FireFly

I was a customer for over 6 years but decided that the service I was receiving was no longer worth the premium I was paying. The overall speed I received was good but the price/usage limit and overall service was poor value.

They used to be an excellent ISP when I first joined but over the last few years the service has deteriorated. On most of the occasions that I had to contact them with queries I found their customer service to be poor. It always seemed to be a 'battle' to get problems resolved or answers from them. I once tried to join their support forum but it would not allow you to register, when I asked about this they said there was a problem and didn't know when it would be fixed. The reply seemed as though they didn't care. Also their website had not been updated ever since I joined and was poor, funnily it was updated after I had migrated. It seems from the new site that maybe they are more interested in corporate/business customers.

Since migrating to a new ISP my speed has increased, and overall a much better quality service and I'm paying less with an unlimited usage! I would not recommend FireFly to anyone as there is much better elsewhere.

Pros: good speed
Cons: expensive, poor usage limit, poor customer service

I have been a customer of Firefly for over five years and there is little doubt that they provided a good service initially.

I have seldom needed to contact them, although I did so today after the credit card details they were using for payment had expired. It was no big deal, as I'd received a new one about four months ago. It was clearly an administrative error, but instead of just pointing it out, Firefly threatened to suspend my account in seven days (I wonder how long it would have taken me to find out what had happened if I'd returned from holiday and hadn't been checking my e-mail).

The phone number they supplied wasn't recognised and a second one on their website didn't connect. They ignored an e-mail, but I got through on the second number in the end. I almost wish I hadn't. The man who answered had a Scottish accent, otherwise he could have been Basil Fawlty. He was extremely rude and tried to talk down to me. When I said I was moving my custom elsewhere, he volunteered to send me a MAC. Needless to say, he hasn't but I have.

Don't go or stay with this ISP if you expect to be a valued customer. Only put up with them if you don't mind the odd bit of verbal abuse should things dare to go wrong.

[Edit] To be fair to Firefly, I received a very good e-mail from them, and spoke to an exceptionally pleasant and helpful person on the telephone this morning. It seems the company can be a bit Jeckyll-and-Hydish, which is a pity.

I'm one of the great V21 'unwashed' and decided to try Firefly after reading the reviews. I'm delighted! The connection was seamless and the support is first class. The speed is excellent and consistent. All in all, one happy bunny. Highly recommended! 2010 update. Firefly offered a swap to ADSL2+ for free and at the same price. My speed was a various 4-5mb. Now after some very satisfying customer service I have a consistent 13mb. Bloody marvellous! I've switched to their telephone service which includes line rental. Smooooth service and restored my faith in proper caring companies. Swap, you'd be daft not to....

Rarely have I found the time or felt the inclination to review a service of any kind; however this ISP is undoubtedly the exception to the rule, with friendly efficient staff and a top quality service you will think you have died and gone to ISP heaven – if SKY, BT and other so-called market leaders were even 5% as efficient as Firefly it would be a frosty day in hell...
If it’s fast efficient service you require then Firefly should be your first stop – don’t get fooled by the glitzy promotions on offer by the major market leaders – they will cost you more time, money and frustration in the long run.
With Firefly you can gladly say goodbye to horrifically expensive call centre numbers that keep you on hold for days at a time with no resolve – or surly staff that have more interest in their next lunch break than providing you with helpful communications or god-forbid may actually get your security details correct.
I cannot express enough how gratifying it is to communicate with staff that actually care about the business they work for – something that has unfortunately been lost within the realms of the corporate business world.
Firefly is absolutely superb in every way and in my eyes are the true market leaders!

I've been with firefly for several years now and have always been very happy with the service. It's not the cheapest to be sure, but the customer service is outstanding. It's easy to get through via phone, email or on their support forum to the people running the business and they always take time and trouble to deal with any problems. There aren't many of the latter - occasionally there is a slowdown in the up/download speed or some other minor hiccup, but these have never lasted more than a short time.

I recently moved house and because BT weren't able to tell me what the new phone number would be switching the broadband was problematic, however the firefly bods were very helpful and went out of their way to make sure the transition went smoothly, even providing a freephone dialup number for the period whilst the broadband was being set up (and technically this gap was my fault, or at least BT's) not theirs as I couldn't provide them with the info they needed.

On another occasion since then they have phoned me up to warn me about a spoof phishing email that I'd downloaded, telling me to make sure I didn't click the links in it as it wasn't from them. It looked moderately convincing though I wasn't actually fooled - but someone might have been, so good on firefly for chasing this.

About the only negative thing I would say is that the anti-spam filters aren't as good as they should/could be, so some slip through, though this is much better now than it used to be.

All in all if you want a personal service and good support, and aren't looking for the cheapest deal, I would recommend firefly.