Looking for reliable UK ISP

[Biggles Flies Undone]

Sorry if this has already been covered – I’ve done a recent search and found nothing.

I’ve finally had enough of BTinternet and their rubbish service. All was OK until they started their free off-peak deal but things have gone rapidly downhill recently. A typical 2 hour session in the evening involves, on average, four ‘boots' – at least two of which require me to re-boot my PC to clear BT’s stuffed-up software glitch. Three e mails to BT have not even produced an acknowledgement, so it’s time to move on.

All my surfing from home is done between 6pm and midnight plus the occasional bit when I’m around at weekends, so an all-in open access deal is not necessary. The most important feature I seek is a reliable, stable connection – the BT off peak deal of £9.99 suited my profile perfectly but I simply can’t put up with the constant interruptions.

I would welcome suggestions!

[fobotcso]

I'm with you Biggles. I'm at home a lot and use ISDN on the daytime Lo-Call and free evening calls. It's advertised at 2p/min in the day; but frequently disconnects several times within the first minute which works out at 5p/min. Like you a normal session involves several reconnects. If this happens to us all once or twice a day, it represents a lot of extra money. I don't subscribe to conspiracy theories normally, but it sure as hell looks suspicious to me.

Funny thing, its been a lot better since I complained to BT engineers a couple of days ago. They claim, of course, that the line was Okay but that the problems must have been with BTInternet.

Compuserve? No problem. Solid as a rock; but its an 0845 number and no free evening calls. But I still go to it in desperation sometimes.

[Sharjah Night Shift]

I work for BT and it's not only the internet service that is rubbish.
I am with clara.net on a 9.99 a month off peak package, the 0845 access number is prefixed with a code to enable billing by them and not BT so you don't even have to worry about that other wonderful offering called "surf time."

[Unwell_Raptor]

If popular technology such as telephones, televisions and videos were as user friendly and reliable as the Internet they wouldn't exist! If it wasn't for the novelty value and the access to porn it would be very quiet out there.

We put up with a lot of crap service, but we have nowhere else to go. I am on the 24/7 Freeserve Time deal, but these days it is literally impossible to get on for large swathes of the day.

Revenge will come, and the sooner the better.

[InFinRetirement]

Hi Biggs. I am with IG Click which is a £50 joining fee and £30 per year for 24/7. But you don't get 24/7, well not now anyway. The abusers put a stop to that. There are random cut offs but somehow it is still a good deal. With the work I do on PPRuNe I have clocked up 425hrs since 16/9 and it has not cost one single penny.

However, for £10 a month with NTL, which you get back if you make £10 worth of calls a month, you get 24/7 - a true 24/7. But cut off aftertwo hours. You can go straight back on but it wrecks long downloads. Unless you have D/L Accelerator which does resume. A mate has NTL and it works a treat.
You still have to pay BT for your line rental of course.

[PaulDeGearup]

I use <A HREF="http://www.24-7freecall.net" TARGET="_blank">www.24-7freecall.net</A> which gives me 0800 acces 24/7 for 20£ a month. Sometimes it's easy to get on, like now, others its more tricky, but I'm happy with it.

[InFinRetirement]

Hey Bigs, cancel any ref to IG Click they pulled off a major scam today and cancelled 24/7 on to an 0845 number. I am on their case believe me!

[bodger]

I use AOL £14.99 per month 24/7 no phone charges (except rental of course) .Never any problem getting on or staying on.Quite a lot of site content as well,7 screen-names (e-mail addresses).

[spannersatcx]

<A HREF="http://www.ntlworld.com" TARGET="_blank">www.ntlworld.com</A> or <A HREF="http://www.askntl.com" TARGET="_blank">www.askntl.com</A> 24/7 free provided you spend £10/month on phonecalls.

[Flying Banana]

So you got stung by igclick too InFin? Take a look at <A HREF="http://www.net4nowt.com" TARGET="_blank">www.net4nowt.com</A> (or could be co.uk) some useful info, most credit card companies will give refunds if igclick wont and trading standards are taking an interest.

If the service is being abused by a 'hardcore minority' (as they claim) why don't they just cut them off???

[AquaPlane]

I'm on the £9.99 BT deal at home and have no problems with it all all. The trick is no not use the crummy BT dialer software but to set up a new Dial-Up Networking connection that only dials the 0800 number. I've had absolutley no problems with them at all since May when I joined.

I've sufed the Internet since before the World Wide Web existed (yep, all gophers, ftp's and telnets) and have had the 'fortune' of trying a shed load of ISP's.

I've heard that NTL's 24/7 service is good, and may check them out.

Aq

PS: My day job is Tech Support Manager for an ISP. Not BT or NTL I might add...!

[Stan Sted]

I got caught on IG Click too. I was using it for a 2-4 hours a day during the days I was off or working lates and switching to BT free for after 6pm and weekends when my family use the internet most. It all seemed to be working fine but the switching of identities for e-mails was a pain in the bum.

Now that the IG Click service is going down the tube on Dec 20 I think I will switch to AOL and dump both BT and IGClick, which is changing to a 1p per min service.

Barclaycard said they will refund most of the £80 I paid to IGC if that company refuses to give me a refund. I was with them for only six weeks before the bad news. I have been in touch with the trading standards dept of Bexley Council, the London borough in which IG Click is based (at Erith, Kent) and they advised me to contact Essex County Council's TS department because IGClick have committed a criminal offence (misleading price indication) under the Consumer Protection Act.

SS

[Biggles Flies Undone]

Many thanks for all your responses!

I really only surf off-peak so the clara.net option looks to be the best.

Thanks for your suggestion AquaPlane, but I don’t think my IT skills are up to fiddling with my Dial-Up software!

BT continues to be hopeless – last night was an absolute nightmare (about 20 mins actual surfing in a 2 hour period) – so I’m off for a word with clara!

[Stan Sted]

I've just heard that BT are launching a new unlimited access service from early January. It will cost £14.99 inc VAT. Obviously brought in because of the success of AOL. Freeserve and NTL.
Might be tempted to stick with then now.

SS

[SchmiteGoBust]

I agree with Bodger,
I've tried a few ISP's and have found AOL to be the best. Never any trouble getting on or staying on. No phone charges just 14.99 a month. Always tend to get a connection at around 46K or higher!!!

[AquaPlane]

BFU, The Dial up is very easy to configure. Mail me offline if you want more infos.

Aq

[Boss Raptor]

Like Bodger AOL £14.99 a month unlimited access 0800 number...

Never had any real probs...

[fobotcso]

Just got my e-mail from BT telling me about the unmetered service to start in Jan 2001. I'm on ISDN. Does AOL do unmetered ISDN? Will the BT service do unmetered on ISDN? They don't say in their e-mail. That could be the difference.

Found the answer to my own question on the BTInternet FAQ page:

Q2. Can I use my ISDN2 line to connect to the internet if I'm on the BTinternet Anytime option?
A2. You will be able to connect on ISDN2 at 64kbps but if you want to connect at 128kbps you will have to use the BTinternet local call rate dialler (available for download from the BTinternet home page) and pay two local call charges.




[This message has been edited by fobotcso (edited 16 December 2000).]

[Pecker]

I went to IGClick in Sept. Iam also going to try to get a refund from Mastercard. There are two good resources on what people are going to do about IG on the following, if you have not seen them already.

<A HREF="http://www.net4nowt.com/forum/index.htm" TARGET="_blank">http://www.net4nowt.com/forum/index.htm</A>
<A HREF="http://www.trainer.plus.com/index.htm" TARGET="_blank">http://www.trainer.plus.com/index.htm</A>

I guess NTL looks fav at the moment then

[juswonnafly]

I have tried the AOL unmetered package and I am not very impressed! Difficult to log on to network and the software 'takes over'. Also poor connection speeds.

Funny thing is that since trying BT for the past 2 months I have not had a problem at all. Fast, reliable and good value.

I think you will find many conflicting stories. Find one that works for you and stick with it.

One last point though, get a hotmail address then you can changes isp's any time you like with no real agro!

Cheers

JWF

[Background Noise]

BT Together + Surf Time vs BT Surf Together

£11.99 pm + £5.99 pm vs £14.99 pm

But with Surf Together you lose the Out and About card (the cheaper version of chargecard) and you lose the £2.40 free calls per month.

ntl next I think.

[This message has been edited by Background Noise (edited 30 December 2000).]

[pied piper]

I use an isdn router to connect to the Internet.

Sometimes I connect through my company dialup
and sometimes (mostly for personal reasons) I connect through BTINTERNET.

btinternet are so frustrating.

What makes the problem for me worse is that I am a networking expert and I can debug and trace problems proving the source of the issue to btinternet. (at the moment the favourite is non responsive dns queries)

I do not think that any one else is going to be any better (other than a leased line solution)

Has any one else noticed that the service quality from BT seems to get realy bad over a short term and then is good for about a month before starting to degrade again?

It seems to me that the capacity of the plant is lagging the demand for the service.

And as for the service status reports....HA!

Even the ADSL solution will be over subscribed during peak times. So beware of the hype.

[InFinRetirement]

Now that I have changed to ntlworld, I am thrilled to bits. Very fast, £10 per month which you can use as telephone calls, and that's it. Unfortunately they appear to have a waiting list. But Very Very, good.

[FireDragon]

I concur with Infinretirement - NTL are v. good - 'phone bill was only 40 quid this month, and I spend a lot of time online.
As for the waiting list, my brother sent away for their CD 3 weeks ago, and has just received it

[152]

I am with Libertysurf. www.libertysurf.co.uk (http://www.libertysurf.co.uk) they are pretty good, £20 per year, free off peak access and free tech support that don't keep you waiting for hours.
The only fustrating thing, which you get used to, is the 1cm thick advertising banner that runs accross the top of your screen.

[5milesbaby]

Does anyone know if the AOL package works on a cable phone line? ntl only provide if the line belongs to BT as do several others, and unfortunately Telewest say their ISP plans are delayed (and have been for the last 8 months), although they have a good offer coming out as soon as it works in our area!!

[cossack]

Since Freeserve are winding up their unlimited freeserve time package it seems to me that their service provision has deteriorated markedly. Difficulty connecting, staying connected and poor speeds are all sure signs of the end. No response to emails doesn't give the customer a good impression of a service provider does it?
I suppose they weren't making much cash with the unlimited offer so what can you expect?
AOL here I come!

[JP Justice]

Absolutely! After a few weeks of relative reliability, the service has become hit-and-miss again.

What a way to treat customers.

[Dunhovrin]

Guys,

I use Onetel for my phone calls which saves a bundle compared to BT - especially to overseas. Anyway their ISP connection is 1p a minute anytime of day. No waiting till 1800 with everyone else. Fairly reliable and they have an 0808 access number. This is effectively free to the phone you dial on (ie Heathrow Hilton) and goes onto your home bill at that 1p a minute.

Reliable connections and pretty fast data rate.

Plus very little spam.

[lineup]

Try onetel.net.uk. I don't have any problem at all. 1 p a min. all day long and cheap overseas calls.

[cossack]

A partial apology to Freeserve.
My BT line had become too noisy for internet use, has now been fixed and Freeserve runs fine again.
Its only a partial apology because they still don't answer emails. Anyone had an email from them about Anytime, their unlimited time replacement @ £12.99pm or £9.99 for 3 months if you're an existing unlimited customer?
I'm running the AOL 6 free trial as well as a comparison. It does want to take over a bit but connecting at peak times has taken no more than 3 or 4 attempts.

[Stan Sted]

BT Internet's Anytime service launched yesterday morning.

I am a long suffering BT user and it was a great relief to get a 24/7 unlimted service at last. An added bonus is that although the service will cost £14.99 a month, BT is charging exisiting users only £9.99 a month until the end of March.

Connection to the new service took only a few minutes and it is working fine at the moment. I can't give any tech stuff like speed of the connection etc because I don't know how to measure it.

cheers
SS

[Unwell_Raptor]

Thanks SS, I've just signed up. I finally lost patience with Freeserve Time, and your post was perfectly timed.
Dumping Freeserve is like taking off a tight pair of shoes.

[Hew Jampton]

Does anybody have experience of changing from Cable & Wireless to ntl? They are supposed to be one company now, but they don't act like it.

I'm trying to change over now, but they tell me that all C & W users will have to 'migrate' to ntl in March; this will mean new email addresses.

[This message has been edited by Hew Jampton (edited 29 January 2001).]

[fobotcso]

I too signed up to BT Anytime on Friday after becoming fed up with the quality of the service on ISDN Free Off Peak over the recent month or so.

I shall also benefit from the reduced rate for a couple of months until 1 Apr.

So far its good. Same number, 0800 731 7963 works for ISDN or V90 and it doesn't seem to matter which number I dial out from as long as I log on with the correct User Name and Password. I don't see the need to use their dialler package if you make your own DUN phonebook entry. I don't use CLI block (141) so I don't need to unblock it. Can't see it would matter if I did block it.

Its going to take a while for it to sink in; it still feels peculiar trying not to think about the 'phone charges!

So I would recommend BT Internet if you want a clean service with the least intrusion of the three ISPs now offering Anytime. The other two are FreeServe and AOL.

[EGTE]

I've been using BTinternet for 2 years now. Apart from a couple of glitches last year when the service became overloaded it has proved very reliable.

------------------
It's hard to soar with the Eagles when you work with Turkeys!

[SchmiteGoBust]

Nice saying EGT. Where did you hear it?You're not a Woodford warrior are you by any chance?

[SR-71]

I've been using Demon.net for about 4 months now, including a month whilst recovering from surgury. I've been what many would call an "Obuser" of 24/7 services (I have over 5Gb of MP3's(all lagitamately aquired))but Demon costs a little extra and U get what U pay for. I can't recommend them enough, Good connection, technical support is excellent (and local rate). Check out the site for prices (www.demon.net) and give it a whurl.
There is a very good reason why Demon have been around for so long.

Plus U get a cool email address.



------------------
ICQ# 91029795

[Airbanda]

Concur with SR 71, been with Demon approx 2 years.Previuosly tried Virgin(bit like the trains!) and c&w (crap). Can connect with BT SurfTime to give unlimited access.

[What_does_this_button_do?]

I use Sonnet Internet. www.sonnet.co.uk (http://www.sonnet.co.uk) They have an 0845 number, never once had an engaged signal but it does cost £12.50 a month, but at 1p a min connect time it's good for what I want.

Sonnet is aimed at small/medium business and I've never had an issue with them in the 5 years I have been with them. Very easy going and tech support are excellent.

[lekkerste]

I haven't decided on whether to try BT Anytime or AOL yet, but AOL seems better value as the helpline no. is free whereas it's premium rate with BT, but then AOL is more intrusive......Anyone know what happens to the contents of your IE 'favourites' folder? Do they automatically transfer to AOL favourites?

[cossack]

After all my comments about Freeserve, I tried AOL. I lasted less than 2 weeks!
I found it very difficult to get used to having been "brought up" using Outlook Express and IE. It seemed to take over everything and my PC ran slower. The Norton CPU usage meter ran at 70%+ whenever AOL was open regardless of whether or not I was actually using it.
If you can put up with the differences then AOL is OK (20m+ people can't be wrong, can they?) but it is IMHO an acquired taste.
I'm still with Freeserve for now on the unlimited time package (closed for new subscriptions). They're "anytime" is £3 pm cheaper than both AOL and BT so may be worth considering. I can't believe I wrote that!

[Unwell_Raptor]

Cossack:

(20m+ people can't be wrong, can they?)

Are you serious? Did you see how many people voted for Bush?

[cossack]

Unwell
Nuff said!!! :)

[agentprovocateur]

Does anyone else use Plusnet?

I changed to them from Demon last July because they could offer me 24/7 access in conjunction with Surftime and on the recommendation of a satisfied friend.

Service has been fine until the last few days when I am having lots of problems logging on a) in connecting at all, and b) having connected, having the message 'unable to extablish a connection' on verifying user name and password.

At times I'm having to connect via another ISP, paying local calls, thus defeating the object of the 24/7 access.

[JP Justice]

Agent P:

That's exactly what made me dump Freeserve Time (i.e the unlimited deal). There was no explanation or apology, just a consistent failure to connect. I knew that this was a management decision, and it was just the insult to my intelligence that I resented.

Sod 'em!

[mik]

Agent P, if you want to find out why your plusnet connection doesn't work now, see http://www.pprune.org/ubb/NonCGI/Forum35/HTML/000711.html
:mad:

[agentprovocateur]

Many thanks for that information mik...explains a lot.

Demon's connectivity WAS excellent but 24/7 is expensive with them. I would really like to install adsl but can't get it on my exchange.

I think I will have to change isps sooner rather than later.

[Buffy Summers]

I've been on freeserve for ages, on the off peak deal. All fine until a couple of weeks ago when I couldn't connect for about 3 days. Rang them and discovered that for new members they have a new off peak freephone number, which existing customers may also use.
So if you are having trouble getting through on 0844 040 2001
Try changing the number to 0844 040 4951.
Its really easy to do, just change it in the properties section.
Since then I had one problem using the old number, tried the new, and connected straight away.
So there's a good tip for you all.

[WX Man]

Telewest: It's a con! I called them this morning to ask about it. We have a cable phone at our student house in Birmingham, so we regularly rack up in excess of £40 of calls every month. I read in the Birmingham Cable (= Telewest) booklet that the deal is like that of NTL... spend £10 or more on phone bills, and get your internet free. Otherwise, your monthly bill is made up to £10. Not so!!!! There's a £10/month charge, AND you have to spend more than £10 a month on telephone bills.

I hate to hear myself say it, but AOL I have found to be the best value for money. The really annoying thing is that software... aaargh!!! I hate it. BUT, as an individual user it would only cost me £15.99 (or whatever) per month, with no requirement to clock up x amount of telephone calls.

Disadvantages with AOL= The software and the fact that often I have to leave the computer about 5 minutes before I hear the 'Welcome to AOL' message, signalling when I can start my PPRuNing.

But, the best internet access I've ever used HAS to be the University's connection to ja.net. Lightning quick: even at peak times (11am to 3pm). And if you are on campus at 6pm, after everyone's gone home... well, let's just say I have quite a bit of MP3 too. If you're serious about your surfing, then a fixed line connection cannot be beaten.

[pied piper]

Have to agree,

I have just had blueyonder high speed (500/250k)cable modem put in.

Its quick ;-)

[PPRuNe Dispatcher]

Oh thanks. We do our best to keep PPRuNe running as fast as possible and you go and do you best to overload our server with your T3 university connections, high speed cable modems, direct fibre-optic links, ...

Time to talk to Danny about upgrading the PPRuNe server to a 64-CPU Unix box I've got my eye on :)

Actually we do have plans to significantly upgrade the hardware very shortly. Stay tuned!

---PPD

[autobrakemedium]

I have BT Openworld and when it works it is great, but it can be very hit and miss.

Lots of connection problems and I was even without it for 3 days as there was a "problem woth the line".

Not what I would expect when paying £40.00 pm!

[5711N0205W]

Love

ClaraNet (if you don't want to use it during the day - cos it costs!)

Hate

AOL - The software really mucks up your machine.

Freeserve - All been said before
BtInternet - All been said before

Just had a flyer in from Madasafish who are offering a service similar to Clara at 11.99 or all the time at 27.99.

In my experience you get what you pay for

[R O Tiree]

Others have said this, but I'll re-iterate it anyway:

BTInternet Anytime - £14.99 pcm, never had a problem logging in, good connection speed, not intrusive, uses bog-standard browser, unlike AOL (ptui)... :)

[lekkerste]

Just into my second week of the AOL trial and have to agree with the above comments about the software. I think I'll just have to learn to live with it though. Of all the ISP's I've tried, it consistently gives the fastest connection speeds and coupled with a free support number, that I haven't as yet tried, would seem to offer the best value for money. I just wish they'd stuck with IE/Netscape front-end.

[agentprovocateur]

Just to update my previous post re PlusNet.

I am currently having no problems logging on which is great. However I'm not sure whether I trust them enough to go with them on their FRIACO deal when I WOULD be at their mercy.

Still mulling it over...

[Tinstaafl]

I use ntlworld.

The price has just gone up, to 14.99 UKP /month from 9.99 UKP &lt;grumble, grumble&gt;.

This gives 24/7 access via freecall number as well as 14.99 UKP worth of phone calls.

There's a one-off 10 quid charge for a phone adapter that divert calls through the NTL network.

Calls charges over 14.99 in value are charged at NTL's rates ~ 1 p/min less than BT / plus 3.5 p connection. National calls are charged at local rates.

I used to connect at 44k (max 48) but since Xmas the line speed has dropped to about 38k (max 42).