housemartin
Casual Member
Hello.
Sorry in advance for the long post but I want to try and explain my dilemma and problems in as much detail as I can.
I would like some advise please. We have not changed ISP's for nearly 20 years as we were with AOL Dial up then moved to Sky Broadband. I am looking to move from our current fttc provider (Sky Broadbroad) to a fttp provider because we have an option of providers to choose from either an altnet, openreach or virgin media. At the moment we are with Sky Broadband and have been paying to much in my opinion for a fair while to stay out of contract. We pay £55 per month for landline anytime calls (Sky talk anytime) and Sky "superfast" Fibre which is fttc but our max speeds for our area are 13mb per second and we get less than that so we are seriously looking at fttp broadband now it is active.
I have enquired about our local altnet ISP provider (lila connect) and they do full 1 GIG up/down for £35 with no in contract price rises and free installation (as a promotion) on a 24 month contract.
As a disclaimer. I am not here to discredit Lilaconnect in anyway I am only here to seek advice and to
air my concerns about what I have read online before I make a decision on tying myself up in a 24 month contract that I might regret at a later date.
I have been doing some research on Lilaconnect and it has raised a few red flags and concerns. There have been many many very poor review of there service including constant downtime and outages including "planned maintenance" and this has been increasing over time. As a disclaimer about there connection outages is information from other users via there reviews and comments I have gathered when doing research online from various places including Lila connects our facebook page, reddit and other review providers. There maybe many lila connect users that do not experience problems so I do not want to discredit the company on certain user review but they do seem consistent over many online platforms. Please see links to reviews bellow.
www.reviews.io
I have read the reviews on Trustpilot but personally I do not trust trustpilot for there reviews and the majority of the reviews for Lilaconnect are about the installation and not the long term experiences of there service.
Another red flag that concerns me that we have personally experienced from Lilaconnect is there aggressive sales tactics. I enquired a few months ago about there service and they asked for a telephone number which I questioned because we are ex-directory and I did not want to give my home number out and I was having problems with my mobile sim card so I gave them my mothers mobile number with her permission and strictly instructed them not to telephone that number which they said was needed for there records only. Since then my mother has been getting frequent calls from lilaconnect sales team trying to push us to have there service. I have constantly ask them not to telephone my mother number and I would contact them when I am ready to sign up with there service but they have ignored my requests. My mother is elderly and she does not need to be constantly harassed by a company pushing there services. This has also been noted on a number of places where people have been leaving reviews. Just to add I have not emailed them to remove my mothers number and I am going to be doing this because then I will have proof in writing that I have resquested this to be done. I understand why they do this though as they are a small altnet provider but it is still rather annoying.
I have asked friends and people local in our street who have had Lila Connect installed for there opinion of the service and they have said how good it is and I must get it installed closely followed with.... if you mention our name and address you can get a free month and we will also get a free month or so subscription. This does not give me much faith in there "honest" opinion of the service they are getting.
The good things I find appealing about Lila connect are the symmetrical down/up speed and the no annual price increases each year and it is a dedicated line from the cabinate to the property. Also the price per month is £35 for a 1 gig connection speed.
My other options are Virgin Media which have universally have had bad reviews so they might not be an option at the moment. Then there is Openreach Fibre provided by Vodafone and other ISPs including Sky who we are with at the moment. I could negotiate a deal with sky for there fibre but I want to use my own router and sky make it difficult to do that with there MER and DHCP Option 61 authentication requirements.
We will be keeping our Landline number because I live at home with my elderly parents and they need the landline because they do not have mobile contracts and are not very technically minded and do not have smart phones so the landline is a must keep option. I will be moving the landline number over to a VOIP provider and this is another reason why I am looking for a stable internet connection and provider because they need the landline for contact from doctors and hospitals because of there ill health.
I want to move away from our current Sky Broadband subscription with slow download and upload speeds and high prices but I do not want to move to an ISP and tie myself into a 24 month contract for a poor service and regret the move for the next 2 years.
So my question is (finally) what would you advise I do considering my thoughts above. Should I take a chance and move to an altnet provider (Lila Connect) and tie myself into a 24 month contract or should I go for one of the bigger providers like vodafone who use the Openreach network and are under ofcom regulations unlike the altnets. This is my quandry and dilema.
Thank you for reading and again sorry for the large post.
Housemartin
Sorry in advance for the long post but I want to try and explain my dilemma and problems in as much detail as I can.
I would like some advise please. We have not changed ISP's for nearly 20 years as we were with AOL Dial up then moved to Sky Broadband. I am looking to move from our current fttc provider (Sky Broadbroad) to a fttp provider because we have an option of providers to choose from either an altnet, openreach or virgin media. At the moment we are with Sky Broadband and have been paying to much in my opinion for a fair while to stay out of contract. We pay £55 per month for landline anytime calls (Sky talk anytime) and Sky "superfast" Fibre which is fttc but our max speeds for our area are 13mb per second and we get less than that so we are seriously looking at fttp broadband now it is active.
I have enquired about our local altnet ISP provider (lila connect) and they do full 1 GIG up/down for £35 with no in contract price rises and free installation (as a promotion) on a 24 month contract.
As a disclaimer. I am not here to discredit Lilaconnect in anyway I am only here to seek advice and to
air my concerns about what I have read online before I make a decision on tying myself up in a 24 month contract that I might regret at a later date.
I have been doing some research on Lilaconnect and it has raised a few red flags and concerns. There have been many many very poor review of there service including constant downtime and outages including "planned maintenance" and this has been increasing over time. As a disclaimer about there connection outages is information from other users via there reviews and comments I have gathered when doing research online from various places including Lila connects our facebook page, reddit and other review providers. There maybe many lila connect users that do not experience problems so I do not want to discredit the company on certain user review but they do seem consistent over many online platforms. Please see links to reviews bellow.
lilaconnect.co.uk Reviews - Read Reviews on Lilaconnect.co.uk Before You Buy | lilaconnect.co.uk
lilaconnect.co.uk has collected 21 reviews with an average score of 1.62
I have read the reviews on Trustpilot but personally I do not trust trustpilot for there reviews and the majority of the reviews for Lilaconnect are about the installation and not the long term experiences of there service.
Another red flag that concerns me that we have personally experienced from Lilaconnect is there aggressive sales tactics. I enquired a few months ago about there service and they asked for a telephone number which I questioned because we are ex-directory and I did not want to give my home number out and I was having problems with my mobile sim card so I gave them my mothers mobile number with her permission and strictly instructed them not to telephone that number which they said was needed for there records only. Since then my mother has been getting frequent calls from lilaconnect sales team trying to push us to have there service. I have constantly ask them not to telephone my mother number and I would contact them when I am ready to sign up with there service but they have ignored my requests. My mother is elderly and she does not need to be constantly harassed by a company pushing there services. This has also been noted on a number of places where people have been leaving reviews. Just to add I have not emailed them to remove my mothers number and I am going to be doing this because then I will have proof in writing that I have resquested this to be done. I understand why they do this though as they are a small altnet provider but it is still rather annoying.
I have asked friends and people local in our street who have had Lila Connect installed for there opinion of the service and they have said how good it is and I must get it installed closely followed with.... if you mention our name and address you can get a free month and we will also get a free month or so subscription. This does not give me much faith in there "honest" opinion of the service they are getting.
The good things I find appealing about Lila connect are the symmetrical down/up speed and the no annual price increases each year and it is a dedicated line from the cabinate to the property. Also the price per month is £35 for a 1 gig connection speed.
My other options are Virgin Media which have universally have had bad reviews so they might not be an option at the moment. Then there is Openreach Fibre provided by Vodafone and other ISPs including Sky who we are with at the moment. I could negotiate a deal with sky for there fibre but I want to use my own router and sky make it difficult to do that with there MER and DHCP Option 61 authentication requirements.
We will be keeping our Landline number because I live at home with my elderly parents and they need the landline because they do not have mobile contracts and are not very technically minded and do not have smart phones so the landline is a must keep option. I will be moving the landline number over to a VOIP provider and this is another reason why I am looking for a stable internet connection and provider because they need the landline for contact from doctors and hospitals because of there ill health.
I want to move away from our current Sky Broadband subscription with slow download and upload speeds and high prices but I do not want to move to an ISP and tie myself into a 24 month contract for a poor service and regret the move for the next 2 years.
So my question is (finally) what would you advise I do considering my thoughts above. Should I take a chance and move to an altnet provider (Lila Connect) and tie myself into a 24 month contract or should I go for one of the bigger providers like vodafone who use the Openreach network and are under ofcom regulations unlike the altnets. This is my quandry and dilema.
Thank you for reading and again sorry for the large post.
Housemartin
Last edited:























