Are BT Best?

[ajbrun]

Update - I've just had a word with my dad, and although I didn't show him any graphs or figures etc, he said that most reviews of ISP's were from unqualified people. He said that most people don't know what they're getting (which is probably true). When I asked "what if the review came from acomputer site" (such as this one), he said that it depends on how many people use that ISP in your area. Therefore any review is probably wrong as it's not form your area.

He went on to say that all or most ISP's use BT's phone lines anyway, so that the services offered will be very similar.

I still don't see why we don't go to Zen if we get more for less there TBH....

[yamangman]

If you went with Pipex you would be getting more for the least, cheaper than both BT and Zen, and you've seen the comparative chart. Pipex has the best price/performance, support ratio.

To be honest, these are the four you should look at:

http://www.adslguide.org/isps/compar...action=Compare

[Flash]

My Dad (who works for BT) is very adamant that we choose BT for broadband. The reason he says so is he believes that BT has more of a consistant speed when compared to other ISP's. Ie 512kbps is always 512kbps.

Is this true?

I'm sure we'll be better off going to somehere like pipex, where we get 512kbps and unlimited download limits for cheaper than BT's 15GB/month.

Who's right? What do you think?

No my friend the reason your Dad chose BT BB is because he knows full well as a BT employee the 512, 1Mb and 2Mbit packages ar subsidised for staff which means he can get a 1Mbit service with 30Gb cap for £15.99

know tell me again why he doesnt want any other ISP

[Basher]

Another vote here for go with Zen. You'll pay praps slightly more than other ISP's but you will get a good service, never, in the past two years of service, have I had a problem or a complaint to make towards them. Seem to be very consistently relable

[ajbrun]

No my friend the reason your Dad chose BT BB is because he knows full well as a BT employee the 512, 1Mb and 2Mbit packages ar subsidised for staff which means he can get a 1Mbit service with 30Gb cap for £15.99

know tell me again why he doesnt want any other ISP

As I've said above, he says he gets offers sometimes (or more likely most of the time). If that's true (and it probably is), we WILL be getting broadband from BT.

My only concern then is that AFAIK, all BT packages come capped. I just hope my Dad chooses a suitable cap and doesn't look at the price too much.

[mr_anderson187]

well im going against the grain and saying that bt have always been good with me!

ive been with them for over a year and am on their 1mb line with 30gb cap, i have broke this cap twice in two conscutive months and they havent bothered there arss doing anything, so im happy, no downtime either

[Flash]

well im going against the grain and saying that bt have always been good with me!

ive been with them for over a year and am on their 1mb line with 30gb cap, i have broke this cap twice in two conscutive months and they havent bothered there arss doing anything, so im happy, no downtime either

they have no means to bother you yet

[luap.h]

BT were great for me, then I dumped the frog and got a router and it's been just peachy.

[ajbrun]

BT were great for me, then I dumped the frog and got a router and it's been just peachy.

You can use a router with BT though can't you?

[Apex]

Yes we all ready been over this iirc.

[Moby-Dick]

assuming your father works for a BT ISP and has a direct line to their 2nd/3rd line techies ?

Zen are reliable, friendly and helpful

this is 100 more than I can say for ANY isp support I've needed from BT.

unqualified you say ? I've been configuring DSL lines since before they hit the UK. I personally support several hundred dsl connection for all my UK clients as an outsourced IT support specialist.

In all my times working in the field I have never come accross such incompetant supoprt as that provided by BT's ADSL "support" function. For example - 6 Hours to reset a password ( did the lab monkeys want their brain cell back ? )

this as you can imagine woudl give you a pretty dim view of ISP's ( bah- they all do that! you might think )

untill you actually find an ISP that knows its sphincter from a hole in the ground, such as Zen.

example - password reset. Phoned their support ( call was answered in under 60 seconds by a voice in England ). and asked for a password reset. The operator went out of his way to resolve the call. The security team had actually just finished shift and where due to leave for the weekend, but the operator got off his backside , found the team and reset the password. All in a single call.

None of the zen lines we support have had a problem. 100% of the BT lines we support have caused problems for my clients in 1 way or another.

[ajbrun]

I know - I meant to say you CAN use a router.

[Proplus]

In my office, I'm on BT, it's a business account so I get top-notch service. Any problems I've had the longest they taken to sort it out was 20mins max, and there was a internet outage in the Midlands area about a year or so ago when I couldn't access the net for 2 days, and they full reimbursed all financial losses that occured because of the outage.

For me missus, I've signed her up with Tiscali, £24.99 per month for a 1Mb line no capping and no sign-up charge.

Back in my flat, I'm on UKOnline's 8Mb service.

[ajbrun]

WOW - that tiscali one sounds dirt cheap. Does that affect the quality or speeds or whatever?

[Proplus]

No idea, all she ever uses it for is web-browsing for research, emails and MSN really.

[Stoo]

Update - I've just had a word with my dad, and although I didn't show him any graphs or figures etc, he said that most reviews of ISP's were from unqualified people. He said that most people don't know what they're getting (which is probably true). When I asked "what if the review came from acomputer site" (such as this one), he said that it depends on how many people use that ISP in your area. Therefore any review is probably wrong as it's not form your area.

TBH your Dad knows naff all, case in point being the router thread, the people that run adslguide know their stuff inside out and back to front.
FYI, the speed tests aren't run by one individual, they're gathered from literally thousands of users running a tool very similar to the line speed test that BT Engineers use.