Broadband Recommendations

[Michael]

Hello all,

 

I'm currently on an 18 month contract with Orange. Their telephone service is fine, however their broadband service has its problems. Today there have been two outages, and both were DNS problems! This also happened about 4 months ago and it's very frustrating.

 

I'm looking for recommendations for both mobile/broadband contracts or just broadband on its own. Thanks

[Michael]

I must be the only person on Edugeek with broadband :sarcasm: Lucky me

[somabc]

Be / O2

[kmount]

Which exchange are you connected to? Is there an LLU provision available there?

[Michael]

I did take a look at O2 but their prices didn't seem as good as Orange's (from what I can see).

 

Yes my exchange does support LLU.

[Edu-IT]

I'm with TalkTalk and the connection is pretty reliable once they work out what profile is best. One thing that I really like is the fact that you can get support online through a forum and staff usually reply within minutes if you do have problems. Not useful if you can't get on the internet but if you're wanting to complain about speed/disconnections then it's fine.

[FN-GM]

TalkTalk = naff

 

I use them and the connection drops for a few hours nearly every weekend. I am going to be moving away from them and going to ZEN. They are a little more expensive but provide a very good service.

[Michael]

I haven't heard great things from TalkTalk. I myself have customers who complain of their poor service. I still remember when they were featured on BBC Watchdog. That was a few years ago now, but it still makes me extremely wary.

[somabc]

I did take a look at O2 but their prices didn't seem as good as Orange's (from what I can see).

 

Yes my exchange does support LLU.

 

If you have an O2 phone (any contract or PAYG), broadband is £10 a month for 16Mbit down / 1.3Mbit up (LLU)

 

They do not seem to restrict your downloads by throttling, capping, or port blocking at all, so you will see the max speed your line will allow (in my case 15/16Mbit) and you can download 100+GBs of data a month if you like.

 

12 month contract, no connection fee, 50 day money back guarantee if you are unhappy after signing up, free wireless router, UK (glasgow) helpdesk if you need it. Whats there not to like?

Edited July 31, 2008 by somabc

[somabc]

I haven't heard great things from TalkTalk. I myself have customers who complain of their poor service. I still remember when they were featured on BBC Watchdog. That was a few years ago now, but it still makes me extremely wary.

 

ah TalkTalk the ryanair of broadband!

Edited July 31, 2008 by somabc

[FN-GM]

There are allot of providers that are just simply rubbish at the moment, it seems to be getting worse. I would go with a specialist company and not one that is to big, to them your just another number.

[Grommit]

I would recommend SKY..

 

I had them for about a year now and have had not one single problem.. at the start it was a bit tricky but after a week it all settled down and is fantastic..

 

If you have SKY TV you get 2mbs free.... 8mbs £5 and 16mbs for £10 per month and no throttling at all and none of this Fair useage policy rubbish either..

 

I get an average of 13mbs from my "up to 16mbs" contract.. free wireless router as well

Edited July 31, 2008 by Grommit

[FN-GM]

I have been told Sky are good but i here they are looking at blocking ports for torrenting and p2p file sharing.

[Edu-IT]

Perhaps I'm just one of their fortunate customers then who is happy with the service. Price is reasonable too.

 

If the connection drops then you should report that as a fault and have it investigated.

 

There are allot of providers that are just simply rubbish at the moment, it seems to be getting worse. I would go with a specialist company and not one that is to big, to them your just another number.

Do such companies exist and if so can you point me in the right direction? What is a 'specialist' company, are you talking about one which provides only internet connectivity and not other services such as landline and digital television? Edited August 1, 2008 by Edu-IT

[eduabncs]

Have a look at adsl24.co.uk. Their an Enta reseller. I've just joined their new 24meg ADSL2+ service and will be activated next week. The service from them so far has been a breath of fresh air. I had an initial problem with the billing, but that was sorted out within an hour of posting the issue on their support forum!

 

I was with Pipex and was quite happy with them till Tiscali took them over then things just went downhill!

[kmount]

James @ ADSL24 is top notch, really good company and they have Enta's back end support if something should go awry.

[jsnetman]

and both were DNS problems! This also happened about 4 months ago and it's very frustrating.

 

In the meantime before you change service providers you can circumvent DNS issues by using a free publlic DNS as your secondary option either in your router or NIC settings http://theos.in/windows-xp/free-fast-public-dns-server-list/

[FN-GM]

Perhaps I'm just one of their fortunate customers then who is happy with the service. Price is reasonable too.

 

If the connection drops then you should report that as a fault and have it investigated.

 

Do such companies exist and if so can you point me in the right direction? What is a 'specialist' company, are you talking about one which provides only internet connectivity and not other services such as landline and digital television?

 

Zen for example

[ninjabeaver]

I've got SKY BB here as well. Been exceptional service since its been installed.

[AyatollahPies]

Hello all,

 

I'm currently on an 18 month contract with Orange. Their telephone service is fine, however their broadband service has its problems. Today there have been two outages, and both were DNS problems! This also happened about 4 months ago and it's very frustrating.

 

I'm looking for recommendations for both mobile/broadband contracts or just broadband on its own. Thanks

 

You haven't told us what you require from your broadband connection.

 

If you won't be using P2P or torrentz, but will still need to be able to download large files, such as Service Packs, Linux distros etc then i recommend Plusnet. In the 2.5 years I have been with them, I can't remember losing connectivity once. Granted, i generally just use it for browsing and downloading the odd update on filehippo.

[Michael]

Thank you for all the suggestions, it's definitely opened possibilities

 

I would say I am an intermediate to high level of user, as I would download ISOs from Microsoft, Service Packs and of course Playstation 3 demos I rarely use Bitorrent.

 

At the moment O2's service seems the most appealing and most competitive. I wouldn't go with Sky simply because I have Freesat. As for Be they only offer broadband it seems, so O2's deal overall seems better.

 

I currently get 7616Kbps from my exchange (so almost the full 8Mbps). If you're interested what your exchange supports visit Sam Knows

[somabc]

In the meantime before you change service providers you can circumvent DNS issues by using a free publlic DNS as your secondary option either in your router or NIC settings Free fast Public DNS Servers List

 

OpenDNS seems to be the most popular, I use them myself with various ISPs and have never had any problems.

[somabc]

Thank you for all the suggestions, it's definitely opened possibilities

 

I would say I am an intermediate to high level of user, as I would download ISOs from Microsoft, Service Packs and of course Playstation 3 demos I rarely use Bitorrent.

 

At the moment O2's service seems the most appealing and most competitive. I wouldn't go with Sky simply because I have Freesat. As for Be they only offer broadband it seems, so O2's deal overall seems better.

 

I currently get 7616Kbps from my exchange (so almost the full 8Mbps). If you're interested what your exchange supports visit Sam Knows

 

Perhaps O2 have been reading this thread and want to reward my marketing, but they just sent me a txt to say they are knocking £5 off the monthly cost of my tariff!

 

(sim only £20 a month for 600 min, 1000 txts and unlimited data, no contract either so you can cancel at any time - very good for an unlocked iphone I must say)

 

Tariffs - O2 pay monthly SIM only tariffs

Edited August 1, 2008 by somabc

[paul]

Talk Talk around these parts has unoffiacially been rebranded "Mute Mute" by many a customer!

[Sylv3r]

Be / O2

 

I am with Be and have no problems in about 8 months since installation. One of the technicians at school has just signed up with 02 this week and he is having issues with dropped connections etc though.