ADSL Broadband ISP help

[Hexidecimal]

Hi all

I'm looking for broadband but I don't know who to go with.

I'm currently on Orange dialup, but ever since Orange took over from wanadoo my connection has been crap.

I did have BT broadband at the beginning of the year, but was having problems, getting cut off and sometimes I couldn't get on, at one point for two days. It took 4 technicians and a lot of phone calls for them to finally work out that part of the cabling was the wrong sort, it was aluminium, which doesn't keep the signal.
They said I had to either keep the service as it was, or cancel it with a full refund and as I was paying £28 a month I didn't want to keep a crap service, so got the refund.

A few months ago I was talking to my neighbour and he was on NTL and having no problems.

There is no cable in this area, and I've been told the speed available here is 512k as I'm right on the edge of the service, I looked on www.broadband.co.uk for suppliers in my area and it comes up with
BT
AOL
Virgin
Tiscali
Toucan
Demon
Pipex
NTL
Orange
Be

I was talking to someone and he told me to just try some free trials, something I didn't know ISPs did and I haven't been able to find any info for these. Do they actually do them or is the guy wrong?

I was thinking of NTL as my neighbour seems to be doing ok with it, but I've also heard Tiscali is supposed to be good. Any advice would be greatly appreciated as I'm just not sure what to do.

 

[Phemo]

Tiscali are horrific, steer clear.

I'm a bit confused as you say there is no cable in your area but you have NTL in that list and you mention that your neighbour has NTL?

 

[dirtydog]

If you can get cable (NTL) then go with them.

 

[marmalade]

NTL
forget Tiscalli - less you like pain
www.ntl.com
First 3 months of packages are cheaper
1 year contract
No need to take anything but Broad Band

 

[Al Vallario]

I was talking to someone and he told me to just try some free trials, something I didn't know ISPs did and I haven't been able to find any info for these. Do they actually do them or is the guy wrong?

As far as I'm aware (and I'd say I'm quite aware) there is no such thing as a "free trial" when it comes to broadband Internet access. BT do run trials for new technology every now and then, but they're usually in specific areas, you still have to pay for the service and it's not a case of just asking to take part in the trial.

I was thinking of NTL as my neighbour seems to be doing ok with it, but I've also heard Tiscali is supposed to be good. Any advice would be greatly appreciated as I'm just not sure what to do.

Avoid Tiscali like the plague — they are not good by any means. NTL are not exactly the best ISP out there (although their packages are very impressive), but if you aren't able to get more than 512Kbps out of your phone line they are your only real option. If you can get NTL, go for it

 

[jbloggs]

Zen & Nildram are very good ISPs.

 

[LoadsaMoney]

He can't get NTL though as he said theres no cable available in his area.

Tiscali are indeed atrocious, traffic shaping, FUP on there the lot, i migrated away from them to AOL, 100% Unlimited, no shaping, FUP's nothing, and never had any problems with them at all, only been on them since June mind, and i always get my proper full speeds whenever i download, anytime day or night, and you don't have to use their software, i can't fault them, im much happier now.

Agree with the above to, Zen, Nildram are good, also IDNet.

Ive just tried that site to, also said i could get NTL, but theres no cable around here either.

EDIT: If you can get NTL,as you say your neighbour has it, so cable must be available in your area then id go with that, got a mate who's on it and loves it.

 

[z0mbi3]

One vote for Pipex here.

Go on their site and do the thing where you enter your number, that'll tell you what you can really expect speed wise.

 

[Hexidecimal]

Thanks for the help all.

I was surprised too, I thought NTL was cable, but maybe the do ADSL too?

I've looked on their site and entered my postcode and it says I'm not in the area they supply, but theres a package called NTL Freedom which is available in my area, speeds upto 1MB but only the 512k is available here.

Will look into it some more.

 

[Zogger]

NTL do ADSL too but it's nothing like their cable service. Not used it myself, just the packages didn't seem worth it when I last looked.

 

[Al Vallario]

Last time I checked if you're not in a cable area NTL refer you to the Virgin ADSL products (NTL own/partner with Virgin). I heard they were going to rebrand all their services under the Virgin name, but have they begun consolidating their offerings already? Regardless, if you can't get NTL's cable service, you might as well forget about them. Their ADSL service isn't going to be anything special.

As has already been specified, Zen, Nildram and Pipex would all be good choices. Seeing as most ISP's don't offer 512Kbps services anymore, you might want to ring around and see if you can get a discount over 1/2/8Mbps packages because you can't get more than 512Kbps

 

[dirtydog]

I was just gonna say the same NTL are a crap company and the only conceivable reason to go with them is to get their cable internet, which IS good quality. If you can't get that then choose a good ADSL supplier.

 

[Uhtred]

i'd ring up ntl, their postcode checker sounds like it's wrong. If you can get NTL then go with them. It's not worth getting adsl with any provider if you've got aluminium on your line :/

 

[Avalon]

... He can't get NTL, he can only get virgin.net's ADSL resale packages. If he could get NTL they would offer the normal 2/4/10mbit packages and they are only offering 512k. You can get 512k from EFHBroadband (it's the only one I know of however I spend as little time as humany possible looking for adsl packages now). Unlimited downloads etc etc etc but it is 17.99, they also offer a 'max' package for 13.99 with cap.

With the majority of resale packages now going 'max' it's getting hard to find quality unlimited services appart form LLU/Cable.