Broadband
 

Any suggestions as to the 'best' supplier? I'm not out in the sticks, so most should be available...




ps. If anyone says NTL, I'll get queball to slap them. Or to slap himself, depending.

blueyonder baby

its by miles the best
I GUARANTEE

:D

Except Blueyonder. Telewest don't seem to like me :(

[edit]

On inspecting their website, it appears they neither supply to Durham nor Cambridge; where the hell do they supply to, west midlands only?

They don't seem to supply my area either, I havn't really researched thoroughly yet but BT, Freeserve and NTL serve my area, it seems like NTL and blueyonder/telewest share out areas between themselves

:down:

OK then, new question.

What's the best out of Openworld, BT and Freeserve, and are there any others?

Except for the fine services of Jolt ofc!

http://www.adslguide.org.uk/ for your ADSL comparison requirements

Ta pab

Pipex rock my world :)

BT Openworld provide a very good service, with only one major drawback.





















When you speak to most ISP help desks, you get someone who is knowledgable about the potential problems and can help you get a resolution quickly (like Blueyonder, they rock)

BT Openworld are 'slightly' different

Imagine if you will there are people who are incapable of answering phones in taxi firms and pizza delivery firms. People so inept that they should be paid to stay at home and not leave the house. Those people work for BT Openworld technical support

Their 'technicians' read from a script 'Can you check your dns settings' and refuse to deviate from this so if you know exactly what the problem is, adsl wires destroyed by godzilla or asdl modem sitting in a mound of melted plastic etc it wont help you get any further until you have gone through their little list

Oh, and if they say ANYTHING about the details in your account being wrong get them sorted and the details confirmed by FAX or letter as that may stop the useless wankers deleting your account because they are too stupid to delete the one THEY setup in your name without asking or telling you

Vaio

They must work the dayshift at NTL then. My NTL connection is generally good, being twice as fast as what I actually pay for, but there was a three month or so period earlier this year where it would slow to a crawl in the evenings. Phoning NTL did no good - one time I was on hold for 85 minutes, and then the guy said he couldn't speak to me as I was the account holder. A ridiculous situation where the account holder was just relaying information between me and the guy on the telephone ensued, and eventually the "technician" caved in and spoke to me directly. It did no good though - he was just reading from a list of things to tick off ("have you tried resetting your PC?!?!?!") and eventually directed me to another support line where the staff where more knowledgable. I never bothered to phone them up, so I don't know.

And that is the tip of the iceberg of the problems I've had with NTL. For god sake don't give them anything complicated to do like change the identity of the account holder, you'll be at it for fooking months!

But apart from their complete absence of competent staff they're okay, heh.

NTL at the beginning of this year had loads of latency issues, and dropouts etc..

Also NTL have slammed a 1GB per day bandwidth cap on their broadband products.

Despite that and the fact it took them three months to move my account last year to my new house (heh!), lately its been really good. I'll still maintain that Cable Broadband beats ADSL anyday (Plus I get 600k for my money).

However, try www.plus.net for ADSL. £19 a month atm

Really. Nildram. Dont look elsewhere.

Although, ADSL in durham is pretty poo, everyone I knew was getting 10ms more than more urban areas.

I just signed up to freedom2surf
I don't have any first hand experience, what with not being connected yet. However, my mate uses them and he doesn't seem to have any problems with them.

They are also very cheap, £22.50 a month. Plus at the moment there is no connection charge (provided you sign up for a minimum 12 months, blah, blah...)

They have my vote too, use em at home, and in actual fact, the GFX for this forum are hosted on a machine on F2S ADSL ;)

Todays Gem from BT Openworld Tech Support
 

Me : My ADSL doesnt work

BT Donkey : OK, let's run through a few things to try

Me : That probably wont help

BT Donkey : Let's try them anyway

Me : That really wont help

BT Donkey : We really need to try them anyway

Me : Trust me on this, it wont help and it will be a waste of time

BT Donkey : I think we should let me be the judge of this

Me : Fair enough, When I tell you the ADSL router you supplied caught fire about 15 minutes ago when you've finished how silly will you feel ?

BT Donkey : I'll pass you over to 2nd line support

Vaio

Plusnet

I've been with them for a while now, and the service is genrally very good, they do have there problems but who doesnt.

There customer support is also great

Persoanlly I wouldnt touch freeserve or BT.

Pipex rock.

The only time my service with them is cut is when I don't pay. Which admittedly, is every month.

Blueyonder 1Mb

2Mb is out soon \o/

68% there for signups, another 128 people before ADSL goodness in my part of Liverpool...

bt are utter ****e.

as viao said,tis all fine until you have to ring the tech support.
(ring in the evening,as its maned by uni students who have some clue)
i swear,you lose the will to live after 30mins talking to them.

and they are full of bull.

use nildaram,they rock. great support as well.

74.25%

Me: My internet isnt working
--loads of random try this and that crap--
Them: Ok, i'm going to get you to ping us. If you get a reply it means our end is working and it's something else to do with your computer.
me: ok
Them: Ok, ping 127.0.0.1
Me: I got a reply
Them: The problem is your end and nothing to do with our internet, bye
*click*
Me: but....

Still 74.25%.

Unless you wish to run any app that requires a fair bit of uploading to happen. Their latest User Agreement has basically banned the use of any application that has a relativly high rate of uploading so while you can surf the net and do your emails fine your likly to be kicked if you try running anything like a p2p client. And lets face it you dont get broadband to just surf the net and do email the reason you get broadband either to a)access enhanced content such as streaming media or b)to download large files quickly (normally via p2p apps)

Guess though it depends how tightly they enforce it, if its like NTL's 1gb a day download cap then they will just phone up every so often asking you to change your usage habits but from the wording of the press release i saw it does appear they are going to take a harder line than this

I kinda sorta run an opennap server, news server and web server off my Blueyonder connection. They haven't complained yet

Vaio

Vaio: I belive that while the new user agreement has been published it hasnt been put into effect yet as they have to give everyone a chance to know about it. Your probally get a 60 day grace period like NTL did with its download cap before it will be fully enforced

news:[email protected]

1. Users may only provide Internet Protocol Services (“IPS”) within the
limits set out in this Section 5. Users are deemed wholly responsible for
any and all network traffic emanating from relevant servers and are
required to ensure that such IPS are secured against abuse by third
parties. This includes (but is not limited to) ensuring that servers are
running up to date, and that security patches and are configured soas to
not act as relay servers at any time. “Relay servers” mean servers that
can be utilised by another Internet user to relay spam, or any other type
of abusive network traffic.

2. Failure by Users to so secure servers against such abuse may result in
immediate suspension or termination of service by Telewest (acting at its
sole discretion) with no prior notice - in order to protect the overall
network and services provided to other customers.

3. In addition to the above, Users’ provision of IPS may not adversely
affect any other users of the Telewest network (including telephony and
internet services). Further, Users may not include within and/or
distribute via an IPS any content without the express consent of the owner
of all relevant rights in such content (including but not limited to
intellectual property rights). Telewest reserves the right to monitor
network traffic and to take appropriate action as required – including the
right to restrict any IPS. An example of such adverse usage could be the
consumption of a high proportion of the available upload bandwidth over a
significant period of time. Telewest will not offer any technical support
for the provision of such IPS.

4. Any services provided which have a well-known port (as defined by IANA
[www.iana.org]) must run on the defined port wherever possible. Exceptions
to this must have good reason, to be determined by Telewest in each case at
its discretion (e.g. the de facto standard as defined by a default
installation).

They didnt......

Did they ?

hahahaha

Usually they put the phone down on me while in mid sentence

Vaio

this :bunny: speaks the truth

LISTEN!!!