ISP recommendations and recent bargains

[Number45]

https://www.bethere.co.uk/web/beportal/homepage

As long as the line supports it, you should expect to match that at least.

[charlesr]

Every time I try and check out on that page, I get to the line checker and it says "Service is temporarily unavailable." Has been like that for weeks
On the plus side, I'll have to phone someone so I can see what they are like to talk to

[charlesr]

Ah. My exchange hasn't been unbundled, so BE is not available here. Bum.

[Number45]

Weird, shows fine for me. Current ISP stopping you from looking at competing products?

BE Value

* Up to 12 meg download
* Up to 1.3 meg upload
* Unlimited usage

12 month contract.
? 13.79 /month

BE Unlimited

* Up to 24 meg download
* Up to 1.3 meg upload
* Unlimited usage

12 month contract.
Also available on a 3 month contract.
? 17.88 /month

BE Pro

* Up to 24 meg download
* Up to 2.5 meg upload
* Unlimited usage
* 1 Static IP address (can upgrade to up to 16 static IPs)

12 month contract.
Also available on a 3 month contract.
? 21.97 /month

[charlesr]

Since it was the DNS that was down, I've put back OpenDNS and will stick here until I can figure out if there's anything better. Looking around, everyone has been bought up by 3 main players, so essentially there's no advantage to jumping ship without a lot of thought and guesswork.

[charlesr]

Also, just did a line test on their site www.opal.co.uk and it said I can get 8Mb down (what I have now), but only 448Kbps up (almost half what I have now!), so I'm doing ok.... Hope they don't revert me down to that after a while.

[k0pp0]

Anyone tried leaving Talktalk/tiscali? Do they make it difficult?

Reason being I have a 8MB (nearly) line, and I'm getting literally dial up connection speeds.

I was thinking of a custom package with Virgin, as the prices weren't too bad..

[charlesr]

Have a look on thinkbroadband. It sounds like in some cases they can be difficult to get your code (whatever it's called), but I'm guessing these are just the few that have issues and therefore complain.

Sounds like something that could be fixed. Checked you have wireless encryption on? i.e. neighbour not stealing all your wireless bandwidth Tried plugging into the BT test socket direct? (take front plate off). Tried calling them?

[charlesr]

I'm with Opal now that they bought Nildram. Useless online control panel now. Utterly useless. Anyway, I'm on an ADSLMax exchange without LLU, so max I can get is 8Mb. Turns out the nildram prices for my 832kb/s upstream were very cheap - no one else will provide this without doubling my monthly fee. Opal are still honouring it though as well as my monthly contract (I think). Server drops every now and then which is a pain, but I'm considering sticking with it to keep the upstream.

What pings do you all get if you ping www.ntsc-uk.com and who are you with?
I get average 47ms with Opal. I'm sure it was less than that with nildram.

[charlesr]

Gah. Tried to watch a streaming vid on Xbox Zune - it wouldn't let me watch in HD at 8pm. This used to work fine on Nildram. Opal you gits with your traffic shaping. Just *^%& off. Tried it this morning at 12.30am and it worked fine 1080p HD streaming. But who the hell wants to start watching a film at 1am??

What's worse is that it couldn't even hold SD properly in the evening and 10 or so times during the film it dropped down to a couple of bars lower than SD and it was blocky city.

No point in complaining about this because everyone seems to be doing it and until I either move house or my exchange gets upgraded and unbundled, I'm screwed. ffs.

Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu Opal

[toythatkills]

Anyone have any experience of Plusnet? They're really very cheap and this is a major factor in my choice of Broadband, but are they that cheap for a reason?

[mikewl]

Two people from talktalk came to my house the other week talking about upgrades that are planned for my area, I think i'm stuck in an area that is more geared towards cable connections as i've looked online and my area seems capped at 2mb with alot of nearby areas getting as low as 0.5mb.

Its a real pain as we've only recently moved here and I used to be getting about 13mb/s, I can no longer stream movies from Sky Player without leaving it to buffer for half an hour beforehand, also ITunes I use alot to buy tv series and rent movies its the same issue.

As for service Talktalk has seemed ok, though around midnight we'll sometimes lose connection for 30 or so minutes, only occassionally but enough to notice it being the same time each time.

I do believe on the whole ISP's are wholly inadequate for today's heavier users, just using ITunes I maybe use 30gig a month, Steam offers can see me using huge amounts, demo's and all the rest and I easily come close to or over my 80gig limit per month.

Though say you buy a HD TV series on ITunes, thats about 1.5gig for the HD version and 600mb for the standard version, so over 2gig an episode, say its 23 episodes a season and thats over half your allowance gone for the month.

Not to mention if you have multiple people using the connection alot.

[charlesr]

Noticed that while playing CoDMW2, it will now NEVER find a game until it reaches 110ms. With Nildram it would find games at 60ms. Opal broadband sucks.

[charlesr]

Tonights amazing Opal ****ness update:

[wod]

I'm with Be and never have any issues can download and everything in peak time, there adsl2+ is great getting near 18mb down and 1.2mb up on the unlimited service but it does cost more than these plusnet you see for 6.49

been with them ever since nildram got messed up by tiscali rubbish.