foak broadband when stuck with bt line

thought i'd got things figured out, get sky TV, then add their 5 quid a
month mid broadband package.

not so, were out of their area, so all they can offer is their sky connect
service, which is 17 quid a month, that's a lot better than BT's offerings,
(who want 23 quid a month for an upto 8 meg line, but with a 8 gig download
cap, sky's is 40 gig)

Are there any other broadband dealers out there i can try?? the exchange i'm
on (kimberly) only has BT in it, no llu's and all that, not due to be
upgraded till 2011, i can apparantly get an upto 6 meg broadband line at my
flat,

Was on pipex at my parents, cant recall how much they were, but we only got
a 2 meg line due to being too far from the exchange) but it was an unlimited
download limit, and they were good to start with, but had gone pretty crap
in the last few months i used it,

Landlord wont allow cable to be put in, and virgin rekoned we'd only get
their analouge service anyways.

Any recomendations.. other than get out more and live with out t'internet.

 

Of the cheap ISPs, Talk Talk seem to be getting their act together.
For quality look at IDnet and Zen. In between - Newnet, possibly
Plusnet, and the Entanet resellers such as ADSL24, Vivacity, Aquiss
and UKFSN (the Entanet lot have higher download limits but tend to
throttle at peak times). Have a good browse round here.
http://www.thinkbroadband.com/

 

Scrap that, just checked sam knows, O2 / BE unlimited say they are gonna put
their LLU in our exchange at the end of this month,

at 18 quid a month for the upto 24 meg line, i'd be daft not to... unless
someone on here knows a reason not to??

Mind, i know i'll prolly not get near a 24 meg connection, we are about 1km
from the exchange as the crow flies, so feck knows what route the phone
lines take, the flat is only 3 years old, but that may not have owt to do
with it if they connected the new cables onto 100 year old cables in the
middle of the village with a couple of scotch locks.

but any dire warnings to avoid BE unlimited?

 

I had NTL/Virgin analogue cable TV with broadband & phone in Cardiff.
Worked fine.

Depends what you want to pay.

In a recent review of my ISP I found my choice is a BT line with ADSL or
LLU from AOL/TalkTalk. I've decided to stay with the BT line and upgrade my
Virgin ADSL package to Bundle 2. This gives me the fastest ADSL speed that
the exchange can provide (varies between 2Meg and 6Meg, depending on time
of day); a free Netgear wireless ADSL modem/router and free evening/weekend
calls to landlines. All for £14.99 a month. There's no monthly cap but they
do operate a fair useage policy, which I am confident I won't trigger. They
have a news server that mostly works.

If you want a better/faster service then be prepared to pay more. Just
search for the myriad of posts, that cropped up after Tiscali took over
Pipex, for recommendations.

 

It said similar for my exchange, then kept getting put back all the time.
It's been deleted now.

Believe it when it actually happens...in the meantime sign up with someone
who offers monthly renewable contracts. Virgin used to, hence why they got
my custom. Of the ones I looked at recently, idnet.net certainly offer a
monthly contract.

 

Nope.

 

Until it arrives: Be is great, here. Been with them a month now, no
probs and I've nearly finished downloading the entire internet. ;-)

Worth it.

 

No. Sign up through quidco.com too.

I've used them here and the previous address, and although their house
moving process is not easy it did work.

We've had some line issues, which their support have been helpful with
as far as they can be (it's looking like a BT problem). Their
call-centre is foreign, but the people in it do seem to have a clue,
and have been helpful and up on the technical side too. There's also an
active support forum.

 

Oh yuss

Idnet is becoming the service for the thinking ukrm-er. Not the cheapest
(definitely) but it just works and works and works, and on the one case
when I did have a glitch, I got a human on the line instantly.

 

What him say.

 

Is there anything in particular that you like about them? In comparison
with Be they don't seem to match up in price vs what you pay. I know
that things can be different once they've got you in though.

 

For me, and the reason why I suggested them to TOG, it's their
customer service. UK freephone number, answered within three rings by
a person with a clue. I also liked the way they lent me a brand new
router just to make sure it wasn't mine causing a particular problem I
was having. The only downside is that their help desk is closed
evenings and weekends, but an email usually finds them and their
dedicated forum can help with most problems at pretty much any hour.
Oh, and no throttling, contention problems or any other buggering
about that most ISPs seem to introduce.

 

See Colin's comments.

I had endless problems with Pipex, once they started going downhill.
Dropped connections, slow connections, 'server overhauls' that fucked
things up.....

To begin with I swallowed the line that it must be my system, and
checked everything, swapped round dsl filters, you name it.

Trying to get someone on the end of the helpline who GAF was next to
impossible. Yes, so Idnet is twice the price, but now the system just
works faultlessly, strong connection, no dropped connections, no bloody
traffic throttling a la Pipex/Tiscali, excellent speed, and the sheer
peace of mind engendered by that is well worth the extra, IMHO.

Like Colin says,their helpline is closed weekends, and (typically) the
one small glitch I had was on a Saturday, but there is an out-of-ours
answering machine. I rang it, left a message, and a bod called me back
within five minutes to say: "Yeah, just doing some server maintenance
and hit a snag: it'll all be up again in a couple of minutes." And it
was.

I've now come to the conclusion that with ISPs, as with everything else,
you get what you pay for. Sure, there are ISPs offering 8MB broadband at
half Idnet's price, but there's a reason why it's cheap. It's crap.

 

I was just wondering if they were much better than Be, but so far I'd
say they'd both be worth a shot, depending on what your priorities are
(which seem to be freephone support vs 24meg - there's little to choose
between them).

I've been pleased to see that "unlimited" on Be does indeed seem to be
unlimited, and without throttling. That alone is fantastic.

 

Indeed. If I was unbundled (fnar fnar) I'd be very tempted. Except
that I really don't need that much speed. But you're not the only one
I've heard rate Be.

 

*Ding*. My dad has been TalkTalk for a couple of months, now, and the
service seems to be OK.

He has had one issue which was down to a faulty ADSL modem. Level one
support was in India and was answered promply. Level 2 support took about
15 minutes to answer but were thorough, polite and, dare I say it,
competent in diagnosing the problem. A new modem was sent and arrived 2
days later.

Considering that the BB service is effectively free (he was a voice customer
with them before signing a BB contract) I would rate the level of service
adequate.

<Does speed test>

<http://www.speedtest.net/result/243831261.png>

Not *great* but I was connected to his network via TS Client to run the test
in the first place.

 

*Ding*. My dad has been TalkTalk for a couple of months, now, and the
service seems to be OK.[/QUOTE]

My folks use TT - they do seem to have improved but a couple of years
ago they lost their broadband for over a fortnight... the support
people were hopeless about it. Knew there was a problem in the area
but wouldn't give them any idea how long it might last.

 

Oh, sure. I am quite sure that they were dire when they started. I'd be
amazed if that hadn't been the case given the early demand for the service.
I'm also aware that WC of this parish has had a **** up migrating from them
to another provider. (I forget whose fault it was).

From my somewhat limited experience, they have met my lowish expectation of
service[1].

[1] Given the cost of the service, I don't expect miracles

 

MArtin Lewis has been banging on about Sky which you can get for £6 /
month with the introductory offer

http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/tips/05-03-2008/

 

a) Martin Lewis rarely considers any other criterion than price. It's
rare I agree with his recommendations.

b) Specifically, there's a minimum 12 month contract with Sky. Is this
what you recommend?