Who's the best ISP provider?

I know that peopple slate them but I have been with BT for the past 7 years. Had a couple of problems along the way but rather than calling India I use the BT Forums. The mods are all BT engineers and actually understand the system and have the ability to sort problems out quickly.

I know that there are horror stories about all ISP's but can honestly say that BT aint been that bad for me.

Nick
 
arad85 said:
Hahaha...

To boliston:

You_just_got_pwned.jpg
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:LOL::LOL::LOL::LOL:

Now THAT'S funny
 
Neil - I do have my own smtp server :)

However not all do and it isn't something that everyone knows about.

I am all for locking down and wish that you couldn't get on the internet without antivirus, antimalware and completing a scan recently. However lots of people will complain and it is unfair if it hasn't been made clear.

ISPs and hosts need to make the limitation of the ISP smtp servers clear and how they can send email from their domain.
 
I have BT Infinity and also have a Sky Connection. I have no problems with either company (Been with BT over a year and Sky for about 3 or 4) and on the occasion I have contacted BT I got a UK call centre although I will admit I wasn't aiming for support.

I would stay clear of TalkTalk I was with tiscali at one point and it was a nightmare. I also run a development server from my Infinity line with no problems, and the settings allow you to open what you want. I also extended the network with a slave router with no problem, so on that front I have no complaints. It is also a true unlimited package and I use it a lot.

When it was first installed I was getting double to triple this on Download, got it when it first came out so I can only presume the ratio was low.
 
nigpd said:
I've just moved house and want to dump AOL as my ISP because they are carp.

We are lucky enough to have fible optic in MK, so who's the best broadband ISP?

thanks in advance for your suggestions
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By fibre do you mean Virgin or BT fibre?
 
nigpd said:
According to Which?, Zen come out on top as the best ISP. Has anyone got any experience of them?
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Been with them for a few years, absolutely top notch service.
 
Been with virgin for about 7/8 years + and have had a few problems, but find them eager to please and solve quickly. Saying that never ever speak to anyone but the disconnections team, the other teams can't do much to help, where as the disconnections team pull out all the stops.

My 50 meg connection sits at 48/49 meg all day long.
 
nigpd said:
It's BT fibre
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I'm looking at Clara.net when fibre comes to me. No limits and no shaping on their business packages - which is important to me as I work from home and often move large files (1+GByte) to/from the office.

I don't mind paying a bit for the service, but your needs may be different.

See: http://www.thinkbroadband.com/guide/fibre-broadband.html for some high level comparisons on price in one place.
 
If you're in a cabled area, Virgin should be a no-brainer if you're looking for the quickest!

1782680880.png


That said, their customer service isn't great (unless you like listening to music on the phone) and they do throttle some services at certain times of the day.
 
crazy badger said:
If you're in a cabled area, Virgin should be a no-brainer if you're looking for the quickest!

1782680880.png


That said, their customer service isn't great (unless you like listening to music on the phone) and they do throttle some services at certain times of the day.
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You say quickest but your upload is nearly half what mine is on BT so surely if you do a lot of uploading, images, files etc then that would be an important consideration?
 
Have used Virgin for about 6, whilst the connections was good the support was painful for the once or twice I phoned them.

What we are all forgetting, the Disconnections Team are by far better at fixing faults than the Support Department. Always ask to speak to them first ;)
 
neil_g said:
Very subjective as everyone will have their horror stories.
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So true.

And why is it that when someone starts to look for a new provider (isp, gas, leccy, land line, mobiles whatever) they usually search for the cheapest? When the reason for their move is poor service :thinking:


neil_g said:
Personally I'm waiting for sky's fibre coming in April onwards.
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arad85 said:
I'll probably be moving to Clara.net when we get FTTC
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Most providers will be offering fibre in the months following the opening up of this market. I'd be a little wary of jumping on board with one just because they are the first non-BT fibre isp in your area.

For quality of service (see Which?) and a UK call centre that answers over 90% of incoming within 15 seconds, take a look at the Utility Warehouse. And they have clever ways of easily reducing your bills.
 
Ive always used Sky and found it to be brilliant. Cant think a time when its let me down!
 
Whilst we're all willy waving, my down is only 4Mbps and around 1Mbps up, but consistently around 20ms ping ;)
 
Zen often get good reviews them and Nildram were the good ones a few years ago.


I chose Nildram then they got taken over by talk talk. I should have gone with Zen
 
neil_g said:
Why should an ISP let every Tom dick and Harry route their mail through their smtp servers. It doesn't make money but costs them in server and bandwidth throughput. To name one of a few reasons.
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I wasn't suggesting running them as open relays :eek:, only that the ISP not restrict the From: and Reply-To: headers to the addresses that the ISP provides with the account.
 
Originally with Virgin, but sacked them off for throttling my connection, also found the connection to be highly unreliable. Moved to BE for 3 years and found their service to be outstanding, no problems what-so-ever and even though the customer service centre was in Bulgaria (or somewhere similar), I found them to be ultra helpful and knowledgeable when needed.

Now with BT as I wanted an all-in package. Been with them 2 years and never had an issue. Always found them to be helpful (as well as understandable). Now get Infinity and unlimited phone calls anytime for £25 a month. A lot cheaper than Zen when you take upload speeds into consideration....

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Virgin are doubling their BB speed (for free) so if you`re clever, pick one that half suits, and wait `till April ish to get the bump.

If you take out a TV package though beware, as the buggers abe putting up the price from April 1st.
 
Paulie-W said:
Virgin are doubling their BB speed (for free) so if you`re clever, pick one that half suits, and wait `till April ish to get the bump.

If you take out a TV package though beware, as the buggers abe putting up the price from April 1st.
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Have virgin upgraded their equipment to cope with this speed increase? Or is it the customers on lower tariffs that are going to get battered again?
 
antihero said:
Have virgin upgraded their equipment to cope with this speed increase? Or is it the customers on lower tariffs that are going to get battered again?
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I`m not sure to be honest ... theres a whole heap on it over at cable forums. I`m only on 10meg, so happy to go to 20.... I think the middle tier get the best deal though, as the top flight only ramps to 120meg
 
For those on infinity etc.

How often do you max out your downloads?

The only time I've got over half of my 38Mbit is with 4 downloads running.

A lot of servers I download from seem to throttle each connection (I can download nice and fast from our own private servers).

BBC Click did a test, they had a 100Mbit line near Wembly and tried to max it out. It took 15 computers or something downloading files from the fastest servers they knew.

At the moment, get over 20Mbit, get your ping low and don't worry :)

20Mbit will download 2.5Gb if maxed out in under 20min. Do people need faster than that?
 
antihero said:
Now with BT as I wanted an all-in package. Been with them 2 years and never had an issue. Always found them to be helpful (as well as understandable). Now get Infinity and unlimited phone calls anytime for £25 a month. A lot cheaper than Zen when you take upload speeds into consideration....]
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That's the sort of package I want, but presume line rental is on top of that?

I'm with TalkTalk and its so slow - plus no joy when I ring support - just end up arguing with call centre in India... Is it likely the speeds I'm getting are due to poor service or could there be another problem?

[URL=http://www.speedtest.net][/URL]
 
ShoeQueen said:
That's the sort of package I want, but presume line rental is on top of that?

I'm with TalkTalk and its so slow - plus no joy when I ring support - just end up arguing with call centre in India... Is it likely the speeds I'm getting are due to poor service or could there be another problem?

[URL=http://www.speedtest.net][/URL]
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I am with TalkTalk via Tiscali as well and had times when the speed were as slow as yours.

Since I upgraded my router firmware I am getting good speeds?

Might be worth checking the router?
 
sep9001 said:
I am with TalkTalk via Tiscali as well and had times when the speed were as slow as yours.

Since I upgraded my router firmware I am getting good speeds?

Might be worth checking the router?
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How do I do that? Its the one they provided. I am using it wireless but that shouldn't slow it down that much and its still very slow when I use it wired. (They said something about having to slow the speed to get a stable connection once - but then again they've said a few contradictory things so I'm never sure what to believe...)
 
It would also be worth checking your internal wiring - do you have phone extension cables? How many devices are connected to the phone line - phones, routers, Sky box, fax etc.? Do you have the router connected via a surge protection device? Do you have any other ADSL filters you could try?

Whatever else you may have connected, what sort of speeds do you get if you remove everything and connect the router directly to your master socket through a filter? If you get a big boost in speeds it's very probable that you have issues with your wiring within the property and you may need to take a good look at how things are connected indoors.

EDIT : and one more possibility which I've personally experienced - when I upgraded from regular Sky TV to Sky HD the idiots (not Sky installers, but a third party outfit commissioned by Sony) who installed the new satellite cable hammered a nail straight through my phone line on the outside wall of the property. My broadband was all over the place and there were odd noises audible when using the phone as a result. Once I discovered the problem and fixed it myself my speeds and stability were spot on. No more noise on the phone either. So you might need to check your external wiring too.
 
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tdodd said:
It would also be worth checking your internal wiring - do you have phone extension cables? How many devices are connected to the phone line - phones, routers, Sky box, fax etc.? Do you have the router connected via a surge protection device? Do you have any other ADSL filters you could try?

Whatever else you may have connected, what sort of speeds do you get if you remove everything and connect the router directly to your master socket through a filter? If you get a big boost in speeds it's very probable that you have issues with your wiring within the property and you may need to take a good look at how things are connected indoors.
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I only have two phones and the router. I have the filters on both phone sockets. I don't have a surge protection device on the router - should I? (I do on the computer). I do remember trying to just connect via the router a while back and it wasn't noticeably faster but I will have another go.
 
ShoeQueen said:
I only have two phones and the router. I have the filters on both phone sockets. I don't have a surge protection device on the router - should I? (I do on the computer). I do remember trying to just connect via the router a while back and it wasn't noticeably faster but I will have another go.
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Presumably you also have one or more extension cables as well, and adapters to double up on sockets. These can all add to problems with noise on the line. What is the quality of these components like? You don't need to answer here, but just think about it as a possible cause of a problem. That's why I suggest plugging your router into the master socket without any other bits attached. In other words try eliminating all the possible causes of problems which might be down to you rather than the ISP.

The reason I ask about the surge protector is because I have one intended for both the mains supply and phone lines. If I connect my router via the surge protector my speeds go right down. So the surge protector is a big no-no IMHO.
 
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Thanks Tim. Just one extension cable (to the upstairs phone) and one socket doubler to use both a phone and the router off the master socket. But I will try having only the router plugged in, and will also connect to computer directly (though that isn't going to be an option for regular use as I use the computer upstairs). But at least that will see if I can eliminate any problems in the house.
 
Dale_d3100 said:
For those on infinity etc.

How often do you max out your downloads?

The only time I've got over half of my 38Mbit is with 4 downloads running.

A lot of servers I download from seem to throttle each connection (I can download nice and fast from our own private servers).

BBC Click did a test, they had a 100Mbit line near Wembly and tried to max it out. It took 15 computers or something downloading files from the fastest servers they knew.

At the moment, get over 20Mbit, get your ping low and don't worry :)

20Mbit will download 2.5Gb if maxed out in under 20min. Do people need faster than that?
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I use newsgroups a lot so my downloads speeds are always maxed out. Four and a half gig takes roughly fifteen minutes.
 
ShoeQueen said:
Thanks Tim. Just one extension cable (to the upstairs phone) and one socket doubler to use both a phone and the router off the master socket. But I will try having only the router plugged in, and will also connect to computer directly (though that isn't going to be an option for regular use as I use the computer upstairs). But at least that will see if I can eliminate any problems in the house.
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I'm not sure it's necessary to move the computer downstairs, since you use wireless. You just need to eliminate all the surplus wiring for the purposes of diagnosis.
 
tdodd said:
I'm not sure it's necessary to move the computer downstairs, since you use wireless. You just need to eliminate all the surplus wiring for the purposes of diagnosis.
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Thanks Tim. I checked and it was plugged into a surge protector plug. So I unplugged that and put it into a normal socket. Unplugged both phones so only thing running off the phone line is the router... and its got worse!? (Poss because its lunchtime?)
[URL=http://www.speedtest.net][/URL]
 
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Eek! I was not expecting that. I'm afraid you're going to have to hope someone with more expertise to chip in. All I can say is "Good luck.".
 
tdodd said:
Eek! I was not expecting that. I'm afraid you're going to have to hope someone with more expertise to chip in. All I can say is "Good luck.".
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At least I know I've tried a few things - it would have been great if it had worked, so thanks for the suggestions and advice - means I can rule a few things out at least. :)

Plugged one phone back in and its back to the speed it was.

Think it may be BT or Virgin for me...
 
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