ISP recommendations for new place

[finlay666]

Moving house in a few weeks, got a full set of ISP options (cable, adsl2+)

After suggestions for an ISP to get, heard recommendations of Be There.

I've had Virgin before, not keen on the throttling or the phone support, I will NOT be going with TalkTalk and not keen on Sky due to not needing a sky box (got freesat hd on my HTPC and freeview on the tv, don't watch much else)

Anyone got any other suggestions? Price is an obvious key factor, as is the quality of support

Are landlines still required for a lot of the providers? If so where is it best to get one from?

Cheers

[finlay666]

Anyone?

[Paulus]

I get the impression that Be There and O2 are "the best" ASDL providers (perhaps considering price, performance, service). I have only used O2 personally - didn't love the router that they provided, but that is normally the case really - everything else was fine. Line rental is needed for both. I used BT - I always thought that there isn't really any other option, unless the ISP can provide the line for you.

Out of interest: How bad is the throttling and what do they throttle? And what is bad about the phone support? (I have never used Virgin but would like to try them when I get the chance)

[finlay666]

Out of interest: How bad is the throttling and what do they throttle? And what is bad about the phone support? (I have never used Virgin but would like to try them when I get the chance)

When I had a 20mb connection shared between 6 a couple of years ago we could hit the limit watching shows on iplayer in an hour or so in peak times, then get throttled to 1/4 speed for the next 4 hours, or pretty much continuously as the cap was a rolling cap at the time and based on amount downloaded over a time period, then it was implemented for the following 4 hours

Phone support was entirely offshore, took 2 weeks to get an engineer out to test a modem which was faulty, had to pay for the calls (As with any service if I have to call them and it's faulty I don't expect to pay for the calls) which ended up costing £5 or so, which was > 10% of the monthly bill, the waits were pretty poor and the ability to get through to anyone even remotely technical took an age (was a flat of computer science and a computer forensics undergrad with an unhealthy interest in networking)

[billythewiz]

I'm on 20Mb VM and have suffered as much as anyone in the past (there support was truly awful), but recently I think they have been improving.

Just this week they have increased my upload to 2Mb.
Also a few weeks ago the ready light on my modem was flashing (usually an indicator that the connection is down) but the connection was still up. So I posted a question on their forums. On Monday a new modem arrived in the post. I checked back with the forum and one of their staff said it could be a fault, I'll send a new modem just in case !!!

As for the download cap, I remember the time when they didn't have one. It was quite normal for the connection to occasionally slow to a crawl (presumably because other users where downloading too much).

Now those people get throttled and the rest of us can at least post on Hexus
I read a complaint recently by a student, sharing with 4 others, who all did what students do (iPlayer, online games, torrent, etc.) on a 10Mb connection. What do they expect ?

[CaptainCrash]

Moving house in a few weeks, got a full set of ISP options (cable, adsl2+)

After suggestions for an ISP to get, heard recommendations of Be There.

I think Be probably still provide the best bang for the buck at the moment - fast, (relatively) cheap, no throttling, no port blocking and no data caps. They do have the usual unspecific "fair use" policy, although AFAIK it's never actually been invoked, at least not for excessive data transfer, and I've read on their forums of people routinely transferring many hundreds of GB per month with no repercussions. Tech support is decent in my limited experience, if not in Zen's class.

The only downsides I've come across in my time with them are the occasional routing/peering issues which seem to pop up every few weeks (mildly annoying but not a showstopper), and the naff router they supply you with - I ended up throwing mine at a wall, which oddly enough did nothing to improve its reliability.

They also do a combined broadband/landline package, but so far I've been too lazy to see how it compares with BT. Could be worth checking out though, at least if you can face navigating your way around their dog's breakfast of a web portal...

[spiral out]

I think BE is the best provider at the moment too although the aren't at my exchange since i moved away from london. I've just joined sky broadband and i don't have sky tv either and it's been good so far.

[Brewster0101]

You can join Sky broadband without the sky TV option. Also Sky's landline costs are lower than BT.

I personally have BT and have had it for a number of years. Best thing is the Hubs work so well for me. So many different hubs I've seen from different providers that just aren't easy to use.

[Disturbedguy]

Now those people get throttled and the rest of us can at least post on Hexus
I read a complaint recently by a student, sharing with 4 others, who all did what students do (iPlayer, online games, torrent, etc.) on a 10Mb connection. What do they expect ?

As for the above, the download limits they enforce and the way they enforce them, in my opinion are pretty pathetic, 3Gb in a 4 or 5 hour window, if you should hit the 3Gb after say 3 hours and 59 minutes you are then capped for the next 4 to 5 users, however its only those on packages below 20Mb that get capped which in my opinion is stupid. They also claim the caps are to 25% of the connection speed, in my experience its less. Im on 10Mb and when I do get capped, im often capped to around 1Mb, if im lucky I get 2Mb.

Personally I wouldnt recommend Virgin, for the above and the fact the customer service when I have had to contact them has been shocking.

First time we contacted them, our connection kept dropping. My mum phoned, the tech decided within 30 seconds that we needed a new router and they would send one out at a cost of £70 to, by time I got off the phone, no router was being sent out and we weren't being charged £70. Most useless tech ever. Turns out they had to fit a filter to our line for whatever reason they metioned at the time.

Second time I phoned them up for other issues, all "Dominic" could suggest was that we upgrade our package. Even after being told we had just down graded for various reasons.

[mightymouse]

i'm using plus net 60GB, the great thing is from 12 to 8am its proper unlimited and within the 60GB i never had throttling problems. But then again I am not at home 9 to 6pm watching iplayer like i used to when i didnt have a job. if you want more info let me know and plus you could always negotiate a deal with them if you sign for a year.... i did

[starbuck]

I have Virgin's 20mb and don't have a problem with throttling (obviously depends on what you're downloading).

You can get their 50mb service which doesn't have traffic management applied to it at all.

[Biscuit]

IF service is more important to you than cost then i would check out Aquiss. My Dad has been using them for years and i am soon to be moving to them aswell. It run by a nice bunch of pleasant chaps, so nice infact, we had some problems on Christmas day a few years ago, sent them an e-mail on the morning and got a reply later that day

My dad is using their regular BT line ADSL service however their LLU service is supposed to be really good, im going to at least try it out and if its not fast enough, il move to their FTTC service. the advantage of their LLU service is that its completely uncapped, there is no throttling or limits what so ever plus you don't need to sign up to a contract, its a month by month thing. I dont think they provide a modem though so if you dont have one you will have to pick one up, hardly a huge blow though

[Champman99]

They don't have the best record but I have to say since starting with them, (2 years or so at a guess) Sky have been fantastic for us. On the top package (used to be called "max" but i think it's called "unlimited" now). No FUP, no traffic shaping, hardly had a single outage at all and decent (if not fantastic speeds). I can get maximum 12-13mbps (1.5-1.6 MBps downloads) but it doesnt drop from that at all even at the peak.

We don't have SkyTalk although that would make it cheaper, we were able to get some reduction when they put up prices by recommitting for another 12 months. I believe the unlimited package is available without SkyTV (although Sky Talk may be compulsory not sure on that), for a £2.50 surcharge over what TV subscribers pay. Although I think for a truly unlimited package it is still left looking reasonable.

As I have said some people have had very bad experiences but I can only comment on my own personal experience which has been very positive. Oh and if you are a SkyTV subscriber, Sky Anytime+ is a nice perk for having Sky Broadband too (proper VOD not just old Sky Anytime which was random stuff prerecorded)

[finlay666]

You can join Sky broadband without the sky TV option. Also Sky's landline costs are lower than BT.

Unfortunately they say they are but paying upfront for 12 months line rental with BT is just £120 so £10/month which is a decent saving on their own package, I'll keep them in mind though

Routers aren't an issue, I have a ADSL2+ ethernet modem and a choice of 2 DSL routers I can use, one mid range draft N Linksys and a high end Netgear of the same spec I was given by a friend before he moved to Australia

[Champman99]

Sky (I don't know about other ISPs) don't like you using anything except their router. Your Username/Password for broadband are hardcoded into it. Of course you can just use their router as a modem and then have your own networking/wireless facilities (as I do) but not sure if other ISPs have similar policies.

[Cornholio]

im on 50mb virgin, and i TAN my downloads, never had any throttling and i do download serious amounts.