Need A New ISP.. SIGH

jellybeard999 · 4 Jul 2007 at 04:42

Came a cropper with tiscali (after it being fine for months) and have now fallen foul of AOLs new FUP :rolleyes:

Requirements :

Broadband + phone package (evening + weekends free or similar)
DSL
UNLIMITED
Good pings (had been great on AOL until FUP hell)

I've just looked at Eclipse (especially good prices) and BT, but do they traffic shape, have FUPs etc ? Are the "business" packages any different with either of these ?

Any advice ?

SKY would be tempting, but it wont let me choose 16mb unlimited, as it says i can only recieve 6mb (I know this FFS, i just want more than 40gb/pm).

KIA · 4 Jul 2007 at 08:06

Unlimited does not exist unless you are willing to pay £70+ a month or go down the LLU route. I would not recommend Sky as average pings are very high and they will not turn interleaving off. If you can get Be* go with them if not I recommend ADSL24.

Check available options here: http://www.samknows.com/broadband/checker2.php

the_box · 4 Jul 2007 at 09:41

http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=17741533&page=2

Alrik · 4 Jul 2007 at 11:18

As said you will not find a truely unlimited service anymore unless your willing to pay a premium (£60+ per month). Even Be* has a fair usage policy although it appears it isnt being enforced at this moment in time, but definately expect it to happen (even more so if everyone decides to sign up with them)

Give Eclipse a miss too. It was once a great ISP, but it is no longer due to their aggressive use of their FUP, slow speeds and constant disconnects (I get kicked off the connection atleast 5 times per night while gaming :mad:

) Its not worth the hassle tbh.

I would recommend going with an ISP such as UKFSN, ADSL24 etc and just download at offpeak hours since they have huge 300GB+ caps and you choose the package which fits your needs, atleast this way there is a much smaller chance of a FUP being implemented

Off-peak for the Home package = 10pm-8am Mon-Thursday + All weekend
Off-peak for the Office package = 8pm-8am Mon-Thursday + All weekend

Have a look into it if your interested, its where I am moving to from Eclipse this week. The great thing about them (and other Entanet resellers) is that you actually have a decent choice + they only has a 1 month contract

http://www.adsl24.co.uk/

sid · 4 Jul 2007 at 11:41

kalanium said:
As said you will not find a truely unlimited service anymore unless your willing to pay a premium (£60+ per month). Even Be* has a fair usage policy although it appears it isnt being enforced at this moment in time, but definately expect it to happen (even more so if everyone decides to sign up with them)

Give Eclipse a miss too. It was once a great ISP, but it is no longer due to their aggressive use of their FUP, slow speeds and constant disconnects (I get kicked off the connection atleast 5 times per night while gaming ) Its not worth the hassle tbh.

I would recommend going with an ISP such as UKFSN, ADSL24 etc and just download at offpeak hours since they have huge 300GB+ caps and you choose the package which fits your needs, atleast this way there is a much smaller chance of a FUP being implemented

Off-peak for the Home package = 10pm-8am Mon-Thursday + All weekend
Off-peak for the Office package = 8pm-8am Mon-Thursday + All weekend

Have a look into it if your interested, its where I am moving to from Eclipse this week. The great thing about them (and other Entanet resellers) is that you actually have a decent choice + they only has a 1 month contract

http://www.adsl24.co.uk/

I can imagine if everyone decides to download in the off peak periods then speeds will be poor.

Trifid · 4 Jul 2007 at 12:43

See for yourself: http://noc.enta.net/?page_id=166 The speeds go down at 10pm till ~12 to 2Mbps (depending on central you are on). They run a anti packet loss tool to ensure there is no packet loss.

C:\Documents and Settings\sam>ping www.bbc.co.uk

Pinging www.bbc.net.uk [212.58.226.232] with 32 bytes of data:

Reply from 212.58.226.232: bytes=32 time=10ms TTL=119
Reply from 212.58.226.232: bytes=32 time=9ms TTL=119
Reply from 212.58.226.232: bytes=32 time=9ms TTL=119
Reply from 212.58.226.232: bytes=32 time=8ms TTL=119

Ping statistics for 212.58.226.232:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 8ms, Maximum = 10ms, Average = 9ms

jellybeard999 · 4 Jul 2007 at 18:42

kalanium said:
Off-peak for the Home package = 10pm-8am Mon-Thursday + All weekend
Off-peak for the Office package = 8pm-8am Mon-Thursday + All weekend

Have a look into it if your interested, its where I am moving to from Eclipse this week. The great thing about them (and other Entanet resellers) is that you actually have a decent choice + they only has a 1 month contract

http://www.adsl24.co.uk/

Hi, so is the only difference between home and office the fact that off-peak starts later ?

Trifid · 4 Jul 2007 at 18:45

No, Office gets higher upload (832Kbps) and higher priority at your exchange (only matters if you are at a busy one.)

HighlandeR · 4 Jul 2007 at 20:24

There aint any with higher caps is there? I can easily hit 300gig within 2-3 weeks.

Its a shame they imposed that limit, really inbetween 10pm-8am and friday completly off should allow unlimited cap between those hours.

reddeathdrinker · 4 Jul 2007 at 21:21

I decided to stay with Eclipse - their cap is only applicable during peak times (6PM-midnight), so I simply schedule any downloads to after midnight. Work around the restrictions, instead of complaining about them

They still have better T&C's than most other ISPs, and I still rate their customer service with 5 stars.

Trifid · 4 Jul 2007 at 21:57

HighlandeR said:
There aint any with higher caps is there? I can easily hit 300gig within 2-3 weeks.

Its a shame they imposed that limit, really inbetween 10pm-8am and friday completly off should allow unlimited cap between those hours.

Yes but it starts to get to the point where £70 for true unlimited seems a better option.

HighlandeR · 4 Jul 2007 at 23:01

reddeathdrinker said:
I decided to stay with Eclipse - their cap is only applicable during peak times (6PM-midnight), so I simply schedule any downloads to after midnight. Work around the restrictions, instead of complaining about them

They still have better T&C's than most other ISPs, and I still rate their customer service with 5 stars.

Sounds better... so u can simply max your downloads around those times.... and simply knock yourself out that sounds a lot better then adsl24

KIA · 4 Jul 2007 at 23:53

Eclipse traffic shape P2P protocols 24/7. Entanet do not. With Enta you can get 390gb total of usage a month for only £30.

HighlandeR · 5 Jul 2007 at 07:43

hmm enta sounds good then, 390 gig cap @ 30 quid is better/ If AOL give me another letter etc ill leave and join them.

Alrik · 5 Jul 2007 at 10:41

Honestly Eclipse isnt worth the hassle I set all my downloads overnight anyway since I either have the PC switched off during the day and in the evening Im usually gaming online so again I dont download. I had bittorrent on from 12am-10am (now) and its only done 485mb :rolleyes:

Eclipse does have a limit by the way if you do more then a certain ammount in a month they will throttle + packet shape your connection which is then reset at the beginning of a new month. Well I will put it this way its only the 5th of July and I am already on 'amber' which is them basically telling me I've downloaded too much and I need to stop downloading so much or I will be restricted for the rest of the month. How much could I have really used in just 5 days? 10-20Gb tops?

How do I know if I have been slowed down?

We have added a traffic light system in your Connection Manager within My Eclipse. We will also alert you via email if you hit Amber or Red. - which is total Bull**** I've never had an e-mail once

Green = Fair usage, thank you.

Amber = Caution, please reduce your downloads

Red = Your speed is restricted during peak hours

We will reset your traffic light to green at the beginning of each calendar month.

reddeathdrinker said:
I decided to stay with Eclipse - their cap is only applicable during peak times (6PM-midnight), so I simply schedule any downloads to after midnight. Work around the restrictions, instead of complaining about them

They still have better T&C's than most other ISPs, and I still rate their customer service with 5 stars.

Their Terms and Conditions may sound 'better' as you put it but are those T&C's worth it when the connection is slow as 56k? disconnects 5+ times a night? has really high pings while gaming?
I do work around the peak times since I am gaming online at those times so it would be silly to download at that time and I will complain about them since I am paying £30 a month for their 'best' package and I am receiving nowhere near 8mb (my line can handle about 6mb), atm its no better then 56k dial-up during the day whether I download or not. (none of this is a dig at you btw

)

I will put it this way:
Would I rather have a superfast connection 24/7 with decent caps, 1 month contract and no P2P throttling? -or- "Unlimited" downloads with all the problems I listed above, plus a 12 month contract? Sorry but its a no brainer for me.

@HighlandeR+jellybeard
Its up to you whether you want to go with Eclipse or not its not my decision, I'm just trying to show you what a horrible 12 months I've had and I cannot wait until I get switched over (currently waiting for my MAC from Eclipse).
Give this site a browse and see for yourself:
http://www.dslzoneuk.net/isp_ratings.php

ADSL24 rated number 2 (and the top 5 are all Entanet resellers)
Eclipse rated number 33

I would suggest this - give ADSL24 (or another Entanet reseller) a try for 1 month since they have no cancellation charges and if your not happy switch on over to BeUnlimited since they are the only ones that dont seem to use a FUP (which they do have but dont enforce it atm) The only problem is that its not widely available right now. This is what I am going to do anyway

Trifid · 5 Jul 2007 at 11:43

fast.co.uk are not an Enta reseller. But they are expensive for the allowance.

Alrik · 5 Jul 2007 at 11:58

Yea my mistake, was paying attention to the news post they made a few months ago and I didnt think to check

All top five ISP ratings on broadband information site DSL ZoneUK have been occupied by Entant and its Partners.

Leading voice and data communications provider, Entanet, has seen its growing reputation for high performance and reliability underlined this week by one of the leading independent broadband information web sites, DSL ZoneUK. The site’s ISP ratings show that Entanet and four of its Partners occupy the top five positions based on end users’ feedback and comments.

"Taking all five top positions is a landmark achievement" says Carol Davies, Business Development Manager for broadband at Entanet. "We work very hard to ensure we deliver consistently high levels of service to all our Partners and customers. It’s great to see that being recognised on such a highly regarded source of broadband information as DSL ZoneUK".