stevebt

iTrader: (8)

whats the best broadband deals around at the moment or can someone recommend a good ISP !! it has to be highest mb and has to be unlimited service !! i was looking at the AOL unlimited 8mb package ! is anyone using this and have and good bad reports about it ???

mike1210

AOL are rubbish and i couldn't recommend them to anyone.

* Rubbish customer service

* Abysmal Routing (paths from UK to the BBC go via New York etc)

* now been taken over and i would imagine will be implementing aggresive traffic shaping in the future......or now even

ISP's cant really do unlimited 8 meg services anymore but

Broadband Max Connections up to 8 Meg from Aquiss

may be your best bet

I'd go with Zen but a strict cap is enforced on downloading

Home Broadband

Ian

iTrader: (10)

ntl? have got there 4meg and it works well enough for me

stevem2k

If you have a sky account and your local exchange is enabled for Easynet then the 16mb account for a tenner is top value

SirFozzalot

Yep, if you have Sky TV, then the broadband packages they offer are very good value.

2MB download ~ 6GB limit = FREE
8MB download ~ 40GB limit = £5.00 per month
16MB download ~ unlimited = £10.00 per month

I had loads of hassle getting my router, but other than that the service has been spot on with quick download speeds and, so far, no down-time that I have noticed.

stevebt

iTrader: (8)

how much is a sky package then adding the broadband ??? as i dont mind paying to get that 16mb service

ossett2k2

iTrader: (9)

I get my 10meg for free But use my modded box is for educational purposes only!
Pipex seem quite good @£14.99 for 8meg

SirFozzalot

I believe you can have basic packages from as little as £15 a month.

SKY packages

mike1210

check here

The Broadband Resource

olliecampbell

iTrader: (3)

Eclipse are good for me. 8mb no download limits....

StudentScooby

Ive been with aol for ages and never had any problems at all. unlimited downloads for 14.99 is spot on!

pimmo2000

iTrader: (6)

www.bethere.co.uk

24mb down

1.3 up you cant beat that for 24.99 and I work for telewest

Mick

iTrader: (1)

AOL have been great for me too - excellent customer service and fantastic connection, Silver at £14.99 a month is going up from 1MB to 2MB soon

You also get a free Netgear wireless router when you join

Brilliant deal!

- why do people who don't use AOL always leap in to say how bad they are

Mick

pimmo2000

iTrader: (6)

the software AOL provides is very.. er.. controlling and many people who have delt with removing it begin to hate AOL. Although the newer software is getting better AOL still sucks

Why AOL Sucks

Mick

iTrader: (1)

He's talking about AOL 4.0 and AOL 5.0 - and being kicked off after 5 minutes - DIALUP!!!!

This is 2007 and AOL now have broadband! - it works - it's cheap, it doesn't cut you off and you don't even have to install the aOL software if you're that paranoid - sign up - get the deal & the free router and run everything though whatever software you like! - AOL Live Help is superb if you get any problems.

The only thing that bugged me was the constant sales pitch on the faster broadband packages, not so keen to get you to drop down to a cheaper package. - But I left Gold and went to Silver, saving £10 a month & getting a free router in the process - happy happy happy & now the speed is going up to 2MB like the Gold package was before I jumped ship

So if you want proper info on how well AOL are doing - talk to someone who is using them now - not some drivel written last millenium

Mick

pimmo2000

iTrader: (6)

well I googled it and posted the first link

Mick

iTrader: (1)

Teach you for being lazy sunshine

mike1210

Mick, having used several ISP's and having experience of AOL i can say they were not much cop. If you are having a good service with them great, but im going on my own experiences which do include first hand dealings with them.

To be fair the router you get with them now is apparently very good (mate of mine set one up last week) so props go to them for that. I will say though the routing problem (sorry geek terms here) still seems to exist. They didnt used to work that well with routers at all due a different authentication system they used to use i believe. Things in that sense may be on the up but still there are better ISP's out there

all of course in my own opinion

thinkbroadband: The UK's largest independent ADSL review site - Your guide to UK broadband Internet.


check the comparison above, i'll always recommend ZEN

Mick

iTrader: (1)

Interesting piece of a survey Mike... and a lot more informative than a comment like 'AOL are crap' which gets posted virtually every time this very common subject of ISP comes up You will have noted of course that IDNet has a 'very low' number of ratings... only 100 for this particular month, aol are rated by 6,000 + users and BTBroadband by 16,000 users -

Aol get a score of 51% on 'speed' from the average user... What does that mean? - do people know when it is the ISPs fault that a download is slow compared to when internet traffic makes it slow? - I certainly don't! - I do know that most of my big downloads occurr pretty close to the maximum download speed of my connection. the rating you get a choice of 1-5 - I give them 4/5 - I don't know - i'm not an expert - should it be 5/5 or 3/5 - I'm sure it could be better - but not much?

I think it's probably like with consumer surveys on cars - Subarus did really well when it was only us enthuiasts running them and answering surveys - we forgave many faults - whereas Ford had all the whingeing company car owners to contend with, who really wanted a BMW or Lexus instead

I'm not dedicated to AOL - I just don't think they deserve the knee-jerk bad press from 'experts' - If there really is a noticeably better and cheaper ISP out there I leap at the opportunity (well once my 12 months on my new contract with AOL silver to get my free modem are up )

So please give real info or personal experience but not just chinese whisper internet rumour and gossip column opinions

Mick

mike1210

Mick.... first hand experience..... my parents were on AOL before i migrated them off it . Supplied them with a modem etc which didnt work, and calls to "support" were not exactly helpful to say the least. They didnt have a clue and were just damn annoying. Cancelling to be fair wasn't too painfull (id post the link of the guy who recorded his call to AOL in Anerica trying to cancel but the links seem to be down, that was shocking).

Migrated them and the net seems a lot better. They have now been aquired by Talk Talk so things I would imagine will be going downhill for you AOL'ers. Traffic shaping is being implemented now (i think a bandwidth cap is farier), how agressive this is im not sure of.

The routing problem still seem apparent, people on here moaning about ping times etc (91ms to the BBC anyone???), this can have detrimental effects of playing games online.

have you used any other ISP's?

Several people on here aren't willing to try anything new, the AVG crew are examples of this "I've never had a virus etc and even though ive never tried anything i know it's the best". I am not one of those people, I will only give my opinion when I feel I can justify it

fair point about IDnet though

Mr.Manchester

Do sky offer a phone service in with there broadband?

At the moment im paying Tiscali £19.99 a month for 1mb unlimited and all my calls are free.

SirFozzalot

They offer free evening and weekend calls for £5 a month, but BT offer the same thing for £3.95 a month, so I didn't bother.

jjones

lol?

traffic shaping/caps ahoy

no limit, but then if you can only download at 20k/sec for 18 hours a day it becomes irrelevant

thinkbroadband.com :: Viewing a list of posts

gotmashed

Im looking at changing to talk talk they do for £19.99 up to 8meg with phone line rental and local and national calls free with a 40gig limit.

olliecampbell

iTrader: (3)

Couldnt believe those posts when i read them actually! I have no problems what so ever! Neither have a few of my mates. Strange

All based in London though, maybe that makes a difference.