ISP's

holryn

holryn

Suspended / Banned
Messages
803
Name
Paul
Edit My Images
Yes
Just got a letter from my ISP saying that 'as a highly valued customer', they are going to put me on a new package deal.

The new 'deal' is to go over to 'UP TO 8mb' if I'm on a lower speed (subject to line and location).

Now, as I have only a max speed of about 1.5mb (don't get me started !! :shake:), and all tests indicate that I cannot get higher, the new 'deal' doesn't seem very appealing.

Throw in the fact that they also want to charge me THREE TIMES the current cost for, what appears, absolutely no change, I'm now looking at changing ISP.

I've have done a little research and am currently looking at either SKY or O2. Both have similar packages for less than this 'tempting' new deal.

My question is:

Does anyone have any experience of either of these ISP's? - good or bad - so I can make an informed choice.

All I'm after is a reasonable speed, high monthly download allowance and as little hassle as possible, plus, of course, decent reliability (to be fair to my current ISP this has never been a problem).
 
Good report for sky from me. We have used them for two months. They provide it down your BT line and even have the BT engineers come out and install it. Their online account management is awesome - you can login and view useage stats and see how much useage you have used that month (so you dont go over your 5gig allowance say). We have on the periphery of a town out in the sticks a little and get 4 meg speed but I would imagine that if your current ISP is providing down your BT line then you will already be at the max anyone can offer you. The limit will probably be imposed by your local exchange capability or the cabling to your house. Support and services teams are in UK.

High monthly caps may be a problem unless you go on to their unlimited package.

How is your tv and telephone setup? Can thoroughly recommend Virgin and the VIP package - you get top packages in everything for £75ish a month. All depends on whether cable is available where you are.

HTH.
 
In my experience as a computer technician I find it hard to recommend ISP's. The ISP I'm with, and have been for some years, is the best I have seen and customer services have improved remarkeably during my time with them.

However I am very much aware that they have been subject to much negative discussions in other areas. It appears to me that it depends which area your in.

Then of course is the issue of BT.. its their equipment that your ISP uses. How old and what condition is your wiring? How far from the exchange? What is the contention ratio (no. of people you share with)?

My suggestion is to try and ask neigbours and friends in your locality who they use and their overall experience. It might give you a better idea who to choose.
 
I'm with O2 and they are very good, but it isn't available from all telephone exchanges, so you should check that out first.
 
Hehe, I had 1Meg with an old provider and was told on numerous occasions that this was the Max I could get due to the lines and distance from the exchange.

I managed to get Virgin to install Cable at my house and switched to them (20Meg:love:).

Bizarrely when I gave notice to my old provider, suddenly they made promises of upgrading me to 8Meg for the same price etc etc etc.

Go Figure:bang:

I will also vouch for Virgin if you can get them in your area. I have the VIP package on TV (includes Sky Movies), Telephone (Free Calls) and BB (20Meg) £89/month
 
As has been said, there can be local variations in speed and quality etc. so check with neighbours. I moved from AOL who were dreadful and expensive, to O2 about 2 years ago, and TBH have not regretted it. I am on a 6mb contract but regularly get 8+mb. There isn’t a cap other than a fair usage agreement which has never affected me, and I am a heavy user. I also use O2 for my mobile and therefore only pay £7.50 a month for broadband, this year (my second with them), because I signed up for another 12 months, I got 2 months free bringing the cost down to £6.25 a month.
There has only been one downtime that I am aware of during my time with them and that was corrected within an hour, and even then I did have a service but it was slower than normal. Overall I am very happy with the service and would recommend them.
 
Ive heard good reports from both O2 and SKY customers and i have also heard bad ones.

As said above, ask your neighbours who there with and what sort of speeds they get.

Also, have you considered cable broadband if you can get it??
 
I'm also a Virgin customer and have so far been very happy. I'm on the Medium package (£18/month I am), which has 10mb unlimited internet and free weekend phone calls. I dont use the landline much. They supply the cable modem. They have fibre optic cabling to the building which almost guarantees I always get the 10mb as advertised too.

BT Openworld or whatever they're called now is also a decent option, quite reliable albeit a bit expensive. My folks are with them and get the BT Vision deal, they provide lots of equipment free (BT Vision box, wireless modems etc). Think they also have a deal with yahoo I think it is and get a free Pro account for Flickr. I also like the BT Yahoo mail interface, good at filtering out spam etc.
 
Virgin
SKY
BT

Are the reconsiderations, in that order, I had from a broadband engineer, though the O2 package with the dongle and free mobile browsing could be attractive if you travel a lot.
 
if you can get it in your area go for virgin fibre optic.

otherwise ive got sky unlimited and ive had no major issues (although line speed tops out about 2mb). the only problem is the router is locked down if you want fancy stuff like port forwarding, but you can get around it by cloning your MAC code and using a particular make/model replacement.
 
I work with ADSL and its limit's every day so can tell you first hand that just because O2 or SKY might be brilliant ISP's for one person doesn't mean the same for you.

If you are limited to 1.5mbit by the distance from your exchange then that is the best you are going to get on ADSL and still have a stable connection. The only way to get anything quicker would be to move to a cable ISP (Virgin).

Don't get me wrong, the customer service is never going to change depending on your location but speed might, it depends what contention ratio SKY/O2 are going to put you on and what kind of LLU work has been done at your local exchange.
 
alexkidd said:
i am le jealous that you have choices :'(
Click to expand...

we have one and one only dont we i hate karoo and KC only 2mb down where i am and i had a engineer come out on 2 seperate occasions from KC

they said it was the state of the line's causing problem's

hmmmmmmmmmm

they jsut bloody replaced them 5 day's previous to them visiting a load of Bull ****** i wish i had a better choice hopefully one day soon
 
I changed from TISCALI (because talk talk bought them) to SKY and other than two 5-10 minute drop outs yesterday have had no problems at all over last 3 months and they are giving a special deal at the mo.
 
wegotitugetit said:
we have one and one only dont we i hate karoo and KC only 2mb down where i am and i had a engineer come out on 2 seperate occasions from KC

they said it was the state of the line's causing problem's

hmmmmmmmmmm

they jsut bloody replaced them 5 day's previous to them visiting a load of Bull ****** i wish i had a better choice hopefully one day soon
Click to expand...

Given that KC is no longer wholly owned by the council their protected monopoly status should be removed by an amendment to the Telecommunications Act.
 
With most of the mass market ISPs the experiences I have had reported are that they are fine while they work, but trying to get a genuine technical problem solved is near impossible, especially if it is either an exchange or other configuration fault.

I use Andrews and Arnold. They give a genuine internet connection. No port filters, proxies, traffic shaping, censorship (one of the fes UK ISPs that does not implement censorship) and as many routeable IP address as you you want (I have a /28). They are also expensive and don't bundle Sky Sports or phone lines or toasters or what-have-you.
 
holryn said:
I've have done a little research and am currently looking at either SKY or O2. Both have similar packages for less than this 'tempting' new deal.

My question is:

Does anyone have any experience of either of these ISP's?
Click to expand...
I'm on O2 for about a year now & they have been very good.
Also worth checking Be as they are essentially the same company (O2 own Be) but there are differences in the packages - Bethere's basic value package starts at £7.50 whereas on O2 you need to have an O2 mobile to get down to that.
Have you investigated which ISPs can offer LLU on your exchange?
 
How much are you looking at spending a month? this may help people suggest other ISPs :)
 
ecoleman said:
I will also vouch for Virgin if you can get them in your area. I have the VIP package on TV (includes Sky Movies), Telephone (Free Calls) and BB (20Meg) £89/month
Click to expand...

Mate get onto Virgin and tell them you are thinking of leaving unless they can give you a better deal.

We did that and now get the top TV and phone package with XL broadband (20Mb) all for £56 a month.

It really is worth haggling with them
 
My mate is on Virgin and has had pretty good response when he's called their tech support. I'm with Zen and cannot fault them, not the cheapest but you get what you pay for imo.
 
How do you find how far away from the exchange you are?

Also are Virgin the only ISP that offer cable internet?
 
jimmy83 said:
Also are Virgin the only ISP that offer cable internet?
Click to expand...

Yes, BT are obliged by OFCOM to offer access to their exchanges to other providers and they are obliged to offer wholesale connectivity to ISPs.

Virgin have no similar obligation placed on them so if you want a cable ISP it's Virgin or nothing.
 
There are ways (google) to find out your straight line distance from the exchange but that could be far from the actual line distance. You used to be able to phone 17070 plus some options to get a close approximation of your line distance but I'm not sure that still works.
 
Thanks for all the replies guys.

I spoke to my ISP today and they are not shifting. I have requested my MAC code in readiness for a probable transfer - just need to sort out the many email accounts :(

Sadly we don't have cable in this area, so Virgin is out.:'(

I understand that I probably won't get a better speed - not really too bothered by that - I just can't see how they justify the three time price hike without any improvement.

I haven't had a chance to speak to any neighbours as yet but will as soon as I get a chance to see what they get.

Seems I'm not alone - quite a thread developing on MoneySavingExpert.com :naughty: MSE Link
 
Virgin do standard broadband as well as cable holryn.
 
If you have a sky dish then go for sky broadband as its only 5 quid extra but capped at 2mb
 
In short my recommendation would be stay clear of Sky and go with O2 but obviously this is based on just my personal experience of being treated absolutely awfully by Sky and fantastically well by O2.

When i was doing a test on my line before getting broadband the test said I could get a maximum of 2.5Mb but when I got O2 installed I was getting about 6 or 7Mb. The speed is fairly consistent but having been with them for about 2 years now I have found that the router needs rebooting every now and then to keep it working. It's probably on its way out and in need of replacement but I'm sure O2 will replace it for free when I ask them.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top