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Thread: Changing ISP

  1. #1
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    Changing ISP

    I'm currently with freedom2surf, with which I have been relatively happy. I have an 8mb connection and 20gb monthly download limit. I've been well over in the last few months and haven't been charged the 99p per extra gb, which I can't complain about, clearly; but that could change and would be several extra quid a month.

    However, I was not happy when f2s was bought by Pipex (which I left after atrocious service failures) and even more concerned when Tiscali bought Pipex.

    Looking at the options the other day, I see Be offer a 24mb connection and unlimited downloading, with the same contention ratio as freedom2surf.

    Anybody have any experience of Be, one way or the other?

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    Re: Changing ISP

    Quote Originally Posted by Barry Shnikov View Post
    I'm currently with freedom2surf, with which I have been relatively happy. I have an 8mb connection and 20gb monthly download limit. I've been well over in the last few months and haven't been charged the 99p per extra gb, which I can't complain about, clearly; but that could change and would be several extra quid a month.

    However, I was not happy when f2s was bought by Pipex (which I left after atrocious service failures) and even more concerned when Tiscali bought Pipex.

    Looking at the options the other day, I see Be offer a 24mb connection and unlimited downloading, with the same contention ratio as freedom2surf.

    Anybody have any experience of Be, one way or the other?
    I don't know anything of Be but to get a 24Mb service, you'll need to have a hell of a good line(FO) or live really close to an exchange, I'm with BT Broadband which promised 8Mb but NEVER connects faster than 2.35/2.4Mb.
    Last edited by Brian Doolan; 25th-January-2008 at 03:42 PM. Reason: Grammar

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    Re: Changing ISP

    Quote Originally Posted by Barry Shnikov View Post
    I'm currently with freedom2surf, with which I have been relatively happy. I have an 8mb connection and 20gb monthly download limit. I've been well over in the last few months and haven't been charged the 99p per extra gb, which I can't complain about, clearly; but that could change and would be several extra quid a month.

    However, I was not happy when f2s was bought by Pipex (which I left after atrocious service failures) and even more concerned when Tiscali bought Pipex.

    Looking at the options the other day, I see Be offer a 24mb connection and unlimited downloading, with the same contention ratio as freedom2surf.

    Anybody have any experience of Be, one way or the other?
    Funny you should post this Barry. I've just got my MAC code from Sky Broadband for numerous reasons and have been considering going to BE for the 24mb offer also this last week. Would also be interested to hear of peoples experiences with them...

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    Re: Changing ISP

    ive stayed with Telewest, now VirginMedia - simply because cable is SOOO much better * than ADSL - however from people in the know and some 1st hand opinions Be is apparantly the best for ADSL - so I say go for it.

    *Its a 20mb connection and you actually do get that speed

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    Re: Changing ISP

    Just placed my order with BeThere. Will let you know how it goes and what actually speed I end up getting. (Sky - which is really Easynet, could give me 11MB with intermittent outages or 8MB with a reliable connection).

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    Re: Changing ISP

    Quote Originally Posted by Will View Post
    Just placed my order with BeThere. Will let you know how it goes and what actually speed I end up getting. (Sky - which is really Easynet, could give me 11MB with intermittent outages or 8MB with a reliable connection).
    I am with plusnet (premium account £29 a month 20gig peak download) when it was taken over by bt i nearly changed to sky i spoke to plusnet who said i could go on the business account no download limit 50gig web space and all the business functions my sql etc etc this is now only costing me £23 a month shame they dont tell you this when you sign up
    I cant get bethere (didnt it get taken over by one of the bigger isp's) in this area yet and we dont have cable so i guess i will stick with what i have already

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    Re: Changing ISP

    Quote Originally Posted by martingold View Post
    I am with plusnet (premium account £29 a month 20gig peak download) when it was taken over by bt i nearly changed to sky i spoke to plusnet who said i could go on the business account no download limit 50gig web space and all the business functions my sql etc etc this is now only costing me £23 a month shame they dont tell you this when you sign up
    A narrow escape!

    I cant get bethere (didnt it get taken over by one of the bigger isp's) in this area yet and we dont have cable so i guess i will stick with what i have already
    Yep, they've been bought by O2.

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    Registered User martingold's Avatar
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    Re: Changing ISP

    Quote Originally Posted by Will View Post
    A narrow escape!

    The reason i nearly changed to sky is i have a mate who is with them locally and he is doing ok i wonder if like most of these things that it is different for different areas

    Quote Originally Posted by Will View Post
    Yep, they've been bought by O2.
    thought it was something like that

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    Re: Changing ISP

    I don't think either Sky or Virgin provide broadband only packages, and I have absolutely no intention of signing up for their 3-in-1 services.

    Be say you won't get 24mb unless your with 2½ kilometres of the exchange. Problem is that I know of know way, short of stumbling on the information, how you can find out how far you are from an exchange.

    Be interesting to see what happens for Will.

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    Re: Changing ISP

    Quote Originally Posted by Barry Shnikov View Post
    I don't think either Sky or Virgin provide broadband only packages, and I have absolutely no intention of signing up for their 3-in-1 services.

    Be say you won't get 24mb unless your with 2½ kilometres of the exchange. Problem is that I know of know way, short of stumbling on the information, how you can find out how far you are from an exchange.

    Be interesting to see what happens for Will.
    It's not going to give you an exact answer but this website will give you a rough idea of how far you are from your local exchange.

    Assuming they've cabled me up reasonably efficiently I'm guessing I'm about 1.5km from my exchange.

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    Re: Changing ISP

    So I've now been with BE THERE for 3 days....

    Verdict so far:

    Much better than Sky Broadband. I'm getting about 14meg down and 1meg up. My package should give up to 24 meg, but considering how far I am from the exchange (at least 2km) I'm more than happy with that (especially after Sky had to reduce me to 8 meg for a consistent service).

    Wireless Router (Speedtouch) is much better and more functional than the SKY (Netgear) one. It's not been locked down with the ISP's propriatary firmware for starters.

    I've had 2 issues so far.

    1) Outage caused by me faffing with the firewall settings on the router. Firewall set to off by default, I turned on block all inbound traffic, allow all outbound. It then dropped http in both directions for some reason (so not quite sure what that was all about. Couldn't salvage the firewall settings via telnet so ended up reseting the router to factory defaults and reconfiguring (which was easy with the inbuilt wizard)

    2) Couldn't log into my router after changing the admin password. Turns out that this is a bug when using the speedtouch router web portal with IE7. Found the fix, applied it via telnet and off we go...

    Support

    I did ring their support line before resetting the router to clear my firewall problems just to check that this wasn't going to make matters worse. Was on hold for maybe 30 seconds before I got to speak to a technically capable engineer. So no calling the Philipines only to speak to script readers asking me to suck 20 eggs and then tell me that tier 3 support will call me back a week on Thursday (as happened all the time with SKY).

    Overall

    The cost (£22 per month) is more towards the higher end of home broadband offerings (though good news for me is that my work is paying my bill otherwise I'd still be being a cheapskate probably), but so far (early days I know) I rate the service that I'm getting. It's probably no more than you'd expect to get, but after the last 12 months of misery I've endured with Sky (you can tell I really don't like them) I feel like a new man!

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    Re: Changing ISP

    Quote Originally Posted by Will View Post
    It's not going to give you an exact answer but this website will give you a rough idea of how far you are from your local exchange.

    Assuming they've cabled me up reasonably efficiently I'm guessing I'm about 1.5km from my exchange.
    Wow, Will, thanks for that! According to this I'm only 800 metres away from my exchange!

    I'm definitely gonna change. 24mb here I come!!

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