Broadband Providers (uk)

WirelessMonkey

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Hi we are thinking about changing from tiscali, at the moment for ?14.99 a month we are getting 2mbps and unlimited usage. I was thinking of sky but the only package i would consider (max) is no longer availible in my area. BT costs too much but AOL do a 8mbps service for ?14.99, im just wondering though.... The usage limits, does it really matter, AOL is a 10GB usage limit and that sounds a lot because web pages and stuff are usually quite small although i use xbox live ALOT. Also can anybody recommend a provider...

EDIT: Heres what AOL say about the "fair usage policy"
What happens if I exceed the 10Gb cap?

At present, the minority of subscribers that exceed the Fair Use policy will have speed limits placed on their connection during peak times. This enables us to ensure that all our subscribers get the best possible service during busier times. Peak times vary but are currently Sunday to Thursday evenings. If you continue to exceed the the cap, we reserve the right to terminate your AOL Broadband subscription.
 
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10 gb is nothing... The 4x700MB TG and 4x350 MB FG are already a third of that...

2 XBL demos are up to 2 ,5GB

5 hours of xbl are maybe up to 100MB...

And with some of the users in here having 500kb avatars...

Guess you get my point...
 
Don't get Sky broadband. Just don't. We have Tiscali too atm, and it hasn't been bad recently. I say recently because about 6 months ago it used to sometimes just drop out, but we haven't had that problem for ages. And we ave just upgraded to 8mb (we'll get about 4-5) with free line rental and free calls. Its sightly more but I think its worth it. Mainly because we get more than 2mb now. But remember. Don't get Sky, my mate has it, and it sucks.

And about what AOL say about breaking the limit, we got a warning email from Tiscali about that a bit ago. We have a 20gb cap though. And I was downloading most of Top Gear, Gumball, and all of Heroes off of IceBone's FTP. I was doing well even for me.
 
for me, its stay away from ADSL completely and get Virgin if you can (used to be NTL)

we have 4mb NTL/virgin cable at home and its never skipped a beat once and we've had it for a good number of years now (all the way back to when it was just a 128k package). its always fast, and always responsive, plus you get the speed they say your going to get. ive seen 485-490kb/s constant on my connection....thats pretty awesome.

dont get sky broadband, its gash, so are tiscali and so are orange.

last i heard, pipex and bulldog were pretty good, but if you have to go for ADSL i really cant help! lol

i was on tiscali for a year at uni 2 years ago and it was just the most shocking experience ever. we were put on the high usage list within the first month and the funny thing was the internet hadnt even worked at for the first 3.5 weeks of the month because some clot at tiscali didnt set the line up right.

And when it did work it was slow, we got less than half the advertised speed of 2mb (i know ADSL drops off with distance and line quality) and the ping times were so high 56k actually put them to shame, so gaming was out of the window right from the get go.

tiscali = utter bollocks, and i dont have much faith in ADSL in general, cable is far better....even if they have to dig up your lawn to give it to you.
 
carefull about the word unlimited

tiscali billed their 2mb service to us as "unlimited" which really meant "yeah if you wanna get lodged on the conjested exchange and have your connection go to shit unlimited"

suffice to say, when they moved us, the connection really never went fast enough to let you download anything of worth
 
Running Virgin Media 2mb here, and we get unlimimted bandwaidth at the moment. we've always had NTL broadband and it's always been pretty good. a few times when it has gone offline for a while but not much. we have the TV too, and that's good :D
 
I'm on Virgin's 10 mbit & TV - seems fine. The customer service centre can be a bit dodgy but just phone again and you can usually get someone sensible after a couple of goes - technical support has been really good - different department.
 
I use the virgin 4Mbps line and I'm fed up of the speed being capped to 2mb whenever i download lots. Apart from that there's nothing really wrong with it.

193531966.png

I had hoped for a faster upload speed for xbox live, but its not too bad. When you compare it to...

My friends sky "up to" 16mb connection:
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It comes with a free wireless router which when i used, found out why it was free.
My advice is to do anything you can to avoid ADSL.
 
mine with virgin 2mb :)

 
Well im on TalkTalk and for the first two weeks the internet just did not work and they gave us terrible trouble as they cocked up the line. We had to have a arguement with them as they refused to fix it. They claimed it was BT's problem but when we phoned up BT they said it was TalkTalks Problem. In the end we just shouted very loud at TalkTalk and they fixed it. But speeds are not that great.
195271924.png
 
Tiscali 2mb:



Can't wait until we get our upgrade to 8mb.
 
Well im on TalkTalk and for the first two weeks the internet just did not work and they gave us terrible trouble as they cocked up the line. We had to have a arguement with them as they refused to fix it. They claimed it was BT's problem but when we phoned up BT they said it was TalkTalks Problem. In the end we just shouted very loud at TalkTalk and they fixed it. But speeds are not that great.

Virgin Media (or NTL) seemed to have the same can't-be-arsed disease when they fitted our broadband. when the guy went to plug the line into the green box on the street, he broke his key in the lock. fair enough, but i think it took a week to get another bloke out here to fix it. and he left the plug out of the grey box on the wall, had to plug that in myself :mad:

also, you have good taste with the Land Rover, after a series 3 myself :)
 
If you want unlimited then its either 'be' or 'bulldog'. check if you can get them...
 
I never understood why broadband is slow in a place like the UK with such a high population density you'd think it would be relatively quick.


I have 20gb download a month on my ISP, ADSL2+, line length limits me to about 4mbps for around 25 pounds a month (broadband in aus is a joke)

My cable internet has shitty 10gb transfers a month but is 30mbit (you only ever get that speed from australian sites obviously)
 
I'm been with BT forever, I think I'm paying 15-20quid for 8meg truly unlimited download. Can't fault it, never had a problem. Nice thing is if there is a problem your only dealing with 1 company so your shouting should get you somewhere.

But I do have the feeling they have started throttling torrent traffic in the evenings.
 
Im with Be on their 24meg package with unlimited downloads. www.bethere.co.uk is the site. If you give me a private message I will give you my reference it will give you a months free so instead of paying say ?216 you will pay 198. Worth it in the end. The 8mb package from what I hear on the forums at Be are not too shabby either. Unlimited so no need to close down torrents of top gear to save the bandwidth.

Shoot me up if you want the reference and good luck in avoiding Tiscali BT and AOL. Anything is almost better than they are. Even dial UP :p
 
I am using the Be Unlimited Package (24 MB Unlimited). Speeds arent that bad, but way below what I had expected.

 
maybe all BT people would be better off going to the 8 meg connection. cheaper and the speed should be the same :)

no, i'm serious
 
Certainly in my experience of broadband providers, the mid-range packages always seem to be those closest to the promised speeds. It is almost with the top speeds that they have turned off all other equipment, connected straight to the backbone and measured the speed to load google at 5am.

They must get these numbers from somewhere, but it is certainly not from any real world scenario.
 
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