Broadband: suggestions, please.

Pipex and Nildram are meant to be consistently good. Check ADSLGuide for info on providers.

Personally, I use Tiscali's 150K service, and it's exceeded my expectations. However, the customer service is awful, and I could only recommend it if you know what you are doing, don't have a modem already, and only want a cheap dial-up replacement. Actually, scrub that, I just don't recommend them. Roll on the end of my contract with them.

Hi Mike,

I've just started using Bulldog (www.bulldogdsl.com), and have found them to be a much faster (I signed up for the 4mpbs package) and cheaper alternative to Telewest.

Their hook is that they primarily cater to the business market, and so have tremendously attractive pricing available during what their off-peak hours. They define off-peak as 17:00 to 9:00, weekends, and holidays. During peak hours, service is at 512kbps, no different from what BT offers at the best of times.

Good luck,
Will

Hi,
Not sure what you are using at the moment but I use Eclipse.net. I swapped to them after using BT and getting fed up with the e-mail problems they were encountering.

Have not had anyproblems with Eclispe and when you ring them more often that not you actually get to speak to someone. £22 PCM with no restriction on download megs.

I did already have the alcatel modem I used with BT broadband.

hope this helps,

andy c!

A crib sheet from theinquirer might be of some help.

Roy

Use Nildram in the office - that seems ok, a couple of drop outs a while back but otherwise fine.

Use Zen at home - superb. Easy to understand the set up (you will know what I mean when you read some of my dumb-arse techno questions) and no problems with the service.

Mike

I use Zen at home and at the office. 512k for each, but I'm paying £27.99 at home per month and £44.65 at work. That seems like a lot to me.

By Yearly Total Cost of Ownership: rather good when used in conjunction with the link supplied by Mekon.

I've been with Nildram for 3 years, no problems, always been zippy, nothing I can say to fault them except they've never been renowned for being the cheapest.. but I think with ADSL you tend to get what you pay for.

Might be worth looking at their PAYG offering?

Other than Nildram, plus.net, and Pipex seem to get reasonably decent feedback.

regards,
Paul

Mike,

Zen are supposed to be the best package for reliability and customer service.

After being with BT OpenWoe since ADSL first came available, I'm just in the processing of migrating my ADSL contract to MailBox Internet. They've been hosting my business web-site for several years and whilst not being the cheapest they have an enviable reputation and are very nice people to deal with.

This is how they compare on the ADSL Guide with some of the others mentioned on here. Quite revealing really. Shows you don't have to be big name with a huge marketing budget to do a good job and please your customers!
mailbox

You could do worse Mike!! - but Scchhhhh .... please don't tell anyone else

David

Mike i use PIPEX adsl service ( used to use their dial-up too);nae problems at all since Dec'03. it does what it says on the box and have had NO problems whatsoever....just wish their 1Mb service was a bit cheaper!.

Dennis

BT Broadband 512k service has been fast, simple, painless and reliable for me (even with an old IBM 333Mhz/196Mb desktop). Recent price drop to £25 has also been a bonus. Only thing is I need to use a separate email service.

Rana

1. Use Nildram -- they're brilliant, and they answer the phone if you need them to. This is a very rare quality. Newest pay-as-you-go offerings are excellent value, but probably much better to go for data-based PAYG than time-based. "Classic" unmetered still available for about 23 quid a month.

2. Use a router. Don't be tempted by USB ADSL modems no matter how cheap, as it's quite likely the drivers will screw up your machine. A router will connect to the network port, so your machine already knows how to talk to it -- no drivers required. LinkSys, Draytek, NetGear (blue = OK, silver = a bit shite, but they work) -- should be about 80 quid or less.

The above is based on the experience of personally installing and supporting just under 60 broadband installations since it became avaiable. You should be able completely to forget about it once it's working.

Best;

Mark

quote:

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it's quite likely the [USB] drivers will screw up your machine.

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Some more details would be interesting to back up this rather broad and non-specific statement.

David

Hi,
I think david is hinting at, depending on which operating system you use sometimes the supplied drivers with a particular modem e.g. the Alcatouch create problems - won't run properly or cause glitches.

I had to download the latest XP drivers for this modem before it would run glitch free. However it seems to run fine now (he says - tempting fate).

andy c!

There used to be issues with certain USB chipsets where they'd kick into power saving mode and cause problems with a USB ADSL modem connection.

I'd second the suggestion to use a router if possible, they don't cost much, improve security and there's no drivers needed so long as you have a NIC.

Paul