Broadband Recomendation

These guys are meant to be good and cheap. I have not tried them as I am with BT.

http://www.plus.net/

As a matter of interet, are you happy with BT as I am thinking of changing to them (from the horrid Tiscali/Talk Talk)?

quote:

Originally posted by JWM:
As a matter of interet, are you happy with BT as I am thinking of changing to them (from the horrid Tiscali/Talk Talk)?

BT are fine. No issues I can talk of so I guess I am happy. We really hammer our connection in this household what with 4 computers going at the same time - kids gaming online and doing iplayer at the same time. Of course I would love a quicker connection but where I am in rural Sussex I don't have too much choice.

I've been with Plusnet for years. Good support and
consistent speeds and service. Highly Recommended.

quote:

Originally posted by Lontano:

quote:

Originally posted by JWM:
As a matter of interet, are you happy with BT as I am thinking of changing to them (from the horrid Tiscali/Talk Talk)?

BT are fine. No issues I can talk of so I guess I am happy. We really hammer our connection in this household what with 4 computers going at the same time - kids gaming online and doing iplayer at the same time. Of course I would love a quicker connection but where I am in rural Sussex I don't have too much choice.

Sounds like similar usage to us in rural West Norfolk! Thanks.

Another + for plusnet here. I also could not wait to be shot of AOL (just make certain you follow what you need to do to the letter and keep copies of all emails / communications. Plusnet have a great guide on how to switch on their site). Also be prepared to be barrarged with special offers etc when they discover you do actually mean it when you say you are leaving.

Plusnets helpline and fault diagnosis have been truly amazing. When the exchange went crazy a month ago I had texts, phone calls, confirmation emails etc all to confim what was happening and when - even telling me it was fixed and sorted.

Very happy I switched to them.
Oddly, if you read the (very) small print on the bottom of their letterheadings - Plusnet a wholey owned company of BT...

I have BT at home and am strongly considering switching their as well.

I've been with Blueyonder for many years and I'm very happy with them. High performance by UK standards and virtually no down time.

BT is OK, the latest Home Hub is pretty reliable(cue failure).
We seem to have stabilised at about 3-3.5Meg, we are approx 4KM from the exchange.
Virgin offer a far faster setup as they have fibre further out from the exchange.
We are due for fibre enhancement next year.

BT are okay until you have a problem. Then they resort to finger pointing. I worked from home for 11 years and connection was supplied by the company. My broadband went slow but the symptom was a a 'crackly' voice line. You can imagine BT Voice said it was a broadband issue and I should speak to ISP. ISP said it was a voice issue etc. etc. 6months later and many complaints to senior BT staff finally got it sorted. (High resistance fault between the green box and exchange!)

I also live within 1km from the exchange, when I had broadband supplied by the company BT reported my max stable line speed was 8Mb/s,and I achieved 7.2Mb/s 95% of time. The instant (and I mean the instant) I changed to my own B/band supplier the max table line speed sudenly became 6Mb/s.

Though to be fair I am getting 6.5Mb/s consistently.

So I don't rate BT.

It would be quite nice if as they promise *up to* X Mbits we should only pay *up to* Y pounds.

(e.g. Upto 8 Mbits @ £10 but if I get 4M/bits I only pay £5 boy would things change!)

The best broadband is what you can steal from your neighbour's unsecured wireless network . That way, when your spawn get "caught" torrenting Ironman 2 and the latest from Lady GaGa, it is your neighbour who is cut off without a fair trial.

My reccomendation

http://www.eclipse.net.uk/residential/

Thanks for the replys, i will check them out.

I had a really really bad experience with BT.

In the end I had to terminate my contract. I must have spent over 10 hours on the phone with them (in India) trying to solve the issue I had with my internet not working.

I switched to 02, instantly the internet worked -on the same line!, and has done since perfectly. Their customer service is outstanding from my experience, they are also cheaper.

O2 with cashback form quidco cost me £19 a year!

Yes a year and that's a 20mb line and unlimited downloads.

Zen are apparently very good - where I used to work, the IT boys always set the partners up at home with them. I think they've won loads of awards too

Had nightmares with BT internet. When they finally accepted it was not working / they could not make it work, I stopped the direct debit. They then proceeded to send threatening letters demanding the debt be paid. Did not sort out until I got hold of someone high-up's email address. Then got a refund. Have vowed never to have anything to do with BT ever again - they were the worst company ever to do business with - lost count of the number of hours on calls to them, and the number of times they cut me off in a queue (and that involves previous experiences going back years)

Have assumed that if BT can not make it work then nobody can - based on the attendance of BT engineers who would be the people to come anyway in case of technical problems and who said not possible to make work (worked for six months then stopped). We are 11km from the exchange

Now hoping to get a wireless connection (an entrepreneur has set up a "private" wireless network to cover the Ribble Valley / Bleasdale. We're not in the main focus area but should be able to get access to 5mb speeds)

Good things to say about Zen, not the cheapest but no problems at all. Help desk well on top of Zen things and on top of any BT line problems. No-capping, you get what you pay for.

Depending on your geography I would have a look at BT Infinity which is offering upto 40mb down/ 10mb up using fibre upto the cab(big green metal box on roadside) This is rolling out nationwide so checkout their website/ google 'BTinfinty'

BTW- I've had BTBroadband since it 1st arrived in my area (1999) and have lost connection once. I called a helpline @ 2am and was gobsmacked to be able to speak with a human being at this time of the day, by 2.20am connection had returned and since teh not a glitch.
How many other ISP's could provide this level of service?

regards
Busta

Had BT for years. Recently had a hub fault and BT were excerlant. Replaced the hub. Had a connection issue with the new hub so phoned India, Not only sorted the hub issue but speeded my laptop up. Great job.

Zen are excellent, but you get what you pay for. They are more expensive, but offer a more professional ISP than BT etc. who are targeted at the more basic domestic users.

I use bit torrent, and many of the lower end ISPs throttle it.

Here is a link to the vuse wiki, which lists the ISPs who throttle bit torrent. It is also a good guide to how the ISPs regard how their customers use their services:

http://wiki.vuze.com/w/Bad_ISPs

I do a great deal of file transferring over the net for both work and pleasure, and Zen offer exactly what I need, but if you don't use the web very heavily, or need to use bit torrent, FTP, etc. then there are other more cost effective services.

Oh and just a note to say that bit torrent may be painted as an illegal piece of software to use by the record industry, but it is quite legal, and indeed used by quite a few people/artists as the most efficient way to make available their products.

Ubuntu makes use of torrents whenever possible to distribute software releases, as previously discussed file sharing technology is not inherently evil.

Be There for me.. No throttling.....

Zen are upping my usage allowance from 50Gb to 100Gb per month for the same price.

quote:

Oh and just a note to say that bit torrent may be painted as an illegal piece of software to use by the record industry, but it is quite legal, and indeed used by quite a few people/artists as the most efficient way to make available their products.

Any idea of the ratio of legal/illegal Bit-torrent usage?

Illegal is probably the major usage, by a huge amount, but that does not make a good tool a bad thing to use.

I am quite sure there are many other things that can be used legally that have the same argument applied, for instance the age checks at your local hardware store when you buy glue or craft knives.

quote:

Originally posted by JamieL_v2:
Illegal is probably the major usage, by a huge amount, but that does not make a good tool a bad thing to use.

Totally agree. Did you see where they are planning to sue tens of thousands of users for torrenting "Hurt Locker"? This stuff needs to be sorted before someone gets hurt.