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    #31
    UKONLINE - Use at your own risk

    NEVER JOIN UKONLINE


    I have vowed to make it my lifes work to ensure noone EVER joins Ukonline (owned by SKY).

    Theyre great at taking your money, you can get through to sales instantly. But my broadband hasnt worked properly for over 5 months. They have done nothing. They dont reply to emails. The 'technical support' are absolutely useless. They have upgraded me to 8mb allegedly twice now.

    First time 2 months ago the upgrade never happened I emailed them and all I got back was a rebooked appointment and that never happened either


    UKONLINE

    My connection goes to BT Wholesale page half the time
    Over 30 minutes EVERY time to get through to useless customer services.
    Do not reply to Emails.
    Promise thing and do not deliver.

    My contracts ends in January thank god.

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      #32
      Has anybody had any experience with Tiscali??

      You can get 2meg for ?14.99 with no caps only a fiar usage policy & just wondered if they are any good?

      I dont do much gaming on the PC so it will mainly be for browsing, the odd download & gaming on the Wii/360
      Obviously I'll have to replace the turdy modem for a proper Router but thats no hardship.

      It's basically either their 2meg service or AOL's 1meg one.

      I want to sign up in the next fortnight to one of them would just like your advice first please

      Thanks

      Neil

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        #33
        can anyone in harrogate give me the skinny on ISPs?

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          #34
          Sky Broadband - Good experience!

          Moved into my my new house a month ago and ordered Sky HD for my new tellys. It's just over 50quid per month but I thought it was worth it for the HD content and the free Broadband (5quid for 8meg).

          Got my HD working - lovely. But then asked about the BB only to find out that the cheapy services are actually unbundled lines - which currently only cover 30% of SKY households.

          This is not what they lead you to believe!

          I rang them up to have a bit of a go and one way or the other I was persuaded to take up their Connect service which is 17quid (on top) per month but gives you unlimited BB on your BT line. Then, they said, it puts you at the top of the queue when they come to unbundle your exchange thus getting you on the cheapy package (5quid). My exchange is due to be unbundled in a few months so I thought - go for it.

          So a few days later my router rocked up. That was 40quid more BTW. It's a wireless Netear 834G. I already have one and probably could have got it working, but the Sky one is already setup for you with your usernames and passwords.

          In terms of ease-of-use for your average Joe, it couldn't be simpler. Pop the CD in and click click click thru a Flash movie and you are online.

          In terms of configurability it's a bit poo. First of all the router is locked. A quick search reveals the username is admin and the password is sky.

          Straightforward editing of some settings then - they switch on your wireless automatically with a unique SSID. So I renamed, turned off the WPA encryption and turned on MAC filtering. Added my DS, Lite and Wii. Have yet to copy my port forwarding settings for torrenting.

          Before I signed up, my line test speed was 1Mb - oh the dark ages - but a few tests showd it was running at about 4Mb which is excellent.

          Apparently Sky is the worst for reliability and speed, but the experience is very good so far.

          Wii was a cinch to setup as well. Downloaded Opera and had a scoot at the weather channel.

          All good!

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            #35
            I was told and seem to be paying a tenner a month for unlimited BB with Sky,and a capped service is free.

            Maybe they have changed this recently?

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              #36
              Yes Nick, there is 3 normal packages once they unbundle your line. Min, Mid and Max. With Max being 10quid per month unlimited.

              But to get these you might have to wait for Sky to upgrade the line properly.

              Otherwise you can hop straight onto the Connect package from day one.

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                #37
                Originally posted by djjimbob View Post
                So I renamed, turned off the WPA encryption and turned on MAC filtering.
                Doesn't that make it really easy to hack your network with a mac address spoofer?

                Good to hear it went well for you though.

                Out of interest what cables do you need for sky HD? Just the standard cable from the satellite? What's the second cable for on sky+ ? I've only got the one cable at the moment.

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                  #38
                  Standard cables from the dish for HD. The second cable is for recording a second channel. I currently run Sky HD with only one cable due to living in an apartment I can't do anything to.

                  I'm dubious about moving ISP to be honest. I'm on 16mb Bulldog, and while Sky would be way cheaper, and Be24 would be cheaper *and* faster, I don't want to move to find out unlimited isn't that unlimited, and so far, Bulldog have been great for this. Last weekend I found a couple of big files I couldn't resist downloading (MAME 111u3 full romset and CHDs), and downed 50gb in one day. I'm not entirely sure Sky would put up with that!

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                    #39
                    Originally posted by charlesr View Post
                    Doesn't that make it really easy to hack your network with a mac address spoofer?
                    What is the best form of security to have,as i was told to use MAC address',and since being on SKY haven't changed from the standard WPA?

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                      #40
                      mac addressing is the best.. along with wpa encription..
                      anyway . i have sky . and when i first had it the connection would freeze, but now im having a werid issue where if i reset the router the connection comes on at max speed, then over the course of 30 mins drops and drops till it reach's nearly 0... reset the router again, and mack up to max, then back down to 0 in 30 mins.. ????

                      any ideas..

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                        #41
                        Leave the router off for an hour and then turn it back on again? It will then have to recheck your line sync and speed or something (I don't know what I'm talking about - it's just what I was told by support a while back when having weird disconnect problems on my router)

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                          #42
                          k will give that ago later.. luckly i can jump on to next doors wireless bb as i know there password..

                          Comment


                            #43
                            Originally posted by INSOMANiAC View Post
                            NEVER JOIN UKONLINE
                            Amen to that. A year or so ago, I was with them for a whole week until I realised what I was getting into with terrible download speeds and constant disconnections. I used the cooling off period to cancel while I still could (even then, they made it as difficult as it possibly could be).

                            I had an email response back two months after the contract was terminated. Phone calls took about three hours to get through to someone.

                            Comment


                              #44
                              Originally posted by charlesr View Post
                              Doesn't that make it really easy to hack your network with a mac address spoofer?

                              Good to hear it went well for you though.

                              Out of interest what cables do you need for sky HD? Just the standard cable from the satellite? What's the second cable for on sky+ ? I've only got the one cable at the moment.
                              Your average Joe isn't gonna know how to spoof a MAC address. He's not gonna know how to defeat WPA or WEP either, but they do slow your connection down.

                              I have 10 cables coming out the back of my Sky HD box.

                              Power, Optical, Scart, 3 aerials, HDMI and 3 sat cables.

                              Comment


                                #45
                                I'm thinking of moving to Sky or Be* but am a little hesitant. I'm currently with Nildram and paying ?26 p/m for 8mb down / 0.4mb up, 50gb usage

                                Sky is 16mb down / 0.7mb up - ?10 p/m, unlimited usage

                                Be* are 24mb down / 1.3mb up - ?24 p/m, unlimited usage

                                Now the download isn't really that important as my line has a max speed of 5.5mb but I would quite like the extra upload.

                                I hesitate as Nildram seem to be very reliable, there's been hardly any downtime in the 2 and half years I've been with them. BUT I do get disconnected once everyday between 8pm and midnight, it's only for 10seconds or so while it re-syncs but this can be annoying if using Xbox LIVE.

                                Should I be happy with what I've got? I don't want to move to Be* or Sky and have frequent disconnects.

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