PAYG or 1 month ADSL ISP?

Skeeter

Skeeter

Skeeter

Caporegime
Joined
8 Mar 2007
Posts
37,146
Location
Surrey
Are there ISP's out there who do either PAYG or 1 month contracts on ADSL Broadband?

My internet with Sky is... dire. I'm currently getting 1.5mbits on an 'Unlimited up to 20mbit' package. I know its 'up to' so I'm not going to start complaining that I should be getting 20, but 1.5 is just terrible. It was 3mbit when I connected it, and has fluctuated between 1.5 and 2.5 for the 18 months I have had it.

I would like to drop it and try another supplier to see if its any different, but ISPs will want to tie me into a 12 month contract. Sky are by far the cheapest for me as I have a Sky phone line and TV, so if I try another suppler and its just as bad, I will just go back to Sky and put up with it, but I don't want to be stuck with a more expensive BB supplier if its going to be just as slow.

I dont have Fiber or VM where I live, and I'm 6 miles from the exchange and the only LLU supplier is Sky, so anything else is going to be BT resellers, but its worth a shot.
 
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I've checked both the sockets in my flat and neither have the test socket behind the panel, and I can't find one in any cupboards or anything either :(
 
Zen are excellent - you pays a bit more, but they don't throttle your connection, and they're support and after sales are second to none in my opinion. I'm on an ADSL+ connection (not LLU), but Zen have managed to get me the fastest connection out of any ISP I've used.

Andy
 
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andymac1966 said:
Zen are excellent - you pays a bit more, but they don't throttle your connection, and they're support and after sales are second to none in my opinion. I'm on an ADSL+ connection (not LLU), but Zen have managed to get me the fastest connection out of any ISP I've used.

Andy
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Cheers. Do they require a BT line? My telephone line is provided by Sky.
 
KIA said:
SNR is holding you back. An unstable line might cause the SNR to rise. Changing ISP won't help if poor quality internal cabling is to blame.
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Cheers dude. This is what I feared. Being 6 miles from the exchange and in a fairly new flat with cheap cabling, rather than the ISP being the problem :(. I can't use powerline network adapters because there's to much interference, and it looks like the phone wiring is just as bad.

For my own reference, what are good values for those stats? Those figures mean nothing to me at the moment.
 
It's worth mentioning that some ISPs will try to charge you a cancellation fee that is usually at least the cost for an entire month, so you could end up paying effectively for 2 months when you only need one.
 
Skeeter said:
For my own reference, what are good values for those stats? Those figures mean nothing to me at the moment.
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I think Sky's default SNR is 7. I would give them a call and explain the situation. They might be able to re-profile the line.
 
Skeeter said:
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My line is slightly longer than yours and my downstream is nearly 3x more. Try locate the master/test socket.

If I recall correctly I also removed the bell/ring wire from all of my sockets in the house. This had quite an impact on my sync and increased it by 1-1.5Mb. I think you have to take out all of the wires to each socket except 2 and 5, but read this page for more info: http://www.kitz.co.uk/adsl/socket.htm

I also invested in some new faceplates called "XTE-2005 Filtered Master Faceplate". I got the master socket version and the extension socket to replace the 2 in my house. Not only does it eliminate the need for ADSL filters, it looks much tidier, made my phone line a lot clearer and have more clarity, and increased my sync speed another 1Mb.

All well worth looking into. See below for my line stats on a Netgear DG834GT.

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Attenuation is basically a figure to represents the loss of signal on the line. It's usually noise cause by line length that affects this but dodgy wiring can affect it too.

SNR is a value assigned to the amount of signal the modem can hear above the noise on the line. If it drops much below 3 or 4 dB your modem will have trouble keeping the connection steady. 11 is above what you'd expect with Sky. It may have popped up there due to line instability .

Your master socket should be easy to find if your phone line comes from outside, just trace where it enters the property. It may also have BT Openreach written on it in raised plastic.
 
Sky reprofiles my line regularly, its actually going on now. But every time it always comes back the same or slower. I have recently replaced the sky router with a Netgear one as I need WiFi n so this will be the first reprofile with the new router.

I have removed the bell wire from both the sockets in the flat a while back and it made no difference.

Neither of the sockets have a master socket behind them, and I have checked all cupboards in the flat and the 2 ones out in the coridoor that have the electric and water in them but can't find any other sockets, so don't know where the master is.
 
Zen uses a BT line, however you can get your line from them too now (similar to Sky), however I haven't done this as there isn't much price difference for me v's what I pay BT.

On the Master socket piece, I had BT OpenReach in the other week to check my cable into the house as we were suffering poor sync speeds. Turns out the cable from outside to the master was damaged, so they replaced it with new & also replaced the Master socket. I had them sort things out so there's only 1 socket in the house (master) and things have improved a good bit.

Andy
 
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