Which (Android) Tablet

[gunwharfman]

I've just had a look at the Virgin site, they want £35 a month for 'broadband only' so it's not worth it to me at all! I am confused though because they claim it via fibre, is cable fibre???

As I understand it, my present TalkTalk set up is fibre to the box outside our house on the other side of the road, then its a copper length into our house. We have cable just outside our front door and if 'cable' is actually 'fibre' does that mean the cabel/fibre comes directly into our house and so bypasses the copper bit completely?

[vghikers]

...so what are ZEN offering for me to want to part with an extra £8? I note that they claim that the monthly cost will not up whilst a customer is with them and yet they state that its a 12-month contract? So does that mean that when the contract runs out the cost will be the same?

They offer quality of service and support, plus technical control for the customer.
Off and on, I've been following the broadband situation for over 15 years since the time I was involved in getting ADSL for our village. Zen have always been at, or very near, the top of the list for service and support.
For support, instead of getting a barely intelligible script-follower in India, you get technical people in Britain who know what they are talking about.
For service, they guarantee no disadvantageous traffic shaping or throttling, not offered by the cheapies.

It's a 12-month contract because their prices are set under that assumption, a shorter term wouldn't be worthwhile unless the price were higher. The guarantee of no increase does mean that it won't go up afterwards, it just might even come down after a while.

Unlike the cheapies and big popular incumbents, the customer has more technical control and options for the connection - probably of no interest to you but important to me, e.g, I'm not restricted in how I set up the router. I can use my own or their supplied one (many ISPs supply locked-down routers). They don't block ports, so I can run a private server from a computer on my desk hosting a hidden website on a port of my choice.

Also remember Talk-talk has - or certainly had - atrocious security, two major breaches in a year. Security costs money and they won't invest in it!.

We've been with Eclipse for 15 years, the domestic division of KCom, now vanished from their official website but still ticking over in the background. They have been excellent, offering the same advantages as Zen but now essentially business-oriented. We are upgrading from ADSL2 and Zen offers much better prices for FTTC.

As I understand it, my present TalkTalk set up is fibre to the box outside our house on the other side of the road, then its a copper length into our house. We have cable just outside our front door and if 'cable' is actually 'fibre' does that mean the cabel/fibre comes directly into our house and so bypasses the copper bit completely?

That is FTTC - Fibre To The Cabinet, that's what we'll be getting. Fibre optic to the street cabinet then copper for the last bit into the house.
I don't know much about Virgin Media, but judging by their advertized max speeds, it must be fibre optic all the way into your house. They won't install here, that's for sure 
The equivalent in the absence of VM is FTTP - Fibre To The Premises, I'm not holding my breath despite Boris...

[gunwharfman]

Thanks for that, all very useful information. I accept that people have different needs and wants so in my case, 'quality of service' are words which I don't know what they mean and the word 'support' as well, is that different to quality of service? The word 'technical' means something to me but in all of the years I've had the internet I can only remember my system going wrong once and that was in the very early days when I was really green and knew nothing. I've had contracts with Virgin, Plusnet, TalkTalk and others over the years, sometimes like TalkTalk I've signed up to them more than once. I've had a few twiddly problems here and there but I know now how to fix them so my number one priority is how much does it cost per month!

I became interested in Zen when I read that they offered broadband only, I naively thought at the time the signal might come through our estates' cable system but obviously it doesn't. I would definitely sign up with them if the price was right, I'll decide soon when my TalkTalk contract runs out.

I have talked to English speaking people who sound as if they either still live or originated from India but my queries have usually been about billing, etc, not about technical failures. I can't say that I have ever talked to a barely intelligible script-follower in India though, but I once spoke to a lady from a call centre in Nova Scotia over a year ago, her local accent for me was really unintelligible, I had to ask her over and over again to repeat or even spell some words. I learned from her that her accent is the coming together of Scottish and Irish accents from immigration well over 100 years ago.

As stated I know very little about the technicalities of broadband and even less so about how a router works so you lost me when I got to 'I'm not restricted in how I set up a router' and on to the end of that paragraph.

I'll be moving on from TalkTalk soon, I always change after one year and sign up as a new customer with someone else to keep my costs down.

You are right about Virgin, I checked earlier, signing up to them offers me fibre optic all the way into our house and yes our present set up with TalkTalk is fibre optic to the street cabinet then copper for the last bit into the house.

Thank you again for the information, I now feel I'm more knowledgable about a few things which I didn't know before.