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28 Reviews
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Posted: 12th Nov, 2015    By: robofw9
Full Star Full Star Full Star Full Star Half Star
I've got their 'supafast' FTTC product. Installation was smooth, they even managed to take over the ex AOL router for the few days before the engineer could call. They are not the cheapest and can't afford the sort of lossleader deals the big boys offer. But the price is fair and includes free international calls which saves my family lots.

Whenever I ring, a human in the Cotswolds answers in 5 rings - and knows what she is talking about.

Only problem so far was BT managing to mess up some cabling at the street box: Phone Coop managed to get Openreach out on a Saturday to fix this.

You can join the coop & so part own the business, but I haven't yet done this.

They do need to redesign their bills: all the detail is there, but very old-school & hard to decode in places.

I'm basically very pleased. Such a relief after AOL torture!


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Posted: 26th Aug, 2015    By: brotherbilbo2
Full Star Full Star Full Star Full Star Full Star
I've been with them a while now and I have line rental, broadband, phone and mobile services with the co-op. I've never had a problem with any of my services (the line speeds are very comparable to my old provider) and whenever I have rung the customer services team they are very polite and helpful. The pricing is very competitive and they are upfront about any other costs - I also appreciate my share of the profits for being a member. I also like that as I member I can have my say in how the business is run so if there were any things I wanted to improve I could talk to people about it at the AGM.

If I had to pick a down side it would be their choice of hold music. Its very repetitive and sticks in your head all day - just as well they always seem to answer in around 20 seconds!

Couldn't recommend them more!

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Posted: 16th Aug, 2015    By: bilbobaggins
Full Star Full Star Empty Star Empty Star Empty Star
I was transferred from Namesco when they 'ported' their whole domestic b/b business 2 years ago. I recently inquired about FTTC and the costs of moving my Master Socket. Their CS couldn't answer - didn't know. They insisted I call BT Openreach, which resulted only in frustration, as BTO would NOT respond to me. They then discovered a minor address mismatch between the 2 databases, but couldn't sort it out even when prompted.

They offered FTTC 'Superfast Broadband' but wouldn't offer a 'line speed estimate'. PlusNet reckon on 9Mbps....

They insisted on sending me an obsolete Technicolor TG582n router ( see router reviews ) and flatly refused my request for a better one from their Business side - which I was happy to pay for.

While I would like to find something positive to say about them now, I'm struggling. Oh...yes...their ADSL product is relatively cheap.

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Posted: 08th Apr, 2015    By: InternetPerson
Full Star Full Star Full Star Full Star Full Star
Been with them for a while now and I would not consider switching away! Five star customer service, reliable connection, ethical company and their new PAYG mobile service is also excellent value.

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Posted: 22nd Jan, 2014    By: bzzzzzdroid
Full Star Full Star Full Star Full Star Full Star
I'm not sure what most people expect from superfast broadband, maybe some people are regularly getting over 25Mbps. Personally I just wanted to have something that wouldn't pause youtube every 30s as it buffered. I usually get 15-20Mbps. It's speed is good.

I can't recall it going down at all over the last 6 months.

I have 40GB limit which I have not gone over.

All in all I am a very happy customer.



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Posted: 18th Jan, 2014    By: ballan07
Full Star Full Star Full Star Full Star Full Star
Early days yet, but after two months on their 'phone and broadband bundle the Phone Co-op have excelled themselves.
Friendly and speedy UK-based Customer Service.
Activation when promised and completely seamless changeover with no downtime noticed.
Estimated download speed 7.6 Meg - actual speed about 9.6 Meg with no great difference at any time of day. Unbelievable - I had to use three checkers to make sure!
Not the cheapest, but very nearly and £5 less than I was paying for a 2 Meg connection with identical telecom services.
Good luck to all at the Phone Co-op...keep up the good work.
It's now 2 1/2 years since my original review. I'm delighted to say that nothing has changed in that time (except for a drop from 4th to 31st in the ratings list and an increase in my download speed to 10-12 Meg) and I still stand by my original comments. Keep up the good work Co-op!

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Posted: 03rd Jul, 2013    By: kansenji
Full Star Full Star Full Star Full Star Full Star
Well my own experience of The Phone Co-op (NOW CALLED "THE CO-OPERATIVE PHONE & BROADBAND") is the exact opposite of a1972980's.

I have so far been with them (phone & broadband package) for nearly two years and things couldn't be much better. My previous two ISPs were AAISP & XILO, so you can see that I demand the very best quality broadband. I was pleasantly surprised to discover that my download speeds (using JD's Auto Speed Tester) are indistinguishable from those of XILO, who provided me with the fastest speeds I'd ever had. That's no surprise really, as XILO & The Phone Co-op both use the I.S.P. MurphX. Of course, the speed you receive is very much down to your telephone exchange set-up, how congested it is at peak times and your distance from it; I am confident though, that no-one else will provide a faster service than The Phone Co-op can.

Migration went smoothly, though communication was by Royal Mail, not email. Set-up was easy using my own router.

UPDATE: Nearly a year ago, my local exchange went LLU when Talk-Talk set up their equipment there. I am now accessing their LLU service via The Co-operative & am very pleased with the much faster download & upload speeds (triple speed downloads & double speed uploads, compared to previously). The speeds are 100% consistent, as they are entirely unaffected by "peak periods", the time of day or the weekends. The changeover was handled expertly by The Co-operative & went very smoothly.

Thieves stole miles of Somerset telephone lines on 25th August 2011, which left much of Somerset & Dorset without broadband for the day. I phoned The Phone Co-op, got an instant reply & they informed me straight away of the BT Outage; so their customer service seems spot-on.

So far, the verdict is: EXCELLENT

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Posted: 06th Apr, 2013    By: runs
Full Star Full Star Empty Star Empty Star Empty Star
I have been with the phonecoop for some time . For the past year my broadband is slowing down with a high snr margin but they refuse to do anything about it that may cost them money.
In fact some (not all) technical support personnel can be very rude over the telephone . The problem I am having now was the same problem I had when I was with Orange broadband who sorted it out by paying for a Bt openreach broadband engineer visit ,which the Coop flatly refuse to do.

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Posted: 02nd Mar, 2013    By: goodlegs
Full Star Half Star Empty Star Empty Star Empty Star
I signed up for broadband with thephone.coop because I wanted to use an ethical supplier. I didn't need the ability to make phone calls, but had to pay line rental as the broadband won't work without it. I was given a start date for the line (which was of no use to me for the reason above, yet I was charged from this date) and a later date for broadband go-live.

I was disappointed that the go-live date was more than 3 weeks after my order was placed. When the go-live date came around, the broadband did not work. It took several days without broadband and several calls to get it working. It didn't help that thephone.coop doesn't have 24 hr support, so if it's not working in the evening or at the weekend you're out of luck until the next working day. If you have to go to work during the day, that's your problem. Support aren't particularly helpful and have to be called multiple times to get anything done.

After about 3 days of this treatment I asked thephone.coop to cancel my service (we're supposed to be able to cancel a telephone contract within 14 days). Here's the clever part, because the go-live date for broadband is 21 days, the 14 day period has already passed, so it's not possible to cancel.

In short:

- go-live date was ages away
- connection go-live took several days to work
- consumer rights removed by being unable to cancel after the go-live date
- very expensive compared to other providers
- don't offer 24 hour support, which makes it worse when the connection isn't working - See more at: http://www.reviewcentre.com/Phone-Companies/The-Phone-Co-op-Telecoms-www-thephone-coop-review_1893317#sthash.kxUVGQmJ.dpuf

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Posted: 05th Nov, 2012    By: Gruntintunz
Full Star Full Star Full Star Full Star Empty Star
Title: Good.
It is with reluctance that i have to leave The Phone Co-op after just over a year. In fact i now wish that i had joined them after leaving Aol, rather than going with BT for three years.

Unfortunately my father died last month, most household bill payments were in his name and now frozen so a new start is needed in the Scorpio time of birth, death and regeneration; ergo some economies are having to be made.
The standard Phone Co-op package costs about £25 a month. I use the telephone as little as possible but the average bill has been the very best part of £30 a month which is no longer affordable. Personally i don't think any ISP needs to charge more than £20 a month for a basic, good strong service. The Phone Co-op gave a generous 40 GB or whatever it's termed allowance per month. I never used more than 4 because of only using this machine for email, 'surfing' and watching a few U tubes.
How people have the inclination to play games, let alone the time to do so is quite beyond me.

Aol years ago just seemed to melt down into a hopeless uncontrollable disaster, took over my machine and tried to preach to me about what i looked at. The Indian call centre had perhaps one gent called Niamet Ullah who actually knew what buttons to push after a month of trying.
British Telecom became extortionists at £38.50 a month for a turgid service with shitdowns and never an appology. The 'helpline' put me straight through to New Delhi (!) where the very nice sounding lady said "oh goodness gracious me, it is your router sir". My local shop who set the tower and screen up said she was talking through the equivalent of a scrotum ! Why this router thing isn't built into the big mostly empty tower box is beyond me. It would save on cables for a start.

So, after all that The Phone Co-op was like a blast of cold fresh air. Their staff speak a very high standard of English in both Oxfordshire and Manchester, helping me set up the Email via Windows 7. They have always been courtious, polite and efficient and really do seem to value new customers. In short i would never rule out going back to them which would be past the event horizon for the megalithic vast companies as prevoiusly slated.

If you want a good reliable ISP for around £30 per month the The Phone co-op in my opinion is amongst the best. There was one shut-down that i can remember and that lasted only an hour and a half, then normal quite fast service was resumed.
Clearly 'Offcom' must look at this issue of telephone line rental. We have all been stiffed with this extortion since Edwardian times and must have paid for the pine poles, terminals and wire at least fifteen hundred times over. If competition won't work for the people then the people must force a total renationilization of what ought to be public services. As a corollary i would add that any big ISPs who operate offshore, are not prepared to pay their staff above the national minimum wage should not be allowed to trade.


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