BE Broadband any good?
 

just found out my local exchange has been "sorted" for be broadband.

£18/monthfor this

Be unlimited

• Up to 24 meg download speed
• Up to 1.3 meg upload speed
• Unlimited usage
• Free wireless modem

i`m paying £18/month for bt option 3 anyway and its throttled far to much in the evenings for my likeing :(

worth swapping?

I swapped from Zen (one of the best ISP's) to Be* a year or so ago and generally have had a great service. Speeds of 1.7mb/s on torrents for example.

The last few weeks have been a bit painful as their DNS has been all over the place, but that seems to have been fixed.

Steve

change your DNS - eg. use these guys....
OpenDNS | Providing A Safer And Faster Internet

im just changing from bt to sky broadband, supposed to be on 8mb with bt but when doing speed tests i only get around 2mb if i'm lucky until about 11pm then it seems to go up a bit. thats the £18 one i think on option 2

Yes :D

Defo worth swapping - BE`S prices have come down from what they used to be as the 24mb package used to be £24 now its only £18 so its good also you get the fixed IP and bonus is its only a 3 month tie in - the only problem I had is I cant get anywhere near 24mb on my line - max I get is 6mb and 1.1mb upload so im changing my be package to the £14 one which is upto 8mb but its a 12 month term

there ticket service for problems is spot on - ive had no issues so far with there service and ive been on it now for about 6 months.

do they throttle the connection or anything like that?

I've just phoned them and although the website says I can't get it they checked my exchange and said I can :D I'll try putting my mac code in on the website and see how far I get.

Any advantage with Be Pro over unlimited? For an extra £4 might as well get the top package?

Use Quidco for £40 back guys!

Quidco - Bethere.co.uk

Well looks like the Indian call centre for Be was talking crap. They are not enabled at my exchange according to the exchange checkers availble :rolleyes:

no throttling at all

becareful with be pro -- you gain upload speed at the expense of download speed.

there is a referral process - https://www.bethere.co.uk/html/referFriendTerms.htm

so if you know someone with be then you can both gain a months free - not sure if you will still get the quidco though.

Dave

sometimes the exchange checkers are wrong - try again with the call centre and explain --- I had the same issue :)


this checker is good

Samknows - Availability checker

and then check LLU xDSL

Dave.

Thanks Dave, thats the site I use. Says Be is not there, Be's website checker says its not there yet the Indian call centre say it is there. Guess who I am believing? ;)

It gives you higher upload speed (useful if you are uploading websites etc..). As mentioned above, in order to do this it 'steals' some of the bandwidth from the download side.

Steve

Thanks Steve, although from what I was reading you need to be within 2km of the exchange to be able to make use of this.

I wish I could get Be at my Exchange. I'm not impressed with Virgin ADSL really.


However, O2 will be (already are?) offering some pretty good services for not a lot of money 0 if you're an O2 customer. They own/use Be Broadband. Might be worth investigating ?

Been with BE now for about 4 months....

Absolutely fantastic and definately if you can move - jump from your exisiting isp to BE...

Free Speedtouch ADSL 2 WIRELESS ROUTER - very stable - fantastic speeds and nothing is blocked you are free to do what you want which is what the internet is all about... I can download 650 meg in just over 6 mins from the USA !

Ping times on Xbox live is excellent with no game play lag!

highly recommended....

Speedtest below id from the UK to PARIS ! not from my house to a server in London.....

Andy

http://www.speedtest.net/result/210172016.png

http://www.speedtest.net/result/214317433.png

I am a fair distance from the exchange --- newsgroup download at around 7.5 - not bad considering BT could never offer me more than 2.5 !

http://www.speedtest.net/result/214348447.png

I've been with BE for nearly a year now, they are very good, was originally with Unlimited but switched to value. I'm a bit disappointed with the speed but I suppose it can't be helped.
Only had a few problems which were with my long line. No disconnections now for nearly ten days. I also quite like the Speedtouch router, although some people don't, as you can use it for VOIP.

http://www.speedtest.net/result/214350658.png

Lol, I just tried the Paris server and got this result.

Bit lower then normal

http://www.speedtest.net/result/214363050.png

so it seams i might not get the full 24mb but i will get more then BT`s offerings?

i think i ill request a MAC code after xmas :D

BE looks like a good ISP, but dont forget that like most others they have a fair use policy which means that unlimited really is not truely unlimited. Unlike most ISPs that quote figures, BE seem to be hiding what they consider to be acceptable.

The fair use policy is on their website here. https://www.bethere.co.uk/fairusage.do

point taken :D

but to be honest, the reason i`m leaving BT is due to throttling in the afternoons/evenings.

and the fact that they claim 4mb is the max i can have on my line, when upstairs have an unsecured wireless setup and i can get 6mb on that :cuckoo:

Every provider has a fair usage policy - ive been hit with it by orange and tiscali - there a croc of sh-it - be has been spot on - I also know a few people on be who download a stupid amount and nothing gets said - maybe 1 day but for now there fine

Another thing is they dont block ports so my online gaming is super where as orange and tiscali were a joke - no onlie gaming after 6pm until 11pm :mad:

Every provider has its downside but so far so good with BE ATM :)

If you have a phone with O2 then go for the O2 package, its just BE but with an O2 badge and you save 10 quid (contract only) per month :D

dont have a o2 phone


mainly use the broadband for gaming and now downloading HD movies from xbox live :D

I moved from BT to Be and have never looked back. No silly dial speeds in the evening, no loss of service, no bl**dy home hub and also downloaded lots recently (over 40gb/month) and no e-mails or letters regarding fair usage policy.

Tony.

Oh, also went from syncing at 5.5mbps with BT to syncing at 15.5mbps. From decent websites (microsoft, apple etc) i download stuff at 1.6Mb/s :D

Tony.