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Virgin Fibre-optic Broadband

ELO656
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Seems a funny title on an O2 forum, but I have Virgin fibre-optic broadband and yet again they are putting up their prices, significantly more than O2's policy of RPI increases, since being a Virgin customer, the price has increased by over 50% more (that's in just over 2 years...) and they now want to increase by £4.00 per month, which is nearly 10%, just keeps getting more & more expensive.

 

So, my question is if O2 were to provide all my technology needs, running the internet on my laptop and Google Chromebook, would there be sufficient to stream Netflix as well as all internet browsing, what are people's experiences?

 

What would give me the best service, I am currently spending £50.00 a month combined to O2 & Virgin, don't want to spend any more than that, a bit less would be nice.

 

I am a single person household, so only one device is in use at any one time.

 

Thanks in anticipation of replies!

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Anonymous
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I’ve often wondered the same.(single here too) Dump the landline and stick to my mobile.

I don’t think I’d have a problem swapping my iPad for a Note 9 or an S9+ but I’ve got an Echo Plus and I’m not sure  the paltry 30gb hotspot would be enough to run the Echo. Although I could sell the Echo, go back to switching the lights on and off myself & use a Bluetooth speaker for the radio, but that would mean keeping the phone on charge semi permanently... grrr

 

It’s a great question & I’ll be interested to see what people have to say too!

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MI5
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Sadly for me I have to continue paying the rip off prices as my household usage far exceeds anything that any network can offer on a monthly basis, but I sure as hell make sure I get the maximum usage each month.
I have no affiliation whatsoever with O2 or any subsidiary companies. Comments posted are entirely of my own opinion. This is not Customer Service so we are unable to help with account specific issues.

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Pixel 7a (O2 & Lyca), One Plus 6 (Sfr), iPhone 12 Pro Max (Vodafone)
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sheepdog
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I'll pop up and say: dump the landline! With good reason and evidence of my own experiences. My landline provider, TalkTalk, were fine till they decided to put DLM on ADSL lines which screwed up the speed. Went from a quite stable 2.9Mb to 0.6Mb where it has never recovered and paraphrasing from their official speed test "...because the speed is higher than than when we first connected you (0.5Mb) and we've actually increased the speed at the exchange over the years, we're not going to help you get it back. How would you like fibre that may be faster but we're not guaranteeing it?". At the same time I discovered 4G appeared in my area during a power cut....

 

So back to the question:  I've been running off 4G for the last year and I just about hit the 50GB monthly limit on my package. Bear in mind that I usually do 2-3 hours of Netflix at SD per day, I work from home and the connection is active for 8 hours daytime per working week (mostly VPN/remote desktop with encryption going), does the usual app updates on the phone and computer and I browse the internet during the Netflix sessions. So can be actively using 4G from about 9am to midnight some days and to be honest, I was surprised that I never hit 50GB so you may be surprised how little you actually need. 

 

I have an unlocked Huawei Wifi Pro with the ethernet port which is worth seeking out if you have a small network setup though annoyingly, you can't switch off the wifi. The other main advantage is that I can take it with me on work trips without needing to use hotel wifi and less hassle when using a Chromecast. There are other options for a fixed router available which I looked at but the Huawei is that good that its difficult to justify replacing it at this point in time.

 

Also, the reliability has been far better than the landline. Only twice has it dropped the network and one of those times was weather related. Compared to the landline, its outstanding reliability given I work from home.

 

Also I went with Vodafone rather than o2 because a) they had 30 days rolling which o2 didn't have at the time b) o2 was oddly slower on the upload speed than VF yet they share the same mast! I did a test of both networks which was actually worth doing even if it costs initially. The other networks are hopeless where I live so were never in consideration though I would suggest trying the other networks as it may be better where you are at a cheaper cost. 

 

As I still have a landline and want to keep hold of that number for various reasons though it will be predominatly mobile for calls, I'm going to try out VOIP (SIP) this week over 4G and see how that works out before I finally start the process to terminate the landline leaving minimal cost for keeping the landline. 

 

My mobile phone data plan is 6GB and I don't use all of that either so some scope to go cheaper if I need to. 

 

BTW, I tend to get between 10 and 20Mb depending on time of day. More than enough speed!

 

 

 

 

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