I have been with BT at home ever since connecting with the internet in late 2003 and have never had any problems with it at all, never any outages. It is quite expensive though for what you get. Maybe you could look into the Post Office broadband. I have no idea how reliable it is but it is certainly cheaper than BT. And includes line rental in the price.
http://www.postoffice.co.uk/portal/p...diaId=58000695