Post Office Broadband Standard

...I started my contract for Post Office Broadband. My package also includes Post Office Home Phone so the review also includes a few details about the phone line service. The monthly charge for my phone line and broadband is roughly £22 for the whole package. I now see that the same package is available for £19.95. They offer various packages that you can check on their website www.postoffice.co.uk. My package includes monthly phone line rental and ...
...I noticed a leaflet for Post Office Broadband in my local Post Office and decided to give them a call. They said they would only charge me up to £110 for the new line, which meant I would at least be saving £16 on the BT charge. After many letters, phone calls, emails I actually managed to get this refunded six months later. It has to be pointed out here that this problem was caused by BT. Also, if you change providers whilst having a live BT line ... more

I've added an update to the end of this review. See below.

It's been nearly a year now since I started my contract for Post Office Broadband. My package also includes Post Office Home Phone so the review also includes a few details about the phone line service. The monthly charge for my phone line and broadband is roughly £22 for the whole package. I now see that the same package is available for £19.95. They offer various packages that you can check on their website www.postoffice.co.uk. My package includes monthly phone line rental and the broadband service and is a twelve months contract. I knew there were slightly cheaper packages out there but I got tired of looking around and reading so many bad reviews. I'd had previous bad experiences with Tiscali and of course the awful BT - the rip off merchants from hell. I constantly warn friends and family to avoid these companies like the plague. In the end the PO seemed the most convenient option at the time.

Changing Providers

My previous provider was Bulldog and although weary of signing a contract with them due to some initial bad press, my service turned out to be excellent for the first six months. However, they were then taken over by Pipex and my broadband service started to deteriorate considerably. On some occasions I was getting cut off four or five times a day, which isn't very nice when you're in the middle of a poker game and you've got three Aces. I therefore decided to cancel my service and despite various discounts and special offers by their grovelling customer service (as all telecoms and utility companies seem to do nowadays, twisting your arm in order to get you to stay) my contract was terminated in January 2008. I then went for a period of about a month without a landline or Broadband - I felt I needed a break and it would allow me to take some time to shop around. After about a week I had withdrawal systems and realised I simply could no longer live without the internet.

I initially contacted Talk Talk but was told that I would have to have a BT line before I could sign up with them. Apparently with Bulldog I had been taken out the loop (whatever that meant). This was bad news - I would have to return to BT, but there didn't seem much point of going to BT and then going to Talk Talk (in the end I'm glad I avoided them because I've since heard a number of horror stories about their service since), it might have been impossibly anyway because BT tied you down for 12 months contract. I phoned BT who said that, even though I already had a line that was active only a few weeks previously, I would still have to pay £126 because I had left it more than two weeks to make the switch. I was fuming. Unbelievably the sheer hatred I have towards this company went up another level. Apparently this is now the price BT charge for their engineers to call round a flip a switch.

For a while I started to think about wireless mobile broadband but this was a brand new technology at the time and it was impossible to gauge how reliable it would be. Then I noticed a leaflet for Post Office Broadband in my local Post Office and decided to give them a call. They said they would only charge me up to £110 for the new line, which meant I would at least be saving £16 on the BT charge. After many letters, phone calls, emails I actually managed to get this refunded six months later. It has to be pointed out here that this problem was caused by BT. Also, if you change providers whilst having a live BT line you should be able to avoid all this hassle.

The Modem and Switch On

The package includes a free ethernet modem, the necessary cables and two splitters that came in the same box. The modem I received was an Ethernet Net Gear model which I believe is the same one sent to Talk Talk customers. The set up is simple and automatic. Just hook it up and plug it in and it installs itself. There are no CDs involved. The modem arrived well before my start date and when the engineers came round (BT) the switch on went smoothly. When you call to sign up to a contract it will take two weeks for your switch on to take place. I've now been online for nearly 10 months and I've never had a problem with the modem nor been cut off once.

Download Speed and Performance

The only thing I don't like about the modem and software is that you have no idea of your download speed (at least I have never discovered one) nor can you check on the PO website how much of your monthly download allowance you have used. With Bulldog I was able to check on a graph everyday how much I'd used. If you want to test your download speed you can do so at a test site such as www.broadbandwatchdog.co.uk. I know that the download speed for my area is 2Mb - although like most ISPs they misleadingly sell the package as "up tp 8Mb". The performance throughout the year has been satisfactory and I have been getting a constant speed of 2Mb or just under. However, it does seem to have got a bit slower recently... maybe ot's the Christmas rush.

My package allows a 5GB download limit per month which is probably sufficient for most people as long as you don't play online games, download films regularly or wander around Second Life every day. If you exceed it there is an additional charge per GB. I have never exceeded the 5GB total. I used to get by on 2GB per month so I know I'm pretty safe within the limit.

Customer Service

Although they still send me letters with my name spelt incorrectly, I cannot really complain too much about the customer service based in Northern Ireland. Of all the telecoms and utility services I've had confrontations with over the past few years (BT, Scottish Power, British Gas, Tiscali and Onetel to name a few), PO customer service have been quite good. In particular I was able to contact them by email and, for the most part, received quick responses, first by email and later by phone. Phone conversations were always polite, helpful and pleasant. Phone calls are made on an 0845 number, so not too much of a rip off and you won't find yourself talking to someone in Bangalore who can't speak English. There was a problem once with an overcharge on my bill relating to an extra new line charge that I'd never ordered. There was a little bit of a delay and a little bit of hassle, but compared to my past imbroglios with BT and British Gas, it was a walk in the park.

The Bills

The bills are now quarterly and more straightforward than bills from BT. Whereas my BT bill would be 5 pages long, PO manage to keep it down to two. Like BT however, they still list everything with the VAT added on separately. There is absolutely no need to do this for private customers and the only purpose is to keep people confused so that they're unsure exactly how much they're being charged. On the plus side there is no surcharge if you want to pay you bill in cash at the Post Office, this was dropped in September.

The Phone Broadband package includes:

Free connection.
Line rental
Retention of your existing phone number.
Inclusive evening & weekend calls to UK landlines.
Inclusive calls to other Home Phone customers 24/7.
Inclusive weekend calls to UK mobiles.
Inclusive calls to top 20 international destinations.
10% discount when you call any of 10 'Loved Ones'
Free 60 minute calls to 'Loved Ones' on birthdays and Christmas Day

You also get 50Mb of web space but trying to use it is a pretty awful. In my experience whenever you see a provider offering free web space it usually is quite useless.

Conclusion

In terms of reliability my Post Office Broadband package has been excellent, although since I first wrote this review a few weeks ago, on one or two days the connection speed has been really slow. The customer service on the whole has a lot to commend it. All things considered, I would argue that Home phone and Broadband package from the Post Office is certainly worth serious consideration.

UpDate

Almost immediately after publishing this review my broadband service deteriorated considerably. I had noticed my download speed getting slower and I was also beginning to get cut off at regular intervals. I checked all my cables, splitters and my computer by swapping round components and there was no doubt that the problem was not at my end. I waited a few days to see if things returned to normal (I thought maybe BT were doing some work outside), but things just got worse. Normal web pages were loading as if I was on dial-up. I did a test and this confirmed my suspicions - I was getting a download speed of 136Kbs. I had to make the dreaded call to customer services.

I was unhappy that I was put through to India (all previous calls I'd made were put through to Northern Ireland). The advisor was competent however, and I began to explain my problem whilst putting him straight right away and dismissing any patronising suggestions that it might be a problem with my computer etc. I told him straight that the speed was a joke, the problem is either BT or the PO and that I wanted it sorted within 7 days and if it wasn't sorted I'd publish my complaint on seven different major websites. The poor guy was taken aback. He gave me a BT speedtest website and said call back in three days. I reluctantly agreed to do so after further outbursts of rage (although I never swore once and thanked him for his time).

So.. five minutes later I do the test at www.speedtester.bt.com
And guess what? My speed has suddenly shot up from 136kbs to nearly 1.5Mb. A coincidence? No, I don't think so. It's quite obvious that the PO or BT where purposely reducing my download speed gradually little by little to see what they could get away with. I'd been getting the equivalent of a dial-up speed for near on a week and as soon as I made a complaint they turn on the tap.

So beware, Keep a check on your download speed and make sure your ISP is not ripping you off. My contract is up for renewal next month and I shall be contacting PO customer services again to demand compensation for the reduction of my download speed without my permission.

I no longer recommend PO Broadband as clearly they cannot be trusted, hence my rating of four stars is reduced to 1 star. 

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