ISP recommendations

[Mr Gimp]

Forgive me for an almost unanswerable question, but I am at my wits end with Sky and need some advice.
I used to be with BT for the landline and used Demon as my ISP through an old Home Office package. In the 6 years of having that package, I had ONE issue at all, and Demon couldn't apologise enough.
With my Sky connection it craps itself on a regular basis, is generally slower than glacial melt.
On one occasion I was without internet for 3 weeks due to their incompetent customer service.
I've now had enough and was wondering who you would recommend as a reliable ISP?

I can't get cable or fibre and am at the arse end of a non LLU exchange BTW

 

[esK`]

I've been with ADSL24 for the last few years I think since 2010 and I cannot fault them at all. www.adsl24.co.uk

 

[DIABLO]

Zen Internet is super reliable but reliability comes at a cost.

 

[Mr Gimp]

Cheers, I'll have a look at both of those.
Anything has to be better than this Sky nonsense! I know I'm not gonna win any awards speed wise (I'm on an aluminium line apparently and that's the better of the bundle we are on?!) but the random disconnects and mahoosive lag is killing me!

 

[MissChief]

Trust message sent.

Worth noting that if your landline is crap or aluminium at some point then changing provider isn't likely to make much difference.

 

[Mr Gimp]

Cheers MissChief, replied now.

I was informed by the Open Reach engineer who eventually came out that we had been switched onto an aluminium line as the original copper line (of which I had a 6Mb sync) had degraded due to water ingress. He did seem to be just chancing it on which lines worked or not which was irritating in the extreme!

 

[KIA]

Router stats?

 

[Mr Gimp]

I'm just attempting to find them now. Which stats specifically do I need?

 

[billyboyd]

Zen Internet is super reliable but reliability comes at a cost.

I have been with them for about seven years and can't recall a single time when it has been down or I have not been able to collect my emails.

 

[parityboy]

@OP

Plusnet are very good. I've been with them since April, and even though it's only ADSL2+, it's syncing at the maximum rate of my line (8Mbit/s) which is noticeably higher than the 5.5-6MBit I was getting with O2.

 

[KIA]

I'm just attempting to find them now. Which stats specifically do I need?

Sync speed, SNR, attenuation, etc. As much as possible!

 

[MissChief]

According to exchange checker you're stuck with BT Wholesale I'm afraid.

 

[Mr Gimp]

--- DSL Information ---
DSL Driver Version: AnnexA version - A2pB022g.d20e
DSL VPI/VCI: 0/38
DSL Status: ShowtimeRetrain Reason: 0
DSL Mode: G.DMT
DSL Channel: INTR
DSL Upstream Rate: 448 Kbps
DSL Downstream Rate: 4384 Kbps

Down up
DSL Noise Margin: 9.6 dB 18.0 dB
DSL Attenuation: 46.0 dB 24.5 dB
DSL Transmit Power: 19.6 dBm 12.1 dB

Thanks for looking too MissChief, I'm guessing that being stuck with BT Wholesale limits me as to what deals are available due to no LLU infrastructure in place. Arses!

 

[Mr Gimp]

Sorry for the thread bump, but anyone have any idea whether my line stats are any good?

 

[DIABLO]

The important ones are Noise Margin and Attenuation

Attenuation is based on the distance you are from the exchange and is basically how much signal is lost due to electrical resistance in the cable between you and the exchange so lower the better but there is nothing you can do to change that unless you move house. Noise Margin (SNR) is the margin between good signal and background noise the faster the connection speed the lower the SNR will become if it becomes too low the connection will become unstable because of too many data errors, most ISP's settle at a 6dB margin so your line is capable of about 6Mb max.

 

[Sparx]

Well put it this way, my attenuation is 56 dB and I sync @ 5Mb (Sky ADSL2+ LLU).

 

[Christmas themed thank]

Plusnet - cannot beat them for the price (good support too and unlimited).