Which FTTC ISP?

[Zico]

My local cab is now live and my predicted speeds are 73mb down / 20mb up.

Line is on Openreach network and our calls are with BT (Anytime + Line Rental saver to September this year).

I'm currently with VFast (wireless ISP) paying £36.99 for 24mb down / 10mb up. This is a guide of what I would be prepared to pay for FTTC.

Household usage is around 100GB a month (very rarely 150GB+) with a mix of online gaming (PC, Xbox Live) and tv/video streaming, working from home plus the usual web surfing. Up to 6 users online at one time.

Have briefly looked at:
BT Infinity
ADSL24
PlusNet
Zen

I have Sky TV but I am going to rule out going with Sky for the following reasons:
1) Don't want to move our landline over to Sky's network (as far as I am aware this is compulsory for new broadband & phone customers).
2) Had Sky Free talk + Unlimited DSL on a second phone line up to ~12months ago - line developed a fault (both voice and DSL dropped) which was not fixed inside of 3 months. Openreach attended 3 times and could not locate a fault. Sky then basically gave up in trying to get the fault fixed (kept telling me that I would have to pay Openreach's charges for further engineer visits).

Any other suggestions are welcomed.

 

[Zico]

BT are fine for what you need. I've no problems with them at all.

I take it that you can use your own routers (Asus RT-N16 or 66U) without problems?

Before I had Sky DSL I was with BT and had no problems.

 

[Zico]

Sky.

Nothing wrong with moving line rental. Any ISP would start refusing to send another engineer after three failed attempts to find a fault.

No.

Sky take the line from Openreach and I and I don't want that.

I fail to understand how the Openreach engineers failed to find a fault (no dial tone, no broadband, nothing on the line). I had NO internal wiring, the master socket was the only point inside the property straight from the external drop wire, no other devices connected (phone, digi box etc.).

I place more blame on Sky as my contract was with them and not Openreach. They failed to assist me and failed to follow up with Openreach to fix my line. They were however quiet happy to take the money and issue no refund for 3 months (nil) service!!!

 

[Zico]

BT will do the job, as they will for most.
All this "Apocalyptic" talk of traffic shaping doesn't effect me in the least because I never use P2P (no need to go into why I don't use it - suffice to say I don't watch or download illegal material and all major downloads come down just as fast of HTTP).

If of course your in the P2P crowd then BT may not be your best choice.

I'm not a P2P user (use to do a little back in the day). I also use several measures to make sure nobody else in the house uses P2P so no worries on that front.

I do the odd bit of newsgroups (grab the odd US TV show years before we get it here) but that is setup overnight.

To be honest I was with BT Broadband for 1mb DSL (we have a long line to the exchange but ~300yd's to FTTC cab) and they were fine for everything then.

 

[Zico]

Only line rental.

Which means that I would have to deal with Sky only to sort out any problems and, as already mentioned, my previous experiences of them have been ****ing ****!!

I've been with BT Retail and Sky and had issues with both. Openreach engineers are the same for either company but BT Retail didn't treat me as bad as Sky did.

 

[Zico]

Another +1 for BT, they're great for FTTC, our house averages fairly high usage of 300GB which i've seen hit 500GB sometimes per month with no consequences. Dump the HH3 and drop in a RT56U or the like and be the proud owner of beast broadband

I've got an Asus RT-N16 (running Tomato) at the moment but I will most likely be using that for a different project soon. I will likely upgrade to the RT-N56 or 66 with Tomato/third party firmware.

Beast broadband, subject to throttling etc etc......

Hmm, thanks for your deep and concise input in this thread. Mind the door on the way out please .

 

[Zico]

Zen's service in general is excellent. Failing that, one of the ISPs which offers a fixed peak-time / unlimited any time is good.

From my very quick guess math, I would need to go with something like 50GB peak time traffic at a minimum. Some of the provider packages that I have looked at come in at ~£35 for that amount and get a little steep after (Zen obviously have the 100GB package in that bracket as noted earlier in the thread).

What about plusnet with the £5 pro addon. This removes the throttling, therefore giving you 120GB daytime, unlimited overnight for the odd scheduled download.

From what little I have read about the add-on, some people seem to say it has made little to no difference.

Is the Pro add-on a monthly contract or do you need to keep it for the same length as the whole package?

How long ago were you with BT? I left BT in 2007 due to them wrecking my connection and going from a stable 8mb line to a 4max due to being port shifted to a broken line card. I was a lover of BT and getting a nice vision box package i was so happy but sadly it came to an end when they refused to fix my line issues and sort out a very old drop cable that was split & had been cut and badly joined.

I left BT but will always remember the good days of english cs in 2004/05 when I had a great line. I went to adsl24 & they were great & had to be the best isp although expensive, next stop o2.

O2 has great cs & english speaking which was a bonus but sadly a house move forced me to get sky. I have no issues with sky and so far their cs has been as good as o2 and I wished I lived in a fibre area but my friends have it & so far they love it.... GRRRRR I thin its down to luck really with any isp.

If you did go with sky, open reach come fit a new box on the wall for your fibre and essentially your using openreach equipment. BT now is just like any other isp with equipment in the exchange and despite fond memories its basically another llu isp.

I moved from BT to Sky in late 2006 if I recall correctly. Went from 1mb fixed to ~2.8mb service on Sky LLU (long line ~5km +). I did have a similar issue with my line before I left BT that left me with a very un-stable service for around 2 months. That wasn't my main reason for leaving though - I left for Sky as it was cheaper and the LLU system would allow me to get more from the line compared to the BT profile system at the time.

I know, irrespective of which FTTC service I choose (for now) that Openreach will provide the modem and maintain the line. I do however, as already mentioned above, know that Sky (or any other retail ISP - BT Retail included) need to chase Openreach for faults or any line maintenance works to be done. Sky have demonstrated to me already that they are less than willing to do so.

 

[Zico]

Zen, if you're happy paying the cost for their service (which includes purchasing your own equipment).

I already have an Asus RT-N16 now but it is likely that I will be using this elsewhere and will need to buy another router.

You can't run Tomato on the RT-N56/66U. Have a look at this thread for info on the custom firmware:
http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18423219

Sorry I should clarify my earlier post.

Asus RT-N56 with the Third Party firmware - http://code.google.com/p/rt-n56u/

OR

Asus RT-N66U with Tomato - See here:
http://tomato.groov.pl/?page_id=69
http://tomato.groov.pl/download/K26RT-N/build5x-097-EN/READ_ME
http://tomato.groov.pl/download/K26RT-N/build5x-097-EN/

 

[Zico]

I hope you get a great connection jealous

I've got a good one now (24mb down/10mb up) with VFast.co.uk .

The fact that I can go from the above to 3x that down and 2x up for the same amount is better

I am also going to follow up with FTTP on Demand in the future.

 

[Zico]

Do ADSL24 offer referral discounts?

I know that Plusnet do but I thought I saw something for ADSL24.