Pipex Newsservers...

They're shite - regardless of what I put in they recommended
AOfuckingL. Nowhere to tell them you need a fixed IP or any of the
other important stuff with selecting broadband.

 

I went to see it at the cinema over Xmas, brilliant film.

 

Lady Nina barfed:

Yes, I thought if they'd gone to all that trouble animating Garfield
they could have done a cute, fluffy, annoying kitten for Nermal.

Still, it was OK.

 

I've just gone with Zen too, for this reason.

Looks like Pipex will soon be introducing more capped accounts.

 

Pipex has just upgraded my connection to 1MB from 500kb free of charge
- well, Ok, a one-off 15 quid payment, but the monthly fee is
unchanged.

I'll have to see how much music Jamie manages to download.....

 

Where have you seen this? They have only just revamped their services.
I don't think they will withdraw uncapped services completely.

How long did it take after placing the order?

I'm torn between waiting for the free upgrade and just paying the 15
quid myself.

 

I'm basing it on the fact Pipex own Nildram and seem to be using them
for a lot of their new policy... Nildram is already moving towards the
fast as you like with a price/Gb over an allowance model...

Zen seem to be going the opposite way with a flat rate, uncapped but
possibly with slower offering for the same money. That's what works
best for me.

 

It's not unheard of for companies to use different brands to target
different customer types but I take your point.

Fair enough, I'm not knocking any other ISPs, it's just that Pipex
suits my needs quite nicely now. If that were to change then I would
look elsewhere.

 

Most of them - they just aren't intelligent enough to realise.

 

They wrote to me recently advising me of their policy

"Fair Usage Policy

After reviewing our recent exercise, which placed the 0.2% of
customers who had the highest utilisation onto a reserved platform,
shared between themselves, it became clear that this was successful in
terms of returning 10% of capacity. It was also apparent however that
we needed to be clearer about what our Broadband products are designed
to offer...."

SNIP of justification for changing T&C

Details http://www.plus.net/features/usage_guide.shtml

"The fair usage thresholds and equivalent prices will be as follows:

£18.99 - 22GB per month peak time, potential including off peak usage
of 222GB* (This applies to current Home Surf customers)
£21.99 – 30 GB per month peak time, potential including off-peak usage
of 230GB* (Including ADSL Home and Broadband EasyStart customers)
£29.99 – 50 GB per month peak time, potential including off-peak usage
of 250GB* (Including Broadband EasyStart 1Mb)
£39.99 – 75GB per month peak time, potential including off-peak usage
of 275GB*

* Off-peak is between 1am and 8am. The potential off-peak usage is
based on a 2Mb broadband connection"

 

Absolutely shite retention, it's a right bugger to download 10 - 12GB
and find that some of the needed files have fallen off the server in
the meantime (2 says) so the movie is useless. That's even with making
a point of grabbing the PAR files first. I have hopes that if I get
the 8MB line I maybe able to grab the articles before they expire.

 

Isn't it more a question of knowledge rather than intelligence?

For myself, I'm ignorant and would appreciate enlightenment.

 

Fixed IP is handy for VOIP and essential (almost) if you want to run
any sort of server (web or mail).

 

Why is it handy for VOIP?

 

Spose it depends on what VOIP application you're running, but the ones
I've played with so far all work better with fixed IP (i.e. no long
delay while the system tracks you down - it knows where you are
straight away because it knows your IP)

 

What would you recommend in the way of VOIP software then?

Is there any way of making free VOIP calls to PSTN numbers? I know BT
offer this service[1] but it doesn't seem to be any cheaper than normal
phone calls so I can't see much point in that.

[1] Broadband Voice, I think.

 

Current favourite is Skype - Cheap for overseas calls - if you want to
call someone in the UK do it after 6 for free on an ordinary phone with
any number of different tarrifs.

 

Or just use http://www.call18866.co.uk/ for free UK calls 24/7 & cheap
overseas calls.

 

It becomes worse from the DL POV as well, IIRC the actual size will
then be 30% or so bigger plus what ever overhead splitting it into 300
or so chunks causes. Binary news is a far from ideal way to share
large files.

No one ever watches the extras do they? so why bother with the whole
disk. Unless it's to make exact copies and wind up even more the
copyright owners. On the use of DVD5, I am giving some consideration
to shrinking my legit disks just so I don't have to watch the theft
warning at the beginning and can skip other bits I don't want.

As for the pirating issue, I know of people signing up for this
http://www.blockbuster.co.uk/BandSignup/WhatsItAllAbout.aspx and using
that as source material. I've no idea if their copies are personal use
of if they are being sold on. A quick chat with the sprogs suggests
that there's a market for ripped DVD at around £3 a disk, often copies
made before the real release. I guess IMO online is not the real
issue, just easier to target hence the demise of the P2P networks.

 

It's not VOIP though... It's a good solution, but not geeky enough.