Following the massive success of our appeal for Virgin Media reviews, we figured we’d ask for your experiences with UK Online broadband. We’ve just re-listed the ISP, but we don’t currently know anything about what experiences people have had with UK Online.
They’ve got a nice array of broadband packages, including a 22Mb broadband offering (although not many people seem to be able to get this!), and you get (allegedly) unlimited downloads, plus better contention ratio and upload speeds, but - the question is - is UK Online actually any good? Would you recommend UK Online??
Please let us know! Either comment below, or add your review to our UK Online listing.
I have been with UKOnline for just over 2 years, first the 1MB service, quickly followed by the 2MB service. At this point I had no complaints and would have recommended them without a second thought.
We have recently upgraded to the 8MB service, which is actually only 6MB at best. Our initial confirmation stated that we would only have 10 minutes downtime, 51 hours later, we were still not back online. After numerous calls to technical support who blamed BT for working on the exchange, I called BT who confirmed that there were no issues on my broadband line & no work being done on the exchange. I was then told that there must be a fault on my line as there was a lot of interference, so I should change my filters and report a fault by calling BT on 151.
Several hours later we eventually got through to someone who informed me we had been assigned a static IP and that all the settings had to be changed, didn’t take 2 minutes and we were back online. UKOnline’s website states very clearly that they don’t do static IPs!
We noticed that after 5pm our speed was dropping to the point were we couldn’t even load our Hotmail inbox, so we called tech support again. Excuses this time - you have a virus (NO), other people are leeching your connection as your router isn’t secure (NO), defrag your computer (ALREADY DONE), clear your cache (ALREADY DONE), erm, erm, I don’t know!
Second level support tinkered around with the router settings which then stopped responding at which point they told me to contact the router manufacturer. Router manufacturer tells me that UKOnline should not have messed around with the internal settings and that I should call them back as they declared the router dead!
Although UKOnline promised a new router would be sent, I am still waiting, I had to go and buy a new one myself, they wouldn’t even help me set up the new product, I had to insist that they give me details on my internet settings. They did offer me a freephone dial-up, after 2 hours on the phone they couldn’t even get that to work!
Needless to say I have asked for my MAC code, but will it be out of the frying pan & into the fire?
My verdict - Although the prices are relatively cheap, the service is dire, tech support are less than useless, and they play the blame game to a tee - it’s never their fault it’s always you, BT, the weather, your phoneline, the list goes on.
It is my belief that the name UKOnline should be changed under the trades descriptions act to UKOffline!
PS My mum has just upgraded with UKOffline from 1MB to 2MB and had exactly the same issues, they didn’t know what the problem was, she had to tell them from my experience! Waste of space, wide bearth, don’t touch it with someone else’s and other similar cliches spring to mind!
Quick Update on my review - just done a speed test on this site - the result is 136.8 Kb - supposed to be on 8MB!
Got my MAC code!
i was with them on there 22meg broadband service and moved to BE. the reason was because of there customer service at ukonline it was very poor. having down times of anything for 24 hrs upto 3 days and having nothing done about it getting told to do things over and over i wasnt happy. they said its something on your computer thats causeing the problem. thing is tho my pc was new and only just been upgraded as my older system wasnt up to it so i desided to go out and upgrade to a newer system.
After days on end of going around and around getting nowhere fast i desided to call it a day with UK online and take things to ofcom because nothing was been done about it after i contacted ofcom. They gave me the option.
1 file a complaint
2 tell ukoneline you are gonig to contact ofcom if nothing is going to be done about it.
So i took option 2 after 30min of talking to someone they desided to put me through to a manager and thing got sorted out.
I was credited 3months to my account and in the end desided to cancle my contract with them even tho i had 4month to go on it because of the problems and hasle that was cause they ended the contract and didnt charge me for the early end due to the prob’s.
Now i am with Be on there 24meg service getting around 18meg down and 1.2meg up. Had 1 or 2 problems with them but the problems have been sorted out in less than 15min or less. Think i am going to stick to Be Broadband till something comes out thats prob’s faster and cheaper. But Be has plans of upgrading soon so i dowt i will be moveing isp unless something realy bad happens.
I have been with UKOnline for about 18months on the 2Mb connection.
Until the beginning of this year I would highly recommend them as my connection had been very stable and to its max for over a year.
However, in the last 3 or 4 months my connection drops repeatedly. This occurs usually around 8:30pm to 11pm. I am literally disconnected every 15 minutes, sometimes more.
As a person who uses the internet solely for online gaming, this frequent disconnect is just unnacceptable.
I have already sourced a new provider and will be switching as soon as possible.
I have been with UKOnline for almost 2years first on their
2meg connection and now on their 8Meg connecting, and
repetitively have the connection drop out throughout the day.
My other half works from home and needs a reliable connection
and she says that it can drop out around 20time a day!
This Sunday I kept an eye on the connection and for 2 hrs
the connection would drop….re-connect…. then drop out
straight away…then stay up for 15 mins then drop out again.
A while ago I spent about 2months trying to get them to sort out the
problem which never got sorted after them widening the margins etc..
And they gave the excuse that in the morning and evenings we could
expect to have the connection drop out due to the fact that these were
popular times of the day for most people to used the internet.
So for them to say this it makes me think why are they offering
a service that they cant maintain and give a good level of connection,
as other providers can manage to do so, with a lot of customers.
They must realise that people need the internet connection to be
stable, otherwise what’s the point of having broadband if you can only
use it for a few minutes each time!?!
So I just gave up as it was starting to get really frustrating.
The only reason I am still with them is only because I will be
moving house soon, and its more hassle than its worth changing
before hand.
But as soon as I am in my new house I will be choosing
a new provider that wont have the massive connection
dropouts that UKonline have. As this is totally unacceptable.
I think I may try “Be Unlimited” for my next provider as they support
24meg Download and 1.3meg upload ! Lets hope that they are more
reliable than UKOnline, well it cant be that hard to be better can it
I too have the “22Mb” service from UKOnline - well that’s what I pay for. What I get is somewhere between 10Mb and 12Mb. Rubbish.
Then there’s the dropouts. The dropouts that UKOnline blame on everyone but themselves. Every day I have to reboot the router because that’s the only way that you can restore connection. Forced to accept the seemingly buggy Netgear DG834GT (Google “DG834GT Dropped Connections” and see what I mean), a combination of them and incapable support staff at UKOnline mean a wholly dissatisfactory experience.
I therefore cannot recommend UKOnline for anything. Their service is rubbish and their speed is half what they sold me.
What more can I say, apart from avoid…
I too am having the same connection troubles as many of the people above. Every hour or so it goes so slowly that it literally is slower than dialup. It took me 15 seconds to load the google.com homepage. This is really frustrating as I am paying £20 per month for this connection. I’ve had a similar experience with Tiscali as well.
I have stuck with the cheap 1meg service - which too has the drop out problem now and again. It is a waste of time talking to the so called ‘tech staff’ I have them say things like ‘oh sorry I am not trained on the wireless router you are using’ (the one they actually sold me when I connected - unbelievable!)
When you do actually get through to them I think they have a script in front of them :
1 ‘Tell them its their computer
2 ‘ Its BT
3 ‘ Its you line
4 ‘ Make them go through the set up routine again
5 ‘ Ask them to hold while you talk to an engineer
6 ‘ Blah Blah Blah
If you can put up with the poor service it may be worth it otherwise try some other isp.
The choice is yours!
I’ve been with ukonline for about 2 years my main complaint is the connection dropping sometimes every 2 or 3 mins for 4 or 5 hours. This can happen once or twice a month. I’ve done all the usual things to find the problem but have come to the conclusion that its ukonlines fault. They have often been offline themselves for many hours, having tech problems. Their tect staff are very poor I mostly find I know more than they do, badly trained I suspect and from what they say nobody gives a shit at ukonline since they got taken over by sky. I only stay with them because my bill is paid by my boss. I would not recommend then unless they take more care and notice of their customers problems.
I have to say I have been with UKonline for the last 2 years and never had any problems. The connection has dropped out occassionally but only for a few seconds at a time. I was on the 2mg service and there were 3 of us using it in the house fairly heavily. We had a Netgear DG834G 54Mbps Wireless router which always worked well.
I have just moved and have decided to have a look at other offers out there. I am torn between staying with UKonline and trying out BE as they have had some great reviews, faster download speeds and I won’t need to buy a router. I went to UK online because of a personal recommendation and I can certainly recommend them to others.
Have been with UKONLINE for a number of years. They were incompetant initially setting up the connection, and I was off line for almost a month and a half. After that I had no problems until I migrated to 22mb. Ever since then the connection is perpetually dropping and I have to reboot the router multiple times a day.( I have tried a number of different routers too without any difference). The customer service is abysmal, and you will regularly hold for at least an hour or more if you are lucky. When you get through to customer service (even level 2 or 3 )they are pretty clueless too, blaming everyone and everything but themselves. When connected if I get download speed of 11 MB im lucky, and I live under 1 km from the exchange. I would not recommend them, and am looking for a suitable alternative.
And I ALMOST believed the excuses coming out of UKOnline…
I now read from those that have gone before me that it’s not:
My computer
The drivers in my computer (Irrelevant - it’s Ethernet!)
My router
The router set-up
Z filters
Wrong Z filters
An unsupported router
The active house alarm
The cables in my home
The cables outside my home (They haven’t yet blamed leaves on the cables!)
The switch in the exchange
The weather
BT
And finally…Uncle Tom
So I guess UKONLINE are just rubbish and until I leave UKONLINE I shall always have dire service and one hundred or so line drop outs each day.
I guess the last call they will get from me will not be to find out which excuse they will tell today, it will be can I have my MAC code please.
I have been with UKOnline for just over a year now and I haven’t had any problems. I started on the 1mb service, but upgraded to the 2mb after a couple of months, then my daughter moved back home with her laptop so I upgraded again to 8mb. I have been on 8mb for about 6 months now and the speeds are reasonable, when I have done a speed test they average at 6- 7.5mb, which from what I have read is the norm for most isp’s, they all advertise a speed as “up to xmb” and not a guaranteed speed.
In the last couple of months they have had some changes at UKonline and now advertise it as a business broadband service and offer 3 packages, 2mb, 8mb and 16mb, I don’t know what has happened to the 22mb that they used to offer. I was reading up on them today and saw that calls to their call centre are now free which is apparently unusual in the UK. I see that they also offer free mcafee for a year but I am not sure if this is a one off or if you would get this every year (but I think I will pass on that as the last time I used mcafee it made my pc go so slow)
So I have got to say that overall I am very happy with the service that I have been getting from UK Online.