Spec Me an ISP

cotton31

cotton31

cotton31

Associate
Joined
25 Feb 2007
Posts
905
Location
Midlands
I'm moving into my first house soon, so need some advice on which ISP to choose from this lot:

BT Wholesale ADSL
BT Wholesale ADSL Max
BT Wholesale WBC (21CN)
BT Wholesale SDSL
AOL LLU
O2 / Be LLU
Bulldog LLU
TalkTalk (CPW) LLU
Sky Broadband / Easynet LLU
Tiscali LLU
Tiscali TV (via Tiscali LLU)
Orange LLU (Formerly Wanadoo)
Virgin Media (Cable)

Price ~ £20 p/m (including phone line if required). Will be used for online gaming, downloads and general browsing.

Cheers :D
 
Been with Be since 2008, never had any problems at all. Best ISP I've ever had.

Before I had Be it was Pipex/Bulldog
 
It's a toss up between VM (10Mb) with no phone line, and something like Sky with a phone line, both are ~ £20 pm.

We don't really need a phone line as we have mobiles, so it's more about the broadband quality really...

Thinking about whether I'd get anywhere near the quoted speed on ADSL as apposed to cable with VM?
 
My Father has VM and he thinks its quality but I hear they have a download cap at peak time? Do you download much?
 
Trust me, if you're thinking about Virgin down an ADSL line - don't. Just managed to escape that hell hole to O2. Download speed increased almost tenfold overnight.
 
cotton31 said:
It's a toss up between VM (10Mb) with no phone line, and something like Sky with a phone line, both are ~ £20 pm.

We don't really need a phone line as we have mobiles, so it's more about the broadband quality really...

Thinking about whether I'd get anywhere near the quoted speed on ADSL as apposed to cable with VM?
Click to expand...

See here for details on throttling with the 10Mb package: http://shop.virginmedia.com/help/traffic-management/traffic-management-policy.html

If you don't download a lot then I'd say cable is your best bet.
 
Be, no contest download wise. No crappy limitations for the same as virgin with a lot of hassle but equally you won't know what sort of speed you'll get until you actually try it but potentially have double the vm with no download restrictions.

There's an excellent tomato script that adjust qos to cope with vm download caps (great for latency, although you have to live with download slowing for x hours) so it's not that big of a deal assuming you only download large files once of twice a week.

Do some digging, find out what speed you'd get from Be.
 
For Be's basic package though, I'm looking at £28 a month (inc line rental which it requires), so it's almost a tenner over my monthly budget.

I can get Sky unlimited + free evening and weekend calls + line rental for £21.25, which I'm thinking will be my best bet at the moment - any arguments against this?
 
BE for sure!! unlimited, no throttling or traffic shaping, very good ISP, been with them two years now, I have a discount so pay £12 a month for BE Unlimited, for a connection that gives me unlimited with no restrictions, and download @ 19mb down / 1.4mb up with no qualms about how much you download, or what time of traffic and when

Who can complain about that?
 
people actually download between 4pm + 9pm? Oo i prefer to leave mine running overnight if its a large file..
 
DJMK4 said:
BE for sure!! unlimited, no throttling or traffic shaping, very good ISP, been with them two years now, I have a discount so pay £12 a month for BE Unlimited, for a connection that gives me unlimited with no restrictions, and download @ 19mb down / 1.4mb up with no qualms about how much you download, or what time of traffic and when

Who can complain about that?
Click to expand...

Im with Be as well, with excatly the same package as you have descibed above.

However, Im considering changing to BT Infinity. Am I mad? Going from unlimited and no traffic shaped, in to the open evil arms of BT who do traffic shape?

I do Bit torrent, so that will be affected, but I dont download that much. So can easily do it after 12am if need be.

Im thinking I may be able to save money howeveron a infinity/phone bundle, rather than paying seperate phone (BT) and broadband (be).
 
cotton31 said:
For Be's basic package though, I'm looking at £28 a month (inc line rental which it requires), so it's almost a tenner over my monthly budget.

I can get Sky unlimited + free evening and weekend calls + line rental for £21.25, which I'm thinking will be my best bet at the moment - any arguments against this?
Click to expand...

If you are concerned about money, then that Sky unlimited will be fine providing you are not too far from the exchange. Completely unlmited, no throttling or anything.

But if you are far from the exchange then you may as well go with cable.
 
rah^ said:
people actually download between 4pm + 9pm? Oo i prefer to leave mine running overnight if its a large file..
Click to expand...

Yep :) as doesnt really matter what time of the day for me, always gives me max speed on usenet, and at 19mb I could easily munch a 5-10gb file in no time so scheduling it for downloading over night would be pointless.
 
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if you are in a cable area then Virgin wins hands down, Im on there 50meg and i never get less than 45meg usully 52-55meg fibre is always going to be better than twisted pair. Ignor any virgin haters out there most of them cant even have it and for that reason they hate it. but there internet wipes the floor of any BT line internet. Also there latest hardware is very good and no need of r a phone line
 
VM's daytime capping system is very easy to live with, especially on the higher speed tiers where you probably won't notice it at all. Theres quite a high limit before the cap is triggered and then you are limited to 25% normal speed - which on a 50Mb connection is still faster than your average ADSL2+ line.
Unless you specifically need to download tens of GB during the afternoon every day VM are a superb choice. You get a stable, low latency line at the speeds you pay for. I'd go for a 30Mb or 50Mb cable connection over Be any day.
Remember to take telephone line rental into account when considering prices.
 
opethdisciple said:
Im with Be as well, with excatly the same package as you have descibed above.

However, Im considering changing to BT Infinity. Am I mad? Going from unlimited and no traffic shaped, in to the open evil arms of BT who do traffic shape?

I do Bit torrent, so that will be affected, but I dont download that much. So can easily do it after 12am if need be.

Im thinking I may be able to save money howeveron a infinity/phone bundle, rather than paying seperate phone (BT) and broadband (be).
Click to expand...

Depends, like you said, you don't dl that much & you're interested in the infinity/phone bundle which might work out cheaper.

All i'd say (as you'll know anyway, since you're with Be) is, apart from the actual broadband service (which is great), their tech department/forums are also pretty good. I don't hear the same thing about Infinity.

Another point is, sure, i'd also like the improved up/down speeds with Infinity but i'm also interested in seeing what Be come up with. Not much info on Be forums atm :( but they want to offer their own fttc service sometime in 2011 (we'll see if it actually happens :D). I'm guessing they'll offer this when they're satisfied their customers will be happy with it (namely unlimited). In any case, once it appears, i reckon it'll probably be better than Infinity, so perhaps another reason to stay put, at least for now?
 
also remember VM do packages that include landline TV and BB that makes the bundle great value. also unlike sky etc if u break anything they replace it Free :D
 
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