Be Pro Broadband

[Michael]

Firstly, Happy New Year to you all and may you all have a good, productive and high uptime 2009!

 

I've been looking at new broadband providers and stumbled across Be's Pro service offering upto 24Mbps and a whopping 2.5Mbps upload based on ADSL2+ It also comes with 1 standard static IP (useful for hosting).

 

I entered my phone number and it came out at 16Mbps (pretty good), but they warn in a worse case scenario I could lose between 1 to 3Mbps, due to the additional upload speed. This would still be quicker than standard ADSL I currently receive, which is about 6.5Mbps.

 

First question - is it any good and does any lovely people here use it? You're not tied into a lengthy contract either which is rather handy.

 

This leads me onto my next question. How realistic would it be to host my own DNS server from my own offices (public facing)? I don't wish to specify details, but I can't seem to find a host that will allow me to host my own DNS server, unless I become a reseller (not really what I want to do).

 

To my knowledge DNS servers generally use minimal bandwidth as it simply forwards requests to the relevant servers, but how much bandwidth would 100,000 requests a day (for example) require? I'm not sure if any DNS type of calculator exists?

[mrcrazy04]

A mate of mine is with Be, I think on the unlimited package and highly recommends them.

With regards to DNS hosting, if you don't have that many domains, Free DNS service - Easy, web-based domain manager - ZoneEdit.com might be a better choice, as with the setup you're proposing you have no redundancy with the DNS.

I'm afraid I don't know what 100,000 requests will come to, but I guess it will be a fair bit, and at times might overload your upstream bandwidth.

[dhicks]

First question - is it any good and does any lovely people here use it?

 

We have an ADSL line with them - as far as I know it works okay, but we haven't gotten around to using it yet. Actually, I'm just (finally!) getting around to sorting that out now, so I should know more in a short while.

 

--

David Hicks

[m25man]

I installed an SBS 2008 system onto one of these lines.

Yes the Download Speed is good but we never got close to the 2.5mbps upload speed.

A quick test @ kbps.co.uk reports about 900k - 1.2mb using 2 different routers.

 

The Speedtouch 780 router supplied was usless as port 443 is used for remote management and due to a security patch it cannot be re-assigned or port mapped with out a CLI code change, even though the GUI looks like it does it, it does not!

Really helpful! Just Google the Speedtouch 780 and port 443 you will find others with issues with this router.

 

After an entire day fighting with it we dumped the Be router and used a Draytek, but beware this also needed a FW update and some CLI tweaks to make it work with the BE network.

Not all routers support BE so be careful when selecting one to replace the box that BE give you.

 

Apart from that, it has all been quite stable and has not been out of service since we fired it up.

[Sylv3r]

I have been with Be for about 12 months now and the only time I have had an issue with loss of sync was about 2 weeks ago and they sorted it remotely within the hour. They understood when I was on the phone I had an IT background and didn't get me to try all the obvious once I told them I had already done so unlike some companies!

 

I live quite a way from the exchange so I don't get fantastic speeds around 4.5MB but still a lot faster than some of the other ISP's I have been with - Freeserve, Wanadoo, Orange etc (all the same company - crap).

[contink]

m25man's advice is very useful and I'd recommend heeding the warning especially about the router compatibility.

 

I have the package you're referring to and whilst it doesn't get the full whack it does pretty well and it's better than anything else I had before so it's worth the cash.

 

My only gripe is that there be box is not much cop and when I can figure out which to go with I'll be getting something more smoothwall friendly with better connectivity and speed.

[mac_shinobi]

I have this router :

 

NETGEAR DG834 v4 ADSL 2+ Router

 

works fine for me.

[Trapper]

I was with Be for over a year.

 

The first 9 months was fantastic, synced at 18Mbps and unlimited downloads, with no throttling.

 

Then around July I found browsing painfully slow. DNS wasn't the issue, and after nearly 5 months of going round in circles with the technical support team I left.

 

They knew that there was an issue, but either did not know what it was, or refused to admit capacity problems at my exchange.

[FN-GM]

Strange, they say i can get 7mb download. All other ISP's say 1mb max, no one else in my area isn't much higher. Any ideas why they can offer it so fast?

[kmount]

Average provider is quoting on ADSL1 (8mbit/s max) versus ADSL2+ (24mbit/s max).

 

Better accuracy can be gained if you're on ADSL currently by checking your statistics for SNR/Attenuation out

[IanT]

I've been with Be* Internet for over 1 year now on there Be* Unlimited 24mb/2.5mb service!

 

Excellent ISP!, the modem I got is: Netgear DG834N (make sure you have the latest firmware for this adsl2+ modem though)

 

I sync at 20Mb :D:D

[Michael]

Thanks for all the feedback, much appreciated - especially regarding the rubbish hardware they provide. Not a fan of Speedtouch I have to say. The Netgear looks really good though and I've used their ADSL 1 routers many times before.

 

A quick test @ kbps.co.uk reports about 900k - 1.2mb using 2 different routers.

 

It sounds to me you're on the Be Unlimited service and not the Be Pro service, which does have a 1.3Mbps upload. Be Pro offers a few additional features, including the 2.5Mbps upload.

[crc-ict]

I have a basic O2 broadband which is actually Be - it's not the fast package being talked about here, but seems to be pretty good. £7.50 a month for unlimited downloads at up to 8Meg (get just a shade under 5, about 2 miles from exchange) and is reliable now I've ditched the O2 Broadband Box (same as a BeBox) and sorted my house phone wiring. Another nod here for the Netgear DG834 too - got given it by a friend and it's great!

[fox1977]

for those that have got Be what is the upload speed like? Anyone get upto near tohe 2.5mb quoted?

 

Do you think we would be able to use it for an office with about 40 end users? We are currently using Bulldog and that is pretty fast and and handles all the users pretty well but our backup BT connection is rubbish when there are more than a few users on it.

[kmount]

What's your current bulldog upload like?

 

I suppose it wholly matters upon what the users are doing?

[fox1977]

its about 700k. Mainly used to FTP loads of small files to servers in a datacentre

[clock]

hi, i got Be almost 2.5 year. And for me it work fine. Now i have 1.7 upload and 12 download. not bad previous areas that i lived was better, all depends on how far is the exchange.

Just one thing i hate is the speedtouch modem its useless. So i try your recomended Netgear DG834N.