Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

ISP recommendations and recent bargains

Collapse
This is a sticky topic.
X
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

    #16
    Signed up for Be* on the 22nd of September and was given an activation date of the 19th of September. Received the Be Box (modem/router) on the 27th and plugged it in. The 29th came around and .... nothing! Contacted customer services, who explained BT hadn't managed to activate the line on time. They said expect it in the next few days. It was activated briefly on Tuesday (3 Oct) morning but then switched off again, for no apparent reason.

    It was finally activated again on Thursday the 12th of October, almost two weeks after the originally scheduled activation date. So far, it has synced higher than 1.5Mbit/s. Needless to say I am not too impressed. Some people do of course report excellent speeds, which is great for them. Obviously not great for me.

    To be entirely fair however, it is possible these problems are down to BT. Despite that, I am a Be* customer and as such they should be working to ensure I have the best value for money here. If that means hassling BT then so be it. Again, it's a case of go with an ISP with excellent support. Zen and Nildram are repeatedly mentioned. If the service I am receiving from Be* doesn't improve, I will be changing.

    Comment


      #17
      Nildram have implemented a Traffic Management Policy on their broadband services. Nildram are owned by Pipex by the way....

      Top Broadband ISP Internet Service Provider Information Site

      Comment


        #18
        If you are really bothered by traffic shaping on possible p2p traffic you can use enryption protocols ( if the software supports it ) or use a vpn such as secureIX.

        Comment


          #19
          Originally posted by gtskater
          Signed up for Be* on the 22nd of September and was given an activation date of the 19th of September. Received the Be Box (modem/router) on the 27th and plugged it in. The 29th came around and .... nothing! Contacted customer services, who explained BT hadn't managed to activate the line on time. They said expect it in the next few days. It was activated briefly on Tuesday (3 Oct) morning but then switched off again, for no apparent reason.

          It was finally activated again on Thursday the 12th of October, almost two weeks after the originally scheduled activation date. So far, it has synced higher than 1.5Mbit/s. Needless to say I am not too impressed. Some people do of course report excellent speeds, which is great for them. Obviously not great for me.

          To be entirely fair however, it is possible these problems are down to BT. Despite that, I am a Be* customer and as such they should be working to ensure I have the best value for money here. If that means hassling BT then so be it. Again, it's a case of go with an ISP with excellent support. Zen and Nildram are repeatedly mentioned. If the service I am receiving from Be* doesn't improve, I will be changing.
          That is pretty much exactly what happened to me. BT (ironically) were far more helpful the Be. It just seemed to me that by the end of it all, Be were over subscribed and didn't have enough people available to fix outstanding issues - so they tried to buy time with excuses. After extensive line tests by BT effectivley proving there was no fault - I went back to them saying that everything was fine BT's "end" and that I wished to cancel my subscription to the service - almost overnight everything started working.

          Service has been ****e throughout to be honest - but I can't be arsed to leave, until I move house.

          Comment


            #20
            Whatever you do, DO NOT move to TalkTalk, they don't even give you broadband. I'd suggest going with BT or AOL.

            Comment


              #21
              Which broadband supplier is good these days?

              I'm looking for a new broadband supplier as Pipex seem to have gone to the dogs recently and are now a total waste of time.

              I'm not looking for a mega fast service, the main thing is a reliable one at 1 or 2Mbps.

              Any recommendations?

              Thanks,


              Mike.

              Comment


                #22
                Whatever people recommend there will be others that flame due to issues they`ve had themselves, but I`ve had several ISP`s, the worst by a mile being BT and the best being NTL (cable).

                Comment


                  #23
                  NTL I've not read good things about and they have had some pretty well documented problems recentley where online gameing is concerned, Starwars battlefront on the ps2 and Phantasy Star Online beta on the 360 are the two i have heard about.

                  Saying that im with a cable company for my broadband, telewests Blueyonders 4 meg is 25 quid a month and ive not had any issues with it i also get cheap tv and phone calls.

                  Comment


                    #24
                    I can't believe I missed the big sticky thread at the top of the page! Sorry!

                    Forgot to say, I can't get cable in my area.

                    Comment


                      #25
                      Hi gents

                      I have just moved from Bulldog (boo,hiss) to Sky Broadband and they send you a Sky branded Netgear wireless router.

                      On my last router i went inside and did the port forwarding to enable faster torrent downloads. However the blighters at Sky have changed the username and password (from admin and password)!

                      Anyone have any ideas how i can get those fast speeds back? Thanks.

                      I did a speed test today with the new Sky line and these results came back. Does that mean i have an 11meg service,or am i horrendously wrong and have a 1.1?

                      UPDATE -

                      Just changed the program i am using from ********** to transmission and am getting 580 kb/s. All sorted cheers.

                      THANKS CHARLES
                      Last edited by Pavey; 28-11-2006, 12:44.

                      Comment


                        #26
                        11.9Mbits/s = 1.5MBytes/s (divide by 8). 1.5MB/s is pretty fast dude.

                        Comment


                          #27
                          Is Sky Broadband any good then? I made the mistake several months back of signing up with Talk Talk. Absolutely shocking, so i'm cancelling and swallowing the fees. I'm after a reliable BB provider, pref that i won't have any problems playing online via XBL with, and it would also be nice if they didn't throttle torrent programmes/file sharing.
                          Please, any suggestions based on recent experiences?

                          Comment


                            #28
                            Sky Broadband is essentially Easynet, I believe.

                            The company I work for is changeing Easynet as its broadband partner and moving to Griffen as a business solution. It seems the handovers being absorbed by Sky is affecting Easynet as their business service is shockingly bad, no call backs, no updates, no care.

                            Cant really speak for the residential side of the business but I can only assume its having an effect on that side too.

                            Comment


                              #29
                              I recently went to Sky and they have been great.

                              Was with Bulldog before who's customer services were appaling. (They are still sending me bills and threatening with disconnection even though i migrated in October!)

                              In the first couple of weeks i was getting 150k's for my torrents (after port forwarding) but they have since dropped to crap speeds. Less than 10 the majority of the time,which leads me to my question.

                              Is this what is meant by throttling,or is it just coincidence,one of those things?

                              Can isp's remotely close my 6881 port,which i opened? Seems this would explain it.

                              Ta.


                              EDIT - Bash was very helpful,my 'man on the inside'.

                              Comment


                                #30
                                I have moved over BT, because NTL have been useless. Customer support is beyond help, most of the time you ring up and are told they are going on hold to do such and such for you and end up redirecting you back into the menus.

                                We had frequent drop out (every month for about 3-4 days)

                                The last straw was when we where completely cut off by one of their contracters who nicely dug up the road and we tried to get the service restored, they kept on putting us on waiting lists for engineers of a week+.

                                When the day came no one showed up, they also would not make a note of the general fault on our road even though I had neighbours with no service also.

                                I managed to get BT to install before the next NTL engineer was meant to turn up, who didn't in the end... they are a joke!

                                Comment

                                Working...
                                X