New ISP advice please

Huddy · 4 Aug 2014 at 22:08

Moving house and need ISP advice please. The new property has pretty much all the main ISP's as an option including FTTC and Virgin Media.

I'm happy to spend around £20 notes a month on the Internet as long as it is unlimited with no throttling, so my question is which ISP is currently top dog for all round customer service and performance?

Cheers.

Lartyconshayo · 4 Aug 2014 at 23:39

Zen gets my vote

Caged · 5 Aug 2014 at 00:04

Huddy said:
unlimited ... no throttling, ... top dog ... customer service ... performance

Huddy said:
I'm happy to spend around £20 notes a month

Does not compute

KIA · 5 Aug 2014 at 11:47

As you're on a budget, Plusnet.

branddaly · 5 Aug 2014 at 16:49

KIA said:
As you're on a budget, Plusnet.

They do throttle. However for a cheap service they are pretty ok. On the Zen recommendation the cheapest unlimited home fibre package is £27.00pm but also requires line rental (£15.44pm) and activation (£30). Its also only a 40/20 service. The 80/20 service is £30 (line rental £15.44, no activation). There is no throttling.

I work at Zen, so I'm only providing facts, rather than a recommendation.

bremen1874 · 5 Aug 2014 at 17:02

branddaly said:
They do throttle.

'Throttle' tends to imply overall rate limiting, which they don't.

Steveocee · 5 Aug 2014 at 17:07

Does your £20 include line rental?

philip2009 · 5 Aug 2014 at 17:23

bremen1874 said:
'Throttle' tends to imply overall rate limiting, which they don't.

Yep, all your downloads will run at full speed and not be rate limited ...

Plusnet pros -

- Reliable
- Fast
- Cheap
- UK Support staff(typically polite and helpful) who also visit other forums beyond the official Plusnet one.

Plusnet cons -

- They seem to have had some issues with phone waiting times as they've expanded. You can see live stats on that here - http://www.plus.net/supportpages.html?a=212

KIA · 5 Aug 2014 at 17:55

Plusnet cons:

- Interfering traffic prioritisation (£5 per month to disable)
- Internal IP profile

philip2009 · 5 Aug 2014 at 18:46

KIA said:
Plusnet cons:

- Interfering traffic prioritisation (£5 per month to disable)
- Internal IP profile

Point one(which is either ignorant or disingenuous) - http://community.plus.net/blog/2012/12/21/its-unlimited-why-is-it-still-traffic-managed/ . It is quite likely a user will get a worse experience(like an average ISP) by turning prioritisation off - so save yourself a fiver.

Point two - I'd spend more time worrying about DLM and my profile, which nobody can do much about anyway.

visibleman · 5 Aug 2014 at 19:11

Virgin Media would be my choice; £26 (broadband only) gets you 50Mb. Only con is that they traffic manage the connection but tbh it's pretty reasonable - http://my.virginmedia.com/traffic-management/traffic-management-policy-thresholds.html.

I would however do a scout of their forums for your postcode/location, just to make sure you aren't in a congested area.

Huddy · 5 Aug 2014 at 19:46

Steveocee said:
Does your £20 include line rental?

No, the £20 figure is just for the internet access.

Thanks for all the suggestions so far, Virgin is an option so I'll do some further digging on congestion in my area. Plusnet seems like a decent deal atm, seems like I missed out on some nice cashback sadly.

KIA · 5 Aug 2014 at 20:43

philip2009 said:
Point one(which is either ignorant or disingenuous) - http://community.plus.net/blog/2012/12/21/its-unlimited-why-is-it-still-traffic-managed/ . It is quite likely a user will get a worse experience(like an average ISP) by turning prioritisation off - so save yourself a fiver.

Point two - I'd spend more time worrying about DLM and my profile, which nobody can do much about anyway.

This is an enthusiast forum. Many of us are capable of managing our own networks. If it were a useful feature to have, more providers would be offering it. I wouldn't have an issue with it if it were free to disable.

PN internal IP profile shaves 1-2Mb/s off max throughput.