Recommend me a new ISP (UK)

[jammyozzy]

Title says it all really - This past week our internet connection has been terrible - slow, unreliable, and it often takes several refreshes to open a page at all. I think Orange have finally got around to overselling their bandwidth here, and I've had enough of it. I'm interested in Multiplay DSL, simply because the i-series LAN parties have turned me into a Multiplay fan boy. It's pricey, but I'm a heavy gamer/downloader and it seems ideal for me. The static IP is also a big bonus.

Do you guys and gals have any other reccomendations? My exchange can only go up to 2Mb/s, and I doubt my line can even manage that, so blisteringly fast connections are not any use to me. I just need a simple, no-nonsense connection, up to 2Mb/s, from a better ISP than Orange (i.e. any ISP).

 

[Jondot]

I've been very happy with BT over the past 6 months, although some reviews say otherwise. To be perfectly honest, I actually went for BT after using my next door neighbour's wifi connection (it's unsecured). I was very happy with the speed, so I traced the IP and found out what they were using. Go for the basic package and you should be fine (who needs a homehub anyways?). It's supposed to be up to 8mb, but I can't get over 1.5 because of my phone line.

One of my friends has been very happy with his Virgin Media connection (yep, they do ADSL too) and it's always nice and quick when I'm over there. Not so sure about reliability, though. In theory it should be as good as their cable service, but you never know.

Stay away from Tiscali, if you didn't already know. They previously traded under the name "Beelzebub Broadband Inc.".

 

[jammyozzy]

One of my friends has been very happy with his Virgin Media connection.

You may well have the luckiest friend in the country. Everybody with Virgin that I know is complaing about terrible pings and service.

 

[Mark T]

I've got two connections with Tiscali. One is at my parents house which I left there when I moved out (and I'm still paying for) so that they could still use the internet, that is a 2mb connection. I also have another connection at apartment which is 8mb. I haven't ahd any downtime in the 5+ years that I have been with them. Installation has always been trouble free.

I think there current service is £19.99 which includes free line rental and free UK anytime calls. Obviously everyone has different experiences so it's really hard to decide who to go with. I think services vary greatly in different areas aswell.

 

[Jondot]

You may well have the luckiest friend in the country. Everybody with Virgin that I know is complaing about terrible pings and service.

Really? That surprises me. Not so much for the cable service, but I thought atleast the DSL was well maintained.

I've got two connections with Tiscali. One is at my parents house which I left there when I moved out (and I'm still paying for) so that they could still use the internet, that is a 2mb connection. I also have another connection at apartment which is 8mb. I haven't ahd any downtime in the 5+ years that I have been with them. Installation has always been trouble free.

I think there current service is £19.99 which includes free line rental and free UK anytime calls. Obviously everyone has different experiences so it's really hard to decide who to go with. I think services vary greatly in different areas aswell.

Really? Wow... I guess you're one of the lucky ones then. I've found that they not only offer dodgy uptime and speed, but have horrific customer service. As soon as something goes wrong, Tiscali have a nasty habit of just plain ignoring you. Take a look at their forums (which are, by the way, horribly difficult to register for) and you'll see what I mean.

Aside from the dodgy uptime, I also became frustrated by the way they restricted access to certain servers. When I moved my website to a new host, I suddenly found that I had no access to it whatsoever. For weeks I was relying on my neighbour's wifi to transfer files to the new one over ftp. So, I left it for a while and then concluded that it was in fact Tiscali's fault and moved on to BT. Months later, I still have one member who can't access us 90% of the time because he's still with Tiscali. Funnily enough he has the same telephone exchange as me too, so maybe it's partially related to that.

And then there's the way they restricted access to the LFS server. I spent hours fiddling with firewalls trying to get it to work, and nothing. Even turned them all off completely (router included) and it made no difference. Moved to BT and it works absolutely fine. I visited the Tiscali forums regularly and found many people with the same issue. What was most annoying was the fact that Tiscali denied that they had anything to do with it, even though the restrictions magically appeared at Tiscali's governed peak times.

And don't even get me started on their phone support, who either told me to reinstall the modem that I didn't use or simply put me on hold for half an hour.

But other than that, they were great

 

[G.T]

I suggest Virgin Media.

Yes, they are a tad more expensive than anyone else, but myself and a few people I know who are with them have NEVER had major issues. They only cap you to half available speed during peak times (4pm to midnight) after you have downloaded a certain amount (~500mb on 2mb I think) during that time, but even then that isn't bad compared to some terrible ISPs out there (*ahem* Tiscali *ahem*).

I'm not sure why you've heard of people complaining about issues with Vigin Media though. Maybe it's just coincidence that those people live in bad areas... We've been with them for nearly 4 years now (when they were known as NTL), and have NEVER had major speed issues.

Sure, customer service isn't the best, but in general all ISPs are falling into that bracket... IMO.

 

[Danny]

I'm on Virgin Media and it's superb.

No problems, I recommend it.

 

[Mark T]

Really? Wow... I guess you're one of the lucky ones then. I've found that they not only offer dodgy uptime and speed, but have horrific customer service. As soon as something goes wrong, Tiscali have a nasty habit of just plain ignoring you. Take a look at their forums (which are, by the way, horribly difficult to register for) and you'll see what I mean.

Aside from the dodgy uptime, I also became frustrated by the way they restricted access to certain servers. When I moved my website to a new host, I suddenly found that I had no access to it whatsoever. For weeks I was relying on my neighbour's wifi to transfer files to the new one over ftp. So, I left it for a while and then concluded that it was in fact Tiscali's fault and moved on to BT. Months later, I still have one member who can't access us 90% of the time because he's still with Tiscali. Funnily enough he has the same telephone exchange as me too, so maybe it's partially related to that.

And then there's the way they restricted access to the LFS server. I spent hours fiddling with firewalls trying to get it to work, and nothing. Even turned them all off completely (router included) and it made no difference. Moved to BT and it works absolutely fine. I visited the Tiscali forums regularly and found many people with the same issue. What was most annoying was the fact that Tiscali denied that they had anything to do with it, even though the restrictions magically appeared at Tiscali's governed peak times.

And don't even get me started on their phone support, who either told me to reinstall the modem that I didn't use or simply put me on hold for half an hour.

But other than that, they were great

I know that other people have had major issues with Tiscali but I guess I'm one of the lucky ones. I started a thread in the Tiscali forums with a problem I had a few years ago and they replied pretty much instantly. I'll continue to use Tiscali until I have a problem, which hopefully will not be anytime soon.

 

[donbenni]

I've had BT broadband at home for years and it's never been great. Annoyingly when we signed up to the 8meg service in December last year we gained nothing over our previous 1meg connection except an unreliable Home Hub. I've complained to BT several times over the 8 months that have past, but aside from sending an engineer over who, after an hour of checking, suggested i changed my microfilters and replacing the Hub there has been no improvement. Conclusion is that we must live miles from our nearest exchange, but BT haven't really done much to help.

At uni i had a cable NTL connection which was 2 meg and ran at 2 meg. This was always reliable and didn't have many problems even when it switched to Virgin Media. Because of this i have a pretty strong love for cable connections.

Am considering switching my home internet to Virgin's 20 meg cable service as i just can't go on living with such a crappy BT connection.

So if you have any doubts about the reliability of your ADSL/phone line, then consider a cable line instead. Good luck with your searchings 👍

 

[Famine]

Tiscali, BT and Virgin are all right up there with AOL in my book. Orange toke bloke.


Try Sky or Plusnet.

 

[G.T]

So if you have any doubts about the reliability of your ADSL/phone line, then consider a cable line instead. Good luck with your searchings 👍

Yeah. Maybe Virgin Media's cable lines are the ones that tend to be reliable. We've always been using a cable line.

I've personally considered upgrading to 20mb, but the issue is that the upload speed isn't that much faster than the current 4mb connection. 384kb > 512kb. Considering how a fair amount of people who buy connection speeds that large are gamers, I'm fairly dissapointed.


Edit: Oh yes, AOHell.

 

[ExigeEvan]

We've had NTL/Virgin Media for about 7 years now and have had no real problems. Customer services has been fine, though it helps that the call centre is just down the road so we could just knock on the door and complain if needs be.

Most my mates are on there aswell, and they've never had any serious problems.

 

[GilesGuthrie]

Speaking as a Telewest customer who has gone Virgin Media, there has been a significant decrement to service. In spite of supposedly getting "upgraded" from 10Mb to 20Mb, I'm getting less than 8Mb, and I'm paying £37/month. Plus, there are the bandwidth throttle quotas, which pretty much ensure that if you need to use max bandwidth for any more than a minute, you get throttled back to 25% of what you're paying for.

When I move house in October, I'll be leaving VM. I'm planning on going Sky - 8Mb/40GB/£5 per month. Anyone who pipes up with a sensible Sky Broadband opinion likely to get +Repped.

 

[Jondot]

Famine: Doesn't PlusNet piggyback on Tiscali's network?

So if you have any doubts about the reliability of your ADSL/phone line, then consider a cable line instead. Good luck with your searchings 👍

The issue with cable is availability. Some parts of the UK have good coverage, and others don't. You'll be lucky to get a connection in North Kent for example. Annoyingly Dover gets great coverage, though...

If he's on DSL now, the chances are it's because he has no other choice I'm afraid.