Recommended ISPs.

BoomAM said:
So, my setup, which has the master socket, then a splitter, which has 2 cables, one goes to a filter with sky/phone in it, the others an extension to a bedroom, which has 2 connectors, ones a filter w/phone, the other the 2nd extension, which goes to my room, where theres filter with phone & router plugged into it.
So i wont need the main filter, just some micro filters?
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What? :confused:
If you're going to use a filtered master socket, the idea is you'd do away with all those filters and run extensions for the phone and ADSL side.

Would you recommend getting those XF-1e filters (i think thats what they are called), or should i just stick with what i have?
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If what you've got are crappy then yes. I'd suggest that all that extension wiring's more likely to be a problem though.

I'd recommend Zen over BT, but there are better choices.
 
tolien said:
What? :confused:
Click to expand...
Thats a description of my current setup.

If you're going to use a filtered master socket, the idea is you'd do away with all those filters and run extensions for the phone and ADSL side.
Click to expand...
I get the impression that with a master socket filter, that i wouldnt be able to use the extensions for phones, just for ADSL. So i'd have to not use the master socket thing, and use normal filters.

If what you've got are crappy then yes. I'd suggest that all that extension wiring's more likely to be a problem though.
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Well theres not really an option for me to chance the wiring unfortunatelly.
 
BoomAM said:
I get the impression that with a master socket filter, that i wouldnt be able to use the extensions for phones, just for ADSL. So i'd have to not use the master socket thing, and use normal filters.
Click to expand...

There's nothing stopping you running extensions, but if you connect the extension to the voice side, you can't connect an ADSL modem to it (well you can, but it won't sync up)

There's nothing stopping you connecting an extension to the ADSL side, then filtering it later. It's just mostly pointless (unless the extension cable is of decent quality).
 
tolien said:
There's nothing stopping you running extensions, but if you connect the extension to the voice side, you can't connect an ADSL modem to it (well you can, but it won't sync up)

There's nothing stopping you connecting an extension to the ADSL side, then filtering it later. It's just mostly pointless (unless the extension cable is of decent quality).
Click to expand...
So basically, theres no point in me having a master socket filter?
 
Excellent thread. Just what I need to ask some advice about switching to a new ISP. :cool:

My brother and I currently have a phone line each with a broadband account each which is paid for by our Mum. She can't really afford that now so we need to consolidate our two lines/accounts into one cheaper affordable monthly fee. Confound those damn finance company ads. :mad:

The plan is that the phone line in my room will be kept and we will get an ISP with 4Mb minimum so we can share it 50:50 using a router (in my room), a wireless card for my brother and utils such as NetLimiter, NetMeter and BMExtreme to share the broadband and keep an eye on the bandwidth used each month.

My current ISP is BT Broadband, I'm on a 2Mb/20Gb monthly package which has never caused me a problem in terms of reliability/uptime/download caps. I'm looking at a booklet and this BT Total Broadband looks like overkill for us. We don't need Norton Security, Wi-Fi minutes, Free UK calls, Wireless BT Hub or BT Hub Phones. We just need an ISP with 4Mb minimum speed and 40Gb bandwidth, no email or webspace needed etc needed.

My brother likes his online gaming, especially World Of Warcraft and so I think a static IP address would be required. I'm not sure how much bandwidth he uses but I reckon it would be a lot more that I use. I was thinking of Pipex or Nildram (brother is currently with Nildram) but having read this thread I'm thinking IDNet, Eclipse or Zen.

So what we need is to have an ISP with at least 40Gb bandwidth a month, 4Mb minimum (so we can have 2Mb each). The ISP needs to support online gaming such as World Of Warcraft, support for online gaming and BitTorrent if possible. I use this for downloading legit updates for FM06 and rFactor.. Nildram seems to be dodgy for this; having just asked my brother about this, he says it is fine for him so I suppose Nildram can enter the equation.

Can anyone recommend anyone other than IDNet, Nildram, Zen, Eclipse or Pipex? We'd like to pay no more than £35 a month, less if possible. I've just run my phone number through the Pipex site and I get the result of about 6.5Mb which would suit us fine, maybe 3.5 for me and 3 for little brother ;).

Can this be done? Or am I asking for too much? :confused:
 
I have a customer of mine who has changed from Pipex to Zen and he would highly recommend Zen as an ISP. They are fast but they is probably why they cost more. If you go with the cheapest ISP's it's almost a guarantee that as thousands sign up the speed drops like a stone. I had Libertysurf (i think thats who they were) back in the days of 56k, £20 for a year online didn't take long for login times to go up to hours!
 
firewallblocked said:
I have a customer of mine who has changed from Pipex to Zen and he would highly recommend Zen as an ISP. They are fast but they is probably why they cost more.
Click to expand...

Indeed. Been on Zen now for well over 12 months. Never once noticed any speed drops. What will slow your line down is contention. If your nearest exchange is not LLU'd (Local Loop Unbundled) e.g Bulldog, UkOnline etc. Then the chances are that before you even hit the web your traffic will have been contended twice probably at a rate rate of 50:1 on standard packages. Once by BT at the exchange and once by your ISP's network. Whether BT contend the traffic again after the exchange I do-not know.

This is the reason that Zen are consisitently at the top of benchmarking tests. After the exchange the contention ratio is 1:1. OK they dont offer the download capacity of some of the other ISP's but you have to look at the bigger picture. Quick, reliable and fairly priced in my opinion.

Two bonus points as well :

1) Free Newgroups
2) Support line is manned by "techies" not script readers

My next door neighbour uses IDNet and speaks just as highly of them as well. At the end of the day "you gets what you pay for" :D
 
Gah, am currently stuck with Pipex Homecall (yet it really uses a Tiscali line!!!), its good apart from some seemingly unbeatable traffic shaping on bittorrent, no matter what port you use. Hopefully for some reason they will use a Pipex line with the 8meg we are upgrading to. Damn being young! :mad:
 
jbloggs said:
MarcLister:

I don't think you will do any better than going with Zen. :)
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Cheers jbloggs. Think having read the thread properly now and also having looked at their site they seem to be the best option. IDNet also look good but only 30Gb instead of Zen's 50Gb. I could buy 20Gb extra to match the 50Gb Zen offer, but it is £1 a gig which means an extra £20 making the £24.99 for IDNet £44.99 after matching the bandwidth.

Thanks again. Will research Zen's site in more detail later and decide on my next move.
 
Sorry for the thread resurrection. Just read through this whole thing and am now looking at Zen for an ISP (moving from Orange/Wanadoo), which will be used mostly for Battlefield 2 sessions and net browsing.

Tolien, you suggest there are better ISP's than those listed throughout this thread...can you give the URL's to some of them?

I have looked on adslguide.org (and was going to go to supanet due to the high ratings on there, but read more reviews and decided against it), and ISPreview and am still no closer to finding a suitable ISP... :confused:
 
isp_ratings2.php
 
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