Which of these ISPs?

CF93

CF93

CF93

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Right, bit of a saga that has resulted in my parents needing to pick a new ISP. Which although you probably don't need to know I'm going to rant about anyway cause I'm the one that's had to sort it.

They recently moved house to a rural area in Scotland, and their current ISP - PlusNet - told them they couldn't move their broadband as the new address is a business address :confused: . Totally not true and after a month of wrangling, they agreed to move the connection free of charge and refund the monthly fees for the time they've not had a connection.

After waiting nine days since PlusNet arranged to move the connection, they've now come back and said :
"Unfortunately at this time we cannot fulfil your order as the exchange that supports your line is an exchange where we as an ISP have to invest with BT wholesale to get capicity to supply the service, we have decided not to signup to this programme with BT."

Annoyed as they've known the full address and phone number since the day my parents moved, so why on Earth they didn't look up the exchange and tell us this over a month ago.....grrrrr!! :mad:

PlusNet has said they can either downgrade the account to dial up or cancel the account. Dial up?? :eek: I think not!

So, they need a new ISP. According to the BT broadband checker, they can only get a connection with these ISPs:
Abel Always
Entanet
Broadband from BT
AOL
Scotnet
BT Business

Their PlusNet package is the £21.99 Premier (the top one) and they use their connection for internet and email (about 2 to 3 gig a month) and are about to start video conferencing over MSN (the rest of the family are now a lot further away than they were before!) so they need a package that's either uncapped or has a very high cap, and preferably doesn't cost more than the £21.99 they're currently paying.

I've looked them all up on ADSLGuide, but I'd like some recommendations or advice from here from people who have used any of these as to who to go with.
(I've got no intention of recommending they use AOL though!!)

Any advice or help appreciated!

Thanks.
 
It's called Exchange Activate, AKA the Executive coughed up, or the exchange would probably never have got ADSL.

Suspect you won't get unlimited (or a significantly higher cap) without paying more. Bear in mind you're stuck with (home500) 512kbps too - no faster, no Max.
AOL will do "unlimited". Enta's a mostly pretty decent ISP (though you'll be looking for resellers, like Evo :eek: and the UKFSN).
Though Scotnet looks decent enough here. :shrug:
 
Thanks tolien.

Having lived in the area myself (many years ago) I know how remote it is, and already warned my folks they'd only get 512k (samknows says they might get 1meg, but BT says 512k.)

Looking on ADSLGuide, Abel, AOL and BT look all about the same and about the same or slightly worse than PlusNet. Entanet and Scotnet both look better than PlusNet.

The Scotnet site looks pretty naff - their tech page looks like it's not been updated for years, so I'm not sure about how good the rest of their service is! So I guess I'm looking at Abel or BT or Enta. I guess even if BT aren't rated as the best I'm probably guaranteed to get a connection if they themselves say they provide to that exchange. And it also looks like BT offer the lowest total cost of ownership....

So here's a couple more questions (sorry)

How do I find resellers for Entanet? - don't appear to be any listed on their site, or any way to sign up for an account!

If my parents connection to their old phone has been disconnected, but PlusNet haven't made a new connection, is it possible to migrate to a new ISP, or is it best to just cancel PlusNet and bite the bullett of a new connection charge with the new ISP (whoever that turns out to be.)

Thanks.
 
CF93 said:
Having lived in the area myself (many years ago) I know how remote it is, and already warned my folks they'd only get 512k (samknows says they might get 1meg, but BT says 512k.)
Click to expand...

They'll only get 512kbps.

And it also looks like BT offer the lowest total cost of ownership....
Click to expand...

Be warned the prices aren't necessarily 100% accurate.

How do I find resellers for Entanet? - don't appear to be any listed on their site, or any way to sign up for an account!
Click to expand...

There's the two I mentioned for a start (though Evo's pretty iffy), or you could take a look here.

is it possible to migrate to a new ISP
Click to expand...

No. There'll be an activation fee to pay.
 
weescott - thanks. I think I might avoid them then, as my folks had billing problems with Tiscali back in the days of dialup and ditched them as a result. Scotnet just don't look "polished" enough from their website, though I know a slick site means nothing really.

tolien - thanks, I guess then they'll have to bite the activation fee bullett.

So now I'm looking at Abel, BT or Enta....

I'm just working out the actual costs from the ISPs websites so that should take care of that problem.

Anyone else got any recommendations or experience with these ISPs?
 
No one got any comments on BT or AOL or Abelnet?

Been reading a thread about Evo, seems they're pretty naff, and UKFSN looks expensive, so it's down to those three....
 
BT i've had both satisfactory and bad reports for, AOL.....just ask anyone about AOL and you'll get a conclusive result tbh. You'll be OK until anything goes wrong. They also don't work with the default MTU on most routers so you need to know what your doing a bit if you want to get the best out of it and not spend hours on the phone to Jack reading a sheet support man.
 
Wasn't really considering recommending AOL to my folks to be honest, so it really leaves it down to Abelnet and BT..

Would appreciate if anyone using Abelnet could give me an idea of what they're like?

Also, do BT offer "proper" POP3 email accounts these days? A mate of mine has a BT account, and had to sign up for a separate Yahoo email account, as his BT account didn't come with email!
 
CF93 said:
Also, do BT offer "proper" POP3 email accounts these days? A mate of mine has a BT account, and had to sign up for a separate Yahoo email account, as his BT account didn't come with email!
Click to expand...

Pass. I think i've seen a few aquainteneces with myname@BTOpenworld or something like that. It normally depends on the service. A "Premium" service would probably have POP3 email, web space the lot whereas a standard, cheap, let me at the interweb style package would just have internet.
 
Thanks Usher, read that at lunchtime.

It looks like BTs email is provided via a Yahoo webmail and I guess I would just need to set up their Outlook to access it, no major worries there.

So I've now narrowed it down to these two packages:

Abel:
Setup cost: £47
Monthly cost £22.91
Speed:512k
Cap: none(!)
Contract length: 3 months
Static IP: Yes

BT (option 2):
Setup cost: 0
Monthly cost 22.99
Speed: up to 8Meg
Cap: 6Gig
Contract length: 12 months
Static IP: (dunno - probably not!)
 
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Hi,
We've recently got broadband here and went with BT. They included email etc. from BT-Yahoo at no extra cost and it works from Outlook express (although the mail server is mail.btinternet.com rather the pop.btin...).

Out of the two you have listed I'd go with BT every time. Abels web mail, for instance, is terrible!
 
Thanks all.

Have discussed the options with my parents and they've decided to go with BT.

Although it's got a 6gig cap they've only ever used between 1 and 3gig a month so far, there's no setup cost and in the (unlikely) event they can ever get more than 512k, they won't have to change package to get the extra speed (they already use a Netgear DG824M router so don't really need the one BT offers, but it never hurts to have a spare I guess!)

Thanks for the help!
 
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