Shorty Posted June 12, 2008 Share Posted June 12, 2008 Hey all, looking for ISP reccomendations. We're currently on talktalk 8 Meg adsl. The service hasn't been amazing, obviously distance from exchange means we never get the top speed, but there's also an issue with closed ports for P2P, high pings on games with consistent lag spikes and a download cap. The only decent things about the ISP are £16.39/mo including phone line rental and the previously mentioned cap is a not-too-bad 40GB. Anyway we're looking to pay as much as £30/mo on something a bit better. It's nice to have the line rental paid for but that's not a necessity. Not interested in Broadband/Television packages. What we're after is: speed, open ports, good for XBL/PC gaming and reliability/good customer support. Any suggestions? Cheers Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr_Odwin Posted June 12, 2008 Share Posted June 12, 2008 I recently looked into this and the ISPs that were widely recommended were Vispa Zen Naims People around these parts seem to love O2/Be. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Jordan Posted June 12, 2008 Share Posted June 12, 2008 Is there such a thing as good ISP these days? If they're not throttling your connection because you're downloading too much, its shitty contention ratios, useless tech support or them cutting you off for warezing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Davey_T Posted June 12, 2008 Share Posted June 12, 2008 Im on talktalk and i used to be able to download pretty fast on p2p but now i think the ports closed and its so slow now . Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shorty Posted June 12, 2008 Author Share Posted June 12, 2008 I recently looked into this and the ISPs that were widely recommended were Vispa Zen Naims People around these parts seem to love O2/Be. Those three seem a bit dodgy. An internet service provider that don't seem able to provide any competent marketing or a nice website design don't inspire me with much confidence. Looked at Be, their pro package sounds really nice... think I've made this thread a bit early though, won't be changing until about August. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jackster Posted June 12, 2008 Share Posted June 12, 2008 I've recommended Be to quite a few people recently and they've all had great success with them. If you're in a Be area then you should look into signing up for either Be or O2. They both use the same network, the main differences are O2 are cheaper if you have an O2 mobile, and Be's call centre is in Bulgaria whereas O2's is in the UK. The main advantage of Be/O2 is they use ADSL2+ so you'll definitely get faster speeds (upto 24mbps) than your current ADSL provider unless you are *very* far away from the exchange. That's assuming talktalk haven't already moved to ADSL2+, I think some of the ISPs are doing that just now but keeping the maximum speed at 8mbps. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sanchez Posted June 12, 2008 Share Posted June 12, 2008 My 3 step guide to choosing an ISP! Be(O2)>Zen>UKFSN If you're not in a Be area then you choose zen, if zen is too expensive or doesn't have a large enough bandwidth cap then you choose UKFSN. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Platty Posted June 12, 2008 Share Posted June 12, 2008 People around these parts seem to love O2/Be. I'm one of those. £7.50 a month as im an o2 mobile customer. That's for up to 8mb and I hit around 6MB which is pretty good considering that with my old ISP I was only getting 4MB. I've had no problems with o2 at all and when I did speak with their customer service when ordering they were very friendly and based in the UK. Unlike my old ISP which had customer services based in India which proved to be very tiresome talking to them trying to get problems sorted. Anyway yes o2 have no download cap, come with free wireless router and is easy to install. Would highly recommend them or Bethere if you can get it in your area. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Raining_again Posted June 12, 2008 Share Posted June 12, 2008 Never go near pipex for the love of god. Oh how they used to be such an awesome ISP, one of the top rated. Until they sold out. Tosspot useless indians in callcenters (nothin against foreign people, but jesus some of the staff just arent trained at all). These ISPs can say oh yeah UK call centre - problem is they employ all the foreign people IN THE UK. Just can't win at all. People seem to recommend o2/be.... Hmmm I might convince my dad, it seems to be one of the providers listed on our local exchange. I haven't yet heard a bad thing about o2/be. My ma has an o2 contract so I imagine it could be cheaper. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cube Posted June 13, 2008 Share Posted June 13, 2008 I've only experienced two broadband companies: Orange - Very reliable connection, good consistant speeds. As long as you don't use the Livebox (quite possibly the worst wireless router ever made). Virgin Media - Utterly horrible. If they're not throttling your connection because you're downloading too much, its shitty contention ratios, useless tech support or them cutting you off for warezing. All four for Virgin (I'm surprised I didn't get one of the thousands of letters they sent out warning people about illegal downloading). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ThePigMarcher Posted June 13, 2008 Share Posted June 13, 2008 Another one here who recommends BE*. Been with them since February and have had only a few minor problems. A couple of DNS issues and a couple of brief downtimes. However , those downtimes were expected and I always receive an email prior to any work being carried out on the exchange. For £18 per/month , I am synching at 19Mbs and the speed is pretty consistent. I am close to my local exchange though. Another factor , despite the Bulgarian call centres , all calls to customer services are free so in the rare event of problems you don't need to worry about incurring a massive phone bill trying to get things sorted. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nightwolf Posted June 15, 2008 Share Posted June 15, 2008 Orange - Very reliable connection, good consistant speeds. As long as you don't use the Livebox (quite possibly the worst wireless router ever made). We had livebox and it was the crappiest thing ever, constantly going down. Orange personally are a bag of shit, their customer service is below poor for their internet. Sky are the same, except the customer service is alot better. So stay away from both Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Strider Posted June 15, 2008 Share Posted June 15, 2008 We had livebox and it was the crappiest thing ever, constantly going down. Orange personally are a bag of shit, their customer service is below poor for their internet. Yeah Orange are crap. I'm with them and when trying to contact someone to complain/get that code you need to leave they are useless. The connection drops out alot of the time and will sometimes drop out every 3 minutes for about an hour. So it basically makes the internet unusable. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nightwolf Posted June 15, 2008 Share Posted June 15, 2008 Yeah Orange are crap. I'm with them and when trying to contact someone to complain/get that code you need to leave they are useless. The connection drops out alot of the time and will sometimes drop out every 3 minutes for about an hour. So it basically makes the internet unusable. It took weeks if not months to get the mac code off them so we could switch to sky, the connection for orange went down for nearly four months and they couldn't tell use why and made us pay half price to leave them. You must pay 50quid usually to leave orange. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Einix Posted June 15, 2008 Share Posted June 15, 2008 Vivaciti Been with them for 6 months are brilliant never had any issues Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shorty Posted June 15, 2008 Author Share Posted June 15, 2008 Just checked out Vivaciti, everything seemed great until I scrolled down to see that 15GB cap. At the moment Be is looking the most promising (not on O2 so the deal doesn't appeal... wish I was though.. £7.50!). Means switching back to BT though, at a thirsty £10.50 a month for a fairly average phone package. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ThePigMarcher Posted June 18, 2008 Share Posted June 18, 2008 Means switching back to BT though, at a thirsty £10.50 a month for a fairly average phone package. Or you could give Toucan a try , thats who I am with and my line rental is only £9 per/month. Package is the same as BTs as far as I can tell. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shorty Posted June 19, 2008 Author Share Posted June 19, 2008 You need a BT line for Be though, according to their site. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sanchez Posted June 19, 2008 Share Posted June 19, 2008 I thought you said It's nice to have the line rental paid for but that's not a necessity. Line rental £10.50 with Be Unlimited £18 https://www.bethere.co.uk/homebroadband.do is £28.50 which is inside your £30/m limit. You can also get £40 cashback if you signup through quidco. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shorty Posted June 19, 2008 Author Share Posted June 19, 2008 Yeah that's fine sorry I was responding to Pig's suggestion to switch to Toucan for line rental. Thanks for the quidco tip, I never would've thought of using them for an ISP! Might switch over soon actually just need to keep the internet for a while to complete some ebay auctions. Any idea how long this process would take: cancel talk talk go back to BT sign up to Be ? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sanchez Posted June 19, 2008 Share Posted June 19, 2008 I don't know how long it would take for talk talk to cancel but BT will set you up inside a week in most cases and when I recently switched ISP's i got a confirmation the same day and was connected 3 days later. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Caris Posted June 19, 2008 Share Posted June 19, 2008 I'm thinking about going to Sky. They have just upgraded the ADSL around are area so it's a solid uncapped 16mb. They also give you a Netgear router when you join with them and there half the price. What are they like? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ThePigMarcher Posted June 19, 2008 Share Posted June 19, 2008 You need a BT line for Be though, according to their site. I am with Toucan and Be without any problems , I would assume that the suggestion of using BT is the standard terminology for a landline of some description. Good suggestion by Sanchez for using Quidco , I should have mentioned that also as I did use them for signing up both with Toucan and Be. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shorty Posted June 19, 2008 Author Share Posted June 19, 2008 I have a talk talk landline and when I put my number in the Be site, it said that I needed a BT line.... Saw a pizza box today that said if I quote PIZZA when signing up to Be, I can get the first month and connection fee for free! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Charlie Posted June 19, 2008 Share Posted June 19, 2008 Or you could give Toucan a try , thats who I am with and my line rental is only £9 per/month. Package is the same as BTs as far as I can tell. Toucan are owned by Tiscali so I would stay away from them if I were you, even if it is just the phoneline. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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