£25 for 1mb broadband! Need to change. Which isp?

[Ollie's Gadgets]

I have been with Eclipse internet for a while and have been perfectly happy with their service. But a recent Times article made me think it is time to change, as there are fastest services for less money.

To be honest I don't really need a faster download speed, but I need the service to be unlimited. 8mb and 5gb is pointless to me. I also need the line to be reliable (eclipse has been stable for months and months on end) and a static ip is a plus. This is essential as I use voip, and often ftp into my server to get files.

I have done a search on samknows.com (great website) which gave the following results:

"According to BT Wholesale, your line should be able to support a 5.5Mbps or greater ADSL connection via ADSL Max. "

So that is good news. Now which isp... I am overwhelmed by the ammount these days and don't really know where I should be headed. Eclipse don't seem to be competitive anymore. Isps I have shortlisted are as follows:

tiscali 8mb unlimited £17.99
Pipex 8mb unlimited £24.99
Virgin 8mb unlimited £17.99
Talk Talk 8mb 40gb cap £29.99 but as far as I can tell that included line rental and free phone calls.
Orange 8mb unlimited £19.99
Edit: Aol Broadband Silver £14.99 2mb unlimited

So just for broadband tiscali and Virgin win on price. But including calls talk talk seems to win, although the skeptic in me doubts this cheap and cheerful option.

Can anyone offer their experiences with these isps or anyone else I should look at?

I also I can't find much information on upload speeds. Are adsl max services still 256kbit?

 

[ste_bla]

tiscali 8mb unlimited £17.99 - No
Pipex 8mb unlimited £24.99 - No
Virgin 8mb unlimited £17.99 - No
Talk Talk 8mb 40gb cap £29.99 - No
Orange 8mb unlimited £19.99 - No

Just to make it clear NO

None of them are unlimited, period. Most (tiscali + pipex + TT) slow down a lot at peak times and all (except TT) of them have a FUP ie undefined cap.

Have a look at the thinkbroadband.com boards

If you have been with them a long time and are on a flext package you would find it hard to find a better package IMO.

You could look at UKFSN, Newnet, Zen, Be*

Have a look at this

 

[ste_bla]

Just to add upstream upto 448 but if via LLU can be higher

 

[Tenzen]

I would really really recommend BE.

Top rate customer service and great speeds -I migrated from AOL once they turned in to CPW.

Migration was smooth and painfree and I was kept updated regulasrly with BE.

I now have TRUE UNLIMITED (Yes thats right - I can happily dl over 450gb/mo if I want to and no bs throttling at peak times) and have great speeds for my line (which isnt great I am far away from the 24Mb bracket). All for 24:99

They are the best bang for buck and if you like good customer service (unluiike AOL) then I would recommend them - not to mention fastpath for gaming
My line synchs at around 10MB down and 1.5Mb up thats with a LA of 41.

Also AVOID TALK TALK - another CPW crapfest.

 

[Ollie's Gadgets]

Be sounds awesome but unfortunately the site tells me it is not available in my area

 

[Tenzen]

What about Bulldog

 

[Ollie's Gadgets]

What about Bulldog

Not available in my area. The same goes for cable services.

 

[Dyson]

I've been with plus.net for 2 years, and for me it's been faultless.

I had a perfectly stable 2mb line, then last month I asked to be upgraded to 8mb adsl max. As I said gaming latency was important to me, they did the change over "manually", with interlacing turned off. I now d'load at 730kb/s, have a rock solid 5-15 ping, and have NEVER had a droped connection.

Support has always been first class, with emails amswered within a few hours, and phone calls answered within a min or so (in ENGLISH call centres).

Really cant recomend them enough, tbh.


* BTW, i pay £23 a month, with 40gb d'load limit (at peak times only - otherwise unlimited), with a 30:1 contention ratio.

 

[MehulLakhani]

Everyone does seem to slate plus.net, but in 2years, I have had no problems with them at all. Fast downloads, and replys to my emails in just 2-3 hours. Great stats/problem ticketing etc etc

R

Mehul

 

[Rapid-D]

Whatever you do. DO NOT GO WITH TALK TALK. My god the amount of complaints I've heard about them is unbelievable .

Newnet is great and is what I'm on after switching from Orange(formally Wanadoo(formally Freeserve)). No throttling, great speeds and great customer support. They frequent thinkbroadband forums so if you have any questions, you can go over there and ask them.

 

[Jet]

Sky do a good deal if you have Sky TV. I can't comment on reliability and service though.

 

[norm]

You do realise for 14.99/month Eclipse offer MaxDSL? (upto 8mbit/no limits outside of 6pm-12pm)

You must be on a pretty dated package to be paying 25/m for 1mbit.

 

[A2Z]

as you cant get BE,

the only other alternative is one of the Entanet resellers. ie. UKFSN

CLOSE TOPIC

 

[SB118]

tiscali 8mb unlimited £17.99 - No
Pipex 8mb unlimited £24.99 - No
Virgin 8mb unlimited £17.99 - No
Talk Talk 8mb 40gb cap £29.99 - No
Orange 8mb unlimited £19.99 - No

Just to make it clear NO

None of them are unlimited, period. Most (tiscali + pipex + TT) slow down a lot at peak times and all (except TT) of them have a FUP ie undefined cap.

To echo this, i'm with Tiscali on their adsl max thingy, 6.5m downstream. I've had 3 heavy usage warnings in 2 weeks. Was with Pipex before that for 18 months and never had a complaint.

 

[Booner!]

You can get 8mb down and 481kbp/s up on eclipse for £24.99 a month with 40Gb usage. I just moving to them now.

I know you are already with them, ring them up and say you might leave unless you can get a better tariff, they will try keep the business and you can barter to the better deals.

 

[The Deuce]

i'm leaving Eclipse after 4 years as their service is carp after been taking over by Kingston, tbh i can't wait to leave!

 

[kempythe2nd]

I currently live in central london and have bulldog (which im not happy with) and i am moving to Islington (about the only area in london where you cant get Be) anyone recommend an isp - ive heard good things about ukfsn but cant seem to find a post code checker (dont currently have an active phone line where i am moving to) would anyone recommend Virgin Media?

 

[LoadsaMoney]

Check out UKFSN, upto 8m on MAX, and very generous caps, for example £19.99 gets you the home MAX 30, which has 30gb peak, 300gb off peak, peak times are 8am till 10pm, off peak is 10pm till 8am, and all weekends, fantastic service, im on their home max 60 which is 60gb peak, 330gb of peak for £29.99, ive only used 50gb in total all last month, with only about 27gb of that in peak times, i thought id downloaded a lot more than that.

I currently live in central london and have bulldog (which im not happy with) and i am moving to Islington (about the only area in london where you cant get Be) anyone recommend an isp - ive heard good things about ukfsn but cant seem to find a post code checker (dont currently have an active phone line where i am moving to) would anyone recommend Virgin Media?

Theres a postcode checker here http://www.samknows.com/broadband/checker2.php , you get better results with a phone number in there as well as the postcode though, as when i put just my postcode in i get a few reds saying i cant get 1mb etc... but with phone number as well i get all green and it says i can get max of about 6.5mb, and Virgin are very good (NTL that i think), got a mate on their 10mb service, and he can't fault it, nor can a lot of ppl, and they are starting 20mb soon.

 

[kempythe2nd]

thanks for the reply, think ill give VM a call (maybe see if i can play them off against Sky)

 

[Booner!]

i'm leaving Eclipse after 4 years as their service is carp after been taking over by Kingston, tbh i can't wait to leave!

I am on Bulldog, Cant get ANY worse than it is now, so surely moving to eclipse cant hurt