View Full Version : New ISP?
I'll get to the point....I'm getting sick of PlusNet and their BS.
I need another ISP that offers 8MB for a reasonable price.
Any suggestions?
leowyatt
22-01-2007, 20:04
How much do you pay now?
Have 4mb from telewest, no issues at all. Great service so far :)
Found this (http://www.broadbandchoices.co.uk/calculator.asp?calctype=all&msg=1&pageresults=showall&kt=233) site which might be good :)
I ditched Plus because they were ****ing me off, and went to Sky because we could get their LLU service.
Something to be aware of is that if you opt for another ISP with their own LLU service then you have to disconnect and reconnect, which will leave you netless for a few weeks. There's currently no way to migrate from one LLU to another (though there is a process being trialled I believe).
I gave PN a severe bollocking before Christmas and told them they had 7 days to fix the problems with my connection or I'd be gone. Even got my MAC code to show I was serious.
They fixed the problems.
I'm guessing that's because I'm on the business product set, and I know what I'm doing, so they tend to pay attention even though I've been known to get rather shirty with them.
Getting fed up with <1KB/sec P2P though so I might be looking for somewhere new anyway.
Had a look at Aquiss (http://www.aquiss.net/) while I was waiting. I've heard good things from the other place, but they cost more and I don't have a personal recommendation to go on. Entanet also were recommended over there, but they've been having a few capacity issues the last week or two.
PS - regarding LLU, I believe BT Wholesale have a transition plan to turn themselves into an LLU provider, so all migrations would then be LLU. Not sure how much progress has been made on that.
Justsomebloke
22-01-2007, 20:16
I've been with NTL since day one and it roxs.
I got 10meg real early and they have looked after me real well. I cannot fault them, i am not mentioning how little downtime i have had over the years because i don't want to put the mockers on it.
In game people ask why my ping is so low and on Source i am accused of rate hacking continuously. I love it ;D
I'll put my NTL connection and my trusty ally keyboard up against anyone :p
I'm currently getting 22Kb/s from easynews whereas I used to get max speeds. It's pissing me right off now. Users know that they are being throttled but PN try and deny it. I'm just fed up with their BS and will be looking to move soon I think.
Justsomebloke
22-01-2007, 20:18
22 kb/s is that dial up ? ;D
Are NTL in your area ?
Yup. I'd move if you're a heavy P2P user. They are seriously overloading their BT Centrals with users and crap P2P speeds is the result.
I'm not a heavy P2P user, but I do like the odd bit of BitTorrent or encrypted downloads, both of which bear the wrath of their network at times. I do hit them with 60-100GB/month of just regular downloads and stuff though (even when I'm not using it at all, my connection idles at 0.5GB/day due to automated downloads).
NTL are a bit hit and miss. Some people rave about them, others get crap service. You shouldn't need telling about that though with Sinead working there for several years. :)
Nope, no chance of cable around here. Thing is, my speeds are fine everywhere else apart from usenet groups. They throttle them but then deny it :angry:
Thing is Mark, I wouldn't call myself a heavy user at all. I've probably used less than 2GB in the last 2-3 months.
NTL are a bit hit and miss. Some people rave about them, others get crap service.
You mean like all ISPs? :p
NTL more than most Jen. Most ISPs are usually just good or bad. NTL vary an awful lot area by area.
If you're a light user, there's plenty of choice out there.
I'm not sure how high regard Zen are held these days. They used to be the daddy, but you'd pay for that. Eclipse used to be up there too but they've gone downhill rather rapidly.
I'll await replies from others, as I'd certainly like some options myself.
Fair enough, just always hear so many different ISPs have so many varying reports from their users.
Wasn't strictly defending NTL (not that I've ever had a serious problem in 2 different areas of the country), just hear the term hit and miss a lot about so many different things that it always makes me slightly unsure. :)
Nicking stuff from a certain other forum...
http://www.dslzoneuk.net/isp_ratings.php
Like all such surveys, I'd take that with a very large pinch of salt, though it's a good enough starting point. ADSLguide is also worth a look of course.
Oh, btw, for the Entanet stuff, look at UKFSN (http://www.ukfsn.org/). People 'over there' seem to rave about them. Just looked at their site and had a major Meh moment. That site looks like some part-time web trainee created it.
PS - no insults intended - I'm just as much a web hobbyist as anyone here. :)
NTL more than most Jen. Most ISPs are usually just good or bad. NTL vary an awful lot area by area.
To be fair, so are we and a lot of that is down to Telco engineers in the area. I feel sorry for certain customers who are forever appearing in our line faults system, as you know without looking at the ticket its the same old faults and the same old excuses from the Telco. Its frustrating for us as we always end up having arguments with the Telco operators over the general state of those lines too. We often seem to be able to pull up more details of when faults have occurred than they do, and we have to beat them with statistics to prove to them there really is something dodgy with the line in general.
Yeah, true, but that's not really an ISP issue - that's down to either the BTW engineers or congested exchanges. In NTL's case, the buck stops with them.
Water under the bridge to most customers of course.
I recently moved from F2s to http://www.ukfsn.org/. They don't have traffic shaping, speeds are generaly high and you get generous off-peak allowance (22:00 - 08:00). I'm using their Office MAX 45 product which gives 45 GB peak, 300 GB off-peak for £25.00 +VAT. Upload is 832kbps and apparently Office products get priority during congested times although i'm not 100% about that. They are an entanet reseller but one of the cheaper ones and because of this you get 24 hour support with them. Had 1 blip in a couple of months and they sorted it out quickly on a sunday evening.
EDIT
Just realised your bandwidth allowance, i only went with these because of my torrent downloading so not sure how useful they'll be for you :).
They don't have traffic shaping,
...
Office products get priority during congested times
Erm... ;D
Just out of curiosity, would you consider NTL if it was in your area Jim?
I'm not sure if this would work, but what about Easynet and their new encrypted service? Unless they are throttling everything now :/
I don't think I'd have any problems with using NTL, although I hear their support staff have always been crap ;D
;D;D
I'm looking at them now. £20 a month for a 2MB line and digital TV, which aint bad.
Cliffy, they look pretty good to me. How are the speeds? Any connection issues?
Speeds are always pretty good.Torrents always come down quickly regardless of time of day and have just done a test download now of 109mb. Took 3 mins @ 624kb/s. I've been connected for the last month or so with no disconnects.
Great. I've just read the UKFSN thread over there and all seems well. I'm going to sort out some of our email stuff and then migrate. PN suck ass.
Yeah, my only concern about them was the kiddie-class website and the postal address/email-only contact. I'm not sure how much backing they've got.
Their provider (Entanet) has had a few capacity problems recently and has been throttling bandwidth a bit at peak times. They don't pick and choose protocols though so everything gets throttled. This does mean however that P2P and Usenet still get a look-in unlike your current ISP.
If I can get over their website (I'm not sure what kind of portal facilities you get once you're a customer), then I'm going to give serious consideration to that Office Max 45 product as it's only a fiver more than what I'm paying now and doesn't have the PN baggage. However, with their longer peak time I might need more than 45GB which would make things expensive. :undecided:
I don't care about flashy websites or portals. Just give me my damn connection ;D
I don't care about it being flashy either - I just want some confidence that the company isn't going to vanish up it's own backside like some other well-known (and popular) ISPs have. No guarantees, just confidence.
Thing is, it's a 1 month contract so they only really ever get £20 off you. Whilst it would be a pain in the arse to get moved again, I don't see it as a major risk.
1 month contract sounds worth a try to me :)
killerkebab
23-01-2007, 15:43
I'll be moving house soon so I'm looking for something new myself... what does everyone think of "Be unlimited"? £25/month for 24/1 Mb internet does sound a little too good to be true...
LLU, that's how they can offer the service at that price.
I'm not sure how quick they are provisioning services these days, but if you can, then do.
Desmo, my problem is that I rely on the line for work. While it'd be an annoyance for you, it'd be a right pain for me.
Having said that, being without broadband for a day or two would convince me to get off my butt more, so maybe I should try it. Not until spring though, please. :)
I understand Mark. Different needs for different people :)
Well, I've raised my ticket with PN to get my MAC and looking to move on the 12th Feb.
Their provider (Entanet) has had a few capacity problems recently and has been throttling bandwidth a bit at peak times. They don't pick and choose protocols though so everything gets throttled. This does mean however that P2P and Usenet still get a look-in unlike your current ISP.
Ah i wasnt aware of that, it certainly wasn't in place when i joined them. Must admit that i hadnt even noticed though so it can't be that bad :).
Well I've already got my MAC code :eek: That was quick, their system must be pretty slick for this ;D
Just need to do some more searching but I'm pretty happy I'll go with UKFSN.
Bloody hell :eek:
I had to really fight them for mine, ****ers.
I got mine pretty damn quick as well. They queried was I aware of them expiring in 30 days, and I simply said yes.
Let me know how it goes - nothing like a personal experience. If PN **** me about again I'll be out of there.
Well it's done. Signed up with UKFSN on the 30/300 for £19.99 a month.
Should be migrating on 6th Feb which gives us time to sort our plus net email change over :)
Bloody hell :eek:
I had to really fight them for mine, ****ers.
PN have obviously been taken over by BT managers, whose philosophy was that if enough customers left then the problem would go away.
Oh, they were like that before the planned BT byout.
Haven't heard much about the BT stuff recently so I wonder if that's still happening. If it is, then it's a case of do I jump ship before the buyout or after.
Timely thread :) My new flat isn't in a cable area, so have to go ADSL. UKFSN looks to be the winner. £52.88 setup fee though :shocked: what do I get for that? I already have a router and filter thingy salted away.
Answer - not a lot.
At least you do get the knowledge that the ISP isn't going to come back when you leave and say, 'oh, you know that free activation we offered you...'
I think you can see where that's going.
Didn't cost me a penny as I migrated :D
So total risk is £19.99 :)
Pretty sure the people I'm buying from won't already have BB (and I know their phoneline is talktalk :shocked: ). Speaking of which, and mildly related, who's the best phoneline provider for low usage (so a nice low line rental)? :)
Figures I don't get much for the install money :(
TalkTalk's fine for phonelines, works off the same lines as BT but it's cheaper. Very rarely had to deal with any problems to do with the voice package.
Don't ever, ever, ever, ever go for their BB package though :)
Coming from someone that works for CPW so should know ;)
Doesn't going with Talktalk for phone service limit your ISP options? I'm not confident enough with all this phoneline stuff to know.
Doesn't going with Talktalk for phone service limit your ISP options? I'm not confident enough with all this phoneline stuff to know.
Not at all, well only so far as you can't go for cable.
Otherwise your options are anything ADSL based just like if you were with BT. :) The line is no different, just a matter of paying TT not BT. Even have BT engineers come out to fix the line if anything goes wrong.
Oh that's ok then :) Certainly their BB has a bad rep :(
Having spent most of the past year selling their BB, yes it has had a lot of problems. Just bad organisation from the people higher up and the fact that the only way to sort anything is to phone the BB tech line (even if you work for CPW, there's nothing you can do from store).
I've heard they are improving it slowly though but it's going to take them a hell of a long time to make up for their failings originally.
Phone line is good though if you make a fair amount of calls on your landline.
Next to no calls - all done by email/messenger if I'm in.
Got a prompt and well explained reply to my queries to the ukfsn lot. And I noticed it's static IP :cool:
Ooh, bonus. I'm getting more and more impressed by them despite their site.
I have to be honest that even though they have their fair share of cockups, I am pretty happy with PN at the moment. I downloaded about 48Gb of stuff last month over BT and it was pretty reasonable speed.
One thing that annoyed me was them cutting all binary newsfeed, but tbh I don't really use it any more. I opted to stay on 2mb and its been fine.
I'll be swapping accounts on 6th Feb and PN will be downgrading my account to dial-up PAYG so I can still run the old email address :)
Sorted. That's what I'd have done too.
Eventually we'll move all mail over to pigmo.co.uk but this just means we can still get all our current mail too :)
Haven't heard much about the BT stuff recently so I wonder if that's still happening.
Just had this from a PN email...
You might also have heard about BT Retail making an offer to buy PlusNet. This offer has now been accepted and the deal completed. There will be no changes to your Internet service and we will continue to operate under the PlusNet brand from our offices in Sheffield.
You can set up PN to forward mail to the right place. :)
As for BT, I'll believe it when I see it. I'll give it a month. Right now PN is still cheaper, and if it isn't (currently) broke etc...
UKFSN is on my list if they screw up again though.
LeperousDust
25-01-2007, 16:46
Wish i'd seen this earlier, Desmo, isn't it possible to connect to newsgroups through ports other than default, thus possibly eliminating the problem. Also you can set up secure connections to them (without paying extra like other newsgroup providers!) and surely that makes throttling *just* newsgroup access out of the question? As you say the rest of your connection is fine its just the newsgroup access they have you on, but if you were to mask that then it should be fine?
I'd be interested to know if that works, because im probably going to have the same problem next year... :(
PN's systems aren't entirely port-based (though they do rely a lot on ports).
The 2007 announcement looks kinda interesting. Extra capacity already ordered, etc. Not sure about the BT products (if they start forcing routers on people then I'm history), but we'll see.
LeperousDust
31-01-2007, 12:16
But my point is surely if you connect securely, via ssl with a non standard port (easynews support a fair few if i remember) you should be able to avoid trafic shaping measures? All except they just limit your bandwidth in total rather than QoS...
If that was the case, everyone would be doing that and the traffic shaping would be rendered useless. It clearly isn't useless, so therefore that must mean your suggestion doesn't work.
It did for a while though.
The thing is, I shouldn't have to find a way around it. I pay for a service and they keep changing the rules of that service to suit themselves. Bollox to them, I'm off.
LeperousDust
31-01-2007, 13:06
If that was the case, everyone would be doing that and the traffic shaping would be rendered useless. It clearly isn't useless, so therefore that must mean your suggestion doesn't work.
It did for a while though.
True but i would have though the majority of users don't really know what Usenet/Newsgroups/Newsreaders are, and if so realise they can use SSL to connect to these.
The thing is, I shouldn't have to find a way around it. I pay for a service and they keep changing the rules of that service to suit themselves. Bollox to them, I'm off.
That is true in itself, and i wasn't stopping you from changing :p But i was asking if it bypasses their QoS traffic shaping, because next year i won't be on a uni network and we'll be being our own (cheap ass) internet which will most likely be subject to the same tactics, just wanted to know in advance if i should even bother getting cheap net, or pay up for a half decent service...
I suppose the obvious answer is you get what you pay for, but i'm a student, so don't throw that one at me ;D
That is true in itself, and i wasn't stopping you from changing :p But i was asking if it bypasses their QoS traffic shaping, because next year i won't be on a uni network and we'll be being our own (cheap ass) internet which will most likely be subject to the same tactics, just wanted to know in advance if i should even bother getting cheap net, or pay up for a half decent service...
I suppose the obvious answer is you get what you pay for, but i'm a student, so don't throw that one at me ;D
Go with NTL then if it's available in your area, not expensive and they don't bother capping or traffic shaping (at least not as far as I've noticed).
I'd much rather pay for something half decent than have to suffer limiting my downloads.
NTL are trialling traffic shaping in the Swansea area.
You, of all people, should know that. :p
And no, at least at PN, it won't bypass QoS. They have a rule that says if they don't know what it is, it's probably P2P. That's why whenever a new game pops up, there's a week or two when latency for that game goes to hell.
Didn;'t know that but not exactly like I'm living in Swansea nor the NTL billpayer when in Swansea ;)
Can't say I noticed over Christmas though, seemed to be getting decent speeds regardless of the time of day.
Don't think it's much to worry about anyway (certainly not on the PN scale):
http://www.thinkbroadband.com/news/2941-traffic-shaping-trial-underway-for-some-ntl-telewest-customers.html
Ahh the 10mb users? That'll be why I didn't hear about it. On 4mb in Swansea and 2mb in Stafford. Never really been that bothered about higher, at least not so much as to pay the difference ;) Then again we got 4mb as a free upgrade anyhow otherwise we'd have probably stayed with 2mb.
Not too bothered then. Considering the hassle I've heard about so many ADSL providers and traffic shaping, I'm perfectly happy to stay for a good while yet.
Thanks for the info.
LeperousDust
31-01-2007, 20:14
Gotcha mark, i suppose that kind of rule works best though, becuase if someones trying to hide something most of the time (apart from new games like you say) it is P2P or the equivalent usenet naughty stuff...
Rumours are that Claranet is getting forced towards the prospect of bandwidth shaping for *DSL users only as DSL pipes are too expensive to justify an additional one with the number of customers we currently have. Looking at the bandwidth habits of a number of our customers we've found certain individuals that are maxing out their DSL MAX connections day in day out, and currently it looks like they'll be reminded of various clauses in their contract about 'reasonable' bandwidth use or somesuch. It was quite funny, they produced a list of the top 200 DSL platform bandwidth hogs. On that list were 3 NOC engineers, and one ex-NOC engineer ;D
Well that was painless :D
Swap over happened yesterday. Went to work a plus net user, came home a UKFSN user. Popped the new login details into the router and away we go.
Getting a very nice and steady 750-800KB/s from Easynews right now :D
Niice. Let us know how it goes. If it carries on like that, I might just jump ship.
Matblack
07-02-2007, 11:18
Don't think it's much to worry about anyway (certainly not on the PN scale):
http://www.thinkbroadband.com/news/2941-traffic-shaping-trial-underway-for-some-ntl-telewest-customers.html
Don't like the sound of that, although if it means that it resets everyday it could be worse I probably DL about 40-60Gb a month but it tends to be 4-12Gb at a time.
MB
Started to acquire a film last night, peak time at 450-500KB/s :)
I'm happy with that.
I've booked up for adsl with ukfsn now :) Doesn't come online until 26th tho :(
Shame cos it's a pain having to come back to the olds' for internet cos they keep making me take more stuff away ;D
Yay, I'm all UKFSN'd up :evil: Best speed I've had is about 6.2mb so not too bad I guess - BT estimated 5.5mb.
Now how to abuse the bandwith? ;D
Well, PN just brought 311Mbit of extra bandwidth online, which has helped a bit with peak speeds. I guess I can stick it out a bit longer.
Bloody hell. Another 155Mbit came online last week. PN (aka BT) seem to have malfunctioned. :eek:
Had to reboot my router to take advantage, but I'm now getting 300Kbyte/sec over P2P (BitTorrent). At 6PM, that's unheard of. Bets on how long it'll last. :eek:
Anyone else on ukfsn find their email server crap? Sometimes takes ages to respond :(
I'm almost ready to ask for them to change to no NAT and get 8 IP's - got a firewall today, and hacked in and reset it suprisingly quickly considering I have absolutely NO idea what I'm doing ;D
Methinks "overkill" comes to mind:
http://www.unipalm.co.uk/unipalm/index.cfm?57E678F6-E23D-4E3C-3A64-532FF034CA14
but for £30 who cares? ;D
Some ISPs can get a bit anal about people requesting a /29 (tech name for 8 IPs), so good luck. I've never had need myself as I can do some pretty advanced routing inside my network.
As for ISP email servers. Common problem that. Simple solution (especially if you have 8 IPs) - roll your own. Just make damn sure it's secure and that UKFSN don't block the standard ports.
ukfsn seem one of the good guys when it comes to using more advanced stuff - 8 IP's is a free thing, and 16 is a one off £25 charge. Says somewhere no port blocking etc.
One of the main reasons I want a proper firewall etc. is so I can run my own email server - whoever@whatever.entadsl.com is a really poo email address!
It's not so much a firewall you need for email, it's a secure email server which doesn't accept relay attempts and has some good antispam rules. :)
I keep considering setting up one on my own server, so it might be worth starting a thread specifically on this topic.
Anyone else here with BT? In exchange for a further 12 months commitment to their contract, they've sent me a BT home hub (giving me wireless which I never had before) and said that the line would be able to receive 'up to' 8Mb. So far it seems decidedly slower than it was. Rather than four times the 2Mb connection I had, they appear to have done the maths wrong and divided by four instead. Tests show I'm lucky to be getting 500Kb at times. :/ I'm getting ready to throw a strop in their general direction.
It's not so much a firewall you need for email, it's a secure email server which doesn't accept relay attempts and has some good antispam rules. :)
I keep considering setting up one on my own server, so it might be worth starting a thread specifically on this topic.
This is true. I'm hoping to "borrow" a suitable copy of exchange for 2k (as that's what my server is running) and have a play. I think I can nick the spam rules from work if I get in quick before I (hopefully!) leave. Will give me good start!
Anyone else here with BT? In exchange for a further 12 months commitment to their contract, they've sent me a BT home hub (giving me wireless which I never had before) and said that the line would be able to receive 'up to' 8Mb. So far it seems decidedly slower than it was. Rather than four times the 2Mb connection I had, they appear to have done the maths wrong and divided by four instead. Tests show I'm lucky to be getting 500Kb at times. :/ I'm getting ready to throw a strop in their general direction.
Can you get the line stats? You might just have got unlucky with a poor BRAS. If so, giving it a few days might help.
Can you get the line stats? You might just have got unlucky with a poor BRAS. If so, giving it a few days might help.
How would one get such stats? I've been using http://www.speedtest.net/ and http://www.speedtester.bt.com/ to test the speed of the line - this morning I've managed to get about 1400Kb download speeds.
From the latter site (BT's):
Test1 comprises of Best Effort Test:
IP profile for your line is - 1500 kbps
DSL connection rate: 448 kbps(UP-STREAM) 4448 kbps(DOWN-STREAM)
Actual IP throughput achieved during the test was - 1388 kbps
You'll have to look on the home hub, assuming it's not locked down.
Though, from those numbers, it does look like a BRAS issue. You might have to wait several days for the system to figure out that your line can do better.
Yeah I can access the hub, including admin tools, through BT's malware GUI that infects the PC when you first install everything! I'll investigate it. According to the Tom Baker message left on my 1571, it was all activated back around the 24th of Feb so I would have thought it would have sorted itself out by now, but I'll give it longer and see if it makes a difference.
First bit of downtime. From about 6am today until some time between 11am and 3pm. Oh well :huh:
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