Any One Recommend This ISP For Home Use ?.

[tickmike]

Hi All.

 

I'm at last thinking of going on to broadband at home, I live in the 'sticks' about 4kl from the local exchange, with my dial-up as low as 9kbs sometimes ! but normally about 45.2kbs.

The BT phone line check says I will get 2mbs, but it said that for the school and we have just gone on to BT Broadband and that is from 3.5 to 4.mbs speed, so I only live 150mts from the school so I should get about the same.

 

I been told by someone who lives about 1kl from the same exchange and he uses 'Tiscali' which includes All local and national phone calls free, unlimited downloads up to 2mbs in speed at £19.99 mth.

 

Has any one got any experience of this firm ?.

 

Also any idea what this means in the conditions ?.

 

Telecommunications plc ('BT') phone lines by routing your phone calls to our network at your local BT telephone exchange ('Carrier Pre-Selection' or 'CPS'). By using CPS, all calls (except calls to emergency numbers, operator assistance, directory enquiries and flat-rate internet dial-up numbers) will be routed to us automatically. Free Weekend Talk is only available with CPS.

If you do not want to use CPS and would rather use the services by dialling the code and number, you must tell us on your application form.

From Michael.

[MkII]

adsl guide is a good reference Michael: http://www.adslguide.org.uk/

 

Especially thier comparison charts - always worth a look: http://www.adslguide.org.uk/isps/compare.asp

 

Personally i'm no fan of the big boys. Teachnical support/ the means of getting in touch seems to be a low priority in my experience and can be more than a nightmare should you have any problems. Of course you will hear conflicting views on this.

[Ric_]

I have a mate who has become less impressed with Tiscalli recently. I'd follow Mar's advice and check out adslguide. Personally, I use Eclipse and find them very good... they will also give you a static IP if you ask.

[john]

Freedom2Surf for me, and you get a static IP for free.

[StewartKnight]

Carrier Pre-Selection is where the phone calls automatically go through the Tiscalli (in this case) phone network, as opposed to the BT network.

 

All that statement is telling you is, if you want free calls from Tiscalli at the weekend, the calls will be made using tiscalli network. If you don't want this feature, then tell them.

 

Essentially, you shouldn't notice any difference!

[woody]

***Warning, Long Post. But well worth the read if you are thinking of having Tiscali as your ISP. Get a cup of tea and read on....***

 

I am with Tiscali - but probably not for long. We have the call package at 19.99. It is great when it is working, but often times it stops working or goes very slow. Then you run into problems. Namely, Indian Call centre for Technical Support.

 

Don't get me wrong, it's not that you can't understand them, or they can't understand you. It's just that they are reading from a script, and I have come across very few that know anything at all other than whats on paper in front of them. Yes, I have called them that many times!!!

 

Here's my latest episode with them just to give you a taster:

 

August 22nd. My connection stops working. I ring up TS (Tech support)

 

They tell me some upgrades are being performed at the BT exchange. Call back if it's not working in the morning.

 

Not working in the morning. I call back after work thinking I'll give them a little more time. When I call back, they start to ask me questions about conditions at my end ie. Have you tried the USB modem (I use a belkin router). Have you tried a different ADSL splitter? Have you tried restarting your router? Do you have any malware? Can you ping your router. Etc Etc.

 

Of course none of this worked. Because it was their problem. Then I have a look on my BT account to see if I can spot if anything had been perfomred on my telephone line. Sure enough, two orders placed on the line on August 2nd, one for an ADSL Cease, and one to put the line on an LLU connection. In other words, Tiscali had put me on LLU without informing me.

 

10 days later, numerous calls, and two threats to Tiscali Cancellation line, and my router mysteriously connects itself back onto tiscali. GREAT!

 

Not so great. The connection was ephatically slow. Slower than 256k. Slower than 56k, it seemed. A speed test showed I was actually getting on average 50-100k. My router was connecting at 2meg but I certainly wasn't browsing at 2meg.

 

Ringing TS gave no results. Just the same old "Have you got any malware on your PC" routine. They kept telling me they could see I was connecting at 2meg so from their viewpoint everything was fine. It was certinaly not fine.

 

Last friday I rang up the cancellations line (this is in England) and asked to cancell. They said the problem had been logged with an engineer on 2nd September so they must still be looking into it. They would get someone to ring me back within 24 hours. What had they been doing for the last 13 days??? I agreed to give them one more chance in the knowlegde that you can't get a MAC code when your connection is LLU because few ISPs support them - which means it would be a month or so before I could get a new connection with a different ISP.

 

Saturday morning, and I fire up the laptop in Bed. Woah. The pages where loading up - FAST. I logged into router and it was connecting at 6meg!!!!! 'Yes' I thought, 'they must have sorted it out and put me on 8meg as a nice gesture!'

 

Lunch time came, run IE again - back to same old 56k sluggish connection. Even though my router was still connecting at 6meg.

 

So here we are, Monday morning, still a virtually unusable connection, and I'm almost ready to cancell, no chances, no excuses.

 

I am not an only case. Look at the Tiscali forums. They are packed with different people all over the country having problems (which you expect with any ISP) but getting no support or resolution to their problems. They are reverting to a few english Tiscali engineers who pick up support requests through the forums but even this is slow.

 

http://www.tiscali.co.uk/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=215

 

The conclusion of the matter being, don't go with Tiscali, Talk Talk, Pipex or any of these ISPs that offer cheap deals or 'Free Broadband' with calls attached. They rack up customers offering them Everything for next to Nothing. Then theie networks can't cope with the demand and everyone suffers. It's the same old story: You get what you pay for. I will probably be going with Freedom2Surf since my PFY is with them and he says he's had no problems.

[woody]

Carrier Pre-Selection is where the phone calls automatically go through the Tiscalli (in this case) phone network, as opposed to the BT network.

 

All that statement is telling you is, if you want free calls from Tiscalli at the weekend, the calls will be made using tiscalli network. If you don't want this feature, then tell them.

 

Essentially, you shouldn't notice any difference!

 

Just to add to that, what Tiscali are saying is that if you want all calls to be routed automatically, that's what CPS will do for you. If you don't but still want to have the service, you can dial a code manually before the phone number to route it to Tiscali.

[TechMonkey]

Just to play devils advocate I am with Tiscali and apart from not telling us that they upgraded their packages but left everyone on more epxensive slower connections, I've not had a problem

 

Possibly what the problem is with your line is that they have upgrade it ADSL MAX (or plus or something). Apparently once you have upgraded there is a 10 day period of speed fluctuation while the gubbins at the exchange works out the best speed. So it will be flaky and they should tell you this, but if the Indian call center doesn't have this on their script they won't know about it. It should settle down to a respectable speed up to 8 meg. Fingers crossed.

[ZeroHour]

Freedom2Surf for me, and you get a static IP for free.

One thing to remember though is F2S did not give me my MAC code when I phoned up (it was about 1 year 6 months ago though) to transfer to eclipse. They said they did not support it which was a big pain in the rear. I am and have been with eclipse eversince without any problems at all, and I connect at 8mb and get *sometimes* 800k+ a sec'ish but its usually 500-670k from microsoft.

My mate used to be on tiscali dial-up and it was that bad he could not connect for 3 weeks and they offered no refund as they said it was not there fault. That scare story has kept me miles away for piscali as they are known now for there service

[woody]

Just to play devils advocate I am with Tiscali and apart from not telling us that they upgraded their packages but left everyone on more epxensive slower connections, I've not had a problem

 

Possibly what the problem is with your line is that they have upgrade it ADSL MAX (or plus or something). Apparently once you have upgraded there is a 10 day period of speed fluctuation while the gubbins at the exchange works out the best speed. So it will be flaky and they should tell you this, but if the Indian call center doesn't have this on their script they won't know about it. It should settle down to a respectable speed up to 8 meg. Fingers crossed.

 

I know about the 10 day period of speed fluctuation and I sincerely wished you were right, but you would expect to get speeds greater than 50-100k and you would expect to be able to load a web page in less than 30 secs. This problem isn't about getting the line speed right, it is performing exactly the same on 8mb as it was on 2mb (and on 1mb which they initially put me on when they changed me over to the dark side (LLU) and forgot I should be on2mg).

[tickmike]

Well thanks all of you who have taken the time to answer, It's a real mine field out there with all the different ISP's..

Thanks for the links, some more useful one's > http://www.kitz.co.uk/adsl/caps.htm

 

> http://www.broadband-help.com/tools/speed-test/default.aspx

 

> http://www.ukoffer.com/broadband.php?source=adwords&gclid=CMSl7Kn65IUCFR95MAodIGziOA

 

> http://www.btsuck.org/?article=172

 

 

 

I may go with BT Business >http://www.btbroadbandoffice.com/broadband/lite

But then again talking to my neighbour they have BT home and get lots of trouble with it, so it seem's pot luck if you get a good connection, our local exchange was upgraded to ADSL Max in march 06.

 

Three things what is LLU , MAC code,why is it a good idea to have a static IP for you broadband ?.

 

If anyone's got a spare stand a-loan ADSL Modem with LAN-output (Not USB) can you PM me I may be interested .

 

From Michael.

[ZeroHour]

If anyone's got a spare stand a-loan ADSL Modem with LAN-output (Not USB) can you PM me I may be interested .

You will be lucky with that as they are like finding gold with a metal detector

 

LLU is generally a BAD thing so far. Most ISP's dont have a clue and its a pretty major change (phone calls change too) so still to BT MAX

Its reliable and yeh it does take 10 days to active MAX but not ADSL. its 10 days of normal ADSL usage (although best to put alot of large downloads on for the days as the rumour is that it actually helps get a more accurate reading)

I have had MAX from 2MB and the upgrade was a breeze and relatively stable (although I connect @ 8mb after the 10 days there was initially a launch of MAX, bug which meant the 2MB download speed applied even though you were connecting at 8mb but thats fixed now).

Eclipse have been good to me though

[woody]

Sorry, I tried to reply to your post last night, but I couldn't get enough connection out of tiscali to send it!!!! Yes, I'm still having problems. Anyway, here goes........

 

Thanks for the links, some more useful one's > http://www.kitz.co.uk/adsl/caps.htm

 

> http://www.broadband-help.com/tools/speed-test/default.aspx

 

> http://www.ukoffer.com/broadband.php?source=adwords&gclid=CMSl7Kn65IUCFR95MAodIGziOA

 

> http://www.btsuck.org/?article=172

 

Another one to add to your list: http://www.dslzoneuk.net

 

Three things what is LLU , MAC code,why is it a good idea to have a static IP for you broadband ?.

 

LLU=Local Loop Unbundling. It is where an ISP take control of their own equipment at the BT exchange. Of course, this means they have to have competent staff in place not just to transfer everyone, but to problem solve when things go wrong.

 

MAC=Migration Authorisation Code. It's what you get off your current ISP and give to your new ISP when you want to change. It enables them to avoid you loosing your connection at the switchover. Currently only accepted with ADSL connections. You can get an LLU MAC code but they are supported by very few ISPs.

 

As regards a static IP address, you only realy need one of those if you plan to have a server or something accessible from the internet which needs a constant IP address. If you don't have a static IP, your ISP will give you an IP through DHCP and this could change anytime especially if your router disconnects and reconnects again.

 

Hope this helps.

[StewartKnight]

and further to Woodies comments, it is possible to host a website with a dynamically assigned IP address!

[tickmike]

Hi.

Thanks for explaining those detail, I like to listen to some music and look at video streaming ='Nasa TV' space station etc. http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/index.html

Do you think I should keep away from any ISP's that do not have unlimited download ?.

Michael.

[Ric_]

@tickmike: With so many good ISPs out there with unlimited download, why limit yourself?

 

You really need to check out http://www.adslguide.org.uk - every little detail is described on there and you can compare ISPs and even different packages offered by ISPs.

 

You need to decide what you want though. If you want remote access to your desktop then a fixed IP is preferable and if you want to stream videos and do IP TV type stuff you need a high speed connection. If you just want the convenience of using the phone and net at the same time with a bit of a speed increase chucked in then go for a nice cheap 512kbps service and save yourself some money.

[woody]

Not necessarily. All ISPs that are cheapish and have 'Unlimited Downloads' work by an FUP (Fair Usage Policy) which means they will limit your download speed at peak times (basically when you are at work or in bed) I'm not sure if that will affect streaming, you would have to ask.

 

Make shure you read the terms and conditions and the FUP before you sign a contract.

 

Even those who have Capped services may run an FUP although usually not as strict as those with 'Unlimited Downloads'

 

Can you get Bulldog where you are, they are pretty good.

[Geoff]

Blueyonder don't, I can abuse my 10mbit as much as I wish.

[ZeroHour]

and further to Woodies comments, it is possible to host a website with a dynamically assigned IP address!

Nope you can, http://www.dyndns.com does it and updates dns records if your IP changes. I think there a few more others that do it. But though I would recommend a static ip, life is just simpler. Mind you though some ISP's block port 80 incoming on home accounts.

[Geoff]

dyndns here. My linksys router (a WRT54GL) has inbuilt support for keeping my dyndns domain pointing to my ip. Only thing to note is some webfilters block dyndns.org hostnames.

 

Blueyonder don't block any ports.

[tickmike]

Hello, I'm back again after looking at loads of ISP's .

We do not have cable around here, some of them are not covering our area, the local exchange has ADSL Max. But no LLU.

 

Have been looking at this > http://www.eclipse.net.uk/index.cfm?id=fixedcomparison_res

 

Free connection.

Free modem with 12mth term.*

Static IP.

Unlimited useage (subject to FUP from 6pm > 12pm.)

Price range not bad.

 

* The free modem is a " Speedtouch 330 USB ADSL modem"

 

I was thinking of plugging this USB modem into a 'Smoothwall Box' red/green, then into my wireless router.

 

Does any of you smoothwall experts know if this USB modem is compatible with smoothwall because I understand USB input are one of smoothwalls weaknesses.

 

 

 

 

Regards Michael.

[CyberNerd]

here is a speedtouch and smoothwall site (i use a BeWan adsl pci card):

http://www.hystedjp.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/

 

plus.net or zen are my personal favorites btw, I hear eclipse are pretty good.

[woody]

Personally, I wouldn't use a USB modem at all if possible. USB was never meant for networking and these things use the dial-up interface to connect. Much better to use one with a network port IMHO.

 

Something like this would be better:

 

http://www.ebuyer.com/UK/product/48449/rb/21903191259

 

or

 

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/90977/product_info/rb/21903237434

 

Or see what you can pick up on ebay.

[tickmike]

Re "woody"

I was just reading the 'small' print on the eclipse site and came across this >

 

http://kb.eclipse.net.uk/display/2n/kb/article.asp?aid=2395

 

http://kb.eclipse.net.uk/display/2n/index.asp?c=&cpc=&cid=&cat=&catURL=&r=0.1612818

You have probably tried this so good luck with your problems.

 

I also have gone off USB modems when the school had ISDN and I built my first smoothbox ( gave up in the end trying to get it to recognise the usb modem)

 

Regards Michael.

[contink]

FWIW I've been looking at doing something similar with my own setup at home and will be playing with possible options that allow differential or incrimental backups based on a locally obtained "full" backup.

 

My thinking at present is to try something out with Acronis True Image 9.1 Server and see if I can follow something like this as a backup path.

 

1. Take a full backup of the server onto an external hard drive

2. Take back to offsite server (based at home on static IP)

3. Copy full backup to server

4. Setup differential or incremental backups using the full backup as a starting point

5. No brainer, set the backups to occur during early hours, every night.

6. Repeat the entire process every month or so, depending on the amount of data that builds up.

 

 

I figure this will work reasonably well for a primary school but I wouldn't want to go that route for a secondary due to the sheer amount of data being built up in a bigger institution, but it'll be interesting to see how well it all works.

 

 

I'm not planning on this being the primary backup however and already have a NAS setup in a seperate building network cabinet taking NTbackups regularly and a 2nd domain controller in a seperate room also taking NTbackups.

 

I figure paranoia can't hurt...