SpeedSurfing: Broadband et al????

[beano1197]

OK it's off topic - but relevant if you want to enjoy PH to its best!!!!

What experience are you chaps and chapesses having with ADSL?

I have been stumping up for about six months. In principle it's fine except for long (60 seconds plus) delays at random intervals. The BT Techies don't respond to questioning, the FAQs cover everything EXCEPT this problem and I haven't tracked this to any obvious set up glitch - is this a result of "contention"?

Otherwise the string between the bean tins is quite good. Is this a typical conclusion?

simpo one said: Ah yes, you broadband johnnys forget there's something called 'file size'...!

Still, I'm not paying £27pcm for that dodgy BT offering that might be 2x speed if I'm lucky...hmph.

I'm off to make sure the string between the bean tins is still damp...

[pbrettle]

Fingers strongly crossed and touching wood constantly - but my NTL cable service is excellent. Fast, not subjected to peaks of service usage and never had any problems (though strangely with PH due to caching servers I think, but thats another story). Can even watch video live.....

Personally couldnt move back - tried it a couple of times but just couldnt get on with it. Well worth the money and saves a fortune on dialup costs to get my office email....

Cheers,

Paul

[jeremyc]

My BTOpenWoe ADSL seems to work fine; occasional delays in reloading a page, but I'm not sure I can track it down to contention (could just be Ted's slow servers ).

[TJMurphy]

Been using it now for about 3 months and as Paul says couldn't go back to dial up.
Have not had any disconnections or problems (touch wood) personally although my wife has been unable to send mail a couple of times (lasting for a couple of hours in one case). Some of these were apparently due to BT system crashes - according to my ISP's website anyway.

[tuffer]

On the whole, fairly pleased, couple of hickups occasionaly but nothing disaterous. Im with Plusnet (about £23 pm) and sure beats dial-up.

[apache]

got NTL broadband and it is excellent £15 a month for 128k

[mcecm]

I use Zen adsl and not had any problems yet... around £25 per month. Mainly used for mail but copes pretty well with all tasks.

[bigtone]

I'm right on the verge of going for 512k NTL broadband, as they have the free connection offer at the moment, and it's not too bad at £24.99 a month. Thing is, what are the extra costs - I'm sort of assuming i'll have to buy some new hardware to make all this happen... Does anyone have any experience of this?

Cheers, Tony.

[mcecm]

All I needed was a dsl filter and a new modem about £60 for the modem and £10 for the filter *I think*

[bigtone]

Just had a look at the NTL web site, and the £24.99 a month actually includes hire of a modem for as long as you have a connection with them! I'll be giving them a call then!

Cheers all, Tony.

[david010167]

I have used BTOpenWorld for about 18 months now, with no issues at all.

It is fast, service has been good. When I have had an question the support line has been great.

My only comment would be:

If it became cheeper I would not complain.
If they offered a 1mb per sec version for twice the cost I might buy if.

David

[mcecm]

Telewest offer 1Mbs here (Edinburgh). Anybody dealt with telewest and know if its any good?

[qwicksylva]

I've just had NTL Broadband (128k/£15 per month) delivered and over the last 6 hours or so it's been great! Speed is brilliant! (I've heard that somewhere before...).

[Size Nine Elm]

(Oooh, just got Ted's Ts & Cs...)

Had BT broadband (rebranded by Claranet) for a year - excellent service, had a few minor periods of downtime, but otherwise almost flawless and no noticeable dropouts.

I moved last week...

Back to 56k modem. Arrgghhh!

[craigalsop]

mcecm said: Telewest offer 1Mbs here (Edinburgh). Anybody dealt with telewest and know if its any good?

I use the 512Kb link, which I find to be pretty good on the whole - every month or so there may be the odd problem with DNS not resolving US sites, but these tend to get fixed pretty quickly. Their helpdesk tends to be pretty useless though - they can't accept that you *might* know a little bit more than them, and that all you want is for them to check a DNS host for example. The 1Mb access is faster, but probably not worth the extra....

[andrewh]

I have the telewest 1mb service at £35 a month and am very pleased with it. Have been with them since 512k broadband first came available here (North West) in July 2000.

With the 1mb service you also get a 256k upload so it certainly makes sense over the 512k at £25.

[Rosso Paul]

I've been on BTopenworld for about 9 months. I connect via a Mac and had a few problems with the Alcatel USB modem they supply - basically flaky drivers. Unfortunately BT's Mac support is pretty poor (IMO) and Alcatel are slow to release updated drivers. So I bought myself a router for about £80. Brilliant, no drivers required so my computer behaves impeccably. No more spurious errors and connection problems in the 3 months since I bought the router.
Paul

[Hut49]

Been using BT broadband 576Kbps. Seems to work OK but a few periods of intermittent loss of service - usually when I need it most. The tech support staff seem to be on the ball and only brief musical interludes while waiting to have my call picked up.

Hutch

[chrisch]

I have been using NTL 128 for about 2 months, its been fine apart from the odd niggle abiut the time they were changing the display on the television. All problems went away after a reboot of the set top box. Its been fine ever since.
Chris

[chim450]

On PIPEX 512K service. Very fast compared to 56k. 10Mb downloads in minutes. No outages yet. Again very pleased.