Awwwww!!

[Mike Fishcake]

Guess who got a warning letter from wanadoo telling him off for exceeding his monthly bandwidth limit (38GB a month on average for 3 months. On a 15GB capped line) :-D

As far as I can see I have two options:

1. Curb my downloading
2. Leave as many torrent files downloading and seeding as possible, to see how much bandwidth I can use before they kick me off, therefore freeing me from the contract, and being able to sign up with someone else.

So, seeing as ADSLguide is down at the moment (unless wanadoo are blocking me from accessing it ) what do you think of the following BB ISPs:

- Tesco (512k, but unlimited transfer at £15.99 per month. Wasn't even aware they had a BB service until a few days ago)
- Nildram
- Pipex
- (suggestions for others?)

Bear in mind that my phone line can only just about handle a 1Mb line, apparently, so anything above that isn't worth it

(oh, and before you start pointing the finger, the vast majority of the transfer comes from seeding torrents of legally recorded gigs from artists that allow recording at their gigs :-P)

[Mike Fishcake]

Just been reading up, and just found out, that because i've been with them for over a year, i can get a migration code and bog off to somewhere else :-)

[Stoo]

Zen rock

[Lee H]

awwww naughty Mike - frame the letter and hang it in your room ( I did with a BT one )

Best of the bunch IMO in no particular order are as follows ;

Zen, Nildram, Plus, Pipex and Bulldog ( some people have issues, some don't with Bulldog - I'm in the latter )

[Mike Fishcake]

Bulldog's probably a no-no for me, TBH. It's between Nildram and Pipex. Probably pipex because it's ever so slightly cheaper, and although it's only a 1Mb connection, it's uncapped and my line can only handle 1Mb anyway.

I will check Zen out though, i've not looked at them yet.

[Dougal]

UKonline have 8MB

[Taz]

Nildram are great for the moment (they got bought out by Pipex last year so things may go downhill). I really cannot fault them. My other ADSL line is with Plusnet - even better CS than Nildram and much, much cheaper.

Nildram is capped at 50GB per month during 'peak' hours - 8.00am to midnight. It's unmetered from midnight to 8.00am so I just set up a scheduled download using Reget Deluxe overnight.

I've just moved away from Pipex and they were the worst of the bunch for me although many other people are very happy with them. Choosing between Pipex and Nildram is a no-brainer for me as I have spent over a year with both of them (on two different BT lines in the same property) and Nildram are streets ahead although they may be a bit more expensive but you do get what you pay for in terms of customer service, speed and reliability.

[rox0r]

Don't bother with Pipex if you're downloading that much, they just changed their T&C's in accordance with their new FUP and somewhat rather sly 'traffic management' system. If you're seen to be using excessive bandwidth (and this is the vague bit, there are no figures released by Pipex as to what 'excessive bandwidth' counts as) your connection gets throttled down to 10% of it's normal speed at peak time every day....permanently, no way to get off it other than migrate.

I'm migrating from Pipex to PlusNet atm, not because of the traffic management I'm not a heavy user but because of price.

[Mike Fishcake]

UKonline have 8MB

my line can only handle 1Mb anyway.

I've had a look at Zen. What I'm impressed with is their minimum 1 month contract.

It's a bit of a toss-up really!

Is that stuff about Pipex bandwidth throttling true then, or is it just people reading things into it?

[Grey M@a]

From what I have been told its true about pipex and since pipex bought nildram they capped the nildram lines to 50gb a month transfer which is fair enough. I would say go with the zen option its only a month so may as well try them out.

[Allen]

Zen, Nildram, Plus, Pipex and Bulldog ( some people have issues, some don't with Bulldog - I'm in the latter )

I'm with Bulldog and have recently been the latter too, but lately I do have an issue. When you do get a problem, getting through to their customer service is a nightmare. You call them during the day, they say they're too busy and hang up (no queuing system at all), call them any other time and there's no-one there.

So basically, if you have a problem outside of 8am - 8pm weekdays or 9am - 6pm weekends then you don't have a chance of getting it resolved as they have no support. Even if it is in that time though, getting an answer from them is hard enough as they're always "busy". I also find that they haven't decreased their charges for ages, yet most other providers have either decreased their charges or increased speeds for free. I'm still paying £30 a month for 1mb, other providers charge £2025 a month for the same service.

It will be bye bye Bulldog from me shortly I think.

[Allen]

Bulldog's probably a no-no for me, TBH.

Wow, I've never seen that before. Didn't realise so many people complained about their customer service... Makes me wanna drop Bulldog even more!

Is it possible to switch over to another ISP without loss of connection? I dunno if could go without the net for a few days, lol!

[Allen]

Yes, dont cancel old one till you start using new one, its only really a change of login details that you change in your network settings most the time from isp to isp.

Aye, just got off the phone with Zen (very nice chaps) and they explained that I needed a MAC code from Bulldog and I'd be down for about 1 hour on the day of transfer, which is more than acceptable.

One thing is though, Zen also don't have 24x7 support. Do they need it though, like Bulldog obviously do. Do any decent ISP's provide 24x7 support?

[Mike Fishcake]

OK, got my migration code now. Zen seems a bit expensive, so i'm probably going to go with nildram. Considering about half of my downloading is done overnight anyway their no limits on off-peak service would suit me fine.

[unrealuniverse]

i don't download much so BT is fine for me, been with them for 4 nearly 5 years now and never had to call customer services once.

that is what i call quality.

[unrealuniverse]

technically it is unlimited untill they decide to cap it which i think it the 1st august at the moment but BT probably won't get it done by this time so lets say end of the year. But by that time they will want to stay competitive and either raise the limit to 30GB per month or drop the limit alltogether.