Which ISP to choose? (UK only)

Chappers · Post by **Chappers** » 23/08/2006 - 1:59

Right folks,

Time has come for me to have a change of ISP as my current one (NTL) still exhibits varying levels of crapness and incompetence. Had a little run-in with the awful customer service through NTL before, so I really don't want to be eating my own hair in frustration this time around.

Had a bit of a rant on this here forum before about NTL's customer service. My mild-mannered pills had worn off on that day.....

Chappers Goes Tonto

I really want to avoid further hassle with NTL so I'm naturally on the hunt for a new ISP. Hopefully some UK peeps on here have knowledge of someone decent I can go for.

Infamous · Post by **Infamous** » 23/08/2006 - 4:01

aslong as its not BT you should be fine with anyone else .. seems these big companies are a little too big to be bothered with us little people.

I've been on aol for well into 5 years now and had little to no trouble at all with them or their service (though when it does go wrong they somehow manage to twist it around everytime that its your fault .. and their call centres seem to exist in some pretty strange countries.. luckily if you just rant for a bit they think.. argghhhh english person go mental, he bring armada to our shores and make us slaves.. i see it in a book!.. and your problems get sorted out pretty fast, if a bit messy).. so i'd say aol .. most people wont lol.

might be an idea to shop about for a localised isp around your area, pretty sure you can look them up in the old yellow book.

Matrix · Post by **Matrix** » 23/08/2006 - 8:58

For customer service you can't beat Zen, but they are pricy, and theres now a cap.

*gently strokes his old 2meg unlimited zen account & looks at usenet lovingly.

If you can get on "BE" thats probably a good thing. https://www.bethere.co.uk/

Waz · Post by **Waz** » 23/08/2006 - 11:05

My friend is with Plus.net, and they constantly get good reviews about customer service and quality of up time etc being pretty good. They now do up to 8MB and on the higher range products there's a generous download cap, or none at all.

If your phone service is going to remain with NTL (highly doubtful but you never know), bear in mind some UK service providers won't let you sign up with them unless you have a BT phone line. Just thought I'd mention it before you start to switch over.

If you have Sky telly, you might be like me serioualy considering Sky Broadband, not least as it'll be cheap, download limits are generally good, and they're chucking in a top end Netgear wireless router too. Sky basically took over Easynet and gave them a good kicking, so hopefully the switch will be worth it. Initial reports from some forums suggest that it seems to be fine so far, even though the level of demand was rather underestimated.

Lastly, it's well worth having a peek at the forums at http://www.adslguide.org.uk/ - as well as having reviews and ratings of ISPs, the forum usually shows up ISPs if they're bad (Tiscali for example) so it gives you a bit more power to the elbow.

Steve B · Post by **Steve B** » 23/08/2006 - 13:20

i have been with AOL since 1997 without complaint.
the package i have is the 8 meg platinum service. (very nice)
the best part of AOL is it is really uncapped (i can shift several gig a day and have had no nasty emails from them)

Post by **tas** » 23/08/2006 - 20:24

Telewest's Blueyonder is VERY good!

Currently on 10mb service and have not whitnessed a problem for like 3 years.

They arn't the cheapest in the world but i've never needed to contact customer services cos it runs just right everytime for problems, but i have contacted them for advice in the past and they've been excellent.

Blueyonder offers uncapped rates, unlimited downloads/uploads very much unlike many others.

tomsk · Post by **tomsk** » 24/08/2006 - 6:48

I have to concur with Tas ! I've been with Telewest for about 4 years and the service has NEVER been offline during my surfing time.
Customer support (although it's rarely been used) is excellent too, but you do pay the price for this.

One thing I would say is that their 'engineers' recently came to my father in laws to set up his broadband and refused to setup his email account because he didn't own an original of XP and Outlook. So I had to go round and help out. I thought that was a bit cheeky ! It's none of their business what software you use - as long as they get their bit done.

fnordpojk · Post by **fnordpojk** » 24/08/2006 - 6:58

Now, I'm Swedish, but I run a big P2P forum and know a bunch of people from .uk.

I'd agree with tas, I've heard good things about Blueyonder, but you'd need to have their cable to use it. If you're after ADSL, I'd look into Pipex. They don't have caps on their Max service, and they do good phone+ADSL bundles.

I've also heard very bad things about Bulldog, so stay away from them, even though they are very cheap.

Waz · Post by **Waz** » 24/08/2006 - 7:48

Bear in mind that Telewest have been taken over by NTL though: I just hope their customer service doesn't suffer as a result.

Problem also is that if you're in a Telewest area, you can't always get NTL, and vice versa. So as such Chappers might be stuck with a choice of NTL only for cable :(

hoomish · Post by **hoomish** » 24/08/2006 - 11:03

Yep, Telewest and NTL are now one in the same.

To be honest though, I'm surprised that you're leaving NTL. Yes, their customer support is dreadful, but the actual product is great! I'm on a 3meg line but always seem to get more bandwidth than that (regularly get d/l speeds of 4-500 kiloBYTES per sec and I've rarely experienced any problems.

I'd think long and hard about this, as my ADSL'd friends don't seem to get anything like the same speeds or connectivity...

Just my two pen'uth...

Post by **tas** » 24/08/2006 - 18:42

Now, thats news i didn't know about! So, Telewest formally Yorkshire Cable is now NTL!

Well, I hope we get the same level of service we have been enjoying for years now that it's become NTL. Otherwise i'm off!

Also found out while looking into this that NTL have now acquired Virgin Mobile. Another Service I've been delighted with.

FFS! I'm not at all happy now!

Feekzoid · Post by **Feekzoid** » 25/08/2006 - 6:48

I use Nildram and the ADSLmax service. Gives me a genuine 8mbit down, and 448kbps up which is pretty damn useful.

Only ever had one issue with them in the year I've been with them, and that was a BT fault in the exchange. Once I'd informed Nildram I was back up within a day.

dan gillgrass · Post by **dan gillgrass** » 25/08/2006 - 8:01

I used to use Wanadoo but after they gave me so much grief and did swap to BT about 2 years ago and never had a problem since and now have an 8 meg line (watch the Euorpeans snigger

) tho the technical service does leave a lot to be desired (fun if you are pissed and nothing to do tho

)

merman · Post by **merman** » 25/08/2006 - 9:38

Euro1Net!

Note: this is not a genuine recommendation, no responsibility will be taken by Merman or Remix64 if you do actually sign up to this company - http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/kent/5284478.stm

dan gillgrass · Post by **dan gillgrass** » 25/08/2006 - 21:31

merman wrote:Euro1Net!

Saw that on the news this lunchtime, I would be gutted if I had just signed up with them