opinions on be?

[binaryknight2]

hi, thinking of changing my net provider still paying £34 per month for pipex!!

what are peoples views on be now that my exchange is upgraded?

i do a fair bit of downloading and do value a decent ping for online gaming

[colincliff]

be has been excellent for me, can get free connection too if you are recommended by a current customer.

you could go with o2 which is the same service, good if you have an o2 phone already as you can get it cheaper

[binaryknight2]

ah didnt know that, i have a pay as you go o2 phone dont think that would count but my father has a contracted one, any idea how much cheaper it is?

[colincliff]

i think you save £5 per month, so for the basic 8meg package it costs you £7.50 instead or £12, or £10 instead of £15 for the 16 meg one.

I use the be 8meg service as i can't get 16meg anyway, so i may as well save money

[MKA]

I`ve been with Be almost a year now. i have not been overly impressed if i am honest. it took weeks to sort out a decent stable speed, their customer services are crap, I can barely understand them to be honest, another foreign call centre. the last few weeks my net has been pretty slow, its almost like using a dial up connection again. suffice to say i will not be renewing my contract. i`m thinking about o2 right now, i'll get faster speeds for almost half the price ( i do have an o2 phone)

[binaryknight2]

i was set on be now with 02 being thrown in im not sure!

any idea on the min contracts with both?

gotta get my migration code sorted gonna phone pipex soon, how long does it take to come into effect? payment is due on the 16th dont want to be paying a month for nothing

[Lee H]

MKA,

try changing your DNS settings to the opendns servers and see if this helps.

I've heard that a few areas are getting congested at night when all the kids get home and try to use the web and I've noticed that changing the DNS makes pages load a lot quicker on mine.

[MadduckUK]

hmm.. you forget what peak usage time is when your with be, had to go fix a lappy the other day that was on talktalk.. my god.. 30 mins to download antivir

[Lee H]

hmm.. you forget what peak usage time is when your with be, had to go fix a lappy the other day that was on talktalk.. my god.. 30 mins to download antivir

Yeah... lol I'm suppin' a huge file update atm and it's peaking at about 2.0 Mb/s

[moogle]

i do a fair bit of downloading and do value a decent ping for online gaming

Find your attenuation for pipex if it's adsl2+ and you can estimate speeds you'll get with BE.

Also for pings

Microsoft Windows [Version 6.0.6001]
Copyright (c) 2006 Microsoft Corporation.  All rights reserved.

C:\Users\Moogle>ping www.google.com

Pinging www.l.google.com [66.249.91.103] with 32 bytes of data:
Reply from 66.249.91.103: bytes=32 time=18ms TTL=247
Reply from 66.249.91.103: bytes=32 time=19ms TTL=247
Reply from 66.249.91.103: bytes=32 time=17ms TTL=247
Reply from 66.249.91.103: bytes=32 time=19ms TTL=247

Ping statistics for 66.249.91.103:
    Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
    Minimum = 17ms, Maximum = 19ms, Average = 18ms

C:\Users\Moogle>ping www.bbc.co.uk

Pinging www.bbc.net.uk [212.58.253.67] with 32 bytes of data:
Reply from 212.58.253.67: bytes=32 time=7ms TTL=122
Reply from 212.58.253.67: bytes=32 time=8ms TTL=122
Reply from 212.58.253.67: bytes=32 time=7ms TTL=122
Reply from 212.58.253.67: bytes=32 time=7ms TTL=122

Ping statistics for 212.58.253.67:
    Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
    Minimum = 7ms, Maximum = 8ms, Average = 7ms

C:\Users\Moogle>ping www.hexus.net

Pinging www.hexus.net [195.78.94.240] with 32 bytes of data:
Reply from 195.78.94.240: bytes=32 time=7ms TTL=59
Reply from 195.78.94.240: bytes=32 time=6ms TTL=59
Reply from 195.78.94.240: bytes=32 time=7ms TTL=59
Reply from 195.78.94.240: bytes=32 time=7ms TTL=59

Ping statistics for 195.78.94.240:
    Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
    Minimum = 6ms, Maximum = 7ms, Average = 6ms

C:\Users\Moogle>

Mind you thats with Fastpath (only available on Be not O2 and only on the Unlimited or higher package), which increases your sync speed a bit and decreases your ping to it's lowest.

The min contract is 12 months for Be Value (8Mbps) and there is no minimum contract for Unlimited or Pro. It's just that on Unlimited/Pro you have to give 3 months notice, so you can basically cancel whenever but you must go through those 3 months. You can however cancel asap by paying a charge. It's £40 for the Unlimited/Pro and £30 for the Value package. After 12 months you can cancel by giving 1 months notice.

Ermmmmm I dunno about o2 T&C though but I'm with be because they have fastpath and it gives me the fastest possible internet. With o2 I wouldn't have it and the pings would still be good I think but I wouldn't have this speed as they don't have fastpath.

Hope it answers some of your questions. Oh and if you do go with Be* sign up with Quidco for no connection charge and £40 cashback.

[MKA]

MKA,

try changing your DNS settings to the opendns servers and see if this helps.

I've heard that a few areas are getting congested at night when all the kids get home and try to use the web and I've noticed that changing the DNS makes pages load a lot quicker on mine.

cheers lee, but i am getting very poor speeds throughout the day and night. been like this for a week or two. still, when my brother has a look at it i`ll mention to him what you said.

[moogle]

cheers lee, but i am getting very poor speeds throughout the day and night. been like this for a week or two. still, when my brother has a look at it i`ll mention to him what you said.

Oh yes by the way if you want to switch to o2 submit a ticket in your Be member center. They'll switch you over.

[MarcLister]

Pretty happy with Be. Been with them since Wednesday 3rd September. OK so the Bebox they gave me doesn't seem to work and the speeds are a bit low but they do respond to tickets quickly and have been quite helpful.

[solar975]

O2 is Be.

http://www.pcpro.co.uk/news/88642/o2-buys-be.html

I don't know if their customer service is separate, but it will be the same backbone, etc. So if the choice is between O2 and Be - pick the cheapest (i.e. O2 if you have an O2 phone.)

[Zadock]

I'm with O2 and am very happy with the service, customer service is top notch. They use the same backbone as Be so you get a solid connection. A friend of mine in Bristol has just signed up to Be and we were getting 1.8Mb/s download speeds when I was over there last, he seems very happy with them

[stweffles]

My parents have BE at home because they get a cheap deal thanks to a contract phone. When I was there it seemed to be a a really good service, better than my virgin media.