A systematic approach to choosing phone and broadband suppliers

I am reviewing my phone and broadband options. I have looked through Askaboutmoney and boards.ie. I have also Googled it.

After around 2 hours, I am no wiser. As a result, I will probably just stay where I am with eircom.

Would anyone like to have a go at a systematic Key Post in the area?

I tried to develop a decision tree along the following lines but became unstuck due to lack of knowledge and complexity:

Step 1
Exclude the companies with appalling customer service or unreliable connections:
NTL/UPC/Chorus
UTV Internet
Irish Broadband

(The more I read, every supplier seemed to have problems. But these three seemed to stick out)

If you have a landline, this is probably the most reliable, so exclude any mobile or satellite services.


If you already have a land line

(To further simplify it, I would limit this particular post to Dublin region only. We could do other areas later)

eircom
BT
Magnet
etc

Factors
Customer Service (having excluded appalling ones already)
Line reliability
Speed required
Price

Considerations
Consider using same supplier as phone line - one stop shop for problems
Maybe you should review your phone supplier at the same time (This is where I gave up and said I would stick with eircom!)
If you don't have a landline ...

Options:
1) Get a landline and broadband together
2) Get mobile or satellite broadband

As a long time basher of NTL/UPC/Chorus I have to reluctantly admit that imo the cutomer service levels have improved and the reliability of their cable broadband service is second to none. I've been using it for approx. 2 years now (20MB) and have called them twice with issues in that time.

I'm looking at dropping my second BT landline and bundling my broadband/TV with their phone offering now.

I'm not quite a satisfied customer but from my perspective I see huge improvements.

www.callcosts.ie may help.

UTV had regular outages in the past due to a recurring issue (dead DNS server) but this seems to be resolved and I can't remember the last time I had an outage. Their CS seems fine to me. No personal experience of NTL broadband but my impression from friends is that things are much improved.

Have BT resolved their billing issues (inherited from ESAT)? CS usefulness seemed to depend on which call centre you got (Belfast, England or India).

Another factor is perhaps stability / solvency of the company. If an offer is significantly better than the competition it may not be sustainable. I'd prefer to pay a bit more and be reasonably confident the company wouldn't go under leaving me without phone / broadband for days or weeks (I am thinking of one provider in particular here.).

Hi Bren, I make this an annual job to review whats out there.

NTL cheapest, best service, largest MB offering, if you can get them theyre not available everywhere.

For landline, I use BT unbundled BB and phone because I make very few phone calls. They are the cheapest if you want to go this way. For bundles , theres little difference between BT, Eircom, Imagine, Perlico and the rest. Maybe 1 or 2 e a month and it depends on your call habits.

After that, it depends on service. I cant comment on the others but BT seem to have their accounts sorted, at least I havent had any issues in last 12 months. Think Ive only had like 1 drop in last 2 years as well. Easy to contact if you know when to get them ( pre 10am).

I know a few people with 3 cards, all say that service is awful from customer service to connection strength so avoid if possible.

If youre with eircom and wanted to move to the others to save 1-2 e a month, balance moving against any set up costs and how long it would take to recoup.

Folks

I am not asking for recommendations in this thread. There are plenty of recommendations and anecdotes on Askaboutmoney and elsewhere.

I am asking if anyone would like to do a Key Post on the topic which would deal with it on a systematic basis.

Brendan

If there is any one supplier who provides rock-solid reliable broadband and decent customer service to all their customers, I have not heard of them. Acquiring a new broadband service is a risk. Find out how reliable the service is in your area, and accept that it is a speculative investment. If possible don't abandon your old service until the new one is working. In particular, don't assume that features needing particular qualities of service like VoIP will work. In fact, don't even assume that basic characteristics like "always on" will work. Broadband reliability in this country is just plain poor. I base this on my own experience of multiple broadband services (including fixed line ADSL, wireless, 3G cellular and satellite) in multiple locations, and anecdotal reports of colleagues and acquaintances. Not to be too negative -- I have one broadband service which works very reliably for me, and would be very reluctant to change in spite of being overpriced and bad technical support. (I have another on which I pray for the day when an alternative comes along so I can tell the supplier to shove his overpriced only-sometimes-working load of rubbish).

Sorry -- the point of what turned into my rant above is that I am not sure that a systematic treatment of the subject is possible. There is too much variability in the quality of each supplier's offerings.

dub

Rant or no rant, that is a very useful post.

I would go further "if you current system works, stick with it"

The for me is critical. NTL works for CAR and probably 70% of its customers. It's the unfortunate 30% whom they won't even answer the phone to I would be more concerned about.

I also like the "don't assume particular features will work" .

A systematic post should have a checklist of features.

Brendan

Brendan - I think you are a bit over the top when you suggest that the first step is to exclude 3 providers - because of "appallling customer service or unreliable connections" . Fair enough if you have been on the recieving end of this - tell us about it. But suggesting we all don't even consider them because of a few bad comments on forums might be a bit extreme?

I don't have much faith in... "If someone posted it on the Internet it must be right!" Theres a lot of cranks on the web with anecdotal stories a lot of them from experience a few years back that are probably not valid now. Do a proper survey based on valid test criteria now.

For example if your landline fails the test for broadband, how can you get it fixed, or find out what exactly the problem is. You can't. So people end up with broadband not though choice but because theres no choice. Also what is acceptable for one person, (for browsing) might not be acceptable for the next (gaming or VOIP).

It's even worse than that. What's acceptable one minute may not be the next. I have a wireless broadband service which the supplier specifically advertises as "excellent for VoIP". And so it is ... about 30% of the time. Another 60% of the time the jitter is too high. And the remaining 10% of the time, the connection is out altogether. The symptoms do not smack of high contention, nor do they remotely correlate to times when you would expect heavy load. I sent the supplier detailed measurements of the connection quality, taken continuously over a period of a month. When they took no action I stopped paying them. Eventually, instead of fixing the problem they said I had to decide whether their service was "suitable for me". That left me with a choice of going back to satellite at three times the price and a fraction of the speed (but rock-solidly reliable) or sticking with them. I picked the latter (but had to get a backup 3G connection to cover the first supplier's outages, adding 50% to monthly costs). :mad:

Folks

These anecdotes are interesting. Why not publish them on so that a more consistent pattern emerges.

Brendan

Hadn't seen it before. Could be an interesting site if it attracts more reviews. My ISP isn't on the list and I can't see how to add one. It doesn't seem to care about the host of regional wireless providers, which my problem ISP is one of.

dub_nerd said:

Hadn't seen it before. Could be an interesting site if it attracts more reviews. My ISP isn't on the list and I can't see how to add one. It doesn't seem to care about the host of regional wireless providers, which my problem ISP is one of.

Click to expand...

Hi, thanks for the interest in ratemyisp.ie . I just joined the forum to reply. I'm happy to add more providers to the site on request, which one would you like me to add? I have a message about adding ones on my about page - but yeah it could be more obvious. I'll do a bit of an overhaul of the site when I get a chance, based on various feedback I've got.

For the record I'm no broadband expert. On the contrary, one of the reasons I built the site, was to decide on my next broadband. When I first looked into it, I couldn't believe just how many ISPs there are. I found a huge unwieldy list - so decided to start with the top ten (I've since added two on request.)

Best regards
J.

Thanks jbraine -- I have mailed you at the address on your site with my provider's name. (My other provider that is ... I also added my rating for Eircom).