What ISP to go for?...

[Gray]

Right... im just thinking what 1mb ADSL package i should get?

Im currently on BTo (BT Yahoo whatever..) 512/256k, i dont know how much is it per month, but its not over £30 anyway.

So, basically id love to have it under £30 for 1mb connection download... On a BT line (Not cable/ntl)

Any ideas?..

/edit

shit just relised you have an internet subforum, wasnt there last time i looked! HONEST IT WASNT :/

 

[SheepCow]

I doubt you'll get a 1MBit ADSL connection for under £30...

Not from anyone with a decent network/service anyway.

 

[SilverHood]

Quite a few UK isps do 1 mbit for under 30 a month:

Try this list:

http://www.adslguide.org.uk/isps/summarylist.asp?order=name

These guys are quite good apparantly:
http://www.bulldogdsl.com/

 

[babs]

I pay just over £28/month for Pipex 1Mbit DSL. Mind you i got in while it was still in trial, but aboslutely no complaints from me. I'd happily recommend Pipex to anyone.

Bulldog are great if you live near one of their unbundled exchanges and can get their own wholesale packages, otherwise it's BTWholesale and the same as you'd get from anyone else.

 

[Xavier]

The pipex package is 33.99 inc vat (28.93 excl) not £28 as indicated above, and only a penny less than Zen ADSL, who have consistently surpassed Pipex in terms of service quality, speed and support according to ADSLGuide.org.uk.

Pipex will charge you an additional £2 for a static IP (Zen give this for free), they both have a 'no minimum term' policy, however, pipex are slightly sneaky about this:

"Minimum Period of Service"
(a) For customers ordering PIPEX Xtreme Solo - The minimum period will be one (1) month from the commencement date.
(b) For customers ordering PIPEX Xtreme Solo2Go - The minimum period will be one (1) month from the commencement date.
(c) For customers ordering PIPEX Xtreme Standard services - The minimum period of service will be three (3) months from the commencement date.
(d) For customers ordering PIPEX Xtreme Managed services - The minimum period of service will be twelve (12) months from the commencement date.
Please note: All Solo and Solo2Go customers will be required to pay a one-off fee of £50.00 + VAT (£58.75 Inc VAT) if termination occurs within the first twelve (12) months from the commencement date.
This cancellation fee also applies to any customer that did not pay a fee to activate ADSL on their telephone line or a fee to migrate their existing ADSL service from another ISP.

Notice the bit in bold... whereas Zen will let you migrate away after your first month (say you decide you're more after bandwidth than ping, and decide you want a bulldog line...) and charge you zip, pipex ream you for another £50 before they'll disconnect your supply. If you refuse to pay (as two users on the forums already tried) they'll continue to charge the monthly fee.

Having been a customer of both, I'd say go with Zen, the overall service is just so much better than Pipex have ever delivered in the DSL space. In the year or so we were with Zen we had one outage, and it was localised to our exchange...

Xav

 

[Deadmanwalking]

Zen all the way here.

 

[~Yuckfou~]

Zen.

 

[babs]

The pipex package is 33.99 inc vat (28.93 excl) not £28 as indicated above, and only a penny less than Zen ADSL

That isn't what I was trying to indicate, just the fact that i DO pay just over £28/month for it, because - as I said - I got in on the trial and get to keep it for a year. ADSLGuide's tests only show results for 512K users and the amount of pipex tests each month are much greater than other ISPs.

Pipex IPs are 'sticky' for what it's worth, my IP has only changed once in nearly 2 years now. If you want a truly dynamic IP there's a special page to request it, and they are due to bring their own dyndns-type service out soon.

BTW your Zen/Pipex £50 thing is a little misleading also. Pipex don't make you pay the activation fee (£50) on packages like the 1000 Solo2Go unless you move away (assuming you want to), Zen make you pay it up front so there's no difference unless you choose to stay with pipex whereby you don't necessarily pay it at all. If you signed up for either and migrated away you would still have paid the £50. There's no sneakiness involved, just a waive/postponement of the activation fee as a goodwill gesture.

This isn't a post from the Pro-Pipex Propoganda group either, I just felt Xav's post misleading

 

[Xavier]

Checking Pipex's pricing page here, there is a setup fee, which if you read their terms and conditions is charged unrelated to their termination costs. That means if you want to use their service for a six month term, you'll pay £41-£53 setup, depending on 1Mbps package PLUS the above £50 termination fee.

Regardless of what you intended by your post, it DID indicate a ~£28 per month charge and you didn't provide up to date pricing, hence my comment.

With regards to the IP, I'd say you were in the minority, two of the technation staffers aside from myself have experience of their service, one a current customer, and none of us have experienced the IP changing so infrequently. Either way it costs nothing for them to assign a static IP, and there's zero reason to charge for it. What next? Semi-dynamic email addresses?

As to samples taken, customer base means zip, and the speed tester is based on rated line speed against measured line speed, so your comments mean nought.

edit:// just in case babs wishes to argue the connection/termination costs, I've fired a quick email to a friend in the pipex marketing and PR team, expect an update later.

Xav

edit2:// 6 minutes later, a reply already in my inbox. The connection is levied at the point of connecton, and in addition to a disconnection fee for customers who leave the service within a year (hence calling it a 'setup fee'). That's that sorted then.

edit3:// thinking about it, the answer to Babs' claim that the charge was only made if you left, was obviously wrong because if you look, the setup fees vary by package, the disconnection penalty is fixed. heh.

 

[babs]

Regardless of what you intended by your post, it DID indicate a ~£28 per month charge and you didn't provide up to date pricing, hence my comment.

Just as yours indicated that Zen customers pay £34/month for the 1Mbit service, where in fact it's £39.95. If you're going to add VAT to one package, at least do the same for the other (according to their pricing page at least, I assume it's reliable).

What i was talking about was something like the solo2go 1000, whereby you get charged 50ish and get a modem and filters, or the same with the 500 only at ~£18. I was just trying to point out it's not that going for a Zen package is automatically cheaper. You still have to pay £50 + modem costs, and then pay almost the same per month. The setup fees include a modem, so regardless of sematics it still ends up costing the same, and thats then on the assumption that you're going to want to leave, which is a little pessimistic.

I can only vouch for my IP and the others I know who have exactly the same experience, but it's far from just us, that's why the dynamic request page exists. It wasn't intended as a personal dig, I'm just pointing out that if you're happy to stay with your ISP, there's no reason to assume your speed or costs are going to be any worse.

Here's what I mean....
Pipex - Solo2Go 1000 (prices including VAT)
Setup - £52.88
Modem & filters - Included
Monthly cost - £33.99
Annual cost - £460.76

Zen Home 1000 (prices including VAT)
Setup - £58.75
Modem & filters - (assuming cheapest option from Zen) - £39.95
Monthly cost - £39.95
Annual cost (1st year) - £578.10

Even if you include static IP from pipex (£24/year) it comes in significantly cheaper. Even if you choose to cancel after a month, factoring in the cost of connection and modem you're looking at £4 difference. Not the be all and end all of course, but a major factor in deciding.

Still not sure why it had to get so personal

 

[Xavier]

Because you smell uke: (j/k )

heh, good point on the pricing though, made my first post on the thread quite late, as you can probably see...

The modem pricing isn't really an issue for most, with a large proportion of users buying a router and taking it between providers, and sharing DSL from a modem is definately 'teh suck' - even with a dedicated machine acting as firewall/gateway.

 

[Stimpy]

I'll just add I've been with pipex for 8 month's now and never had any problems, think it's gone down twice in that time, both under 1min and due to BT doing maintainance in my area, I've also had the same IP for all this time without having to pay for a static one

 

[babs]

Group Hug!

TBH original poster (lost in the maelstrom) If you go for anyone regularly in the top 10 on adslguide you're going to be ok. My day job is advising and supplying adsl (granted, to businesses ) and I have no hesitation in recommending Zen, Zen, Zen, Zen and Zen Internet.


edit[xavier]:// fixed

 

[Xavier]

heh

 

[babs]

Hmmm, where's the complaints procedure when you need it......

 

[Jonty]

Hmmm, where's the complaints procedure when you need it......

https://forums.freddyshouse.com/sendmessage.php

*whistles innocently*

Kind Regards

 

[babs]

heh

 

[Chameleon]

Nildram are excellent.

 

[Clown]

Is that not £40 quid a month, not including static IP?

Xavier, I thought you was with Bulldog now? Would you not recommend people getting ADSL with them?

 

[Xavier]

Zen provide a static IP as standard.

And no, having experienced Bulldogs service, Zen all the way.

Xav

 

[Clown]

That's also 40 quid a month.

I wonder how that hi-velocity thing is.

 

[Jupitus]

That's also 40 quid a month.

I wonder how that hi-velocity thing is.

I use hi-velocity (www.hi-velocity.it) on their 512 20:1 service. I had an hour's outage yesterday which was the only serious outage I have had in about a year with them, and was actually a problem at bulldog (they are simply a bulldog re-seller). Occasionally I have had routing issues but again, these do get sorted.

Hi-Velocity generally cater to the business marketplace, so I wouldn't really recommend them to someone expecting a really slick, multinational, 24/7 hotline kind of service for the home user. If, like me though, you don't mind doing a bit of the trouble-shooting yourself yoiu might want to give them a try. Always friendly and helpful in my experience.

Hell mate... if nothing else at least it might be an ISP Xav hasn't got an opinion on

 

[Xavier]

Heh, fraid I've had dealings with them too, though they're a bit of a mixed bag, this stuff is my job y'know

 

[Chameleon]

Is that not £40 quid a month, not including static IP

Yes, but it's worth the extra imo.

 

[SheepCow]

I'd say go with Zen. Lovely network, nice and reliable. Never needed to call support so I don't know what they are like though.

 

[Lester]

http://www.internetcentral.co.uk/broadband/no-frills.htm

I think these are o.k.

Although they are on the floor above us at work.....