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Moderators: Jim Murray, narcosis, felixcatuk, Sammy
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| Pokeh |
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 Registered Member #421 Joined: Sat May 31 2008, 09:37PMPosts: 6 | Hi. I'd like to apologise in advance if this kind of thread isn't allowed, or if i've posted it in the wrong area. There's a summary at the bottom of you want the long story short. Basically, right now i'm with BT, and i've pretty much had enough of them for various reasons. I'm currently trying to advise my parents on which ISP to go with. They pay the bills but i'm the designated "IT Whizzkid" in the house. Anyway, I took a look at the 'Advice for BT Customers' thread and had a look. I looked at the Samknows Broadband Site to see what's available in my area (Really useful - much better than manually looking on different ISP websites). Here are my results: [ image disabled ] Now, unfortunatly, I don't have much in the ways of choice. BT, who i'm with now, are pretty much lousy, and i've heard bad things about AOL. Virgin go with Phorm and so does TalkTalk (Who we tried earlier anyway and weren't that great). That leaves us with Sky Broadband and Bulldog. According to their website, Be are expecting to 'enable' our exchange sometime this month. So, in a way, that leaves me with three choices; Sky, Bulldog and in the near future, Be. Which one would you guys recommend? Our web-browsing here is a little bit 'Media heavy'. My sisters insist on using webcam all the time (No, really) on MSN on the computer downstairs, and sometimes they like to use the iPlayer or other video services. I personally do quite a bit of gaming but I only use the iPlayer about once a week for Doctor Who. This means that ideally we need an ISP who knows what the word Unlimited means (BT have currently slowed our web-surfing to an absolute crawl). I'm pretty sure that's a wall of text there. But i'll try to summarise if you didn't read that: Summary: I need an ISP that: - Knows what the word Unlimited means. - Is not with Phorm. - Is reliable. - Lets you keep your BT phone number. Again, thanks, and i'm sorry if this kind of thread isn't allowed. | ||
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| serial |
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  Registered Member #100 Joined: Wed Mar 05 2008, 06:22PMPosts: 667 | Hi Pokeh, In my opinion Sky will probably do something similar to Phorm. Bulldog are owned by Tiscali who use barefruit which is also a really bad idea and a security risk(do some searches). I'm with Be, have been for a long time and have a very good experience with them. They have no throttling, speeds are always great, price is good, fair use policy is superb. I've personally had very good support from them. The Directors have done chats in the forums in the past and are quite open. You may want to have a look also at 02 which recently bought Be. http://parasitestxt.org/ (Personal opinion and statement in this forum post is my copyright and may not be used nor reproduced elsewhere without my permission. To request permission send a personal message using the button below.) | ||
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| lardycake |
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 Registered Member #141 Joined: Sun Mar 09 2008, 06:17PMPosts: 166 | UKOnline http://www.ukonline.net also use the Easynet LLU network, so you have them as I choice as well as Sky. I have used UKOnline for over a year now and would recommend their service. They also said in response to an enquiry by another member here: narcosis wrote ... UK Online got back to me. "Thank you for your enquiry about our broadband services. Currently we do not customer information to any third parties, and I cannot see that we ever would. Hopefully this clears up the question but if you have any more, please do not hesitate to contact us again." Value your Privacy? BT Webwise and Phorm must be stopped. | ||
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| Pokeh |
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| Registered Member #421 Joined: Sat May 31 2008, 09:37PMPosts: 6 | serial wrote ... Hi Pokeh, In my opinion Sky will probably do something similar to Phorm. Bulldog are owned by Tiscali who use barefruit which is also a really bad idea and a security risk(do some searches). I'm with Be, have been for a long time and have a very good experience with them. They have no throttling, speeds are always great, price is good, fair use policy is superb. I've personally had very good support from them. The Directors have done chats in the forums in the past and are quite open. You may want to have a look also at 02 which recently bought Be. ---- Thanks for that. I'll recommend them to my parents. I've noticed (From what I can see) that Be don't provide a Phone service. Is it possible to have BT for your phone supplier and Be for your Broadband provider? [ Edited Tue Jun 03 2008, 06:44PM ] | ||
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| serial |
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| Registered Member #100 Joined: Wed Mar 05 2008, 06:22PMPosts: 667 | Yes, I have BT for phone and Be for broadband. http://parasitestxt.org/ (Personal opinion and statement in this forum post is my copyright and may not be used nor reproduced elsewhere without my permission. To request permission send a personal message using the button below.) | ||
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| madslug |
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| Registered Member #266 Joined: Tue Apr 01 2008, 12:11PMPosts: 771 | I can see why you don't like the look of available ISP options. There may be many other ISPs available. The list probably means that those are the only ISPs that pay commissions for leads from the site. Have a look on this mADSLax link for exchange availability. Phr0m free now and in the foreseeable future. I am on a 2 Mb connection and the lowest speed I have every had is 1.7 - more usually 1.8 and sometimes 1.9, which is better than many get after paying for an 8 Mb connection. (Average for Max is 5.5 - speed drops rapidly if you are further than 2 km from the exchange.) I am on skype for at least half the day, don't have a webcam but often chatting to people using their webcam. I don't use iPlayer as it is not available for my OS. During business hours, preference is given to business traffic, i.e. VoIP before P2P. The service is unlimited. If you regularly exceed 50 Gb a month, you will be reduced to a 50:1 contention during business hours, exceed 100 Gb per month and you are at 50:1 24/7/365. Compare that with the 100+:1 contention which most cheaper services start at. Choice of 1/4/8 static IP addresses which are free - other ISPs charge £5 per IP address. No 12 month contract. 21CN will become available in the future, dependent on when BT allocate availability. Speeds below the 8 Mb Max are due to be withdrawn by BTWholesale this year. PM me if you need to know more. Who is tracking your surfing? iCab mobile browser with its privacy controls now available to iPhone and iPod from the App Store - turn images off for faster and beacon free surfing. | ||
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| Pokeh |
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| Registered Member #421 Joined: Sat May 31 2008, 09:37PMPosts: 6 | madslug wrote ... During business hours, preference is given to business traffic, i.e. VoIP before P2P. ---- Yeah, that's what kind of puts me off. And I got my dad to read through some pages through the site. Long story short he's not happy about Phorm at all (So no more BT, Virgin Media or TalkTalk for us in the future). It's a shame really that the whole Phorm story isn't all that widespread outside the Internet. | ||
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| madslug |
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| Registered Member #266 Joined: Tue Apr 01 2008, 12:11PMPosts: 771 | Pokeh wrote ... madslug wrote ... During business hours, preference is given to business traffic, i.e. VoIP before P2P. ---- Yeah, that's what kind of puts me off. Explain? P2P was not on your list of requirements. I doubt that you will find anywhere an ISP that does not give preference to all other traffic before P2P. At 50:1 you will probably be running faster than the sender or receiver. VoIP was on your list of requirements. Now you complain because it is given preference? Many ISPs restrict VoIP. What you may not know is that if anyone uses a Max supply at full capacity 24/7, the ISP has to pay BT Wholesale over £1,000 a month for the bandwidth. Neither BTW nor the ISPs are charities: the ISPs have to manage bandwidth so that overall they earn more than BTW charges. This is why heavy users pay so much more for the SDSL service to cover the speed and bandwidth usage they need. Please answer via PM as your specific ISP requirement is not really relevant to this forum. Who is tracking your surfing? iCab mobile browser with its privacy controls now available to iPhone and iPod from the App Store - turn images off for faster and beacon free surfing. | ||
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