Openreach are delivering FTTP and tell us our new broadband speed, when connected, will be 1Gb/s down and 220Mb/s upload (depending on which tariff and which ISP we go with, obviously).
Well, this needs a spreadsheet, I thought to myself, and fired up the trusty Excel.
We currently pay TalkTalk £34.95 for their 125Mb/s down and 25Mb/s up, delivered over copper, which is what they give us.
So, not needing to go mental, because 125 down and 25 up is good enough for us, I thought I’d do a cost comparison.
At the top of the cost-saving list is Plusnet’s 500 package. They’re offering us an average of 500Mb/s down with a guaranteed minimum of 275Mb down and 75Mb up – for £31.99 and that’s a saving of £2.96/month.
There are a whole bunch of other packages on offer from these – and many other – ISPs but we don’t really need to pay for more speed, this was only a cost-comparison. Is it going to be worth the hassle of switching ISPs for £2.96? Hmmm. But the extra bandwidth…
If it were a speed-driven purchase, we’d go straight to Plusnet for their 900Mb/s download at £39.99/month and that’s only £5.04/month more than we currently pay. Hmmm.
I left VirginMedia a few months back… nowt wrong with the service, just too costly.
I’ve gone with a small ISP based not too far away from us.
Openreach did a good job of installing the fibre and the new TP-Link router that the ISP provided is far superior to the old VM Hub – the WiFi works so well that I have removed the plug-in extender that we used to need upstairs.
My broadband speed is twice as fast as it used to be and I am paying half the price that I was.
And it’s solid as a rock too – not noticed any downtime yet.
Very happy. Should have done it years ago.
Well, I’ve pushed the button and we’re on our way. I decided to go with Plusnet for their 500Mb/s service which they’ll give us for less than we’re paying to TalkTalk for their 150Mb/s service. The most impressive thing so far is Plusnet’s “taking over” comms – we’ve been on the receiving end of some excellently-worded, clearly concise email which has told us what’s what and when things will happen. The least impressive thing has been TalkTalk sending me a ‘sorry you’re leaving’ email in which they say they’re going to charge us £86.18 for breaking our contract. Reader, we are not in contract, that expired almost a year ago. Ah well, we shall see what we shall see.
We use Plusnet and it has been very reliable (I bet that has just jinxed it).