ISP recommendations and recent bargains

[Adrock]

Virgin have increased their prices so I'm looking for a new internet provider. Has anybody had any experience with Sky Fibre yet? Or any recommendations for good ISPs?

I would like a a 20mb+ speed but if that isn't possible without Virgin then I'd have to consider something else.

[trev1976]

BT Infinity throttle P2P so bad its unusable at weekends and peak hours during the week , sucks - Think ill go back to virgin when my contracts up, even my ping was better with virgin

[charlesr]

https://vivaciti.net/product/1/home-internet/9/broadband-unlimited/6

Broadband Unlimited Premium. Broadband Unlimited Business Premium. This service has Unlimited data usage and no FUP! This package is a premium package with high stability and good average latency. Ideal for gaming, VPN, VOIP and general/high demand use. This service has a maximum speed of 24Mb.

The package can have options set to change interleaving to on or off, set the SNR (to as low as 3db if the line will maintain it) and change line profile to make this one of our most stable services we have.

[Adrock]

That would be very promising if I didnt live so far away from the exchange that I'd end up with about 2 or 3mb out of the supposed available 24mb.

I think I'm gonna downgrade my Virgin from XL to L. Its funny they allow you to upgrade but not downgrade through their website, cheeky bastards

[FelixofMars]

Really? In my experience Virgin do the exact same thing.

BT Infinity throttle P2P so bad its unusable at weekends and peak hours during the week , sucks - Think ill go back to virgin when my contracts up, even my ping was better with virgin

Openreach is coming Tuesday to fit Infinity via PlusNet. So I can expect to be on the phone Wednesday when it all goes wrong :P

[EvilBoris]

Virgin have even started throttling usenet. I couldn't get more than 800kbos on my 60mbps connection

[FelixofMars]

Well worse, they seem to throttle Xbox so all my friends are complaining how they can't get a decent game because of pings. Has this happened to you Boris? My mate on Virgin seems to have the second to worse ping out of all of us and I am on 'tin and string' until tomorrow and mine is about 15-20 which is pretty good.

[KIT786]

Can anyone recommend PlusNet?

Seems they will be launching Unlimited Fiber (upto 76Mbps) on Wednesday for ?19.99 (?9.99 for first 6months), however its a 18month contract and need to get their phone line which is another ?13.99pm

http://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2012/12/isp-plusnet-to-introduce-unlimited-broadband-packages-across-the-uk.html

[charlesr]

Plusnet suck hard. It's BTs super cheap alternative. Even my Grandad who is is 96 decided he had to move away. Customer service was rubbish. He went to sky though....

Weirdly, they get good ratings....

http://www.thinkbroadband.com/isp/compare.html?commit=Compare&isp_7=1&isp_77=1&isp_21=1&isp_84=1

My Father in law had to ditch them too. Line drops, rubbish customer service.

[smouty]

With any ISP you are really going to also add in the cost of a VPN or Usenet with SSL to avoid the throttling.
I'm on infinity 80/20 with BT which has been 100% stable since install 6 months ago.
Not the cheapest and although I haven't needed to contact support I have heard they are not great.
Only P2P is throttled at peak times. Latency is around 5ms.

[wod]

ISP recommendations and recent bargains

Virgin have even started throttling usenet. I couldn't get more than 800kbos on my 60mbps connection

You need to change the port used and use ssl encryption, I forgotten what it was a mate told me that he had to do that even on his 100mb connection through virgin.

[KIT786]

thanks for that info charlesr, might give them a miss then

[KIT786]

Hmm, having spoken to a few friends at work they seem to no issue with Plusnet. I suppose I can wait a few months for the dust to settle on the quality of the fiber network and the confusion surrounding the traffic management

[charlesr]

I think you have to remember that when it comes to this sort of service, you get what you pay for. If you want to spend ?6pcm you can expect throttling and variable customer service.

[charlesr]

Be Broadband are doing a New Year offer, with 12 months broadband for the price of 6. Customers who buy any BE broadband package during Jan using the promo code NEWYEAR13 will get 50% off their broadband for a year.

Code: NEWYEAR13
Expires: 28th Febuary 2013
T&C's: Offer only available on 12 month contract. Excludes landline and short-term contracts. Can't be used in conjunction with any other offers.