ISP ratings.

[.Wilier.]

I know everyone has theyre favorites, more than likely the ISP they are currently with, but I thought it might be usefull if we share our experiences with ISP's, with a bit of a rating type thingy too.

Name With a link if poss.
Speed that you have
Cost p/m
Comments Let us know things like support quality, up/down time, good or bad things, quality of service etc.

 

[.Wilier.]

So I'll kick off......

Zen Internet
512k........its all I can get in t' sticks
£24.99
I origionally joined Zen cos they offered me 6 months free (back in the TN days) and Ive stayed with them ever since simply because they are excellent. Ive only used the support a couple of times, and both times it was not a problem with the connection, rather with my router. I rang Pipex once, and was on hold for 17minutes, I rang Zen a few minutes after and got straight through, now that may be lucky, but it just gives me a warm feeling. In 2 years, Ive not actually lost the connection at all............(to my knowledge). They are amongst the more expensive ISP's on the market, and I have considered changing to a cheaper one, but Im worried that the service will suffer so Im happy (for now) to stick with Zen.
Pings are generally very good. To UK servers Im getting around 20 in BF2 and 100 ish in GTR.

Zen rock, although in an expensive way.

 

[Ashala]

before i start i should probably mention im from denmark

and kr rating compaired to pounds are ROUGHLY 10kr = 1pound

and here is what they offer : Clicky

best like is 20mbit/20mbit for 599kr

also got another ISP that offers 25mbit/25mbit but you have to have some NESA fibre cables layed near you before you can use it which they havent done all over denmark yet so...

 

[Earl]

Name Bulldog http://bulldogbroadband.com
Speed Upto 8Meg (I have 8Meg)
Cost p/m £19.50 + £10.50 line rental (have to go with them for phone)
Comments I always seem to download at 800-830kb/s from newsgroups. I've only once had a downtime problem in the last year, was at 11pm at night so went to bed and was working in the morning.
Their customer service: Personaly i've had no problem with them, I had heard they were bad from other people so ensured I kept on top of them, phoning them up daily to ensure the order was going through and things.
Top notch service. Especialy if they roll out adsl2+ next month as I should get 20Meg according to my stats!

 

[nath]

Name UKOnline
Speed Up to 24Mbit (I'm getting 20)
Cost p/m £30
Comments Fair service, decent up time. Most of the time I get speeds of 2000-2100k/s from newsgroups. This can drop to about 1300 when it's really congested. Their tech support isn't fantastic but fortunately I've not had to use it much. Really I'm with them because they're the only ADSL2+ provider in my area, I'm moving soon to where BEThere have enabled ADSL2+ on the exchange, so I'll be going with them.

 

[leggy]

So is UKonline worth moving to? They have my exchange enabled for 24meg (which I dont really need but it's the same price as my current service).

I am with zen atm. They are excellent but want 15 quid just to upgrade to 2meg, which I don't think I should have to pay. The monthly price will then be 35 clams.

 

[nath]

Well, I've not had much in the way of problems with them. It's never really been slower than 10mbit and the vast majority of the time I get 20. I'd say go for it.

 

[DaGaffer]

I've got UKOnline 8Mb, and I'm waiting for ADSL2 (which is supposed to e enabled at my exchange already, but hey ho). I've had to use the customer service a fair bit recently as I've experienced various problems;

Positive:
*They did eventually solve the problem.
* Performance, when its working, is good.

Negative:
*Call waiting takes forever (a 45 minute wait at national call rates isn't unusual).
*They tie you to their own modem/router, in the case of 8Mb an ActionTec model, which is a piece of crap; it overheats and drops connections.
*They are supposed to update me on ADSL2; I haven't heard a peep for 3 months.

NB. I originally signed up for Be 24Mb, because, as I said, I was told ADSL2 was available; Be were far worse than UKOnline and even tried to take my subscription money before they'd installed anything (it was a mistake and I was reimbursed but I wasn't impressed). Be really comes across as under-resourced and unprepared IMHO. Maybe because they're Swedish, their customer service reminded me of IKEA

 

[Trem]

Name Bulldog http://bulldogbroadband.com
Speed Upto 8Meg (I have 8Meg)
Cost p/m £19.50 + £10.50 line rental (have to go with them for phone)
Comments I always seem to download at 800-830kb/s from newsgroups. I've only once had a downtime problem in the last year, was at 11pm at night so went to bed and was working in the morning.
Their customer service: Personaly i've had no problem with them, I had heard they were bad from other people so ensured I kept on top of them, phoning them up daily to ensure the order was going through and things.
Top notch service. Especialy if they roll out adsl2+ next month as I should get 20Meg according to my stats!

I have just placed an order with Bulldog. Can you answer a glaring question I have Earl? I did ask the monkey on the other end of the phone at Bulldog but she was too busy picking at fleas.

I can only get the maximum of 2 meg adsl in my area, will I be getting 8mb with Bulldog due to me having their phone line? Or is it all lies? Also what upload speed do you get with 8mb?

I am with UK Online 2mb at the minute and it is pretty faultless, £14.99 a month and unlimited downloads. Never really goes off and when it does its for an hour at most.

Bulldog will have to impress me after UK Online.

 

[Clown]

They offer up to 8mb line. You will get whatever your line can handle on a stable connection. Some people were told that they could only get 2mb by one company and came to Bulldog and got between 4mb and 6mb.

The new line they install will more than likely be the same quality as your BT one. This was the case with me. Do you have a router or a modem that can tell you the line stats? Basically what you're looking for is a big SNR number and a small attenuation number. The lowest SNR you can get to have a stable connection is around about 6db. This number goes down as your connection speed goes up. Par exemple; When I used to sync at 4mb, my SNR was 12db. I'm now syncing at 6mb and my SNR has gone down to about 6-8db. Any lower and you will experience line dropping and stuff.

Bulldog will give you the best your line can support. There won't be much point in complaining about a low sync speed if your line is shit, because they can't help that.

I found their support to be shite, but I hardly have to use them. The perfomance here is great. I liked it so much that I have two Bulldog internet connections in the same house.

 

[Trem]

Where do I look for that snr number clowneh?

I got a Netgear router or an intel anypoint dsl modem if need be.

 

[Clown]

Log into the Netgear router, Router Status, Connection status.
I dunno if it can be done on that modem, but my shitty Speedtouch does it, so hopefully you can too

 

[Trem]

Right well -

Line Attenuation 54 db 30 db
Noise Margin 13 db 23 db

Thats what I got, from what you say it doesn't look good, or am I reading it wrong?

I am currently on 2mb adsl with uk online if that helps any with the working out of my line quality.

 

[Earl]

Do Bulldog have LLU at that exchange? Perhaps Clowneh can correct me, but with those stats and a good router I think you are looking at perhaps 6 or 8Mb?

The belkin 7633 router is a god send, it has made people go from 4Mb connections to 8Mb because it seems to stay stable at low SNR, however can't guarentee this hehe.

The upload is 512k.

 

[Trem]

Gah Belkin!

Give me a link to one please cyfr

Cheers for the reply.

Dying for Clowneh to answer, will give me wood if I can get above 2 meg for a fiver a month more.

 

[Clown]

What's your connection speed right now?
I'm guessing you're syncing at 2mb or so. I don't think you would get too much better. Bulldog automatically sync to 10db profile to ensure that you're stable, so I think you might only get 2.5-3mb connection. You can ask them to drop you down to 6db profile, which will get you more speed still, but that is less stable, and in congested times these numbers fluctuate and you may experience line dropping.

The bigger number, 54db means that you have a really long line length. Your upload stats look good enough for 512kb upload though.

 

[Earl]

http://www.pcworld.co.uk/martprd/st...null&sm=null&tm=null&sku=454365&category_oid=

(Sorry PCWorld link heh.. but I think they are well priced, its where I got mine because I couldn't be bothered to wait.)

Check the adslguide.org.uk forums, the bulldog section, theres a load of 7633 fanboys there.

Perhaps I was a bit wrong with the 6Mb? Although im sure there were people posting on adslguide with similar stats to yours and highish download speeds, check it out.

 

[Clown]

Starting from 2mb with 12db SNR? And they got 6mb? Not likely.

 

[Furr]

Name Force 9
Speed Up to 8Mbit
Cost p/m £21.99
Comments : Have been having lots of techincal problems last few weeks, Seems to change their terms and conditions and broadband rules when they feel like it. Have a cap on peak time usage 4pm - midnight of 15 gigs a month (has dropped from unlimited to 30gigs to 15 gigs) Not impressed, am planning to move to another ISP, 4/10

 

[Trem]

Well I downgraded from 8mb UK Online to 2mb because my line kept dropping and they have decided to just cancel the whole thing.

How nice of them.

When I rang they even tried to get me to sign back up with them, with the usual 2 week waiting period.

I told them to fuck off, useless, unreliable bastards.

Avoid UKO at all costs.

 

[Mobius]

Just had a bit of a mare trying to sort broadband out for my nan. She lives in Hurley which is a bit out of the way and Telewest and NTL don't do a service out here. I've ended up ordering some crap 512k BT line and they're sending me some phonesplitter things do the phone and internet don't conflict with eachother. Can anyone find a broadband deal 1mb +, that doesn't have download caps with this postcode? I'm shite at this. SL6 5NN

Tesco.net ripped her off. She paid for broadband and shes got 56k that disconnects when someone rings. They told her they'd send those splitter things and never did.

 

[nath]

The splitter thing is a Micro Filter. You need to have one on every phone point in the house that has something attached (be it the modem or a phone).

Does she really need an uncapped service? Is your nan a warez-monkey or something?

 

[Mobius]

The splitter thing is a Micro Filter. You need to have one on every phone point in the house that has something attached (be it the modem or a phone).

Does she really need an uncapped service? Is your nan a warez-monkey or something?

Yeah thats the thing. Does it work perfectly?

I've moved in with her so I'm the warez monkey! I think I'll just go with this BT deal though, since I probably won't bother downloading to much. Plus there aren't many better alternatives over here.

 

[DaGaffer]

Well I downgraded from 8mb UK Online to 2mb because my line kept dropping and they have decided to just cancel the whole thing.

How nice of them.

When I rang they even tried to get me to sign back up with them, with the usual 2 week waiting period.

I told them to fuck off, useless, unreliable bastards.

Avoid UKO at all costs.

NOW you tell me.

 

[Mobius]

Hey, does anyone know about this thing with lines? Apparently I can't get anything higher than 512k connection due to the lines in my area. Is there any way to fix this, or do I just have to wait until BT decide to do it in my area? I've got a BT phoneline and I'm getting a BT internet connection, because well, there aren't many other services available. I wanted to get 8mb, but I'm limited to 512k due to a variety of factors involving the location. Any way around this? My friend reckons you can pay BT to improve your line. Is that bollocks?

 

[Trem]

You are probably a long way from the exchange, like me. I can get around 5mb though. You can't pay BT, unless you are paying them to build you a house next door to the exchange*.

What you wearing Mobius?

Oh and its nice to see your nan has got better as well chum.







*I may be wrong about you not being able to pay them.

 

[Clown]

Trem was it you I was trying to help calculate speed with? I can't remember what I came up with, but was I close?

 

[Trem]

It was me Clown, and you were very close mate. It didn't stop the line from dropping every hour though, even with this Belkin router.

Gone back to Plusnet, please god let them be better than they were when I left them 6 months ago.

 

[Clown]

What some people do is limit the SNR so that it doesn't go below a certain point. 6db is regarded as the stable point, but this fluctuates at different times in the day due to how busy it all is, weather, and other random stuff. Basically the faster your connection, the lower the SNR gets. People sacrifice speed for stability and vice-versa.

 

[Bodhi]

Just signed up with good old ntl, pretty impressed so far. Can only afford the 1Mbit service til I get a better job, but for 33 quid with TV and phone thrown in it's decent value for money. No download caps on the tarriff I'm on and I frequently see 150-160K a sec - it certainly seems better than the 1Mbit ADSL I was on with BTOW at home. Only issue I have so far is web-browsing seems to fall apart if I've got BitComet open, but that;s easy enough to work round. Full marks so far in general.