hasnt dropped in speed at all so i wouldnt worry about that, its still giving me 9-10MB a sec download and about 2-3 up. Your cabinet is a bit further than mine but i cant imagine it would be too much slower. The ping is always good with BT, and the conection is solid but they are pricey. Youll be paying 45 a month for their unlimited package with line rental.

£45? Maybe after the initial 12 months?

Currently, it's £12.50 + £18.99 (or £17.99, I forget which) LR. However I can pay the LR up front for £194.

Which package are you on that gives 10Mbps?

 

[Amraam]

He's talking megabytes.

I think he's on up to 80 megabits down, up to 20 megabits up.

Ah that makes more sense. I didn't pick up on "10MB", not "10Mb".