Which ISP?

[JeromeF]

[quote=waveydavey;404272] What would say is that BT are still responsible for the line that comes into the house from the exchange even though the company you use may have their own stuff in the exchange.[/quote]

Yeah that is true as the other person mentioned, it is handled by the Open Reach engineers.

As for the services, on the same lines, it can differ... Cousin has BeThere, and gets 6mb(ish), and previously was with BT and had 5mb(ish).

[coptermanic]

I'd change in an instant if "customer support/services" wasn't a chat with a clerk with a flow-chart who knows nothing in Bangalore with a 1-in-5 chance of word comprehension.

[Dedcalm]

I have Tiscali/talktalk and its ok, 8Mb service (paid for by company) which gives 4.3Mb down and 600k up at best (i.e. 2am on a week day). Weekends I am lucky to see 400K down :ack2:

years back I had ntl at 2Mb which was fast when it worked... after a couple of week long outages I gave them the heave ho for tv, phone and BB. Tempted to look for a cheaper BB alternative now as I have ADSL and cable available and once I am redundant I loose the bills being paid.

I did used to enjoy the 8Mb megastream link to demon at work with only me using it though ;) but its gone as part of the building closure so I have to use the 8Mb link in London via a proxy and cyber patrol etc. :(

[JeromeF]

[quote=coptermanic;404380]I'd change in an instant if "customer support/services" wasn't a chat with a clerk with a flow-chart who knows nothing in Bangalore with a 1-in-5 chance of word comprehension.[/quote]

Seems every company now has call centres offshore.

Just the sales lines they keep in the UK haha...

[Andy from Sandy]

If you are looking for something new and you object to yet another bleeding tax by this governement see if you can get a service that doesn't include a fixed landline. For all of us with a landline we are going to have to pay a new tax so those without broadband will be able to receive it.

Typical that the haves yet again have got to pay for the have nots.

[url=http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2009/jun/16/broadband-tax-digital-britain]Digital Britain: new landline tax to pay for broadband roll-out | Technology | The Guardian[/url]

[SRH990]

Re: Which ISP?

I've been on Virgin fibre for years now and speedtest always shows my 20mb connection as at least 18mb. Downside is that I'm paying £37 a month for a 20mb connection and new customers can get a 50mb connection for £18 - £28 a month so I must talk to them about this.

It's been pretty reliable too, around 2 days total outages in 5 years.


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[J3DI]

I'm about 2 miles from the exchange in Oswestry. On copper. Used to be on BT but got really crap download speeds depending on the time of day.
I've just switched to Plusnet and am using their Pro package (£20 per month). I'm connecting at 4.6Mb and the beauty of this package is there is absoulutely no throttling no matter what the time of day. My linux machine downloads torrents at over 400bits/sec, where when on BT i saw a fraction of that.
Oh yeah, Plusnet is based in Sheffield along with any support you may need. When 21CN (21st century network) stuff starts becoming available you'll get upto 20Mb download on the Pro package!

[choppertastic]

I was with BT for years and had great service from them but at £25 a month. We moved and then the best I could get was 350kbs (shite I know). They said it was the fact that we are 6kms from the exchange blah blah blah which I could accept given line quality etc.

Because of this I switched to sky which was an additional £5 on my package. Once I got switched over my speed went from the crappy 350kbs to 2.5Mbs..

So because of this I would give Sky the thumbs up if (a) you can get it in your area and (b) if you have a sky contract.

[tourerjim]

Virgin" with unlimited phone calls & 20mg about 45 quid a month!

[Mojo]

I have my broadband with O2.. Used to be with Sky but their service was not so good.. I get between 5-13 meg depending on times (supposed to be 20 meg).. But its enough to get decent download speeds and general web browsing, and have no problems with iplayer..

[LaurenceGough]

Virgin Media, can't be beat for speed IMO, at least around here. Probs going to switch my phone to Virgin too.

[PsiLo]

If you can't get Virgin then Demon Internet provide really good service in my experience. I currently am on Talktalk as it was free with our phoneline but may soon go back to Demon as it was faster and less contended with them.

[Hangar-7]

I think if you haven't got a fibre optic connection then you'll have problem. I have had problems with Tiscali, Virgin and Talk Talk - made promises but when it came to delivering - it was pure $Hi* . In the end, reluctantly went to BT (4 years ago) and I couldn't fault them .. 6-2.5mbps at £20pcm.

I also get a free wireless connection[IMG]http://www.rcheliaddict.co.uk/testvb/images/icons/icon7.gif[/IMG] together with BT vision etc but hardly ever use them.

[Kwickkwack]

I was with AOL for years, and no problem till I tried to stop it, but that is another story I am with BT business.
At the moment it is 4.93meg down but never over .36upload, usually works around the 2 meg mark so OK.
I am in a rural area with no fibre optic so this is as good as it gets, I dont think the speed will vary much it will be the support that will keep you with one ISP or another. the best one being, you dont need them because it just works.

[moyesboy]

Well its a done deal now.
Going to try BT.
They say I should get about up to 8Meg down to about 4Meg at peak tmes. We'll see.