Non LLU high usage ADSL packages

CliffyG

CliffyG

CliffyG

Soldato
Joined
18 Oct 2002
Posts
17,460
Location
Cambridge
Often see people asking about this so thought i'd stick the ones i've found in one place. All 3 of these have come recommended from current users and are all pretty cheap. All are avilable to anyone who can get standard broadband.

UK Online
Package: Pro Boradband
Up to 8 mb
768k upload
Unlimited download

£20.00 a month
12 month contract
Mandatory purchase of a £50 router. No way around this but you can sell it on.

Plusnet
Package: Plusnet Unlimited
Up to 8 mb
Unlimited download

£11.99 a month for 3 months then goes up to £15.99 or £19.99 depending on location
18 month contract

Eclipse
Package: Home Pro
Up to 8 mb
50 gb from 9am - 11pm

£22.46 for first 3 months then £25.40
12 month contract
Free router



Personally i think im going to go for UKOnline, i can sell the router i have to buy and still be under the yearly cost of Eclipse. Also get a higher upload (think others only do 448). Really don't like the idea of long contracts but 12 is far better than 18 so that kind of counts PlusNet out.
 
When I signed up to UK Online I could use my own equipment as I was migrating in to them.

But the service was terrible for me so within 3 months I managed to break the contract and migrate off of them.
 
Well, there is always Zen @ £80+Vat / month for a properly unlimited and non-shaped connection with a 1 month contract and low contention :)
 
Yeah but its a little out of the scope of the others, low price was one of the things. Not many who could / would want to spend that much on an internet connection.
 
After a little more research plusnet is a no go:

http://www.plus.net/support/broadband/quality_broadband/speed.shtml

ThinkBroadband is pretty scathing of both UKOnline and Eclipse. I've signed up to Eclispe purely as i got a monthly contract and free migration. Costs 30 a month though because im not in their area (when did this start happening?). If they turn out crap i have no idea where to go to, i won't be signging up to long term deals though.
 
When they say 'not in their area' they mean not on one of their LLU exchanges, therefore it costs them more as they have fees to pay to BTWholesale for the equipment you will be using in the exchange.

If you want my honest opinion if you want a reasonable quality of service and unlimited data and can't get an LLU provider your options are very limited (and often expensive), if you can't stomach the costs of a proper unlimited connection then you need to learn to live with a capped plan or a reduced quality of service - or both.
 
I was living quite well with my capped plan at Enta before they implemented the ALT :(. I don't want unlimited i just want to be able to use the allowance i pay for without massive traffic shaping / prioritisation / ALT .
 
Pretty pleased so far, doing a normal http download at 766kb, over 200kb more than i ever saw on Enta and also my torrents seem to be completing in pretty good speeds. Not noticed much difference between peak and off peak speeds either.
 
CliffyG said:
Pretty pleased so far, doing a normal http download at 766kb, over 200kb more than i ever saw on Enta and also my torrents seem to be completing in pretty good speeds. Not noticed much difference between peak and off peak speeds either.
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I was with them before moving to UKFSN,were great until they started capping:(
keep us informed on how you get on over the next say month or 2 please mate :)
 
I got flagged 4 times in about 6 days with UKFSN so gave up. Just have to remember that weekends arent off peak with Eclipse or im going to get in trouble lol.
 
Well after 11 performance gets crap, the download which was hitting just under 800 during the day yesterday hit just over 150 last night. Not sure how the torrents will perform but im guessing not good. I think i prefer the good performance 9 - 11 rather than the pretty average performance all the time with Enta. If torrents end up taking forever over night though i may have to change my mind.
 
CliffyG said:
Well after 11 performance gets crap, the download which was hitting just under 800 during the day yesterday hit just over 150 last night. Not sure how the torrents will perform but im guessing not good. I think i prefer the good performance 9 - 11 rather than the pretty average performance all the time with Enta. If torrents end up taking forever over night though i may have to change my mind.
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As you're probably aware, during the day you have high priority over the rest of the customer base (my parents are on option 1 at home, 20GB month/lowest priority, but it's still not too bad). After 11pm the caps go for everyone, and perhaps the traffic management also. That's a lot of users waiting for 11pm to let their torrents go for it.

Short of going for a 'proper' unlimited package (and paying through the nose for it) I'm not sure there's any ISP that can afford to offer good speeds 24/7 unlimited on non-LLU ADSL :( It's just a case of finding the ISP that has the balance that most suits your usage patterns.
 
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