UK'ers - ISP Advice Please?

Post by **DiscoDave** » Thu Nov 09, 2006 9:26 pm

Hey Everyone,

I'm currently with Tiscali and I'm really not happy with the service and want to change to another provider. Can any of you reccomend some for me please?

Also, if i migrate over via a MAC code, does this mean I wont have to wait weeks before i can get broadband reactivated? Is it more or less an instant transfer?

Cheers,

David

Post by **4days** » Thu Nov 09, 2006 9:34 pm

eclipse, or nildram/pipex

edit:
http://www.eclipse.net.uk/index.cfm?id=home_res

Post by **PhoeniX** » Thu Nov 09, 2006 9:36 pm

Zen?

The MAC transfer thing should be instant. When I switched ISPs a few months back it was switched early morning and I didn't have any noticeable downtime.

Post by **Foo** » Thu Nov 09, 2006 9:44 pm

Orange are currently threatening to kick me off because I used 'well over' their acceptable use limit of 50Gb. Apparently I used 52Gb on a particular month and this constitutes being 'well over the acceptable limit for a sustained period'. Pure BS.

So anyway, not orange.

Zen I've been with for several years and they always served well. They recently revised their available packages and perhaps also their ToS, so have a good read beforehand but they get my general thumbs up.

Post by **DiscoDave** » Thu Nov 09, 2006 9:52 pm

Yeah a friend reccomended Zen to me, but to get a 50GB/month limit you need to pay £30/month. The package under that is £21 but only has a 20GB/Month limit.

Post by **firephoenix** » Thu Nov 09, 2006 9:55 pm

avoid plusnet!

Post by **Doombrain** » Thu Nov 09, 2006 10:00 pm

if you can get cable, you should

Post by **DiscoDave** » Thu Nov 09, 2006 10:12 pm

Wish i could, unfortunately not in my area

Post by **seremtan** » Thu Nov 09, 2006 11:01 pm

i'd be happy to switch to a provider with a decent upload. my current onetel package is 2.2MB down, 256k up @ £24pcm :icon13:

any UK ISPs not pinch the u/l, without imposing some gayass d/l limit per month?

Post by **Doombrain** » Thu Nov 09, 2006 11:16 pm

what happened to all the cheap internet we were meant to be getting??

Post by **seremtan** » Thu Nov 09, 2006 11:18 pm

lol, with a privatised monopoly owning all the lines, i'm amazed we have dsl at all

Post by **Doombrain** » Thu Nov 09, 2006 11:47 pm

that's another point. whatever happened to AT&T starting over here?

Post by **PhoeniX** » Fri Nov 10, 2006 12:57 am

seremtan wrote:i'd be happy to switch to a provider with a decent upload. my current onetel package is 2.2MB down, 256k up @ £24pcm :icon13:

any UK ISPs not pinch the u/l, without imposing some gayass d/l limit per month?

If you switch to ADSLMax (most ISPs offer it) you can get 448kbps upload. I get a 50GB 'limit' with Nildram. It's around £24 a month for 8128/448. In some areas you can get 16mb I think.

Post by **SoM** » Fri Nov 10, 2006 2:06 am

move out

Post by **DiscoDave** » Fri Nov 10, 2006 7:23 am

PhoeniX wrote:
seremtan wrote:i'd be happy to switch to a provider with a decent upload. my current onetel package is 2.2MB down, 256k up @ £24pcm :icon13:

any UK ISPs not pinch the u/l, without imposing some gayass d/l limit per month?
If you switch to ADSLMax (most ISPs offer it) you can get 448kbps upload. I get a 50GB 'limit' with Nildram. It's around £24 a month for 8128/448. In some areas you can get 16mb I think.

I've looked into Nildram, seem pretty good. What are the speeds like?

Post by **seremtan** » Fri Nov 10, 2006 7:55 am

PhoeniX wrote:
seremtan wrote:i'd be happy to switch to a provider with a decent upload. my current onetel package is 2.2MB down, 256k up @ £24pcm :icon13:

any UK ISPs not pinch the u/l, without imposing some gayass d/l limit per month?
If you switch to ADSLMax (most ISPs offer it) you can get 448kbps upload. I get a 50GB 'limit' with Nildram. It's around £24 a month for 8128/448. In some areas you can get 16mb I think.

i saw that 448 deal with eclipse too. thing is, my phone line's been tested by a BT engineer who said it could handle maybe 3Mbit d/l tops

:icon13: maybe when i move...

and what about home SDSL

Post by **Massive Quasars** » Fri Nov 10, 2006 8:00 am

seremtan wrote:
PhoeniX wrote:
seremtan wrote:i'd be happy to switch to a provider with a decent upload. my current onetel package is 2.2MB down, 256k up @ £24pcm :icon13:

any UK ISPs not pinch the u/l, without imposing some gayass d/l limit per month?
If you switch to ADSLMax (most ISPs offer it) you can get 448kbps upload. I get a 50GB 'limit' with Nildram. It's around £24 a month for 8128/448. In some areas you can get 16mb I think.
i saw that 448 deal with eclipse too. thing is, my phone line's been tested by a BT engineer who said it could handle maybe 3Mbit d/l tops :icon13: maybe when i move...

and what about home SDSL

3mbit is plenty for me (well it's adequate at least), I think monthly upload/download caps are true crimes against humanity though.

Doesn't seem like you feel the same way.

Post by **bag0shite** » Fri Nov 10, 2006 10:30 am

The £30 Eclipse package gives you 50g PEAK TIME usage (ie between 6pm and 12am), off peak you can use what you like. Your others, like Zen etc, give you like 50g TOTAL per month or their peak time is like 8am-12am, so Eclipse win (for me) in terms of bandwidth use. Email can be a bit up and down too.

Eclipse speeds are OK, can see some contention from 4pm-10pm, but it rarely dips below 2mbit down, generally I get 4-5mbit down in the evening with 6.5mbits down when it's quiet, depending on the source of course. CMD.exe pings are anywhere from about 12ms upwards depending on location. I'm 500m from the exchange and sync at 8128/448.

However, Eclipse are moving some of the customer base off BT ipstream to an LLU service which people have been having mixed results on. Plus Eclipse won't say who the provider is (Tiscali seems favourite). You can check your exchange for LLU at samknows dot com. My exchange is classed as rural so I've little chance of LLU thankfully (not even going to BTs 21CN until the end of 2011, lol). In saying that nilpex/plusnet/zen etc are also using LLU provision.

I'd still get cable if I could. ADSL in the UK looked promising a couple of years ago but now its being driven into the ground, especially in terms of bandwidth use. I seem to remember BT touting broadband as 'always on and as much internet as you use', yet that seems to have gone out of the window.

Post by **seremtan** » Fri Nov 10, 2006 10:39 am

Massive Quasars wrote:
seremtan wrote:
PhoeniX wrote: If you switch to ADSLMax (most ISPs offer it) you can get 448kbps upload. I get a 50GB 'limit' with Nildram. It's around £24 a month for 8128/448. In some areas you can get 16mb I think.
i saw that 448 deal with eclipse too. thing is, my phone line's been tested by a BT engineer who said it could handle maybe 3Mbit d/l tops :icon13: maybe when i move...

and what about home SDSL
3mbit is plenty for me (well it's adequate at least), I think monthly upload/download caps are true crimes against humanity though.

Doesn't seem like you feel the same way.

how does it not seem that way? i'm not a fan of d/l caps either, but at my current usage i'd be hard-pressed to exceed 50GB peak pcm. for all i know, my current ISP has a 'fair use' limit, but if it does they've either never told me about it or i've never exceeded it

Post by **seremtan** » Fri Nov 10, 2006 10:39 am

Massive Quasars wrote:
seremtan wrote:
PhoeniX wrote: If you switch to ADSLMax (most ISPs offer it) you can get 448kbps upload. I get a 50GB 'limit' with Nildram. It's around £24 a month for 8128/448. In some areas you can get 16mb I think.
i saw that 448 deal with eclipse too. thing is, my phone line's been tested by a BT engineer who said it could handle maybe 3Mbit d/l tops :icon13: maybe when i move...

and what about home SDSL
3mbit is plenty for me (well it's adequate at least), I think monthly upload/download caps are true crimes against humanity though.

Doesn't seem like you feel the same way.

how does it not seem that way? i'm not a fan of d/l caps either, but at my current usage i'd be hard-pressed to exceed 50GB peak pcm. for all i know, my current ISP has a 'fair use' limit, but if it does they've either never told me about it or i've never exceeded it

Post by **Don Carlos** » Fri Nov 10, 2006 11:03 am

UK Online are good dude! I have never had an issue with them, ever!

Post by **4days** » Fri Nov 10, 2006 12:44 pm

bag0shite wrote:However, Eclipse are moving some of the customer base off BT ipstream to an LLU service which people have been having mixed results on. Plus Eclipse won't say who the provider is (Tiscali seems favourite).

that was why i'd heard of them. my mate was getting put onto an unbundled thing with pipex and had a lot of hassle (purely with the billing dept, everything else was okay) - so he moved to eclipse (who were doing the same thing) and has raved about them ever since.

dunno if they're working with tiscali though, if they were i'd imagine he'd be doing a fair bit of whining about them being shit instead of evangelising their greatness.

Post by **bag0shite** » Fri Nov 10, 2006 2:36 pm

Like I said, those moved to LLU have had a mixed experience. Also, there is no 'proper' LLU MAC scheme. Some providers will move you from an LLU line (afaik Plusnet, Zen and Nilpex will) otherwise it's a cease an reprovide.

Post by **PhoeniX** » Fri Nov 10, 2006 3:35 pm

DiscoDave wrote:
PhoeniX wrote:
seremtan wrote:i'd be happy to switch to a provider with a decent upload. my current onetel package is 2.2MB down, 256k up @ £24pcm :icon13:

any UK ISPs not pinch the u/l, without imposing some gayass d/l limit per month?
If you switch to ADSLMax (most ISPs offer it) you can get 448kbps upload. I get a 50GB 'limit' with Nildram. It's around £24 a month for 8128/448. In some areas you can get 16mb I think.
I've looked into Nildram, seem pretty good. What are the speeds like?

Fine for me. I can get 830kb/s or so. I downloaded Ubuntu the other night (700 mb ish) in about 13 minutes :icon32:

seremtan wrote: i saw that 448 deal with eclipse too. thing is, my phone line's been tested by a BT engineer who said it could handle maybe 3Mbit d/l tops :icon13: maybe when i move...

and what about home SDSL

Yeah ADSLMax is pretty flakey, it all depends on how noisey your line is, which is generally down to how far from your exchange you are. Mines about 100 yards away and I get only about 1db of noise so I have no problems.

A friend of mine in a studenty area of Nottingham can only get 4mb ADSL, but 10mb cable. Another friend can get 16mb ADSL but not cable. I'm in a small village and get 8mb

.