Recommend a Good ISP

[Seamaster]

I have been with AOL since 2001 and am looking for a change, I pay £12.49 per month for unlimited access. My download speed is 2MB? which may or may not be the fastest I can get in my area.
Anyone got any suggestions ( along with do a search!)

I would like faster and cheaper

 

[D6]

02, if u av an 02 phone too, even cheaper, bril service and faster than tiscali, sky and bt on my line

 

[wessie]

There are not many options cheaper than £12.49 a month unless you bundle it in with another service e.g. you can get O2 broadband for under £8 if you have a mobile with them.

There are other deals available if you sign your landline billing over to the ISP.

Have a look at http://www.samknows.com/broadband/search.php to see what services you can get on your exchange. Whittle those down to a shortlist that comes into your cost/speed criteria then come back for personal recommendations.

 

[cookie]

02, if u av an 02 phone too, even cheaper, bril service and faster than tiscali, sky and bt on my line

o2 is a very good bet if you have an o2 mobile which knocks the payment down to £7.50pm, but your exchange does need to be o2/Be enabled to get their good LLU service (check their website). don't bother if it's not enabled, their BT based service is reportedly pants.

 

[Seamaster]

I forgot to mention, Joanna Lumley says "Welcome to AOL" "You have e mail" and " Your file has been transfered", I would like to keep this with my new provider as after 8 years I still get excited.....

 

[wessie]

o2 is a very good bet if you have an o2 mobile which knocks the payment down to £7.50pm, but your exchange does need to be o2/Be enabled to get their good LLU service (check their website). don't bother if it's not enabled, their BT based service is reportedly pants.

O2 (also trade as Bethere) are supposedly LLU enabled on my exchange. I transferred to them last month. The speed is very good but the line keeps dropping. They are making an effort to fix the problem, without any success so far.

I've gone through the motions with tests via the BT socket. The difficulty is trying to get Bethere to cough up for a BT engineer visit as the problem is almost certainly on the weakest link - the ancient copper wire between me and the Bethere hardware in the exchange.

 

[Fanum]

There's a broadband checker on postcodes HERE but I don't know how impartial they are in their recommendations.....it's worth a look though 'cos some providers seem to be better in some areas than others

The Post Office broadband (no, really!) seem to come out pretty well in various comparisons.

Cookie mentioned packaged deals which is spot on....look at anything you have that may be supplied by someone who can also give you a BB deal.....sky, virgin, your mobile phone provider, whoever.

As an example, I've got a Blackberry as a mobile phone with Orange on a business package.....when I was looking for BB, I called them to see what they could do and was pleasantly surprised to find that I could get a decent(ish) connection (6MB, which is what the tests seem to indicate my exchange could give me at max anyway) with a wifi router (livebox mini) and a second free phone line for the princely sum of fekk all per month, as it was all included in my business moby deal.

I've also experienced some pretty good service from Orange business BB over the last few weeks (I've posted about it) so I'm very happy with them.

Be careful reading too much into reports as well.......I suspect it's well worth talking to mates locally and getting their comments, as service and speeds will vary widely with areas....(and some BB review sites are HEAVILY sponsored by certain companies)

Not only that, but the reports and ratings vary widely too.....again, in my experience, Orange are good, but looking at the reviews on some of the websites, they get consistantly rated as poor.
(I suspect that this may be because I'm with their business BB section, all UK based call centres and they seem to give a toss, as opposed to the Orange home BB people who I understand have call centres in India and don't)

Money supermarket and which? are two places I'd spend some time looking at online......they're both supposed to be pretty impartial

Do ditch the AOL though

PS You can get Joanna Lumley sound clips that you can use with pretty much any app, so you don't have to lose her dulcet tones if you don't want to

 

[wessie]

once you have chosen your supplier then check out www.quidco.com to see if there is a cash bribe available - £50 from O2 for example

 

[cookie]

O2 (also trade as Bethere) are supposedly LLU enabled on my exchange. I transferred to them last month. The speed is very good but the line keeps dropping. They are making an effort to fix the problem, without any success so far.

I've gone through the motions with tests via the BT socket. The difficulty is trying to get Bethere to cough up for a BT engineer visit as the problem is almost certainly on the weakest link - the ancient copper wire between me and the Bethere hardware in the exchange.

have o2 tried upping the signal to noise margin from default 6db? that seems to help a lot of people with dropped connections. slows the speed a bit though.

i live on the end of a fairly long line & often get a disconnection every day or so, but it sometimes stays up for a week or more.

 

[wessie]

have o2 tried upping the signal to noise margin from default 6db? that seems to help a lot of people with dropped connections. slows the speed a bit though.

i live on the end of a fairly long line & often get a disconnection every day or so, but it sometimes stays up for a week or more.

Yes - SNR margin currrently 6.5

Started with ADSL2, now on ADSL. Just had 13 resets between 2308 and 2347.

I'm starting to collate data as there is a pattern - most disconnects are between 1700 & 1930 and then again from 2300 to 0030. Seems suspiciously like they cannot cope with the start & finish of peak demand. I need more data before I submit the evidence.

 

[cookie]

there is evidence to suggest that disconnects can be caused by increased interference from 240v supply cabling loading when street lights etc. come on in the evening. overhead wiring is understandably more prone to this sort of thing.

try research/asking questions on the o2 or Be forums at thinkbroadband. forwarned is forearmed when dealing with these issues, i find

S/N ration can be reset to 9 or even 12.

 

[Dickieboy]

PS You can get Joanna Lumley sound clips that you can use with pretty much any app, so you don't have to lose her dulcet tones if you don't want to

I'm looking for a clip of Joanna at her most sultry saying "Darling can I give you a BJ" but can't seem to find one

 

[Fanum]

I'm looking for a clip of Joanna at her most sultry saying "Darling can I give you a BJ" but can't seem to find one

I'll have a look through my private collection and see what I can do for you

 

[Fanum]

No, sorry Dickieboy, I've got the same line from Felicity Kendal, Sandra Bullock and Angelina Jolie, but not JL...no good at all