thinking of changing ISP

[mobeyone]

who to?

Currently with Pipex, whilst they are good, I think £33 is a bit too much for £2MB.. tried downgrading to 1mb and I have to pay over £50!!!!

Dont even think of saying A*L!!

But who else? reliability is a must....

thanks!

 

[lotusmark2]

so what have you got against AOL, I have been with them for over 7 years with no complaint at all??

 

[pammy]

Is cable an option? We've been happy with our ntl service(they don't do the NW). The odd hiccup but if you have a marginally technical mind then you can survive the generally inadequate technical support Telewest offers just a good as service I believe.

 

[GrahamC230K]

so what have you got against AOL, I have been with them for over 7 years with no complaint at all??

Noddy factor, no pop mail, ummm, annoying adverts, no pop mail, noddy factor. Other than that, I agree reliable.

I use BT now BTW. Can't really complain.

 

[mobeyone]

AOL.. cant stand the service and imo the worst isp out there. The browser takes up too much of your usage for a start.
Long running saga with them. On average i woudl call them every month with teh same problem, I would get cut off and call aol who would go through the same advice checks about 10 times before a fault would be logged with BT. In three years with them i had made numerous complaints and the last straw was them capping my bandwith even though I had 2mb connection and they would not admit to it!! I could not download anything!

Try removing AOL from your pc.... impossible unless you format your HD!

I have been with pipex for over a year and it has never gone down. Never had to phone for connection issues etc.

No cable but I was thinking bulldog? anyone have experiance with these?

 

[scotth_uk]

I'd take a look at the rating system over at www.adslguide.org.uk. Whilst not perfect, a lot of people contribute to the database and they rate on customer service too.

I'd take a look at plusnet when shopping around. I only moved away due to their lack of ADSL2+ in my area. They normally answer the phone rather quickly and their service is flawless in my experience. Webcams in their call centres, etc.

 

[Spinal]

I've been with Telewest (blueyonder) since... uhmmm... 5 odd years now. I've always been quite happy with them, and though their tech support isn't the greatest, they do answer at 3am when you've just got home from the other side of the globe and have no idea that you're meant to be sleeping

As for AOHell, here are the reasons I dumped them:
- worthlessly high number of users per node
- tech support is designed for fools (and horses)
- no pop access to email
- billing issues
- AOL's browser... nuff said
- SPAM
- virus threats specifically targetted at AOL users
- aohell blocks half the programs you may want to run that access the internet
- annoying (/freaky) voice taunting you in the middle of the night ("You've got mail" :S)
- just TRY cancelling... you can register online... but if you want to cancel, you must call them up and go thru a whole sales pitch (where they throw free online time at you)
- bandwidth restrictions
- don't even TRY to cancel... its impossible, once a AOheller, always an AOHeller... (kinda like the borg, but Picard managed to get out)

Well, kinda bored of writing stuff up, there used to be a site (something like aolsucks.com or aolsucks.org) but I can't seem to find it anymore... They used to track lists of customer complaints to AOHell... I guess aol didn't like the publicity...

EDIT: Forgot amidst all my aohell smiting; i was reading up on:
- UK Online (part of easynet) 22mb broadband for £29.99
- BeThere 24mb for £24 (£24 connection charge)
I haven't tried either of these, nor do I know their users-per-node ratios, but their prices seem strangely good!

Michele

 

[KillerHERTZ]

NEVER use NTL, ever... they are appalling

 

[lotusmark2]

ah well, perhapse I'm just the lucky one??? mother inlaw, sister inlaw and me, all on AOL, all with no problem at all. ah well, to each their own.

I had Blueyonder at my office and had MAJOR issues...would never ever use them again

 

[Alfie]

who to?

Currently with Pipex, whilst they are good, I think £33 is a bit too much for £2MB.. tried downgrading to 1mb and I have to pay over £50!!!!

Dont even think of saying A*L!!

But who else? reliability is a must....

thanks!

I'm with freedom to surf at home ww.f2s.com as they offer 250MB web space, 2mBit as standard, 20 email addresses, pop3, no limit on transfers, STATIC IP , 8MB for the same price if you are in one of the unbundled exchanges. Best of all though they are a subsidiary of EasyNet who I use for the office so when I hook up the VPN from home to work, I dont go out onto the internet. I stay within EasyNet's network all for £24.99 per month (which I dont have to pay for ) reliability is supurb. Cant fault them.

I would never ever use AOL, NTL, Telewest or BT as they are all a load of rubbish for different reasons in my opinion. But hey what works for some doesn't necessarily work for others.

 

[A-AvantGarde]

Try PlusNet, think it's about £21.99 for 2 MB (upto 8 MB in some exchanges), mine is coming soon hopefully.

Or try ukonline apparently upto 22 MB (in Easynet equiped exchanges) for £29.99 :bannana:

 

[Rose Chap]

Thus/Demon are pretty good.

2mbit connection, static IP address on the internet, unlimited email address on your domain with pop access. So reliable I've only called support about three times in five years. £24.99 a month.

I've got no plans to change.

 

[tinkypot]

I'm with freedom to surf at home ww.f2s.com as they offer 250MB web space, 2mBit as standard, 20 email addresses, pop3, no limit on transfers, STATIC IP , 8MB for the same price if you are in one of the unbundled exchanges. Best of all though they are a subsidiary of EasyNet who I use for the office so when I hook up the VPN from home to work, I dont go out onto the internet. I stay within EasyNet's network all for £24.99 per month (which I dont have to pay for ) reliability is supurb. Cant fault them.

I would never ever use AOL, NTL, Telewest or BT as they are all a load of rubbish for different reasons in my opinion. But hey what works for some doesn't necessarily work for others.

Totally agree. I'm with F2S, best ISP I have ever used over 10+ years! Never lost a connection apart from my regrade to 2mbps.

Great service and cheap too.

I can't stand AOL. Cancelled with them in 2003 to find out they were still billing me for 7 months after cancellation. They wouldn't even admit to their mistake or give a refund. Great service


Alex

 

[guydewdney]

eclipse.net

my brother (IT director for major multi million $ international IT company) put me onto them.

 

[Ian B Walker]

I use Blueyonder and have just been upgraded to 10 meg. Cost, £35 per month. No serious issues from them apart from their Binary News Groups with incomplete files.

 

[esox]

ah well, perhapse I'm just the lucky one??? mother inlaw, sister inlaw and me, all on AOL, all with no problem at all. ah well, to each their own.

I had Blueyonder at my office and had MAJOR issues...would never ever use them again

No,you`re not the only ones lotusmark - i`ve had AOL for years now and its been very good - i really dont know why AOL gets all this bad rep from.Mainly from computer nerds who probably think its an un-cool ISP to be with?

Whenever i have had problems (mainly due to my own computer ignorance) those lovely wee Irish help-line lasses with the lilting Gaelic brogue have always seen me right in no time.....

Stand up you AOLians,be proud !

 

[sasha]

i was going to recommend bulldog, however they were out all day yesterday, so i cant recomend them now, a 12 hour outtage is unacceptable

the reason for the outtage (like so many other outtages) was apparently due to a BT fault (even on an unbundled circuit) BT typically drag their heels in this sort of situation, it is not a conspiracy theory it is a fact, when BT announced their service charges they openly said

- we have to engage with other ISPs/telcos by law
- they are way to quick to call us in when there is a fault somewhere, so we waste time troubleshooting faults that are not always ours
- we neglect our own faults whilst attending other's faults

so

- do you want cheap wholesale adsl and we prioritise attending our own network issues first? (which may include maintenance)
or
- do you want a more responsive service level agreement for more money?

unfortunately consumer adsl had already become pretty cheap by then so no one could afford bt's second offer

i would argue if reliability is a must then only BT fits the bill, there are many horror stories, however on average, across the UK, BT is the most stable, they aint cheap and they aint fast but the most stable. you may notice that whenever "the rest" roll out a service BT lags behind, invariably this is because of the amount of testing BT does prior to releasing a service. it is a legacy of an era when time to market was less critical i.e., prior to privatisation and resources were plentiful

if you can live with outtages, then take your pick, they're all much the same, they depend on BT (even unbundled exchanges) and the only real differentiator is how nicely they talk to you when there's a problem. do not think that they have better technical staff in the background troubleshooting your problem, there simply aint enough fully competant comms engineers knocking around in the country...

 

[Flash]

I have just signed up with Virgin for Broadband 2MB for £18 per month...

Modem/Software CD arrived on Tuesday and the Account is going live tonight.

 

[Mambo]

who to?

Currently with Pipex, whilst they are good, I think £33 is a bit too much for £2MB.. tried downgrading to 1mb and I have to pay over £50!!!!

Dont even think of saying A*L!!

But who else? reliability is a must....

thanks!

How come you are being charged so much by Pipex? I am with them both in London and Manchester, I have a 2Mb line and its about £20 a month....

 

[996jimbo]

I'm on PlusNet which someone recommended. Had no problems with them.

I used to be on NTL cable - took 4 hours to set up; tech support was useless and I had to work out the problems myself. It used to go slow when the telly was on (on the same cable).

Had a BIG fall out with NTL when we moved; almost got taken to court for a £20 bill that I didn't owe and wouldn't touch them again.