I know, a wide-open question.
Any opionions on the best broadband package at present ?
Suppliers to avoid ?
Simon.

sm_jamieson wrote:
I know, a wide-open question.
Any opionions on the best broadband package at present ?
Suppliers to avoid ?
Simon.

Try uk.telecom.broadband
IMO: Sky - ****e (Ordered a service in February. Still doesn't work. Sky
couldn't give a toss!)
Currently using Nildram/Pipex. OK, but nothing special. Throttled to f**k on
certain P2P activity.
Entanet resellers (like adsl24) seem to be good value.
And have a look at www.thinkbroadband.com (or is it co.uk?). They list user
ratings.

In article .com,
sm_jamieson writes
I know, a wide-open question.
Any opionions on the best broadband package at present ?
Suppliers to avoid ?
Simon.


None of them;!..

They all seem to be getting as bad as each other but then again most all
rely on BT except the cable companies who have their own set of
problems!....


Suppose Eclipse aren't too bad though their customer service isn't what
it used to be...
--
Tony Sayer

In article .com,
sm_jamieson wrote:
I know, a wide-open question.
Any opionions on the best broadband package at present ?
Suppliers to avoid ?

Andrews & Arnold seem to be getting a lot of
+browny points at the moment.

--
Tony Williams.

On 12 Jun, 14:54, Tony Williams wrote:
In article .com,
sm_jamieson wrote:

I know, a wide-open question.
Any opionions on the best broadband package at present ?
Suppliers to avoid ?

Andrews & Arnold seem to be getting a lot of
+browny points at the moment.

--
Tony Williams.

Thats a broadband supplier ?
Sounds like a "suits-you-sir" bespoke taylors.
Simon.

On Tue, 12 Jun 2007 06:57:11 -0700, sm_jamieson wrote:

On 12 Jun, 14:54, Tony Williams wrote:
In article .com,
sm_jamieson wrote:

I know, a wide-open question.
Any opionions on the best broadband package at present ?
Suppliers to avoid ?

Andrews & Arnold seem to be getting a lot of
+browny points at the moment.

--
Tony Williams.

Thats a broadband supplier ?
Sounds like a "suits-you-sir" bespoke taylors.
Simon.

Well they charge Saville Row prices.

Andy

On Jun 12, 3:13 pm, Andy Cap wrote:
On Tue, 12 Jun 2007 06:57:11 -0700, sm_jamieson wrote:
On 12 Jun, 14:54, Tony Williams wrote:
In article .com,
sm_jamieson wrote:

I know, a wide-open question.
Any opionions on the best broadband package at present ?
Suppliers to avoid ?

Andrews & Arnold seem to be getting a lot of
+browny points at the moment.

Thats a broadband supplier ?
Sounds like a "suits-you-sir" bespoke taylors.
Simon.

Well they charge Saville Row prices.

And give you a Savile Row service, ime. I'm personally with Zen now,
who are also top notch. I don't think it's any surprise that both
companies target small businesses in the main. Domestic users just
tend to go for cheap, cheap and cheap, and they get what they pay for
in that case. I'd definitely avoid Orange - they put their own
equipment in at my kids exchange and bolloxed many connections
completely. The CS droids could only read from the "what does the
supplied modem say" script (supplied modem never used and lost in the
attic somewhere) and no-one in support seemed capable of correlating
sudden losses of service with recent work.

"Have an adequate day."

--

On 12 Jun, 15:08, Huge wrote:
On 2007-06-12, sm_jamieson wrote:

On 12 Jun, 14:54, Tony Williams wrote:
In article .com,
sm_jamieson wrote:

I know, a wide-open question.
Any opionions on the best broadband package at present ?
Suppliers to avoid ?

Andrews & Arnold seem to be getting a lot of
+browny points at the moment.

--
Tony Williams.

Thats a broadband supplier ?

It is.

Sounds like a "suits-you-sir" bespoke taylors.

They're rather more orientated towards the techy user, and I'm
giving serious thought to cancelling my "free" Tiscali connection
and paying for A&A myself, in order to get an ISP With Clue.

--
Had a look, they seem to have rather low download limits for the
price.
I'd really want an unlimited download capacity. Several large programs
or a DVD download, and you're done for the month !
Simon.

On Tue, 12 Jun 2007 14:41:09 UTC, sm_jamieson
wrote:

Andrews & Arnold seem to be getting a lot of
+browny points at the moment.

Had a look, they seem to have rather low download limits for the
price.
I'd really want an unlimited download capacity. Several large programs
or a DVD download, and you're done for the month !

Look more carefully. The limits are download applicable only, and only
during office hours Monday to Friday. Unlimited at all other times.

Been with them for five years, and they're excellent.

I think the OP needs to give more information, though. 'Best' in what
sense? Cheapest? Highest download limits. Best customer service? Etc?
These are all conflicting requirements.

--
The information contained in this post is copyright the
poster, and specifically may not be published in, or used by
http://www.diybanter.com

On 12 Jun, 16:48, "Bob Eager" wrote:
On Tue, 12 Jun 2007 14:41:09 UTC, sm_jamieson
wrote:

Andrews & Arnold seem to be getting a lot of
+browny points at the moment.
Had a look, they seem to have rather low download limits for the
price.
I'd really want an unlimited download capacity. Several large programs
or a DVD download, and you're done for the month !

Look more carefully. The limits are download applicable only, and only
during office hours Monday to Friday. Unlimited at all other times.

Been with them for five years, and they're excellent.

I think the OP needs to give more information, though. 'Best' in what
sense? Cheapest? Highest download limits. Best customer service? Etc?
These are all conflicting requirements.

Well, I know what I want, but its a compromise against cost.
I would have 8Mb, unlimited downloads, website with full scripting
capabilities,
contention ratio 1:1 etc.
A single fixed IP address (so I can monitor my house from work etc)
Customer service - I don't want any technical advice for my end, just
them to fix it within 1 hour if its broke !
(!)
Simon.

On Tue, 12 Jun 2007 16:19:17 UTC, sm_jamieson
wrote:

Well, I know what I want, but its a compromise against cost.
I would have 8Mb, unlimited downloads, website with full scripting
capabilities,
contention ratio 1:1 etc.
A single fixed IP address (so I can monitor my house from work etc)
Customer service - I don't want any technical advice for my end, just
them to fix it within 1 hour if its broke !

Hmmm. Well, I can speak for Andrews and Arnold (AAISP) re the above.

8Mb/s (subject to state of your BT line), unlimited downloads outside
0800-1800 (and also, usually, during Christmas week). Unlimited uploads
at all times (unusual). Fee includes 1GB of web space, with Perl and C
scripting. Not sure which contention ration you're talking about, but
AAISP have quite a lot of backhaul slack. Outside office hours I usually
get full download speed on my connection, far end allowing.

As many static IP addresses as you want (within reason; I have 40!)
free. Customer service gets you a real techie. They are *extremely* good
at chasing BT to fix things, since most of it is usually a BT problem.
On one occasion I reported a fault at 0900 and went out for a few hours.
While I was gone, BT closed the fault, citing my router (nonsense).
AAISP reopened the fault and it was fixed by the time I returned. In
theory they only work office hours Mon-Fri, but in practice they fix
theor own problems pretty quickly.

Also includes one .co.uk (or related) domain name; no transfer
penalties. Use of their nameservers and mail servers, either as
primaries or as backups; your choice. Run whatever you like on the line
as they filter nothing.

Another CS example: I wanted a new domain name at 1720 on a Friday. I
emailed, and it was set up before 1740.

--
The information contained in this post is copyright the
poster, and specifically may not be published in, or used by
http://www.diybanter.com

Broadband wise i've been with Pipex, Metronet, Freedom To Surf and have now
been with Zen for over a year and I can honestly say that Zen are pretty
much perfect. The connection very rarely drops and is always at full
throttle and when you need to speak to someone they're English and second to
none.

http://www.zen.co.uk/broadband/ZenBroadband.aspx

"sm_jamieson" wrote in message
oups.com...
I know, a wide-open question.
Any opionions on the best broadband package at present ?
Suppliers to avoid ?
Simon.


Don't touch Tiscali - they lie to customers and the engineers can't fix the
many problems in a reasonable time. They lied about the last server and
said it was down to spammers sending emails when it wasn't.
Beinternet looks OK.
Don't forget that ISPs use English for contracts under English Law and a
non-English dictionary in which the words have a different meaning once put
in to a contract. Some ISPs are also breaking the Law by having a
misleading or one sided contract - under the Unfair Contract Terms Act.

"Tony Williams" wrote in message
...
In article .com,
sm_jamieson wrote:
I know, a wide-open question.
Any opionions on the best broadband package at present ?
Suppliers to avoid ?

Andrews & Arnold seem to be getting a lot of
+browny points at the moment.

--
Tony Williams.

Far too expensive and 1GB a month during 8am to 6pm is silly. You can use
more than that by using Youtube, listening to internet streams and receiving
emails. Don't forget this figure includes ALL data sent to the user by the
ISP. I think they are a bit too expensive. If they were able to supply a
decent service they would not have such a low limit.
Definitely a company to avoid unless you like the name or to be restricted.

On Jun 12, 1:40 pm, sm_jamieson wrote:
I know, a wide-open question.
Any opionions on the best broadband package at present ?
Suppliers to avoid ?
Simon.

Look up your exchange on 'samknows' and see what LLU ISPs there are
for your number, then check out feedback on them at 'thinkbroadband'.

For info on LLU look up 'LLU wiki'

I'm on UKOnline 1Mbit LLU, £9.99/mo unlimited, took longer than
expected to get connected but very good since.

cheers,
Pete.

In article . com, Pete
C writes
On Jun 12, 1:40 pm, sm_jamieson wrote:
I know, a wide-open question.
Any opionions on the best broadband package at present ?
Suppliers to avoid ?
Simon.

Look up your exchange on 'samknows' and see what LLU ISPs there are
for your number, then check out feedback on them at 'thinkbroadband'.

For info on LLU look up 'LLU wiki'

I'm on UKOnline 1Mbit LLU, £9.99/mo unlimited, took longer than
expected to get connected but very good since.

cheers,
Pete.


If.. Your in a cabled area and can put up with the less than just so
*customer service .. Virgin media nee ntl aren't that bad and do offer
quite a good service..

Well we use 'em anyway!...



* mind U all telecoms companies are pretty poor these days...
--
Tony Sayer

In message , tony sayer
writes
In article . com, Pete
C writes
On Jun 12, 1:40 pm, sm_jamieson wrote:
I know, a wide-open question.
Any opionions on the best broadband package at present ?
Suppliers to avoid ?
Simon.

Look up your exchange on 'samknows' and see what LLU ISPs there are
for your number, then check out feedback on them at 'thinkbroadband'.

For info on LLU look up 'LLU wiki'

I'm on UKOnline 1Mbit LLU, £9.99/mo unlimited, took longer than
expected to get connected but very good since.

cheers,
Pete.


If.. Your in a cabled area and can put up with the less than just so
*customer service .. Virgin media nee ntl aren't that bad and do offer
quite a good service..

Well we use 'em anyway!...

So do I at home

HOWEVER ...

They are very good at agreeing to things / making promises that they
just don't implement. I don't know if they lie or just don't bother to
do what they agree to, they just don't live up to their promises

.... but finally I got a deal for the next 6 months of 10meg / tv family
pack / free evening and weekend calls for £28 / month

which I think is a good deal


--
geoff

In message . com, Pete
C writes
On Jun 12, 1:40 pm, sm_jamieson wrote:
I know, a wide-open question.
Any opionions on the best broadband package at present ?
Suppliers to avoid ?
Simon.

Look up your exchange on 'samknows' and see what LLU ISPs there are
for your number, then check out feedback on them at 'thinkbroadband'.

For info on LLU look up 'LLU wiki'

I'm on UKOnline 1Mbit LLU, £9.99/mo unlimited, took longer than
expected to get connected but very good since.


But remember if you don't like the ISP, you can't (as yet anyway) as
easily and cheaply jump ship and migrate to another one.
--
Chris French

On 2007-06-12 17:19:17 +0100, sm_jamieson said:

On 12 Jun, 16:48, "Bob Eager" wrote:
On Tue, 12 Jun 2007 14:41:09 UTC, sm_jamieson
wrote:

Andrews & Arnold seem to be getting a lot of
+browny points at the moment.
Had a look, they seem to have rather low download limits for the
price.
I'd really want an unlimited download capacity. Several large programs
or a DVD download, and you're done for the month !

Look more carefully. The limits are download applicable only, and only
during office hours Monday to Friday. Unlimited at all other times.

Been with them for five years, and they're excellent.

I think the OP needs to give more information, though. 'Best' in what
sense? Cheapest? Highest download limits. Best customer service? Etc?
These are all conflicting requirements.

Well, I know what I want, but its a compromise against cost.
I would have 8Mb, unlimited downloads, website with full scripting
capabilities,
contention ratio 1:1 etc.
A single fixed IP address (so I can monitor my house from work etc)
Customer service - I don't want any technical advice for my end, just
them to fix it within 1 hour if its broke !
(!)
Simon.

You won't get that from an ADSL supplier. Some are offering an
additional level of service that BT Openreach will fix problems on
their side in 20hrs vs. the usual 40.

SDSL services can be provided with a better service level, but are more
restricted on distance/bandwidth.

Other than that, there are leased lines. Budget about £7k install
and a similar amount per annum for one of those at 2Mbit depending on
distance to the nearest POP.

On 2007-06-12 16:48:58 +0100, "Bob Eager" said:

On Tue, 12 Jun 2007 14:41:09 UTC, sm_jamieson
wrote:

Andrews & Arnold seem to be getting a lot of
+browny points at the moment.

Had a look, they seem to have rather low download limits for the
price.
I'd really want an unlimited download capacity. Several large programs
or a DVD download, and you're done for the month !

Look more carefully. The limits are download applicable only, and only
during office hours Monday to Friday. Unlimited at all other times.

Been with them for five years, and they're excellent.

I think the OP needs to give more information, though. 'Best' in what
sense? Cheapest? Highest download limits. Best customer service? Etc?
These are all conflicting requirements.

I'm also looking for an ISP at present but have higher than normal
upload bandwidth requirements such that a bonded arrangement may be an
option, so I have been looking at suppliers of that.

In general, from those that I have called so far, it is very clear that
those focussed on the domestic market are just playing the numbers
game, attempting to minimise churn and all the rest that goes with that
particular trough.

It also appears that the smaller, business focussed ISPs are likely to
do a better job than the larger players but not surprisingly are a
little more expensive. I am slightly concerned about the financial
aspects of some that I contacted in that they are typically in the £2m
revenue bracket and often only just in profit or losing money. Up to
a point, that doesn't matter too much if they are using BT IPStream
services other than if one needs to move, it becomes a bit of a PITA to
reconfigure for new static address space.

I must admit that I do find volume based tariffs irritating unless they
could be operated on a quarterly rather than monthly basis.

In message , brian
writes

"Tony Williams" wrote in message
...
In article .com,
sm_jamieson wrote:
I know, a wide-open question.
Any opionions on the best broadband package at present ?
Suppliers to avoid ?

Andrews & Arnold seem to be getting a lot of
+browny points at the moment.

Far too expensive

Well, that depends, not it's not as cheap as some others but for us I
consider it good value. For our usage it's actually cheaper than a lot
of other 'quality' ISP's such as Zen and Newnet, because we have pretty
high overall data transfer amounts

and 1GB a month during 8am to 6pm is silly.

It's not silly at all, again it all depends. And you can have a higher
daytime download limit if you want.

You can use
more than that by using Youtube, listening to internet streams and receiving
emails.

Yep, but then, not everyone necessarily wants to use their connection
that way. If for example someone is out at work during the daytime, they
might hardly use the connection at all during metered times ! GB would
probably be fine for them. But yes, I'd agree that if you are likely to
be a heavy daytime user then A&A is probably not the ISP to use. Horses
for courses and all that.

Don't forget this figure includes ALL data sent to the user by the
ISP.

Umm, wouldn't that apply to any other ISP? It doesn't include uploads
though, which generally ISP's do - this is not insignificant. Our
uploads have been greater than our downloads every month this year.

I think they are a bit too expensive. If they were able to supply a
decent service they would not have such a low limit.

Sorry, the last bit is rubbish. They provide a very good service. They
are a small ISP, they need to have a niche, rather than try and take on
the bigger boys just on price. Their niche is as a primarily business
oriented or technically user oriented ISP

Definitely a company to avoid unless you like the name or to be restricted.

All ISP's have restrictions, in part it's about picking the restrictions
that suit your usage. Personally, I prefer the upfront restrictions of
A&A to for example, the lack of information on your usage and traffic
shaping applied by my previous ISP, Eclipse.
--
Chris French

On Wed, 13 Jun 2007 00:18:11 UTC, Andy Hall wrote:

I must admit that I do find volume based tariffs irritating unless they
could be operated on a quarterly rather than monthly basis.

On most of their tariffs, AAISP have a 10GB 'overdraft' to smooth out
peaks.

--
The information contained in this post is copyright the
poster, and specifically may not be published in, or used by
http://www.diybanter.com

"tony sayer" wrote in message
...
In article . com, Pete
C writes
On Jun 12, 1:40 pm, sm_jamieson wrote:
I know, a wide-open question.
Any opionions on the best broadband package at present ?
Suppliers to avoid ?
Simon.

Look up your exchange on 'samknows' and see what LLU ISPs there are
for your number, then check out feedback on them at 'thinkbroadband'.

For info on LLU look up 'LLU wiki'

I'm on UKOnline 1Mbit LLU, £9.99/mo unlimited, took longer than
expected to get connected but very good since.

cheers,
Pete.


If.. Your in a cabled area and can put up with the less than just so
*customer service .. Virgin media nee ntl aren't that bad and do offer
quite a good service..

Well we use 'em anyway!...



* mind U all telecoms companies are pretty poor these days...
--
Tony Sayer


Perhaps you won't be too happy to hear that from 01/07/07 Virgin will be
charging 25p per minute for broadband phone support...

Virgin has recently announced that from July it will be charging 25p/minute
for calls to its broadband support line. In an e-mail to customers last
week, it explains the huge call volumes its support teams are facing about
"other issues not related to [their] service" which it claims are not
practical for them as a business to sustain.
This illustrates a clear problem with IT support in general with users of IT
services not understanding what they are buying or the responsibilities of
their suppliers to deliver a service. Within the ISP industry, it is not
uncommon to hear the phrase "Is the Internet down?" on the phone as if the
inability to access a particular website would indicate that the entire
global network of networks known as "the Internet" on which so many
transactions occur, would be inoperable. The problems often lie in the
general lack of understanding about Internet technologies and thus needing
to turn to the first port of call, which usually ends up being the ISP
helpdesk, even though the problem may well be on the local computer, or on
the other side of the world outside the ISP's control.

Virgin's price increase will no doubt be controversial and is likely to
upset users with genuine problems. The company states it hopes this will
encourage users to use the online support tools on its website before they
call for support, although this is quite difficult if the Internet
connection is not working.

RedOnRed ) gurgled happily, sounding much like they were
saying :

If.. Your in a cabled area and can put up with the less than just so
*customer service .. Virgin media nee ntl aren't that bad and do
offer quite a good service..

Well we use 'em anyway!...

Virgin's price increase will no doubt be controversial and is likely
to upset users with genuine problems.

VM are continuing in the long & proud tradition of NThelL.

Customer Service to kill over, but the actual connection just plain can't
be beaten. I'm a staunch fan of cable over ADSL - but the muppets providing
it do leave something to be desired.

Mind you, as has previously been said, is there a single *decent* ADSL
provider? There's plenty of good small resellers - we're just getting a
Cerberus Networks connection into a new office, and they're absolutely
fantastic to deal with on the sales side.

In article , raden
writes
In message , tony sayer
writes
In article . com, Pete
C writes
On Jun 12, 1:40 pm, sm_jamieson wrote:
I know, a wide-open question.
Any opionions on the best broadband package at present ?
Suppliers to avoid ?
Simon.

Look up your exchange on 'samknows' and see what LLU ISPs there are
for your number, then check out feedback on them at 'thinkbroadband'.

For info on LLU look up 'LLU wiki'

I'm on UKOnline 1Mbit LLU, £9.99/mo unlimited, took longer than
expected to get connected but very good since.

cheers,
Pete.


If.. Your in a cabled area and can put up with the less than just so
*customer service .. Virgin media nee ntl aren't that bad and do offer
quite a good service..

Well we use 'em anyway!...

So do I at home

HOWEVER ...

They are very good at agreeing to things / making promises that they
just don't implement. I don't know if they lie or just don't bother to
do what they agree to, they just don't live up to their promises

... but finally I got a deal for the next 6 months of 10meg / tv family
pack / free evening and weekend calls for £28 / month

which I think is a good deal



Its a shame that sort of thing goes on 'tho I've very rarely had to
contact them, but their management does leave quite a bit to be desired.
It surprises me that they don't concentrate on the business broadband
market at all it seems..

There is a lot to do with what cable co it was in the first place, we're
in Cambridge and that one was put together very well but other areas
weren't. Still its an alternative to BT which isn't a bad thing.

But after all its a telecoms company and their the worst to deal with
after Banks for communicating with;!....
--
Tony Sayer

In article , RedOnRed
writes

"tony sayer" wrote in message
...
In article . com, Pete
C writes
On Jun 12, 1:40 pm, sm_jamieson wrote:
I know, a wide-open question.
Any opionions on the best broadband package at present ?
Suppliers to avoid ?
Simon.

Look up your exchange on 'samknows' and see what LLU ISPs there are
for your number, then check out feedback on them at 'thinkbroadband'.

For info on LLU look up 'LLU wiki'

I'm on UKOnline 1Mbit LLU, £9.99/mo unlimited, took longer than
expected to get connected but very good since.

cheers,
Pete.


If.. Your in a cabled area and can put up with the less than just so
*customer service .. Virgin media nee ntl aren't that bad and do offer
quite a good service..

Well we use 'em anyway!...



* mind U all telecoms companies are pretty poor these days...
--
Tony Sayer


Perhaps you won't be too happy to hear that from 01/07/07 Virgin will be
charging 25p per minute for broadband phone support...



Virgin has recently announced that from July it will be charging 25p/minute
for calls to its broadband support line. In an e-mail to customers last
week, it explains the huge call volumes its support teams are facing about
"other issues not related to [their] service" which it claims are not
practical for them as a business to sustain.
This illustrates a clear problem with IT support in general with users of IT
services not understanding what they are buying or the responsibilities of
their suppliers to deliver a service. Within the ISP industry, it is not
uncommon to hear the phrase "Is the Internet down?" on the phone as if the
inability to access a particular website would indicate that the entire
global network of networks known as "the Internet" on which so many
transactions occur, would be inoperable. The problems often lie in the
general lack of understanding about Internet technologies and thus needing
to turn to the first port of call, which usually ends up being the ISP
helpdesk, even though the problem may well be on the local computer, or on
the other side of the world outside the ISP's control.

Virgin's price increase will no doubt be controversial and is likely to
upset users with genuine problems. The company states it hopes this will
encourage users to use the online support tools on its website before they
call for support, although this is quite difficult if the Internet
connection is not working.



I can understand them doing that as people in the main are sooo stupid
when it comes to even the simplest things with PC's. I have to do a
support role of sorts and despite telling them to check the very simple
things, they still want to have their bum's wiped for them!..

So if they want to do that then fine...can't say in a way I blame them.
After all you very much get what you pay for in the BB market...
--
Tony Sayer

In article , chris French
writes
In message . com, Pete
C writes
On Jun 12, 1:40 pm, sm_jamieson wrote:
I know, a wide-open question.
Any opionions on the best broadband package at present ?
Suppliers to avoid ?
Simon.

Look up your exchange on 'samknows' and see what LLU ISPs there are
for your number, then check out feedback on them at 'thinkbroadband'.

For info on LLU look up 'LLU wiki'

I'm on UKOnline 1Mbit LLU, £9.99/mo unlimited, took longer than
expected to get connected but very good since.


£10 quid a month eh?, now don't tell me you expect the earth for
that?...
--
Tony Sayer

tony sayer ) gurgled happily, sounding much like they
were saying :

It surprises me that they don't concentrate on the business broadband
market at all it seems..

They do.

http://www.ntltelewestbusiness.co.uk/

Unfortunately, their back office is in utter turmoil, and neither of the
two offices we considered could be supplied, due to falling between billing
systems, despite having cable physically available down the street...

In article ,
tony sayer wrote:

£10 quid a month eh?, now don't tell me you expect the earth for
that?...

Well exactly. It is such a competitive business that
you (more or less) expect to get what you pay for.

--
Tony Williams.

In article . 131,
Adrian writes
tony sayer ) gurgled happily, sounding much like they
were saying :

It surprises me that they don't concentrate on the business broadband
market at all it seems..

They do.

http://www.ntltelewestbusiness.co.uk/

Unfortunately, their back office is in utter turmoil, and neither of the
two offices we considered could be supplied, due to falling between billing
systems, despite having cable physically available down the street...

That.. Is our experience of them exactly!...

Lions led by donkeys anyone...
--
Tony Sayer

"tony sayer" wrote in message
...
In article , RedOnRed
writes

"tony sayer" wrote in message
...
In article . com, Pete
C writes
On Jun 12, 1:40 pm, sm_jamieson wrote:
I know, a wide-open question.
Any opionions on the best broadband package at present ?
Suppliers to avoid ?
Simon.

Look up your exchange on 'samknows' and see what LLU ISPs there are
for your number, then check out feedback on them at 'thinkbroadband'.

For info on LLU look up 'LLU wiki'

I'm on UKOnline 1Mbit LLU, £9.99/mo unlimited, took longer than
expected to get connected but very good since.

cheers,
Pete.


If.. Your in a cabled area and can put up with the less than just so
*customer service .. Virgin media nee ntl aren't that bad and do offer
quite a good service..

Well we use 'em anyway!...



* mind U all telecoms companies are pretty poor these days...
--
Tony Sayer


Perhaps you won't be too happy to hear that from 01/07/07 Virgin will be
charging 25p per minute for broadband phone support...



Virgin has recently announced that from July it will be charging
25p/minute
for calls to its broadband support line. In an e-mail to customers last
week, it explains the huge call volumes its support teams are facing about
"other issues not related to [their] service" which it claims are not
practical for them as a business to sustain.
This illustrates a clear problem with IT support in general with users of
IT
services not understanding what they are buying or the responsibilities of
their suppliers to deliver a service. Within the ISP industry, it is not
uncommon to hear the phrase "Is the Internet down?" on the phone as if the
inability to access a particular website would indicate that the entire
global network of networks known as "the Internet" on which so many
transactions occur, would be inoperable. The problems often lie in the
general lack of understanding about Internet technologies and thus needing
to turn to the first port of call, which usually ends up being the ISP
helpdesk, even though the problem may well be on the local computer, or on
the other side of the world outside the ISP's control.

Virgin's price increase will no doubt be controversial and is likely to
upset users with genuine problems. The company states it hopes this will
encourage users to use the online support tools on its website before they
call for support, although this is quite difficult if the Internet
connection is not working.



I can understand them doing that as people in the main are sooo stupid
when it comes to even the simplest things with PC's. I have to do a
support role of sorts and despite telling them to check the very simple
things, they still want to have their bum's wiped for them!..

So if they want to do that then fine...can't say in a way I blame them.
After all you very much get what you pay for in the BB market...
--
Tony Sayer



Lol, I know what you mean. I'm in support too.

I remember having to go and see a user that had logged a call for a faulty
mouse and as soon as I arrived I noticed that there were no lights on her
PC...it just needed switching on!

Some people do have to call for genuine reasons though which are no fault of
their own and 25p a minute for support is unjustifiable in my view. I'd even
rather speak to an Indian call centre then pay that!

"Tony Williams" wrote in message
...
In article ,
tony sayer wrote:

£10 quid a month eh?, now don't tell me you expect the earth for
that?...

Well exactly. It is such a competitive business that
you (more or less) expect to get what you pay for.

If it goes well Sky is very good.
I get 15Mbit for £10 pm.
No limits (I have not hit the FUP yet)
and I get 1.5Mbytes/sec from astranews most of the time.

Treat it as a no frills internet connection and its fine.. if you expect the
email to work you may be disappointed.
No news server and no web sites either ATM.

On Jun 13, 9:44 am, Huge wrote:
On 2007-06-12, sm_jamieson wrote:





On 12 Jun, 15:08, Huge wrote:
On 2007-06-12, sm_jamieson wrote:

On 12 Jun, 14:54, Tony Williams wrote:
In article .com,
sm_jamieson wrote:

I know, a wide-open question.
Any opionions on the best broadband package at present ?
Suppliers to avoid ?

Andrews & Arnold seem to be getting a lot of
+browny points at the moment.

--
Tony Williams.

Thats a broadband supplier ?

It is.

Sounds like a "suits-you-sir" bespoke taylors.

They're rather more orientated towards the techy user, and I'm
giving serious thought to cancelling my "free" Tiscali connection
and paying for A&A myself, in order to get an ISP With Clue.

Had a look, they seem to have rather low download limits for the
price.

Only at certain times of day.

I'd really want an unlimited download capacity. Several large programs
or a DVD download,

I don't generally steal my entertainment, so I'm not bothered about
peer-to-peer nonsense.

*Appluase*

MBQ

Andy Hall wrote:
On 2007-06-12 16:48:58 +0100, "Bob Eager" said:

On Tue, 12 Jun 2007 14:41:09 UTC, sm_jamieson
wrote:

Andrews & Arnold seem to be getting a lot of
+browny points at the moment.

Had a look, they seem to have rather low download limits for the
price.
I'd really want an unlimited download capacity. Several large programs
or a DVD download, and you're done for the month !

Look more carefully. The limits are download applicable only, and only
during office hours Monday to Friday. Unlimited at all other times.

Been with them for five years, and they're excellent.

I think the OP needs to give more information, though. 'Best' in what
sense? Cheapest? Highest download limits. Best customer service? Etc?
These are all conflicting requirements.

I'm also looking for an ISP at present but have higher than normal
upload bandwidth requirements such that a bonded arrangement may be an
option, so I have been looking at suppliers of that.

In general, from those that I have called so far, it is very clear that
those focussed on the domestic market are just playing the numbers game,
attempting to minimise churn and all the rest that goes with that
particular trough.

It also appears that the smaller, business focussed ISPs are likely to
do a better job than the larger players but not surprisingly are a
little more expensive. I am slightly concerned about the financial
aspects of some that I contacted in that they are typically in the £2m
revenue bracket and often only just in profit or losing money. Up to a
point, that doesn't matter too much if they are using BT IPStream
services other than if one needs to move, it becomes a bit of a PITA to
reconfigure for new static address space.

I must admit that I do find volume based tariffs irritating unless they
could be operated on a quarterly rather than monthly basis.

I have a Be* (www.bethere.co.uk) ADSL2+ connection in the office which I
haven't had any problems with despite being extremely cheap. Its LLU so
obviously not available everywhere but for £40 a month you get up to
24Mbps downstream (we connect at somewhere around 14Mbps IIRC) and up to
2.5Mbps upstream, 24/7 unlimited usage, free wireless modem & 1 static
IP address.

On Tue, 12 Jun 2007 15:41:09 +0100, sm_jamieson
wrote:

On 12 Jun, 15:08, Huge wrote:
On 2007-06-12, sm_jamieson wrote:

On 12 Jun, 14:54, Tony Williams wrote:
In article .com,
sm_jamieson wrote:

I know, a wide-open question.
Any opionions on the best broadband package at present ?
Suppliers to avoid ?

Andrews & Arnold seem to be getting a lot of
+browny points at the moment.

--
Tony Williams.

Thats a broadband supplier ?

It is.

Sounds like a "suits-you-sir" bespoke taylors.

They're rather more orientated towards the techy user, and I'm
giving serious thought to cancelling my "free" Tiscali connection
and paying for A&A myself, in order to get an ISP With Clue.

--
Had a look, they seem to have rather low download limits for the
price.
I'd really want an unlimited download capacity. Several large programs
or a DVD download, and you're done for the month !
Simon.


Entanet has some reasonable download limits. I am going through
www.ukfsn.org and for 19.95 a month get a 30Gb limit and and extra 300Gb
between (I think) 10:00pm and 6:00am which is good for any REALLY large
downloads. Although I have never had the need.

Andrew

In article .com,
sm_jamieson wrote:
I know, a wide-open question.
Any opionions on the best broadband package at present ?

Define Best. IMO it's pick 2 of three: Cheap, Fast, Reliable.

Zen give me Fast and Reliable.

www.zen.co.uk

UK call centre too - who actually called me when I had an upgrade issue!
Call on Thursday afternoon, upgrade to ADSL-MAX by 8am the next day,
and was then saving myself £10 a month too. (I'm on the £25pcm package)

Gordon

"Gordon Henderson" wrote in message
...
In article .com,
sm_jamieson wrote:
I know, a wide-open question.
Any opionions on the best broadband package at present ?

Define Best. IMO it's pick 2 of three: Cheap, Fast, Reliable.

Zen give me Fast and Reliable.

www.zen.co.uk

UK call centre too - who actually called me when I had an upgrade issue!
Call on Thursday afternoon, upgrade to ADSL-MAX by 8am the next day,
and was then saving myself £10 a month too. (I'm on the £25pcm package)

Gordon

The same here with Zen...reliable and fast and getting what I pay for
really, although not that cheap (compared to Sky anyway).

For ages I was hopping from ISP to ISP and then I joined Zen. The only real
reason to leave is over cost. The thing is that I value my connection too
much to take the risk over the service lottery at Sky.

On Jun 13, 12:02 am, chris French
wrote:
In message . com, Pete
C writes

On Jun 12, 1:40 pm, sm_jamieson wrote:
I know, a wide-open question.
Any opionions on the best broadband package at present ?
Suppliers to avoid ?
Simon.

Look up your exchange on 'samknows' and see what LLU ISPs there are
for your number, then check out feedback on them at 'thinkbroadband'.

For info on LLU look up 'LLU wiki'

I'm on UKOnline 1Mbit LLU, £9.99/mo unlimited, took longer than
expected to get connected but very good since.

But remember if you don't like the ISP, you can't (as yet anyway) as
easily and cheaply jump ship and migrate to another one.

True, but that's the nature of LLU. I'd rather have that than an ISP
that's expensive, crap, or starts off good and cheap but goes downhill
over time.

With LLU there aren't any problems with throttling/capping/
overcontended 'pipes' as it uses the ISP's own network instead of BT's

cheers,
Pete.

On Wed, 13 Jun 2007 18:18:54 UTC, Pete C wrote:

With LLU there aren't any problems with throttling/capping/
overcontended 'pipes' as it uses the ISP's own network instead of BT's

A rose tinted view. No guarantee that the ISP's own network is properly
and adequately provisioned.

--
The information contained in this post is copyright the
poster, and specifically may not be published in, or used by
http://www.diybanter.com

In message , Richard Conway
writes
Andy Hall wrote:
On 2007-06-12 16:48:58 +0100, "Bob Eager" said:

On Tue, 12 Jun 2007 14:41:09 UTC, sm_jamieson

wrote:

Andrews & Arnold seem to be getting a lot of
+browny points at the moment.

Had a look, they seem to have rather low download limits for the
price.
I'd really want an unlimited download capacity. Several large programs
or a DVD download, and you're done for the month !

Look more carefully. The limits are download applicable only, and only
during office hours Monday to Friday. Unlimited at all other times.

Been with them for five years, and they're excellent.

I think the OP needs to give more information, though. 'Best' in what
sense? Cheapest? Highest download limits. Best customer service? Etc?
These are all conflicting requirements.
I'm also looking for an ISP at present but have higher than normal
upload bandwidth requirements such that a bonded arrangement may be an
option, so I have been looking at suppliers of that.
In general, from those that I have called so far, it is very clear
that those focussed on the domestic market are just playing the
numbers game, attempting to minimise churn and all the rest that goes
with that particular trough.
It also appears that the smaller, business focussed ISPs are likely
to do a better job than the larger players but not surprisingly are a
little more expensive. I am slightly concerned about the financial
aspects of some that I contacted in that they are typically in the
£2m revenue bracket and often only just in profit or losing money.
Up to a point, that doesn't matter too much if they are using BT
IPStream services other than if one needs to move, it becomes a bit
of a PITA to reconfigure for new static address space.
I must admit that I do find volume based tariffs irritating unless
they could be operated on a quarterly rather than monthly basis.

I have a Be* (www.bethere.co.uk) ADSL2+ connection in the office which
I haven't had any problems with despite being extremely cheap. Its LLU
so obviously not available everywhere but for £40 a month you get up to
24Mbps downstream (we connect at somewhere around 14Mbps IIRC) and up
to 2.5Mbps upstream, 24/7 unlimited usage, free wireless modem & 1
static IP address.


£40 ?

It was £20 when I applied for it

--
geoff