Broadband UK

[sky9]

i have been signed on to BTOpenworld for a month and cannot get on line. Have others found the service as bad, or is it my computer/connection?

[touch&go]

Yes the service is very poor, I keep getting error 650 and have to re boot my PC all the time....I am at war with BT over the problems but they will not do anything about it.

Try giving the chief exec of BT openworld a call, his PA's direct number is 02074692183, and ask for Mr Green.

Good luck.

[tony draper]

Got a call from BT a couple of nights ago trying to get me to sign back up with them, guy asked me what I used the service for mostly, I said internet, he says, "what isp?"
I told him, Telewest Blueyonder, " errr sorry to have bothered you".
I get unlimited unmetered access 24 hrs a day for 9 quid a month.
Which is nice. ;)

[This message has been edited by tony draper (edited 22 May 2001).]

[AquaPlane]

Just about every one of my customers on Cable Modem connections suffer from caching problems. By this I mean, go to the BBC news web site and find it's 3 hours out of date. It seems that Telewest and ntl cache a lot more information for a lot longer than for regular users on dialups. This is of course to keep costs down. The more content delivered from ntl or Telewest's hard disks in their caches, the less bandwidth they have to buy from their backbone providers.

Our ISDN 256kbit/s leased line here at work has 1:1 contention yet runs at half the speed of a regular cable line (512kbit/s). It costs in the region of £18'000 a year to have this service, so you really think it'll be as good through a £500 Cable Modem...?

The Internet is all about timely and accurate information, and between them, Telewest and ntl seem to have stuffed it completely.

I understand that Openworld customers suffer the same problems, although cannot vouch for this.

I live in Bishop's Cleeve just to the north of Cheltenham and can't get cable or ADSL in my home anyways. But if I could, I'd like to think the quality of the information was as good as it is from dialup, which is simply not the case at the moment - as many of my customers are finding out. Ho hum. http://www.pprune.org/ubb/NonCGI/frown.gif

[tony draper]

I think telewest cable moden runs about thirty quid a month, I did give some thought to it, but I don't download much so I just stuck wth my 56k int modem and their surffree service.

[sky9]

Thanks for the info, I will give BT a call. In the meantime, still not on line having installed on the 20th April. Give broadband a wide berth for the present unless you enjoy talking to Tech. helplines!!

[This message has been edited by sky9 (edited 23 May 2001).]

[pied piper]

Aquaplane:

>>Our ISDN 256kbit/s leased line here at work has 1:1 contention yet runs at half the speed of a regular cable line (512kbit/s). It costs in the region of £18'000 a year to have this service, so you really think it'll be as good through a £500 Cable Modem...?<<

The term "cost of ownership" comes in to play
This is why VPNs are so popular.

Telewest guarantee 256k download speeds and that is what you get, as well as an always on connection. You can always set up a web proxy server from another ISP to avoid out of date caches. I do not have any experience of problems with cache engines.

I have used Telewests Blueyonder for some time now and I think it is the Bees Knees for an "at home" connection.

And believe me I have seen some very poor connections in the leased line and isdn sector