Which ISPs to avoid?

Trifid said:
Zen are very expensive for what you get: £25 and a 20GB cap. With Enta you can get 30GB peak and 300 off peak cap for <25.
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I've mailed UKFSN before (who resell Enta) and they have confirmed that in the past Entanet have used traffic shaping when the pipes were full, and that traffic shaping will be used again when needed. Zen state they do not artificially prioritise traffic at all.

I'd much rather pay for a cap and use the bandwidth when and how I want, rather than get told I'm abusing the system.

Although I do have to agree that the UKFSN packages are darn good VFM if you're happy taking the shaping risk- especially the Office 30 package, 800k up and prioroty on the network for £30!
 
Stop mentioning Z*n already :p There a terrible ISP really.

The problem is there are no ISPS left, every single one mentioned above is like everyone out there!

Id add UKonline to the list, m8 signed up to them and hasnt been connected yet for past 3 months they just keep giving him excuses on his activation dates and dont follow thru.

I hate this cos I went thru all the Dialup ISPS, and it was terrible finding a good one, same things being repeated but with Broadband now.....
 
MikeWild74 said:
so can you order the office package for your home?.
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As already mentioned, yep. Just double check if VAT is included in the business price- it often isn't. The £30 I quoted is VAT inc.
 
ste_bla said:
aol = mostly foreign rubbish call centres, just taken over unknown future
ntl = bad billing + customer care
eclipse = llu + traffic shaping problems
sky = lack of tech support/activations
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NTL = Bad billing? Maybe you have seen that but I haven't once in the 5 years I've been with them?
Customer care? Admittedly their tech support can be a bit of a pain but their CC have always done their best for me, plus I have had 10meg for £17.99 for the last 8months after I called them about a small issue..

I take it this is bad times you've had with them? Or just what you've heard?
 
tweakinfreak said:
NTL = Bad billing? Maybe you have seen that but I haven't once in the 5 years I've been with them?
Customer care? Admittedly their tech support can be a bit of a pain but their CC have always done their best for me, plus I have had 10meg for £17.99 for the last 8months after I called them about a small issue..

I take it this is bad times you've had with them? Or just what you've heard?
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Twice overcharged I was with NTL (then moved and no cable here). Was with them for 3 years from their top package at the time of 600K (which was at the time when 512K was the only broadband option).

A few months (might have been 3, but I definitely remember 2) they charged me twice and took 4 weeks to refund. Quite bad really, but the service was pretty good for the time and I'm not sure how they are now, but I'd certainly take my chances with them again, especially having tasted this ADSL fiasco for the last 3 years.
 
Ill always consider NTL customer service pants, took them 8 months to fix an issue with an overcharged telephone bill.

They did fix it and refund in the end but still 8 months is far too long a time, maybe they have improved since but I doubt it.
 
As said, it's the support that NTL suck at. When we first had it installed years ago we had to ring them nearly ten times, each time getting a false call out day. I think I missed 4 days of college waiting for their engineer to turn up and this was just for the installation. Once we finaly got past that though everything was fine and we haven't had a problem since.

So yeah, NTL support fails in ways you'd think weren't even possible.
 
tweakinfreak said:
NTL = Bad billing? Maybe you have seen that but I haven't once in the 5 years I've been with them?
Customer care? Admittedly their tech support can be a bit of a pain but their CC have always done their best for me, plus I have had 10meg for £17.99 for the last 8months after I called them about a small issue..

I take it this is bad times you've had with them? Or just what you've heard?
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Friend got overcharged, they eventually sorted out a refund after 3 months. They then "accidently" canceled his account and demanded 6 months worth of payements as he asked for the termination within the 12 month contract..

He even had a debt collector come around while I was there. Well his dad did as it was in his name.
 
It's sad to say but there aren't very many good ISPs left when it comes to DSL. All the big names have fair use policies or caps (which is understandable when you look at the business case).

The small ISPs nobody has heard off have rubbish transit connections and small BT central pipes which means that even without many users they're slow. Whether they can stay profitable is questionable.

I work for a medium sized ISP (business focused) and our DSL is uncapped and free of traffic shaping but we don't sell to consumers (which keeps support costs down, their internal IT teams do first line troubleshooting so we don't have to). I personally don't know of anybody else who offers an uncapped/unshaped service.

LLU is the best bet for this (my flatmates share a BE* connection) but the support and reliability is awful to be honest. It's really quite amazing the lack of options users have.

That said, finding an ISP with good support for ADSL customers is hard, mainly because talented engineers don't waste their time supporting DSL connections.
 
Whatever you say about NTL i have had 4 years of mostly uniniterupted service. When it does go wrong its a ballache to get in touch with them but since switching to a modem and away from the STB its generally ok.
 
I would deffo stay well clear of Tiscalli, bottemless pit of problems!

Nildram was good, but recently been throttling connections so i have just sent in a request to migrate to ukfsn.org internet as i have read loads of good reports about these.

At the end of the day aslong as you go with a company with only 1 month contract, you can always swap and change untill you find a decent ISP!
 
GinG said:
At the end of the day aslong as you go with a company with only 1 month contract, you can always swap and change untill you find a decent ISP!
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Bang on. I've never been with an ISP with more than 3 months contract(and most have been 1 month).
 
Don't bother with Freedom2Surf either. I am just about to leave them after nearly 3 years with them. Since Pipex took over they have been abysmal. The tech service and customer support is useless now. I am still waiting after a week for my MAC code.

Idnet seems to be a good one and is probably where i am going.
 
Mikol said:
Not bad! What time of day was that? I've just tried it here (NTL 10mb - Nottingham near city centre if that means anything) and best I could get was averaging 13ms.
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A minute before posting so 9:54 - and I'm 1km from the exchange. :)
 
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