UK ISP for Fibre and Gaming (also versus NAT)

[Athan]

I've been with Zen Internet now for coming up 9 years. I've had the same /29 throughout and love not having to worry about NAT woes on my desktop machine. Zen recently updated their products so I've been checking out the costs to get on an Unlimited Fibre (either 38Mbps or 76Mbps, either will do) product.

My house-mate is leaning towards moving to PlusNET instead, as they're £14.95pcm cheaper. My issue with this is losing the /29, and probably being on a dynamic IP to boot.

So, does anyone have experience with PlusNET (or other UK ISPs at around £27.49pcm for Unlimited bandwidth usage, on a Fibre product, and including the phone line rental) and can comment on how it is for gaming and general network performance?

Also people with a single (dynamic or not) IP, do you actually run into issues with NAT these days with respect to games, VOIP or anything else? Keep in mind I'm the paranoid type who doesn't want to enable UPnP on a router (especially given recent poor coding practices that came to light in the form of direct security vulnerabilities).

 

[SheepCow]

I'm on BT's 76Mbit/s fibre, it's aces. Not had any problems with the fact I'm behind a NAT but I do have UPnP enabled on the router. Speed is pretty consistent (did have a 2 week period where it was stuck at 5Mbit/s, there was an issue at the exchange and they fixed it), been on it for 2 years now.

edit: According to BT my average monthly bandwidth used is 108GB.

 

[ECA]

I'm on plusnet, it's fine.

 

[GReaper]

Setup your current router for NAT if you want to find any problems before switching.

 

[smurkin]

Just in case you didn't know, plusnet are owned by BT. I don't have the fibre (it's not available in my street), but I've found their service to be really good as an ISP.

 

[Athan]

Setup your current router for NAT if you want to find any problems before switching.

Yes, this had occurred to me. Of course it would help if I was actively playing any games and/or using VOIP currently

Just in case you didn't know, plusnet are owned by BT. I don't have the fibre (it's not available in my street), but I've found their service to be really good as an ISP.

Yes, I was aware of this, but thanks for the Pro vote

 

[Athan]

So, any of you on PlusNet... do they operate some sort of referral scheme if you get others to sign up?

I'm all ready to migrate to PlusNet now and am willing to enter the code/username of first to reply

 

[Ceixah]

yehyehyehhye i'm in !

madhatter35 PlusNet

Consider yourself referred!

 

[Athan]

yehyehyehhye i'm in !

madhatter35 PlusNet

Consider yourself referred!

Done and done, enjoy whatever discount that nets you

 

[Ceixah]

50p off my bill WAHOO thanks pal

 

[Raven]

I'm on BT's 76Mbit/s fibre, it's aces. Not had any problems with the fact I'm behind a NAT but I do have UPnP enabled on the router. Speed is pretty consistent (did have a 2 week period where it was stuck at 5Mbit/s, there was an issue at the exchange and they fixed it), been on it for 2 years now.

edit: According to BT my average monthly bandwidth used is 108GB.

Same package that I am on, except for a blip a few weeks back where my bandwidth dropped to 15 or so and their retarded Indian call centre claiming there was no problem they have been fine.

Average per month is 170gb

 

[Athan]

Woo, install date of the 18th October, 8AM-1PM !

Although I only got that out of them after moaning on their forums about the order process saying there as some problem, and the support bit having 'Questions' in about the progress of it, also just saying there was some "issue".

Still, it's 3 days earlier than the earliest date I could put into the order form when I was checking it out on Friday, so mustn't grumble .

 

[MYstIC G]

Bit late to this thread but I'm also on PlusNet. It's basically BT without an Indian call centre. Not had any issues with it thus far, this month (about halfway through) the wife and I have done 76GB usage without issue (we've gone for Netflix over TV licence as its cheaper).

They do a "Pro" addon if you're worried about service levels but personally I don't see the point at £5 a month as my understanding when I read it is that it only improves P2P, VPN traffic priority when compared with Unlimited Fibre: http://www.plus.net/support/broadband/products/pro-Add-On-faq.shtml though they do provide a list of prioritised games if that's really important to you: http://community.plus.net/forum/index.php/topic,444.0.html

 

[Athan]

Yeah, I dug up the stuff about traffic prioritisation and will be prodding them to add in anything I'm playing if they don't already have it covered.

Thanks for the extra info

 

[ECA]

this month (about halfway through) the wife and I have done 76GB usage without issue (we've gone for Netflix over TV licence as its cheaper).

I did 600gb in june/july

Averaging around 250gb a mo, nps.

 

[MYstIC G]

I did 600gb in june/july

Averaging around 250gb a mo, nps.

My main rig is in another place, lol

 

[Athan]

Engineer had 'fun'. Initially it didn't seem so bad, just run new cable under floorboards with the yarn pulls I'd put in the other day (pulled 'em through using the old, unused phone extension that was already there). Went on to testing, where it failed 'insulation test', but also wasn't getting PPP connection to Plus.Net.

So he replaces a bit more, shonky, internal wiring, but still it fails the insulation test. So then it was the big job of replacing the line off the pole, took him over an hour I'm sure. After that PPP still not quite working... and then it did manage to authenticate, but very strange routing and all DNS queries gave the same IP. So phoned up plus.net, and indeed they hadn't fully activated the account, once they did and one quick poke at the router, all working.

Then it only took me a little while to get it working direct from the VDSL modem to my linux router/firewall/server instead of the plus.net supplied router. Clamp MSS after some weirdness and now all working wonderfully .

 

[Deebs]

I did 600gb in june/july

Averaging around 250gb a mo, nps.

I've done over a terabyte on BT Infinity 2 in a month, I DO experience slowdowns down to the kilobytes per second during the day but they last seconds and then speed back up.

 

[Himse]

Quite happy with mine to be honest. We pay a bit more with ClaraNet, but if its ever down the customer service is A*, pick up the phone and pretty much instantly get through!