What Broadband Provider? Advice Required

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Posted: 15-Oct-2009 10:37 by ExpensiveTASTE

Bump

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Posted: 15-Oct-2009 10:40 by jimmyfizzels

http://www.which.co.uk/reviews/broadband

my old man used to subscribe to which magazine many years ago now its online i assume the reviews must be one of the best

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Posted: 15-Oct-2009 19:54 by Sinistar

Put yor phone number into the exchange search on SamKnows (http://www.samknows.com/broadband/search.php?page=availability-exchange-search) and look at the LLU operator presence at your exchange. (I.e. which companies other than BT have their own kit installed at your exchange.) This information should be taken into consideration when choosing a broadband supplier.

If Sky are present at your exchange then you are far more likely to get a good service from them. I would avoid Sky if they are not present since they farm out to other operators and this seems to be a trouble spot for them - poor service and difficulty in resolving problems.

If Be are present then they are definitely worth considering. Friends that are on the Be Unlimited/Pro packages are happy with them and impressed by the speed.

Personally, I would avoid Tiscali, TalkTalk, Pipex, Orange. (My opinion is based on reports from friends that have used them.)

Reports on BT have been a bit of a mixed bag. Some people happy, others not. I used to be with BT before I switched to plus.net a few years ago. I thought their service was ok but were too expensive for what they were offering at the time.

As mentioned previously, I'm very happy with plus.net. They built a traffic management profile for PKR (giving it top priority) purely at my request. I doubt many of the bigger operators would give such care to individual customer needs. I also like their transparency. P2P file sharing is very slow at peak times though unless you're on their Pro package. Not really a problem for me though.


http://www.comparebroadband.co.uk/providers/

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Posted: 15-Oct-2009 21:06 by Ron76

Sinistar,

Do you know if or what Plusnet have done for the service providers they took over?

Reason I ask is that this thread is very timely, and when i checked my provider madasafish i noticed they are part of plus net. The speed in my area though is only max of 4mb although it should be 8, so downloading can be slow and watching bbc i player can cause issues etc.

I have trouble playing pkr on more than 2 tables- is this related to the problem?

so I was considering BE which is an option for me but if oyu can reccomend anythign i could do with plus net that would be great or what their relationship is with those they took over?

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Posted: 15-Oct-2009 21:45 by JollyOli

I'm not so impressed with Plus Net. The only time I had to ring support it took an hour on hold (after suggesting a remedy they told me to ring back, hah). Speeds used to be alright but it's been slow for some time now. They've been alright overall but I'm looking for a new one.

If you can't see Which, O2 tops all their comparison charts.

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Posted: 15-Oct-2009 23:21 by Sinistar

Do you know if or what Plusnet have done for the service providers they took over?

I was under the impression that those were totally merged into Plusnet. I believe that Madasafish, Force9, Metronet, etc. are now little more than the name of the package you're on with Plusnet. Whilst Plusnet swap and change the packages they offer from time to time, they allow their customers to remain on whatever product they signed up for indefinitely. I think that if you want to switch to a newer Plusnet product (whith higher speeds), it's just a formality. I'm not 100% sure though. I would suggest asking them on their forums or via their ticket system.

BTW, Plusnet are now actually owned by BT. It seems that BT are somewhat dictating the products/prices they offer but leave them to do their own thing on the actual operations side of things.

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Posted: 15-Oct-2009 23:48 by Sinistar

I'm not so impressed with Plus Net. The only time I had to ring support it took an hour on hold (after suggesting a remedy they told me to ring back, hah).

I've only had to phone them once when I totally lost my connection. (Had sync with exchange but dead beyond that.) I didn't have to wait anywhere near that long. They quickly identified the fault as being at the exchange and talked me through some tricks using my router to cause BT's equipment to reset itself - something only BT engineers are supposed to do. Problem solved.

All other issues (traffic management configuation, switching products, etc.) I did through their ticket system (their preferred method of communication) and they were dealt with swiftly.

Speeds used to be alright but it's been slow for some time now.

I'm not having such problems myself. If you're sync-ing at lower speed that would suggest some issue with your phoneline. If not then maybe your exchange is congested? If that's the case then there's only really two solutions. Either wait for BT to perfrom upgrades at your exchange (LOL) or switch to an alternate LLU provider like O2/BE or Sky and cut BT out of the picture.

If you can't see Which, O2 tops all their comparison charts.

O2, BE, same company. Not used them myself but what I'm hearing is that they've been very good thus far.

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Posted: 17-Oct-2009 23:56 by JollyOli

Who are BE?

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Posted: 18-Oct-2009 19:25 by ANGERMONKEY1980

Dude its all about the Virgin fibre optic shizzle!
Never had probs with them and they can offer some massive download speeds.
Thier gold package does 50meg!!!!!
I have both BT and Virgin and as soon as the contract expires with a BT I am giving them the elbow.
With BT you can forget about DLing anything between the hours of 3pm and 12pm!
I would also like to say that BT are thieving bastards who like to take the piss out of you every which way they can!
They charged me to have the fone line put in because there had never been one here b4... Big Hairy Ballbags!
I recieved a bill for the person who lived here before me for thier BB and fone line.

BT=TB=THIEVING BASTARDS!

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Posted: 18-Oct-2009 19:28 by jimmyfizzels

Who are BE?

JollyOli, 17/10/2009

https://www.bethere.co.uk/web/beportal/homepage

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Posted: 18-Oct-2009 19:46 by ExpensiveTASTE

Well this is the report of close to where i live.
http://www.samknows.com/broadband/exchange/WWOKEH
I changed the postcode as i dont want you sending the "heavies" round
Im guessing that BT would be my best option according to sinistar's post? Is that correct sini?

Thanks for all your opinions and help

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Posted: 18-Oct-2009 20:13 by jimmyfizzels

Well this is the report of close to where i live.
http://www.samknows.com/broadband/exchange/WWOKEH
I changed the postcode as i dont want you sending the "heavies" round
Im guessing that BT would be my best option according to sinistar's post? Is that correct sini?

Thanks for all your opinions and help



ExpensiveTASTE, 18/10/2009

looks like your going to have a tough time finding a decent provider

i wish you luck looks like bt is your only choice

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Posted: 18-Oct-2009 20:23 by ExpensiveTASTE

Looking into it further it appears that sky can offer up to 8mb...So i may go for them.
Does that location suggest that BT only farm out to SKY and that SKY do not have their own service to provide me?
I currently have Tiscali up to 8mb which i have been used to so i guess anything will be an improvement on Tiscali lol

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Posted: 18-Oct-2009 20:26 by jimmyfizzels

Looking into it further it appears that sky can offer up to 8mb...So i may go for them.
Does that location suggest that BT only farm out to SKY and that SKY do not have their own service to provide me?
I currently have Tiscali up to 8mb which i have been used to so i guess anything will be an improvement on Tiscali lol

ExpensiveTASTE, 18/10/2009

sky is LLU i might be wrong but i think yor exchange has to be LLU enabled for sky and according to your postcode seems that it isnt

and sky does do a service using bt called connect and its worse than being with bt itself

theres a r forum out there with lots of help etc wont post the link because of forum rules but easy to find on google

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Posted: 18-Oct-2009 20:33 by ExpensiveTASTE

This is what it says under the postcode on my road

ADSL available at ~5.5Mbps
BT Total broadband
TalkTalk non-LLU (8M is £15pm)
Sky Connect (non-LLU) (8M is £17pm)
AOL broadband (non-LLU)
Pipex broadband
Plusnet broadband
Tiscali broadband
And many more...

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Posted: 18-Oct-2009 20:37 by jimmyfizzels

ok will be sky connect then which is just bt really have a look on google sky connect see what people are saying gl

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Posted: 18-Oct-2009 20:41 by Sinistar

Hmm, nobody with kit in your echange except BT. What that means is that no matter what ISP you use, they will be totally reliant on BT Wholesale to make the physical connection between you and them. That does not however mean that all ISPs are effectively the same as BT. The ISP still have to make the conenction to the actual internet and it will depend on their network capacity and traffic management as to the quality of service you'll receive.

Also, becuase you're in a Market 1 area (i.e. BT Wholesale have no competition at your echange) they charge the ISP more. That means that you can't get the cheapest rates from Plusnet which makes them less attractive. (Value package will be £11.99 after 3 months, Unlimited package £19.99, compared to £5.99 and £15.99 repectively.) Still better prices than BT for similar products. I'd rather be with Plusnet than BT because I like the way they do things, would expect a better quality of service and personally have had good experience with their support. (Nice bit of kit with BT though with integrated phone, excellent wi-fi.)

Forget Sky. From what I understand they have a third party handling things between them and BT. Nightmare when there are problems and I've heard horror stories reagrding how the traffic is managed. There were reports on here from Sky Connect customers having troubles staying connected to PKR a little while back.

If Virgin have laid fibre in your area, then they would certainly be worth considering.

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Posted: 18-Oct-2009 20:44 by ExpensiveTASTE

Many thanks to both of you for the advice
Much appreciated

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Posted: 18-Oct-2009 22:19 by ExpensiveTASTE

Having posted on a broadband forum im still abit confused but apparently from what i have heard BT handles gamer's and poker etc pretty well its just the downloading that most people complain about....I am no way going to SKY connect after i just read the horrible reviews on the net.
So all in all it's BT the best option??

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Posted: 26-Oct-2009 15:44 by Wicca

Do not touch Talk Talk with a bargepole, during games i have lost connection in average 3 times an hour , when i complain they always try to blame MY set up and then, "Oh Know" it turns out to be thier speed once they sort it "Bingo" but this only lasts for that day, then back to rubbish. I am changing to Virgin this wkend.