How the mighty have fallen... (Nildram)

Mana

Mana

Mana

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ok just need to rant and get this off my chest. In 2001, broadband came available in my area and i heard good things about nildram... signed up to their 512k package and it was great... download speeds at 60kb/s and quakeworld gave me 30 pings to uk servers...

this continued for a few years, no complaints, minimal downtime and great tech support. Then 8mbit connections became available, no problem lets sign up to them. Wow what a service. 760kb/s downloads from private ftp servers. Even at peak times i was downloading at 650-700kb/s, very very happy.

Now i am not sure when Pipex bought them out but i didnt notice any change in my service, it was great.

Fast forward to Jan-Feb 2008... I lost internet connection for 1 day. Thats strange i thought. It eventually came back but instead of being connecting at 7600kbps like i have been for the last 3 years it came back at 7000kbps. I tried reconnecting multiple times but couldnt get higher than 7200kbps. Did my line change, did my exchange get congested, was there a fault? Download speeds from private servers maxxed out at 500kb/s and peak times were now at 200kbps max. What happened? I did some research and wtf Pipex bought out by tiscali. Now i dont keep up to date about isps but even i know that tiscali throttle and block ports. However it wasnt all bad, apart from the download speeds i could still play wow and quake and surf, albeit a bit more slowly and with higher pings.

Now for 3 weeks, everytime at ~5.30pm to ~11.00pm i cant surf. Google wont load, even these forums wont load. Then they will load and work for 60-120secs then not work again :(. i cant connect to wow servers. what is going on. Funny thing is, irc connection holds steady, msn works fine and skype works. how can half my internet be working and half not. Connections to shells via putty dont work either. This is a sign of FUP and traffic shaping and port blockign if ever i saw it. Rang them up and they said ow your exchange has problems let me get back to u. They never got back to me.

Rang up the nice people at fast.co.uk and they said i am now a tiscali customer hence the poor performance. Heard good things from them so have just ordered a MAC from nilly and am moving to fast asap..

Anyway if anyone reads this, avoid nildram, pipex and tiscali, same kettle of bad fish.

/rant over
 
I've been with Pipex since 2002 and -- as in your case -- had five years or so without grief. In the last month I've had a series of expensive (phone charges) and frustrating experiences whcih they've tried to blame on my equipment. Tech support guys are usually helpful, but unless a fault meets their strict criteria they won't escalate.

I've been shifted onto the Tiscali kit at my exchange. I shall shortly be swallowing a £67 exit charge and burgering off to Be or O2, as my exchange has their kit as well. I'll try to dodge that charge though as even since I signed up for an 8Mb package my connection still behaves exactly like the old 1Mb service I had... despite the fact the exchange is just down the road and my router connects at 8000+. Well, it does when Tiscali can be bothered to let bits come down my pipe.

So yes, exit stage left wearing 'ump, with middle finger firmly raised in Tiscali's general direction.

Andrew McP
 
I'm having those exact issues (random connection will work for 2 minutes, then stop for 10), and I'm on Pipex.

I have noticed however, that its only port 80 (http) traffic. I can still RDP (3389), VPN, and even SSL (443) whilst the "problem" occurs.

Its almost like GX Networks (now the collective name for the pipex/tiscali group) are randomly blocking port 80 traffic.
 
consider fast.co.uk buddy, they promised me the same speeds i had in my good ol nilly days as he said he has heard this story over and over again... he even thru in a free static ip for free ;)... u have to pay for an exit charge, i hope nilly dont try that.

yea pipex and nildram used to be 2 of the best isps back in the day...
 
Fortunately I'm well outside my renewal, so can cancel at any time, really didn't want to lose my IP address however :(

Looks like its be* for me.

Oh, Pipex Customer Support (support, lol) tried blaming my kit too, saying that they don't have my router on their list of approved routers (cisco 877!), and said I should consider upgrading my router!
 
Randomly, its not affecting me tonight. It did yesterday, and Monday, and most of last week (only after 5:30), but not today :confused:
 
paradigm said:
Oh, Pipex Customer Support (support, lol) tried blaming my kit too, saying that they don't have my router on their list of approved routers (cisco 877!), and said I should consider upgrading my router!
Click to expand...

I try to be patient with tech support, especially the foreign lot (as with Pipex) who often get a rough deal despite all the positive spin. But when I was connecting to the exchange at 192kbps down, 288up (ie I could upload faster than download) one girl (with someone assisting in the background) suggested I contact Netgear to get some kind of advanced password to give me access to hidden settings for my router so they could investigate further.

They basically seem to have instructions to do anything to avoid escalating an issue. Given that I was on Tiscali hardware at the exchange you'd imagine that would cost them nothing other than someone's time sat at a screen controlling the hardware remotely.

Anyway, the problem went away later that day, but whether me phoning the cancellation line to enquire about the cost of breaking my renewed contract (when I switched to 8Mb (hah!) last Sept) had anything to do with it, I'm not sure.

All that was just after three days with no life at all from my connection. I was attached to the exchange as normal. They could even see my router connected, apparently (when I found someone with a clue) but it was only after I'd tried my spare router, spent hours on the phone, and lost my temper (I did warn them in advance I'd reached the end of my tether) that they escalated the issue and cured it.

I think I'll be swallowing the £67 exit cost. I don't need a billion Gb downloads, just a connection which works and has people that care when it doesn't. Be/O2 is tempting, but I'm sure they'll eventually get flooded thanks to their unlimited policy. It'll all end in tears and tantrums. :-)

Andrew McP
 
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Well since 1st April my Nildram connection in the evening was almost unusable until after around 11pm when it went along at 1800Kb/s (which is what I was getting all the time before April)

Anyways gave up with them and got my MAC Code and have just gone to Zen although strangely my speed with them so far is only 975kb/s :mad: so might not be staying too long with Zen.
 
Sad really, they were a top isp :(
I used to be with them & had over 100 accounts with them @ work based on my recommendation a few years ago.
The pipex effect was certainly felt when they were swallowed.
Fingers crossed that something nasty doesnt happen to zen.
 
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