Decided to upgrade to broadband - it's only recently become available here.

Don't want to go with BT, I have them at work and it just annoys me! - Wanadoo looks to be well priced £17.99 for 1MB/s.


As it will be a new connection, I won't be migrating - I believe some of the smaller ISP's only do migrations and not new connections so these ISP's won't be an option for me I think.

comments/recommendations?

TIA

Mark

I use Plusnet, always worked fine for me and 2mb for £14.99.

Rich.

Hi Rich,

That looks great, have you ever come up against the 1 GB download limit?

I use plusnet aswell. they are about to change the way they charge for the service. They are going to charge via a download limit not speed anymore.

1 gb a month is very small. I would hit that in one day if i was doing some serious downloading

Jim

I'm with PlusNet on an older plan (512K b/band). Generally an OK company, and very open about problems and outages on their website, which I appreciate. Also good at fixing problems via e-mails at no cost (phone help costs money, but not too expensive).

On the plans with download limits they don't cut you off short if you exceed them - first they send you a warning, then they limit your bandwidth if you keep ignoring them! If you want a bigger limit you just pay them a bit extra each month - everything's negotiable.

David

I have clients with Wanadon't --- in the old dialup Freeserve days the service was was fine but these days I can't recommend them . On initial sign up one client was sent a ADSL Coppehead modem that obvioulsy been returned by client as the instruction ans setup disk were missing, when after 2 attempts the correct setup disk for the model arrived it was found that it didn't work, another 2 weeks of calls to the help line and 2 modems later they got connected.

My best advice is go to a proper ISP avoid companies BT, Tiscalli, Virgin, Wanadoo AOL. If you look at the adslguide.org.uk ratings you will see that Pipex, Demon, Zen, Zetnet have scored better customer satisfaction over a long period than the big brand names.

Other advice is get a cheap ADSL router-modem with nats & firewall built in rather than a simple usb modem , even if you only have one PC

[Edited on 27/2/05 by britishtrident]

quote:

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Originally posted by mookaloid
Decided to upgrade to broadband - it's only recently become available here.

Don't want to go with BT, I have them at work and it just annoys me! - Wanadoo looks to be well priced £17.99 for 1MB/s.


As it will be a new connection, I won't be migrating - I believe some of the smaller ISP's only do migrations and not new connections so these ISP's won't be an option for me I think.

comments/recommendations?

TIA

Mark

---

http://www.freedom2surf.net/adsl/
I'm on their 512 pure ip connection. In the 10 months we've been on it's only been down twice for less than an hour both times. Not much by way of frills and the customer relations is not round the clock but I've rarely needed them. Read the adslguide site for comparisons on services.
http://www.adslguide.org.uk/

Beofre you go down this route Mark - check if you have any other cable operators in your area. You may be limited to BT for the initial dialout anyway. I mirror what BT says about Freeserve (now Wankadoo!) they are rubbish, and they never admit to any problem their side when there obviously is! They have wasted SO much of my time... eventually one rep told me it was cos they moved there servers from the UK to France, then to China in the space of a few months. I've heard some very good reports about Blue Yonder if you have it in your area.

Another point to mention - the cheaper options may have a limit to download limit - some as low as 2Gb per month! Depends what you want to do ultimately. Most of the (illegal) p2p networks and download sites are closing down now, so ultrafast bandwidths are IMHO becoming obsolete. I'm managing with a 512 and it's well fast enough for occasional large downloads and usual use.

If I could I'd move away from BT but I have no option as I'm stuck in the fields and woods.

[Edited on 27-2-05 by Hellfire]

I am on Blueyonder Expensive but V reiable and fast as bugger.

Don't forget also that you may be restricted to 512kb speed if you go with BT as they may only have that service available at the exchange. I can not get 1Meg yet so am restricted to the half meg speed for now which i must admit is well fast enough for me. Also i have not had any problems with BT at all!!!!

Got to agree with Hellfire, check to see if you have a cable operator in your area. I'm with Blueyonder same as Chunkielad. It is expensive at £25 but very fast, very reliable ( I've never in 6 years had it go down on me ! ) and no download limit.
It's not just about speed but also contention ratio. This is the maximum number of users connected through the same bit of cable. With telephone based broadband it is 50 to 1. This means a maximum of 50 customers all sharing the same bandwitdth. Blueyonders is 20 to 1 so less users on the same bandwidth. Also Blueyonder uses fibreoptic cable which has a greater bandwidth than copper cable, ie it can carry more data at any given time. On telephone based broadband it can often slow down as more users in the same area connect, eating away at the available bandwidth. This is much less likely to happen on cable based broadband. With Blueyonder ( I don't know if this applies to other cable operators but I suspect it does ) once a section of cable reaches 80% capacity it automatically brings in another section reducing the load to 40%. This means the cable should never reach 100% capacity.

512k for £11.73 Inc PM

Mr G,

Thanks for that - looks very interesting. Fixed IP too! Looks like either this or Plusnet so far....



Sadly Blueyonder is not an option - I don't think cable will EVER get out here


Thanks to all for advice

Cheers

Mark

Recently changed to talktalk and got their deal including all landline phone calls for £25 per month. Has worked fine so far, and the customer service was excellent when signing up.

Avoid Tiscali as (in my experience) their customer service is non-existant.

Remember that ChrisW can offer a service which apparently makes this site faster. I considered it but wanted the cheap calls from talktalk all in one package.

[Edited on 27/2/05 by andyps]

Seems quite a good deal..

http://www.homecall.co.uk/broadband/broadband512anytime.asp

Includes calls as well as broadband.

These guys are just setting up and are worth a look:

http://www.nahda.co.uk/

2M for £19.95/month. This is a special offer and limited to the first few customers.

Their website isn't finished yet so if you're interested U2U me and I'll put you in touch.

Hi Andy,

This looks very promising! how long have they been going?

Cheers

Mark

In short they are an established company but this service is brand new.

We are with these guys:

http://www.adsl4less.com/

Very cheap (£15/m for 512k), absolutely NO download limit (one of my housemates spends a lot of time on Bit T! Downloaded about 40Gb last month)

They also do a 1Mb connection for £20/m but its not advertised on the site. We were offered the upgrade after a couple of months.

David

I've been looking at a deal which includes free landline calls as well, any comments on these two:

http://www.homecall.co.uk/ukoffer/broadband512plusfreecalls.asp

http://www.onetel.co.uk/index.php/bundle3

We can get adsl, but not cable broadband. Oh and I need a modem as well as I don't have one..

Ned.

Just to compare with swedish rates

10Mb/s for £13 or
100Mb/s for £28 and that´s in both directions without any restrictions

[Edited on 10-3-05 by Jonte]

quote:

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Originally posted by Jonte
Just to compare with swedish rates

10Mb/s for £13 or
100Mb/s for £28 and that´s in both directions without any restrictions

[Edited on 10-3-05 by Jonte]

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I´m not really sure what IP transit means

Be aware that with some of the cheaper ISPs the limmiting speed at peak times might not be that of the broadband link between your modem and the exchange but the capacity of the providers network.

quote:

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Originally posted by britishtrident
Be aware that with some of the cheaper ISPs the limmiting speed at peak times might not be that of the broadband link between your modem and the exchange but the capacity of the providers network.

---

quote:

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Originally posted by Jonte
Just to compare with swedish rates

10Mb/s for £13 or
100Mb/s for £28 and that´s in both directions without any restrictions

[Edited on 10-3-05 by Jonte]

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well I know you don´t read swedish, but have a look at my ISPs homepage. I´m sure you understand the numbers

This page

Must admit your right ( eats humble pie ). That certainly is some service. Is it cable based? To achieve that much bandwidth down copper cable is incredible.