Virgin = BAD / Looking for new ISP help

.Lethal

.Lethal

.Lethal

Soldato
Joined
8 Jun 2005
Posts
8,435
Location
United Kingdom
Hi,

I'm thinking of getting rid of Virgin. Basically I don't have cable with Virgin, I have there plan 2 DSL crap. I have complained that the response time is horrible (I play games online, also websites take to long to load on busy periods) and nothing has been done to fix this.

The main problem for this is that I play World of Warcraft online on the US servers. So latency is a major factor for me. As I play on the US servers I am already disadvantaged from playing on European servers (as they are closer).

Can anyone recommend a good ISP that has great response times? I was originally with BTopenworld many years ago and am considering giving them a try again as I don't recall ever having problems with them. I tried Tiscali after BT (because it was much cheaper) and I thought I had latency issues then, compared to Virgin Tiscali was amazing (apart from terrible customer service).

1 reason I'm thinking of BT is because I like the idea of the homehub, to have my PC connected wireless free is something that interests me a great deal. Although I have heard there service has gone bad since they did plan3 - unlimited downloading.

Any thoughts?

EDIT: ukfsn looks like one of the best around. But I can't tell if I can get ukfsn in my area, the website just says you need a btphoneline (which I do) but I see no info to enter my postcode or phone number to confirm my max speed and if I can receive ukfsn.
 
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ukfsn is available at any exchange that is broadband enabled. i definitely recommend them. :D

avoid bt. they've gone downhill rapidly in the last few months. there is a lot of peak time throttling going on which can reduce 8mb connections to 512k speeds. even normal browsing was becoming a chore - it really was that slow...... now of course plenty of people get a good service from bt - and this is the problem. it's a lottery as to what you will get. sure the hardware is tempting but that's what they offer to lock you into a 12/18month contract. cunning **********. and of course the indian support is terrible. :o

don't just take my word for it though. check the isp ratings over at dslzoneuk.net :)
 
Sadly in regards to BT I belive you, I wish I didn't as there homehub sounds really interesting.

Is there an alternative product to the bthomehub that does the same thing? Or can you even buy the homehub seperatly without getting broadband?

Thanks for confirming UKFSN btw. I checked BE out and I'm not able to get internet with them so it sort of looks like I'm switching to UKFSN. But first I want to try and find out if it is possible to get a homehub (or similar product).

EDIT: I did check out that website you said. It was pretty informative, the main thing I want is response times but I could not find info on that.

They seem to be one of the best so I will give them a shot.
 
well enta (who provide the network, ukfsn is just a reseller), do manage their network during busy times to keep latency low. here's a explanation i posted recently in another thread........

i'm with ukfsn paying 19.99 for 30gb peak and 300gb off peak transfers.

now i'd definitely recommend pretty much any enta reseller as they run on 30 days notice. don't like the service? then you leave without penalty.

i don't know if you've researched them at all so i will mention the anti loss tool they use. the peak time runs from 8am to 10pm. now when 10pm rolls around, everyone goes a bit mad with their downloading and their centrals tend to get overloaded. but to counter this and avoid packet loss, they automate a speed reduction on everyone on the affected central to balance things out. you'll find most evenings for an hour or 2, that speeds will go down to 4-5mb, sometimes as low as 2mb but never lower than that. the speeds soon rise backup once things balance out. it's a good system and it works well. and the best thing of all is you can monitor it live on their website or even by downloading a little application someone has wrote. sometimes this will kick in on the afternoons/evenings on the weekend - all weekend is off peak so again it can get busy. what i like about this system is that even though speeds are reduced for a short while, you can always max out your connection with whatever protocol you like and are not punished for using p2p like most other isps.
Click to expand...
 
On the home hub front here is this little thing :D

http://club.cdfreaks.com/showthread.php?t=223366#post1837448


also there is a speedtouch modem that is the home hub but better designed :D

BT home Hubs can be had for as little as £10 so basically it worth trying to pick one up to hack, gonna do mine as I wont need it anymore as I wont bwe with BT from monday..... ADSL24 ***

Kev! (Painkiller)
 
The HH is pretty crappy so you aren't missing much - and you can pick up a better wireless ADSL router for not a lot of money these days.
 
Stay away from BT. The HomeHub sucks!

I'd recommend going with ADSL24 (another Enta reseller) and getting a Thomson SpeedTouch 585v6)
 
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