Best ADSL provider.

Author
Discussion

pwig

Original Poster:

11,956 posts

272 months

Monday 15th September 2003
quotequote all
Which one do I go for, I want cheap and reliable.

206xsi

48,553 posts

250 months

Monday 15th September 2003
quotequote all
Haven't had any problems with NTL (their ADSL that is - steer clear of their digital TV!!).

I guess if you do have a problem is when NTL will show if they are ever improving their customer service...

Because NTL use their own cables they don't have the problems that BT (and anyone using BT lines) do have with distance from the exchange.

pwig

Original Poster:

11,956 posts

272 months

Monday 15th September 2003
quotequote all
I aldready have NTL, but we are gonna get rid as my step brother who uses the TV is off to uni so we dont need it anymore

fatsteve

1,143 posts

279 months

Monday 15th September 2003
quotequote all
freedom-2-surf www.f2s.com

Mail me off-line if you decide so I can claim my signup bung!!

pwig

Original Poster:

11,956 posts

272 months

Monday 15th September 2003
quotequote all
Are Pipex any good?

Liszt

4,330 posts

272 months

Monday 15th September 2003
quotequote all
www.adslguide.org.uk does a good comparison.

I did my research there and chose Nildram. No problems so far.



Which is nice.

simonrockman

6,872 posts

257 months

Monday 15th September 2003
quotequote all
I've been with Openworld since beta test. The service is pretty reliable, but when it goes wrong BT politics kick in, front line support are not allowed to talk to the engineers, it all has to go through a set of Chinese whispers and as a result things take ages (c. a week) to fix.
By contrast I also have a BT leased line. If that goes down I'll have someone digging up the road outside my house within three hours on a Sunday. But then you pay for that kind of service.
Stay away from Easynet. Breaking the rule that "The plural of 'anecdote' is not 'evidence'.", a couple of friends have had lots of trouble with Easynet reliability.
I'd be tempted by anything with a Service Level Agreement (SLA), which means they pay you if things go wrong. Not so much for the money but for the confidence it imbues.

Simon

polar_ben

1,413 posts

261 months

Monday 15th September 2003
quotequote all
pwig said:
Are Pipex any good?


Cheap, but customer service is crap at best & non-existent the rest of the time. Expect to spend hours on hold with any problems...

I'm with BT's cheapest package. No cause for complaint (yet).

Legend Internet (www.legend.co.uk) are one of my sponsors () & seem reasonable. Phone them & you get straight through to a real person as well.

plotloss

67,280 posts

272 months

Monday 15th September 2003
quotequote all
Used to have BT Openworld, good and stable, no complaints.

Now have Bulldog, cack customer service but 200k/sec transfer rate for £30 a month - you cant go wrong.

Again mail me if you fancy a bit of Bulldog...

stc_bennett

5,252 posts

269 months

Monday 15th September 2003
quotequote all
simonrockman said:

By contrast I also have a BT leased line. If that goes down I'll have someone digging up the road outside my house within three hours on a Sunday. But then you pay for that kind of service.
Simon


Simon i was thinking of gettin a leased lined to the office whats the benifits compared to ADSL. I was going through Newnet for the Leaseline by the way
Steve

pwig

Original Poster:

11,956 posts

272 months

Monday 15th September 2003
quotequote all
Reet just signed up to pipex

stc_bennett

5,252 posts

269 months

Monday 15th September 2003
quotequote all
Pipex is worse than BT. for customer service a friends had to wait 4 weeks for his fault to be sorted.

NTL is best for high bandwith usage in my opinion if you ignore there terms and conditions mind. As ADSL has a contention ratio 50:1 for home user and 20:1 for business users. This is i think the number of users sharing the same bandwidth. with NTL your contention Ratio is 1:1

Steve

I think is you go for ADSL you may as well go for BT then you cut 1 or 2 levels out of the customerservice side

chrisgr31

13,530 posts

257 months

Monday 15th September 2003
quotequote all
My ADSL is supplied through AOL and I have no cause for complaint. But then of course many people object to AOL out of principle!

agent006

12,055 posts

266 months

Monday 15th September 2003
quotequote all
polar_ben said:

pwig said:
Are Pipex any good?



Cheap, but customer service is crap at best & non-existent the rest of the time. Expect to spend hours on hold with any problems...



I had to write to the managing director to get my account cancelled. Surprisingly i got a call back from the head of CS the next morning. Odd that isnt it?

tuffer

8,850 posts

269 months

Monday 15th September 2003
quotequote all


This topic must come up about once a month....any chance of searching the archives before posting a Q that has been answered a 1000000000000000000000000 times B4.

Not so much a flame as an "I'm bored with reading the same old threads every day".

d3ano

7,406 posts

255 months

Monday 15th September 2003
quotequote all
I am very happy with NTL at the moment. I did have a slow service when the virus was doing its rounds. But now that its sorted i gte full speed all the time. And they can also change your speed on the fly (well within 5 minutes anyway)

simonrockman

6,872 posts

257 months

Monday 15th September 2003
quotequote all
stc_bennett said:


Simon i was thinking of gettin a leased lined to the office whats the benifits compared to ADSL. I was going through Newnet for the Leaseline by the way
Steve


It's only if you want 100% uptime and to pay through the nose. I inherited it as a result of a contract I did, in the days when 28.8 was fast. It's only 64k and I don't pay for it. The machine it's plugged into doesn't get used much, indeed I switched it off a couple of weeks ago on the assumption that it probably has bugbear and I don't have the time to look at it.

The Customer Service is impressive though.

Simon

ginettag27

6,337 posts

271 months

Monday 15th September 2003
quotequote all
See also this thread...

www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?f=95&h=&t=54718

Nildram got my bet, but don't tell everyone!! (would like to keep the low contention ratio

EPS

freshtripe

19 posts

250 months

Monday 15th September 2003
quotequote all
Giointernet - UK's cheapest and V.helpful technical support!

Tivster

359 posts

252 months

Monday 15th September 2003
quotequote all
Had Pipex for over a year and no problems caused by them - all have been caused and I have proof by the BT infrastructure. BT/O2 are and always will be absolute shite... My opinion of course.