UK ISP Advice

[indyjones]

Hi all

Its that time of year again, time to change ISPs.

Currently I am with Tesco who use Ntl this means I get no filtering, unlimited downloads and newsgroups (should I be bothered to use them 🙂 ) but all I get is 1meg line for £20pm which to me is not particularly cheap...

What other ISP would you recommend ? I would like unlimited downloads (or something high like 40gb) with the least obtrusive fair use policy possible, and obviously the highest speed connection possible.

I look forward to your opinions 🙂

PS It has to be DSL unfortunately SKY or cable is not available in my area.

 

[Henyman]

http://www.pipex.co.uk/ gets my vote, i have unlimeted usage, but i see they now have various limits depending on how much you pay.
8mb line, 30GB/month is £20, then £1/GB over that.
or £40 for a 100GB limit.

i also use pipex for all calls, works out much cheaper than BT

 

[Dark Atheist]

virgin - was blueyonder/ntl - they have unlimited downloads - speed is capped for 5 hours if you download over a certain amount between 4-9pm - rest of the day you can d/l as much as you like, prices vary depending on what MB you want 1mb 2mb 4mb 10mb 20mb (if you get 4mb you get an upgrade to 10mb in feb 😛)

or if you don't live to far from an exchange BT - think they have a 30gb a month limit

http://allyours.virginmedia.com/websales/service.do?id=2

 

[Evil Marge]

I'm probably not the best person to reply to this thread cause I don't really know the ins and outs though I see Carpo above me has the answers I don't regarding caps etc but I'm gonna answer anyway.
We're contented with Virgin (been with them since way back to the days of Comcast) and we're on the 2MB package for just under 20 quid a month.

 

[indyjones]

Nice, cheers for the advice keep it coming 🙂

 

[LordOfLA]

I'm actually cancelling my virgin subs as soon as I can. Virgin is crap in london where the networks are still copper to the house and over-subscribed.

Added to that my non-existant TV viewing over the last 12 months and it's costing me money for services i'm not using or not getting.

For broadband I'd actually recommend a BT phoneline and signing up to Be at http://www.bethere.co.uk.

ADSL2+ is also more tollerant of longer lines and line noise by granting you a higher speed than adsl1 would.

I would have recommended an EntaNet reseller (they don't sell direct), however a friend of mine is a reseller and they are putting their wholesale prices for "uncapped" DSL to over £100/month. Having said that it is more sustainable pricing as we don't pay much more than that for bandwidth (per mbit) at work, we just have substantially more mbits 🙂

All the big-name ISP's are running into money problems and the knock on effect seems to be that they are rate-limiting, adding usage caps and cutting back on support. Not what I want out of an ISP.

Edit: HAving posted all that I noticed at neowin (http://neowin.net/news/main/08/01/28/virgin-media-announces-broadband-speed-boost) that Virgin's 50Mbit/service will use Docsis 3 which should alleviate allot of the capacity issues. So I may wait on it for a few months and see what happens.

 

[X-Istence]

I can't wait for DOCSIS 3.0 to be rolled out here in Arizona. Currently on a 12 Mbit down, 1 Mbit up plan with Cox. For $50 a month. Which is about 25 quid. There are limits, max we are technically allowed to download is 60 GB, and 10 GB upload. But we do over that in a few days. We have been warned once about the uploading, but nothing else. And that was because we were uploading at the full upload speed for the entire day and night.

The speed is not super fast, but it is not bad either. The downtime on their end has been minimal. Last time was 12 minutes, and that was because they had to send out a repair truck to replace the broken gear down the street.

You guys in the UK are all getting raped!

 

[indyjones]

For broadband I'd actually recommend a BT phoneline and signing up to Be at http://www.bethere.co.uk.

Yeah I have to use one via a BT line, as there is no other option availible to me, bethere looks really good, unfortunatly its not availible in my area :cry:

 

[Dark Atheist]

i get 2.3meg/sec most times of the day, might be im just lucky and not on an over populated UBR or over subscribed area

 

[LordOfLA]

Yeah I have to use one via a BT line, as there is no other option availible to me, bethere looks really good, unfortunatly its not availible in my area :cry:

Fire up http://www.samknows.co.uk/

dig up your exchange and it'll show who you can go with from the LLU providers.

BT ADSL Max (upto 8mbit) is a good fall back.

 

[Geffy]

bethere.co.uk has been good for me in Docklands, though I plan to switch to Sky soon just for the TV/BB bundle.

Also its worth checking out the new o2 broadband packages, they now own bethere.co.uk so its all the same stuff but you might be able to pick up a better deal.

 

[indyjones]

"Fire up http://www.samknows.co.uk/" Unfortunatly the Isle of Wight is not on there 🙁
I will have a look at the O2 packages though and see what they offer

Once again Thank you all

 

[indyjones]

Wonderful! I cant get O2 either 🙁

 

[Dark Atheist]

guess your SOL with who you can choose 😛

 

[indyjones]

Its not too bad there are still a few options left, need to keep on looking though

 

[SPeedY_B]

I use the truly awful peons Eclipse.

I'm only recommending them on the basis that I have actually previously been able to achieve the full 8mb speeds I'm paying for, and therefore believe they are capable of delivering it, however recently speeds have been plain ****.

Anyway ... the plus points are being able to cancel your contract month-by-month, so you're not stuck with a 12-month deal or similar, and their are no download limits between midnight and 6pm. Therefore all heavy downloading can be scheduled between then, between 6pm and midnight, you still have at least 20GB (or more depending on what you chose) to play with.

 

[indyjones]

Thanks Speedy, I will give them a look. I tend to currently download most stuff from 10pm on wards but could change my habits I guess, (easy for pc more akward from the xbox).

Thanks all

 

[indyjones]

Wahoo! eclipse is available in my area, not every ISP hates me 😉

 

[LordOfLA]

eclipse is Kingston telecom. Not a great provider...

 

[indyjones]

Hmmm OK, I will bear that in mind. Unfortunatly though, they are offering by far the best deals I have seen recently (O2 and bethere are not availible in my area).