Broadband Provider ?

[307]

Seeing as Halkirk has now got broadband and Lybster is about to, which is the best broadband provider ?

OK - lets be more specific - in your collective opinion which is the CHEAPEST broadband provider, and which the most reliable provider, and which to AVOID ???

ALSO - are there any bundles such as bb and tel calls for a set monthly/annual payment ?

[LENSMAN]

Just ordered Broadband from one tel as I have my phone with them.
512 unlimited down load, free calls to uk land lines 24/7, £30 per month.
You have to pay for mobile calls and to 0870, etc which is annoying.
You also have to pay the line rental to B.T.
Should be up and running next week, took about 11 days from order to initialisation date.

[Geo]

The Carphone Warehouse have a package which gives 512kbps unlimited BB, free 24/7 uk landline phone calls and 30 minutes per month to mobiles, all for £24.99

http://www.carphonewarehouse.com

[307]

Ah, but.... you'll have to wait until May at least George........

Wonder if Carphone Warehouse will supply broadband in Caithness then ?

[Geo]

Yes it's just a standard ADSL package as far as I can see so all it will require is a BT line and an activated exchange. Our's is due by 4th May, hopefully sooner!

[307]

....seems that the CArphone Warehouse deal is exclusive to other TalkTalk landlines only :( so you would be charged for calls to other operators services.
Can anyone (local) confirm this ?

[captain chaos]

If your not going to be downloading video day and night, Wanadoo now have 1Mbps with a 2Gb limit a month for £17.99. :lol: :lol:

Have been using this for about a month and boy is it good. Still didnt get near my limit.

Will have to try harder this month [lol]

[kwbrown111]

i have been with Pipex for over a year now. it is £23 odds a month unlimited access and it has only been down once.

[flint]

Just joined up with Tiscali ,15.99 a month and unlimited downloads..but its only 5 times faster. They do have deals on phone calls but didn't go into that.
It may only be 5 times faster but heh its cheap and my lines free for incoming calls now.

[Brizer2k2]

Have a look at www.adslguide.org.uk to compare different ISP's

I work for Nildram - www.nildram.net in Stoke Mandeville, Buckinghamshire and we have been no.1 ISP for two of the last 3 months.

Of course I am going to say they are the best ;-)

[ESR]

captain chaos: Wanadoo now have 1Mbps with a 2Gb limit a month for £17.99.
I have been with Wanadoo BB since Wick was enabled and pay £17.99 a month. At that time it was a 512 kbps connection, which actually runs at 576kbps. I checked the Wanadoo site after reading your post and notice that this has now in fact changed to1Mbps....512kbps if 1Mbps isn't available on your line. Does your connection actually run at 1Mbps? Should 1Mbps be available on the lines in the Wick area?




captain chaos: Still didnt get near my limit.
How do you know how much you have actually used each month and whether you are nearing your limit?

[webmannie]

2Mbps is working in thurso, it all depends on distance from exchange and quality of connection. Very good chance it will work

[The Angel Of Death]

2 mb in wick as well im with eclipse £30 for 1mb a month unlimited downloads etc and the option to "flex" it to a 2 mb line at will for a couple of pence an hour

[captain chaos]

ESR says
have been with Wanadoo BB since Wick was enabled and pay £17.99 a month. At that time it was a 512 kbps connection, which actually runs at 576kbps. I checked the Wanadoo site after reading your post and notice that this has now in fact changed to1Mbps....512kbps if 1Mbps isn't available on your line. Does your connection actually run at 1Mbps? Should 1Mbps be available on the lines in the Wick area?

Yes it does run at 1Mbps .In Wick it will be available ,but you have to ask Wanadoo to upgrade your account (there is a £20 admin charge).It took 5 days to change but the difference is outstanding.
You can do it online at the wanadoo homepage.

Even if you hit your limit nothing happens unless you do this a few times ,you will then be asked to upgrade to 30Gb download at £24.99 a month. No nasty shutting your account or lowering your speed

[Riffman]

Whatever you do choose, DO NOT go for the AOL silver, it cannot be networked (as I found out to my cost) and is not worth it!!

Riffman

P.S. I recommend Wanadoo 1mbs, the best package out there.

[The Angel Of Death]

Whatever you do choose, DO NOT go for AOL.

Shouldnt that be the message everyone is told ??? :D :D :D

[Donnie]

I'm with the pipex unlimited 2mb service for £40 a month. Before that I was with their 512kb service for a year. I haven't had any problems with it. I can't tell you what their customer service is like becuase i've never needed to phone them!

[moshmosh]

i have been with Pipex for over a year now. it is £23 odds a month unlimited access and it has only been down once.

I've been with Pipex since September, no problems at all.

[307]

Have to agree with Riffman - in my experience the AOL BB is terrible - screws up the PC and causes numerous operating system errors with Win XP. However, it works OK on a PC with Win98 or Win ME. Perhaps the Win XP enhanced features are conflicting with the code which AOL installs ?

Back to the query tho, is anyone using a bundled service of bb & tel calls such as TalkTalk and whats the service quality like ?

[Julia]

I'm with the Utility Warehouse, they cost £19.99 per month with no download limits whatsoever. Price includes free connection and free modem. New customers receive the upgraded 1.1mb service free until June, when it reverts back to 512k.

www.utilitywarehouse.co.uk

[Riffman]

Have to agree with Riffman - in my experience the AOL BB is terrible - screws up the PC and causes numerous operating system errors with Win XP. However, it works OK on a PC with Win98 or Win ME. Perhaps the Win XP enhanced features are conflicting with the code which AOL installs ?

As long as you don't use the AOL software it is fine. Use the network connections wizard to make a new broadband connection and it will work like normal broadband. Although I still can't get it to share it..... :mad

Riffman

[Geo]

....seems that the CArphone Warehouse deal is exclusive to other TalkTalk landlines only :( so you would be charged for calls to other operators services.
Can anyone (local) confirm this ?

They have three combined Broadband and TalkTalk packages, Talk 1, Talk 2 and Talk 3.

Talk 1 includes "Free calls to all other TalkTalk customers, all of the time"

Talk 2 gives the same plus "Unlimited Free evening and weekend calls to all UK landlines"

Talk 3 gives "Unlimited anytime calls to any UK landlines, as often as you like, whenever you like for one all-inclusive flat rate"

All provide 512KBPS broadband and 30 minutes free calls to mobiles.

Connection is free and a USB ADSL modem and 2 free micro-filters are included. Seems a great deal if the BB service is good.

They also do a 1Mbps version

[307]

Thanks for that George, I was about to post the same details from the Carphone Warehouse website. So for us new bb users then possibly the best combined broadband & phone deal would seem to be Talktalk tariff 2, which is unlimited calls to all UK landlines during the evening & weekend.
Muchas Gracias to all correspondents !! :D

[Riffman]

Whatever you do choose, DO NOT go for the AOL silver, it cannot be networked (as I found out to my cost) and is not worth it!!

Riffman

P.S. I recommend Wanadoo 1mbs, the best package out there.



Update: Got AOL silver networked!!! Yes it is true, I used AnalogX Proxy server and it works fine.

goto www.analogx.com and use the free program. Make sure you have good firewall software though.

Riffman

[t]

I have been using BT 1meg but transfered across to prodigynet

You can get either 512, 1meg or 2 meg for £15 a month for 2 gig download then £1.49 per gig over that but am on the 1 meg and not been charged for the over the limit as of yet.

Also they do 512 unlimited for £19.99.

Ping rates are good play the xbox on it use my VO/IP and play online games on the PC all at once no lag at all.

But to be honest if I was to set up from the start I would go with BT Broadband no BT Yahoo as you get free kit , free connection, then after the year go to another ISP.

Prodigy also has no charges to trasfer to them and no fees for leaving them and you get a 1 month contract.

[caisha]

DON'T go to Wanadoo. I have just moved from Wick to Lybster and had Broadband from them in Wick.

There is a month gap between my moving from Wick and getting bb in Lybster and Wanadoo say that they can't pre-arrange a move of the line because BT would reject it so at the moment:

I am paying for a service I am not getting

they won't change my account to an anytime account so I am having to get dial up access from another provider (which is costing me phone line costs)

I have to phone them again when the Lybster exchange is upgraded and it may take up to another 20 days to move my line

and for all this, they'll charge me £25 on top of the fees that I am already paying for a service i am not getting!

Only my humble opinion (don't want anyone to get into legal trouble)!

Caisha

[307]

Only my humble opinion (don't want anyone to get into legal trouble)!

You're entitled to your opinion & if you have had service which doesn't meet your expectations then you're entitled to let others know of it, as long as your opinion isn't defamatory.

I'm locked into a bi-annual contract (6months) which happens to run out around the time BB is available in Watten. I don't think that I'll be renewing the current contract unless they make a far better deal than I am currently gettting. The Carphone Warehouse Talktalk 2 service looks tempting.......

I'm also looking at moving my webpage to another - perhaps Skorrie Internet Services ? but once again it is down to price etc.

[Geo]

Just an update on the Carphonewarehouse TalkTalk deal.

It's now even better.

New customers signing up this month get:

1Mbps connection
Unlimited "free" evening and weekend calls to all UK landline numbers
"Free" calls to other TalkTalk customers
"Free" modem

All for £14.99 a month

http://www.talktalk.co.uk/talktalk/servlet/gben-broadband-Home

It appears to be uncapped as the more info button states:
"Unlimited downloads - as many movies, tunes etc as you like"

Still no Broadband here until May though. Grrrrrr! :)

[zagor]

we just signed up for homecall
unlimited use 512kbs broadband and various phone packages plus line rental
we went for evening and weekend local and national calls plus broadband for £19.99 month then line rental is £9.99 month after that. Think you can have free calls all the time and broadband for £25.99. Calls to other homecall users free all the time.

Had no problems with the service so far, it all connected slightly ahead of the dates they gave me. Only slight problem we had was BT didn't acknowledge us as customers so homecall couldn't take over the line at first but that was BT's error.

[hammers]

Seeing as AOL seems to be TABOO £24.99 a mnth for 1mb and using their software,5mins and ur up and running download wot u want no limits works fine for me.

[halkirk1]

I signed up for AOL Silver when I first got broadband. It ran at 256k with absolutely no problems at all.

I then upgraded my package to AOL Gold. This is supposed to run at 1Mb but my connection is actually running at 2.2Mb!

I phoned up AOL to double check that I had not been upgraded to their top package (platinum) by mistake but they verified that I am on Gold.

2.2Mb for only £24.99 a month with no download limits.

I have had absolutely no problems whatsoever. I am running Windows XP Home and have never been disconnected and setup only took about 5 minutes from receiving my modem.

I have even figured out how to connect to AOL broadband without using their software and have it networked to my sons PC in his bedroom.

Definitely recommend AOL to anyone, don't always assume that someone elses problems with AOL will be yours.

[DrSzin]

The ADSLguide (http://www.adslguide.org.uk) website has a useful ISP-comparison facility. Click on compare. (http://www.adslguide.org.uk/isps/compare.asp)

Here are some results for the ADSL ISP connections that have been mentioned on this thread:

1. including OneTel and Tiscali -- the worst. (http://www.adslguide.org.uk/isps/compare.asp?aol=ON&bt=ON&iomart=ON&pipex=ON&tiscali=ON&freeserve=ON&cmp_action=Compare)

2. including Eclipse and Nildram -- the best. (http://www.adslguide.org.uk/isps/compare.asp?aol=ON&bt=ON&eclipse=ON&nildram=ON&pipex=ON&prodigynetworks=ON&cmp_action=Compare)

As you see, Eclipse come out best of that little lot, with Nildram second and Pipex third. Prodigy don't seem far behind.

AOL, BT Yahoo and Wanadoo are much of a muchness and sit in the middle.

Tiscali come out worst, with OneTel second worst.

Unfortunately, TalkTalk from the Carphone Warehouse is not on the list at present, but it might be if you are reading this in the future!

Of course, there are dozens more ISPs, I have simply included the ones mentioned on this thread. Apologies if I have missed any. I don't know how seriously one should take these ratings, but the best are presumably a good bit better than the worst.

Prices and packages vary enormously at present, so it pays to shop around. I suspect we will see more big changes over the next few months.

As for connection, if you are going to connect more than one PC, then I would strongly(?) recommend using a combined router/ADSL modem. It makes things much easier and you don't need any proprietary software that isn't already included with Windows.

[colmac]

I have had Tiscali as a broadband provider for 14 months now, and I have had no problems with them the whole time. I selected the 256 kbps option but my modem is running at 589kbps so I am happy with the speed.