ISP recommendations and recent bargains

[gtskater]

I don't really understand why anyone would not choose Be considering the quality of their offering. I'm currently receiving about 18Mb/s down and 2Mb/s up. For £22!

Please find me a better deal.

[dvdmike]

Bescause like me most people cannot get Be !

[gtskater]

Move then.... it's worth it. It's like moving so you can be close to a good school, but better.

[bannanaman]

I recommend having a look at http://www.moneysupermarket.com/broadband/ to begin with and see what you got! And if your one of the lucky ones to be able to recieve the glorious "BE" then take it! BE are the best and I've never had any problems! IF you can't then don't choose the likes of talktalk and orange!

I wonder how many people will leave talktalk this month! According to the papers, it's been 18 months since talktalk made the free broadband offer! I've heard alot of people are crying to get out of their contract finally. I've got 4 friends alone looking to leave!

[SmokeMeAKipper]

Hi Guys - I'm currently with Orange at ?18 a month (actually it's Freeserve we signed up with originally who then became Wanadoo who are now Orange) and I've been in breach of their Fair Use Policy. Apparently I've been breaking 40Gb a month (mainly PC video, 360 and PS3 downloading - I'm not a file sharer) so they've now limited my connection

I was on an 8mb connection (was d/l'ing at about 250kbps normally) and they've reduced it to a 2mb connection (now d/l'ing ay 60kbps).

Is there anything I can do about this until they raise my connection speed again? My cousin is on BT and says he downloads a lot but has never been in breach of their Fair Use Policy - would they be a better bet?

[angelx]

We were with freeserve originally and when wannadoo came on & introduced their fair use policy we dropped them pretty sharpish! It wasnt like we dload tons & tons, maybe 1 or 2 tv shows a day.. We are with UK online now but they dont offer best speed in our area but have yet to moan about dloading, at one time i had ps3, 360 & pc dloading (not at same time!) and not a peep, I was just looking at teh link above and Demon look quite good. I do wonder how harsh their fair use is though...

[trev1976]

Thinking of changing ISP to VIRGIN

Hi , please help

Currently im using a 1mb tesco's broadband line (ADSL is that right :P ) but i can actually get cable (DSL is that right :P ) in my home and i see virgin are suppling a 20mb line at the mo so im very interested in getting this

Has anyone had any experience with virgin capping downloads and such ?

i believe virgin dont supply a wireless router with there package so ill have to buy my own ,, what are the best routers to buy for wireless cable and can they support DHCP so i can assign IP address automatically ?

also id need a router that can handle file sharing as i file share with my XBMC via SMB and i play on xlinks also i FTP to my xbox

would also need it to support port forwording for online gaming and such

Ive just bought a belkin wireless G router gaming adapter for my XBOX but havnt used it yet so im not to sure if wireless works that well over xbox xlinks/xbox live and SMB file sharing ? i currently have it wired from my 4 port belkin router and works fine at the mo .

Also soon im hoping to add a XBOX 360 and PS3 to my system so if i bought another belkin gaming adapter for 360 would i be able to add that to my network too

sorry for all the questions just want to get this right before i take the plunge and use a new ISP as everything at the moment works but has very slow download speeds

Thanks

[chang]

Not sure on the exact figures as its been a while since I paid any real attention to what Virginmedia are doing with my connection. Virginmedia employ a usage scenario where if you download over a certain amount between 4PM and Midnight they throttle your download to say 4mb (if you are on 20/10mb say) for 4 hours after the throttle is activated. The throttles have different values depending on your package.

As for networking, they dont officially support it but it works without problem with whatever you are adding in. Simply feed the free modem they give you into any router and there you have it. I have had zero issues with the likes of wireless and adding other PC and Consoles to the network. Most if not all routers support DHCP nowadays.

[trev1976]

hey thanks , so could i use the router ive currently got ? its a F5D7633-4 with a DSL line in that i use at the moment .. that would be a result

[chang]

I am not sure how the combined router/modems work with regards to cable. In theory they should work if you can tell the router that your external modem has the gateway details. I had a netgear something when I first got cable in and couldnt get the bugger to work, but Ill admit I am no expert on such things so just bought a dedicated router.

[Senna]

I'm moving to london next week, so I need to get an ISP set up ASAP. I was looking at the BT Total Broadband options, and they seem to be doing a not too bad deal - ?17.99 per month for a 12 month contract, free wireless router, and free BT Vision box (which has 80 hours of TV recording).

http://www.productsandservices.bt.com/consumerProducts/displayTopic.do?topicId=15761

Only downside is the 8GB monthly download limit. I dont download films, rarely download music. Primarily I just play my 360 online for about 4-5 hours a week, and about 1 hour a day internet access.

Would this 8GB limit be okay for usage like that, or would it be better for me to go for their unlimited download service which is ?22.99 a month?

http://www.productsandservices.bt.com/consumerProducts/displayTopic.do?topicId=15764

I know there might be other ISPs out there with slightly cheaper options, but considering the BT vision box service is useful to me as well, what would yo guys recommend?

Cheers

[Number45]

WTB house in Northampton, Bournemouth or Dundee.

[SmokeMeAKipper]

After finally getting rid of Orange (and receiving a letter of apology from the Cheif Exec of their Customer Service...) I've switched to the Post Office (it's for my Dad - he already has line rental with them so overall it just made sense).

Anyway, when we were with Orange I was getting download speeds of about 250kbps and when we first got our Post Office broadband we were getting about 140kbps. The last week or so this has dropped to about 90kbps and I'm not happy. I assumed we would get similar speeds to what we had with Orange. We're on an "upto" 8mb connection yet we're getting less than 1mb!

I rang them up last night and they tested our line and said there was nothing wrong with it and there was nothing else they could do on their end. Any suggestions? The problem now is we're locked into another 12 month contract!!

[MattyD]

So what's Virgin Broadband on cable like these days? I can't get more than about 1 Mbps on my telephone line here as I live on the fringes of my town, miles away from the exchange. If I switch my phone and internet to VM I'll be paying the same price as now but getting 2 Mbps. I hear they had problems with latency though so if anyone could update me on that I'd be grateful. FYI I've gone from getting 50-70ms ping with Tiscali to at least double that most of the time so it's probably time to move on anyway.

[Hohum]

Latency has never been an issue for me on Virgin... can't say I've had a problem with the broadband service itself (I'm on their cable service though - not adsl), bar the occassional hiccup. That's the upside.

On the downside, I've grown a strong dislike for the company, mainly due to the practices they are adopting (extensive traffic shaping to reduce their infrastructure upgrade costs, phorm advertising system, sending you letters if you're suspected of downloading popular music, etc). Their customer service is also dire quite frankly, they either don't know what they're talking about or treat you like a moron. We had a problem with our set-top box a while back, it was clearly faulty (not displaying image correctly regardless of TV/SCART cable used & would lock up randomly), yet the woman on the other end of the phone was extremely rude and arrogant about it - claimed I was totally wrong, blamed our other hardware, and tried to claim that she knew better than me. Had to really bite my tongue that day, that silly cow annoyed me immensely.

I'd consider leaving them, but at the moment there are no better services in my area, plus it'd be a hassle that I could do without. So, I'll stick with them until something better appears (such as Be unlimited becoming available). I guess you could give them a go if there aren't many good options out there for you at the moment.