need a new broadband provider
 

I have been with NTL for just over 2 years now on there 300k broadband service-uptill now not been to bad but seems to recently been getting more and more tempremental and not getting on MSN and some websites etc anyway i pay £17.99 a month for this and now i reckon i can get cheaper and faster service elsewhere, but i do need a reliable service as well as i do important things online that i dont want cutting of halfway in between-what do people recommend i try for a good cheap service upto i guess a 1 meg speed-i have looked at metronet site and plusnet-any others people recommend-i have started monitoring my usage a month to see if a capped service will be ok-how strict are they on charging you if you go over as i hear some seem to forget to-any good isp's you can tell me about

thank you in advance

Mark

In case you are interested, NTL are due to upgrade all their packages but keep the prices the same. I think the 300k package will become 1MB, but I'm not 100% sure on that. I'll look for a link for you mate.

NTL Speed Increases

:)

The PlusNet Pay-As-You-Go broadband service is £14.99 for up to a 2Mb connection, which in April will be upgraded to "as fast as your line can support up to 8Mb". This includes 1Gb of downloads. Extra Gb are charged at £1.75 each (a bit cheaper if you pay in advance).

Very strict, in that it is done automatically as soon as you go over the limit.

just went for Pipex £23 for 1meg unlimited + 50meg of webspace

Before you consider plusnet you might want to have a look over at adslguide.org

<rant style="moody_old_giffer">
I can tell you from my experience that they are a terrible company to deal with especially if something goes wrong. Which as many people are experiencing outages almost once a month with these jokers is not a good thing.

A couple of problems I had in the 2 months I was with them.

£70.50 deposit for contract free, 1st month upfront. No problem its a good deal. They took the money straight away and then proceeded to take almost 3 weeks to flick the switch :eek: during which time they only replied to the online help section when I rang them to ask for a reply.

I didn't want to waste the big deposit I had given them and as I had another ADSL line into the house on a different phone it didn't matter for the time being so I waited for it to go live.

It did come on eventually, then after about a month it stopped working again. So I called them they said to put everything into the online form. I did that and didn't hear anything back for 2 days, I rang them asked them what the deal was and they told me that it takes 72 hours for them to respond to a connection problem :rolleyes: even though there is no mention of this anywhere. Anyway I gave them the 72 hours and surprise surprise they didn't ring back. I rang them and gave them 2 days to get the service back up and running. Needless to say it didn't come back on. Now the day the service went down I had just paid my 2nd month up front. I have written to them asking for this or the deposit back and got a letter back asking for the 3rd months payment even though they had not provided any service whatsoever for the 2nd month and I had cancelled the contract.

They are now attempting to "recover" the 3rd month payment even though the contract has been cancelled. Needless to say, amongst many others I don't recommend them at all.

I know alot of people had trouble with ntl in the past, but I was with them up until I moved into a non-cabled area and I always found them to be great with regular free speed increases and solid service status.

Currently back with BT on both of the ADSL lines coming into our house and I don't get any problems whatsoever and as they are the provider at the end of the day, if something does go wrong you don't have to wait whilst they "refer" it to BT :rolleyes:.

</rant>

How come? Did you find something wrong with UKOnline (2mb @ 29.99)?

I just found out that my Pipex account is being upgraded to 1mb so still unsure whether to change to the 2mb or not.

after some looking around I found a lot of people not happy with the service on ukonline. lots of nothing really but I decided I don't need more than 1meg. UKonline said Fair Usage where pipex say Unlimited.

I couldn't help think that ukonline would use that phrase to cut you back if you were doing lots of GB.

I got 50meg of webspace that will be usefull for posting pics on here for my £23 ( they wanted £33 for 2meg) decided to cut my costs and not increase them anymore.

Right thats decided for me as well then, not going to a fair usage policy. I'll stay where I am for now with 1mb.

These guys are pretty cool , http://www.EFHbroadband.com £9.99 + vat per month , static ip , no caps ...

Just switched to Freedom to Surf. 24.99 gets me 2Mb and 50GB a month, they do less usage at 19.99 and another below that. Thought about using Pipex at 2Mb but I couldn't see myself using the full 50GB espically as its unmetered between 1-6 am.

Steve

Ive got pipex 512k (7 months) and 9 months in previous house. How did you find out you were getting upgraded? I know my exchange is close enough for 1mb as they offered it me when I first signed up.

Simon.

Just logged onto Pipex website and I can upgrade for no extra per month but change request means a £15 fee. Still not much for 1mb but should I get it for free anyway?

Simon.

www.e7even.com

1Mb for the price of 512k !

Simon I was fed up of hearing how everyone else was getting a free upgrade so thought about checking the press page on the Pipex site and low and behold on the 23/2 they announced they would be upgrading.

If you look they don't do the 512 connection anymore, 1mb is the minimum and the same as what we are paying for 512. I am not paying the £15, I will wait for them to do it for free on principle, I think the £15 is just if you want to jump the queue and have it done immediately.

I have emailed Pipex customer services asking several questions such as when I will be getting upgraded and also asked why Pipex customers only go from 512 to 1mb when many BT customers are automatically being given 2mb connections free of charge from 512.

Just to balance out the rant about Plusnet above, I've been using them for about 18 months, and have no complaints at all about them.

TBH if you looked, you could probably find an equivalent rant about pretty much any ISP.

John.

May I suggest that you also ask about traffic shaping? I understand that this is the way that ISPs such as Pipex (who are advertising a "no limits" service) will control heavy users. It means that short burst requests (such as web page requests) are processed very, very quickly, but if you start to do a long download, your effective line speed is automatically reduced so you don't impinge on other users.
So although you may think that you have a "faster" connection, with "unlimited" downloads and no "fair usage policy", you actually have a different, less obvious method of usage control, which will probably be more intrusive.