Anyone recommend a good ISP, Pipex are rubbish

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Gremlin

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Pipex used to be very good until they were taken over by Tiscali and then TalkTalk, well fine until something goes wrong ! :bang:
I've had no connection since last Saturday, keep getting promised they wil sort it within 48 hours and nothing, when I phone they have done nothing and try and put me through the same old check settings bit, I can now do them with my eyes shut. They kept trying to tell me it was the router, but 2 different routers down the line and they have admitted that it is their's or the phone line line's problem.
At the moment I am using a mobile PAYG broadband USB stick and have to admit it is pretty good :thumbs: if I didn't need to connect both the desk and laptop I wouldn't bother to find another ISP.
So after a very frustrating week without the internet when I really needed it I'm looking to change price not a worry, just someone reliable with a decent helpline when things go wrong.
 
O2 have been pretty good for me. Where I currently am they have to lease BT's equipment so the uptime/speed is at the mercy of BT (some areas O2 have their own equipment and therefore no reliance on BT), however, the couple of times I have phoned them for advice and support they have answered quickly and been very helpful.
 
If you don't mind the cost Andrews and Arnold are second to none for service, tools and plain old fashioned quality (but they are expensive). If budget is an issue, have a look at Be. Moved to them when Pipex got arsey about my Bandwith usage and never looked back.
 
Difficulty is that ISP quality of service varies according to where you live.
I have had an almost faultless service from Virgin for years, but I know folk in the West Midlands who don't get that.
 
yoby said:
If you don't mind the cost Andrews and Arnold are second to none for service, tools and plain old fashioned quality (but they are expensive).
Click to expand...

Yes. This.

A&A are a proper ISP and there are very few of those left. They also know how to deal with the wholesale part of BT to get line faults fixed and wont tell you it's a router problem when it's a line fault.

No port blocking, filtering, proxies, traffic shaping, censorship (>95% of UK ISPs censor), as many IPv4 addresses as you need at no charge rather than forcing NAT on you.

Of course, quality costs. If you are going to be torrenting 24/7 then they are not suitable, nor are they the ISP to use if you want to bundle phone, internet, TV and random other unconnected things all together for as little money as possible.
 
We have been with PlusNet for ages, very satisfied with service.
 
I use Waitrose, and they are very good. Not had many problems, but their call centre is very helpful. (OK it is in India!)
 
I have been with IDNET for over 2 yrs now,great support,i have only ever phoned them twice.:):thumbs:
 
If you can get it, bethere are fantastic, unrivalled speed, uptime and constant speed, and £17.50 a month.

None of the packet shaping and strange suddenly dropping do dead slow at 10pm that you get with virgin, pretty much constant 1mbit up / 15mbit down for me, and I live the other side of town from the exchange. Virgin, especially here (student town), have a nasty habit of not buying enough upstream bandwidth from their exchange, so while you have a fast pipe to your house, when other people on your exchange are trying to use their net too, it gets pretty slow.

If you want a referral to bethere and £15 free credit on your account, pm me your email addy :)

this is right now...

753369927.png


I wish I had money to spend on these guys' broadband , I like their style :D
 
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Talking to locals, remember I am out in the sticks :) , we have decided to go with BT, same as the phoneline, main reason being that most people that have a problem get a bt engineer at the exchange within 24 hour and sorted, this has always happened with the phone :thumbs:
We still have no broadband via iur phoneline, despite doing a total rewire in the house so no it is a line fault which costs pipex money to get sorted :bang:
I am connected via a mobile broadband dongle with with Tmobile and can't fault it, if only I have more the one pc/laptop connected at a time I would stick with it.
Oh I just had an email from them telling me not to cancel my direct debit as they take charges in arrears and will need access to clear my account, strange that as I have paid in advance every month in since my first pipex month, too late anyway as I cancelled the DD on Monday and they already had a payment that day, so with no connection since before then I can't owe them a penny.
 
Going with BT is not a bad idea if its a non LLU exchange. Alot of exchanges the ISP's have to use BT's equipment. And they often seem reluctant to contact BT wholesale who deal with any problems the ISP in question passes on. Atleast if you are with BT you are straight in touch with the equipment provider.
 
I was with BT for a few years and they were fine until I started having problems, their customer service was woeful and I ended up moving to PlusNet. My experience with PlusNet has been very positive, they resolved any issues efficiently and have even let me put my account on hold whilst I'm living in temporary accommodation.

Where I'm staying at the moment has Sky broadband and over Christmas we had issues with the service that Sky customer services didn't respond to for weeks, then gave conflicting information. It's sorted now and the service has proved to be fast and reliable.
 
I went with BT years ago on the assuption that if it was a BT line and BT was also the isp then at least I wouldn't get the "run-around", with the the line provider blaming the isp and vice-versa. Needless to say they're pretty much separate entities nowadays so my original argument is as much use as a chocolate fireguard.

On the other hand they've been OK and I'd recommend them, I've no plans to change.

cheers
 
Been with Virgin for years and never had any problems, just wish they would sort out upload speeds.
 
I've just noticed... I've been got at :)
Len McCluskey indeed... It could have been worse guys!
 
OneTen said:
. My experience with PlusNet has been very positive, they resolved any issues efficiently .
Click to expand...

:plusone:
major prob with BT line to farm - weeks to sort

PlusNet didn't take a Direct Debit that month !!......excellent PR work ....:thumbs:
 
Been with BT for close to nine years and have never (as in not once in all those years) lost connection.

The only issue I have had was the line speed dropping last summer, but I kept a log of the speeds, phoned BT and they sorted it in less than a day.

Dave
 
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