Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
Forced off Virgin - Plusnet or Zen?
I'm pretty much being forced to ditch Virgin as my broadband provider. No complaints (currently) about >150MB download speed, but for the past week I've been getting less then 1MB upload. Needing to shift lots of images around, working with under a meg upload is like asking an athlete to run 400 metres in a long tight skirt.
My first two calls to Virgin to try and resolve this issue were met with "Sorry we don't support upload speeds". When I finally managed to get through to Cardiff, they at least spoke some sense and suggested I need a new router. That arrived today. No change. Now I'm told there's an infrastructure issue which won't be fixed until September.
So what now? I've looked at Zen and Plusnet. There's no doubt that Zen have a better reputation, but they are pricey. If I keep Virgin for my TV, here are the comparative costs for 18 months (Plusnet's minimum contract length):
Virgin (the no-change option) - £1,223.00
Zen (the optimal option) - £1,497.00 (Incl £156.00 set-up)
Plusnet (the cheap option) - £1,048.00*
My question to Harringay is whether Plusnet are good enough that I'd feel good about saving £25 a month over Zen. Or, should I just bite the bullet and get Zen (man)?
*See an update on this figure in my comment below.
Tags for Forum Posts: plusnet, virgin media, zen broadband
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Karen Alexander on
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I'd be interested in others thoughts Hugh. We are have terrible problems with Virgin in that it is constantly dropping out and we have no service. It is truly appalling and we are on the verge of ditching it. No improvement despite numerous calls and visits. The last engineer told us that there are huge problems with the service on the Ladder and they just can't find why or how to fix it. Doesn't give you much hope does it?
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Permalink Reply by Gordon T on
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Zen's technical support is good - they - with Marek - sorted out a strange router settings issue quickly. We only use Zen on ADSL rather than fibre, and I can't recall the last time the service dropped out.
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Permalink Reply by DavidJ on
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I would be interested in alternatives to virgin too. We have had virgin for years but now have e same problems - frequent drops and terrible upload speeds. We had to go out to an internet cafe last night to send a couple of pdf files (less than 2mb).
Not sure where to start . . probably a dumb question but do these alternatives have tv included? its a long time since we worried about ariels.
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Permalink Reply by Hugh on
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No, no tv. My pricing assumes leaving TV with Virgin - and that's priced in to my figures - based on what I got from Virgin.
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Permalink Reply by matthew cuthbert on
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Never the same since they took on Telewest, I'd put my money on Zen, the go to for hosting and buying URL's
Any savings if we shift users in bulk, could we chalk up a hundred potential new users, Telemob?
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Permalink Reply by Martin (Woodside) on
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I wonder how such service can be so problematic?.
From what I know the Virgin (ex-NTL/Telewest) 'service' is coaxial (rather than copper-pair or fibre), they have either overstretched their capacity and/or not willing to upgrade the local network. My personal experience of this company on other products is that I would not use them even if offered for free.
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Permalink Reply by Thandi on
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I would also be interested to find out if others will to be ditching Virgin and where they go. My virgin 60mbps line has practically ground to a halt.
It seems that those other providers don't do fire optic in our area and can't offer any thing like the speeds Virgin is meant to be giving us.
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Both Plusnet and Zen do Fibre optic up to 76MB download with upload speeds claimed at 19MB vs Virgin's 12MB on the 156MB downlaod service (and do we really need 156MB).
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An update on the relative costs. There's also a non-transparent £50 set-up to pay PlusNet. In their "Legal Stuff", they make it clear that the £49 "activation" charge not payable if you take a phone service when you take broadband. However, I was told that "Activation" (basically pressing a button) is different from the "set-up" fee. You also have to pay a £6.00 courier fee to receive the router. So the new figures would read:
Virgin (the no-change option) - £1,223.00
Zen (the optimal option) - £1,497.00 (Incl £156.00 set-up)
Plusnet (the cheap option) - £1,104.00
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We have been using plus net fibre for several years, and it's been pretty reliable & fast. Upload around 15 mbs, download around 49 (from memory, not there at the moment).
The main problem we had was due to a mistake that had been made by BT OpenReach contractor crossing our line in the box on the street (while setting up someone else's line), which had to be corrected by OpenReach.
We have the contract with a phone line, but we get our TV free from freeview....
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Does anyone in the Seven Sisters area (Seaford/ Roslyn road area) have problems with Virgin. I'm considering changing as it's become unreliable and wondered if anyone could recommend alternatives.
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I spoke to Zen this morning.
We would need a telephone line with them, so cost of 76 mb download and 19 up would be £46.99 with phone. Installation cost of about £100.
They did say the speeds would be very good, as we were on top of box.
Now to find out cost of tv only with virgin.
David
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