broadband suppliers

[mbames]

For many years I have used plus.net, and I am on a legacy product - Premier 1, which is 'unlimited' outside the peak hours of 1600-2359. In that peak window I am limited to 40gb of transfers before that slow me down (well they slow me down at 2/3rd, iirc).

I have a few bonuses like a static IP address thrown in £21.99/month. I sync at 7616Kbps, although performance recently has been much slower.

With BTs offering of a free upgrade to Infinity (when it arrives), I am wondering if I should jump ship to and move to BT broadband? I am hoping that 2012 Olympics in Weymouth might push out Infinity here quicker than some other places....

In the years I have been with PN I have rarely had any problems, and one of my mates is on BTBB, and says the performance is pants, but he he a crappy computer and lives further away. The BT tester says I should be able to get a 13Meg connection.

So what are peoples experiences on BT Broadband? Should I try it, or stick with what I have?

[bandrew465]

For many years I have used plus.net, and I am on a legacy product - Premier 1, which is 'unlimited' outside the peak hours of 1600-2359. In that peak window I am limited to 40gb of transfers before that slow me down (well they slow me down at 2/3rd, iirc).

I have a few bonuses like a static IP address thrown in £21.99/month. I sync at 7616Kbps, although performance recently has been much slower.

With BTs offering of a free upgrade to Infinity (when it arrives), I am wondering if I should jump ship to and move to BT broadband? I am hoping that 2012 Olympics in Weymouth might push out Infinity here quicker than some other places....

In the years I have been with PN I have rarely had any problems, and one of my mates is on BTBB, and says the performance is pants, but he he a crappy computer and lives further away. The BT tester says I should be able to get a 13Meg connection.

So what are peoples experiences on BT Broadband? Should I try it, or stick with what I have?

ADSL contention sucks, can you not get Virgin Media?

Andy

[mbames]

ADSL contention sucks, can you not get Virgin Media?

No cable services available in Weymuff, unfortunately. ADSL, or smoke signals are the only options.... :(

Contention has never been too much of an issue for me up to now. I used to have a separate ADSL line for work, but in a cost saving measure they have stopped me using it, and moved me onto XK as a VPN solution, rather than Checkpoint.

[TriggerFish]

We've got Infinity in our area already, and a mate is likely to sign up to it soon as his plus.net struggles to get .2mb download and is really unstable (as is my ADSL connection, we live about 100m from each other).

We're getting Virgin on Thursday, but if he does get infinity, I'll try and give you a rough idea of how it performs.

[mbames]

some feedback of how it performs would be good. It was being tested in Charminster (just up the road), but was apparently pretty unstable, but that came from the local rag so no idea how accurate it was.

[GentleGiant]

If you have a good plusnet service, stick with it, BT services tend to be pretty dire these days.

check out ISP Review for all the options, reviews, and discussion forums for all the European ISP suppliers.

[Wardy]

If you're still paying £21.99 p/m you're paying too much. I was on the same package as you up until a few years ago. But when they started mucking about with data caps at certain times, I changed to BeThere. I've never looked back and now pay £12 for the same level of service (static IP etc) and a faster service.

I'd recommend you take a look at them:

www.bethere.co.uk

Cheers,

Steve

[mbames]

I would consider BeThere, but I believe to get a reasonable value for money deal from them I need the exchange to have been unbundled. As you can see, my options are somewhat limited.

My brother uses BeThere under the O² name, and as he has mobile phone contact with them seems to get a rather good deal. Guess living near to Blackpool has one bonus

I have a couple of referrals with plusnet so my price is not quite £21.99/month. tbh, the data caps with PN and the "peak window" is not too bad - 1600-2359, if I were to sign up as a new customer their peak window is much larger It is only when I have lodgers in, or if I have been iPlayer heavy that I might get the warning emails. However as I now have to use my own internet connection for when I work at home (which I do 2 days a week), I don't want to find my bandwidth vanishing..... due to the nature of my work, quite a bit of time can be spent on remote desktop sessions which is obviously quite bandwidth unfriendly, unlike a nice lightweight ssh connection.

I assume, Wardy, you are lucky enough to be on an unbundled exchange? I can't find anything matching your prices with a static IP. The closest I can find is this BePro, which offers the static IP, even their value option is £13.79/month (which is cheaper than my plusnet offering).

[Octygone]

One thing I found out.......plusnet and BT are the same company

[gadgetman]

If you have sky, Orange or O2 then go with them and get internet for around £5/month.

FINALLY Sky are installing in our exchange next month, so I can jump from Orange's dire service.

[foo]

One thing I found out.......plusnet and BT are the same company

Indeed. BT bought Plusnet, but operate them as an independent company. Thank ****.

[mbames]

Indeed. BT bought Plusnet, but operate them as an independent company. Thank ****.

Indeed, plusnet seem to be a reasonable outfit. UK call centres, staff which on the whole seem to know the score, and sort things out. That said when I lost voice on my BT Business line at home, I had an engineer out and sorted within 45 minutes of me making the initial call (ADSL still worked though!).

[skippy41]

Have any of you tried vodafone at home??

I am with them, get unlimited BB, line rental, and 24/7 free land line calls for £25 a month

[Wardy]

Yep, my local exchange is LLU enabled, so I get a pretty reliable 12-13Mb connection, on Be's 'upto' 24Mb service.

A bit like Plusnet with your referrals, I've got them down from £17p/m to the £12 I pay at the moment. This has largely by me ringing up and saying I'm thinking of moving providers :yes:

But I can see, without LLU your options are perhaps a bit more limited, especially with regard to higher speed services.

Steve

[Lady Elanore]

I am on SKY and pay £7.50 a month for proper unlimited downloads, a constant 11mb downstream and about 1mb upstream line.

[justinbarrow]

Im with virgin (not their cable service though) and i am paying £17.99 for unlimited and the eldest hammers it every month, I dont think they cap me but now I have typed this will prob end up being capped lol.

[biomulv]

If you cant get LLU ( although looks like sky are in your exchange ) would it not be worthwhile getting the best ADSL MAX you can? Before I was LLU'd I was with ZEN as I use the connection for work. Best provider I have had , rock solid connection, but comes at a cost.

They are also introducing Fibre products this year if you do get FTTC'd.

[wilsonian]

TBH I've worked in the ISP sector for some time and on one hand certain providers can give you improved speeds if they don't have bottle necks (like virgin) but it some times depends on your line length, copper qualitly and how many people use the exchange. check samknows (best googling it) to find out your est line length

Edited 23 September, 2010 by wilsonian

[mbames]

As the crow flies, 817metres :-)

I quite fancy the BeThere 'unlimited' service (£17.99, so not a great saving, but it might be faster) as it is uncapped (apparently), but as they don't have LLU equipment it means I would have to take it via 21CN which is available to me. However I spoke to my brother a while ago, and he is on the 02 LLU service, and said that a while ago the o2Access service (which I understand is the same as the BeThere non-llu offering) used to be under spec'd and would run slowly (too many users, not enough bandwidth).