ISP recommendations and recent bargains

[Brad]

Just signed up to Be. Let's see how we get on.

[charlesr]

Nice area but possibly the worst exchange I have seen services wise.

The good news is that there are about 3 farmers and me using the exchange, so I get max speed (~750Kb/s down and ~80Kb/s up). On some things like torrents anyway.

The bad news is that there are about 3 farmers and me using the exchange so it'll be the last one in the country to get upgraded.

[NeoStuey]

My Vigin Media 10Mb/s line crapped out about 3 weeks ago, I had the very old ntl:200 modem. Well their support people took quite a bit of convincing but they finally sent an engineer out rather than believe me when I said I thought it was just the modem that was knackered. He saw it and straight away replaced it with a netgear one and all working again now. Now I'm happy after being frustrated by the technical support obstacle course.

[charlesr]

On hold to TalkTalk Business for 20 minutes now. Unfortunately the music is "worst of 80's" and some of it is offensively loud. All those synths are just not designed to be piped over the normal phone line

[Brad]

Anyone know if I can use my Sky modem/router with Be? It's not a great bit of kit I know but it definitely works with PS3 Remote play so I'd like to keep it if poss.

[smouty]

Is it Be LLU? If so it needs to support MPoA rather than PPPoA/PPPoE which is more common.

You'll probably find your answer here - http://beusergroup.co.uk/technotes/index.php/Routers

I'm assuming you've also unlocked your router from Sky?

[Brad]

er, I've done nothing with my sky router yet as Be isn't active just yet. I assume Sky let me keep the router? O2 wanted theirs back.

[megatron]

charlesr - Do you have the direct number to call to get your mac code off talktalk. I've had enough. :/

[charlesr]

For a minute, I though you meant "enough" of me whining away about opal / talktalk
The customer services freephone number is on the invoice (which you can download I think). Whilst it took an age to get through, they were very helpful when I did. I'll be migrating off as soon as there's a viable alternative on my exchange

[EvilBoris]

I'm gonna give BE a go for 3 months on their 3 month PRO contract then see how it compares to my Virgin Connection. If it works out well I'll carry on for the year

[Rossco]

Just upgraded my Virgin from 20 to 30Mb. £30 one off charge for the new wireless modem and they also took £5/month off the bill!

Hopefully this fixes the line as it has just died lately and I get **** speeds when I used to max it out all the time. Bring on 3600kb/s downloads!

[charlesr]

Here's my current speed:

Check out my "faster upload than download!" hilariousness.

I just got a call from TalkTalkBusiness. I did ask them to call me back once my BT contract was up and that was 4 days ago, so that's good.

Anyway, they are trying to get me to sign up to line rental and calls with them. I mentioned that my TTB broadband is cack and was worried the phone service would be equally plop. The salesman said that once I was using them for line rental, they would prioritise my broadband traffic.

I had a look on their website and it really does say: "The data that is sent and received via your broadband connection is given priority over our standard broadband traffic at key points in our network." (if I take the line rental too).

It's a 24 month contract for the line rental though but cheap as chips. It'll be worth it if it gets me back to my Nildram level of broadband service though.

Anyone got any experience with TalkTalk phone stuff? Run for the hills, or take the savings?

[charlesr]

Called their technical support but their ticketing system is down so they can't do anything to help me.... I might switch to dial-up. It'll be quicker.

[EvilBoris]

Here's my current speed:

Check out my "faster upload than download!" hilariousness.

I just got a call from TalkTalkBusiness. I did ask them to call me back once my BT contract was up and that was 4 days ago, so that's good.

Anyway, they are trying to get me to sign up to line rental and calls with them. I mentioned that my TTB broadband is cack and was worried the phone service would be equally plop. The salesman said that once I was using them for line rental, they would prioritise my broadband traffic.

I had a look on their website and it really does say: "The data that is sent and received via your broadband connection is given priority over our standard broadband traffic at key points in our network." (if I take the line rental too).

It's a 24 month contract for the line rental though but cheap as chips. It'll be worth it if it gets me back to my Nildram level of broadband service though.

Anyone got any experience with TalkTalk phone stuff? Run for the hills, or take the savings?

It sounds like false promises, the fact that they have waded in and ruined your connection without warning is bad enough, but then to try and bribe you into taking on another service so that you get 'priority' is probably virging on the illegal.

Thing is , your priority that you had has clearly been distriubuted eqally across the system, I can't imagine that they will be able to restore it to such an unequal distribution again.

tell them to shove it.

I'm going to be signing up with BE in a the next week or so to try that on their 3 month contract. If it's no good for my needs I'll return to virgin

[Charlie]

Those with Virgin (probably works with other providers too) can save money by phoning them up and saying you want your MAC number as you're changing providers, chances are they'll offer you a new 12/24 month contract and knock around a fiver off your monthly bill. Mine went down from £18 to £12.