Broadband - Which is the best?

[Duckbutt]

I note the common theme throughout these postings of 'don't get involved with AOL (I'm not). For my own education would someone kindly elaborate as to why not exactly?

[spekesoftly]

I'm another satisfied Pipex Broadband customer. I did have to contact their Tech support only a few weeks ago, when the ADSL connection failed, due to a BT exchange fault. It involved two phone calls to Pipex on an 0845 number, each lasted about 15 minutes and cost 40p. The first call was to report the fault, the second to confirm I had carried out some simple checks, before Pipex contacted BT. On each occasion I did have to wait a short time in a queue, but both calls were dealt with promptly and efficiently by native English speakers! About three hours after the second call, the b/b connection was restored, and in the intervening period I was able to use a dial-up connection FOC.

At £23.44/month, I agree with Keef and PPRuNe Pop that Pipex now look a tad expensive, but my good experience with their Tech people means I'll probably stay put.

[TruTh747]

Hey m8,

I currently use ntl 4mb (cable) and it costs me 24.99/month. I thought this was worth it until sky broadband launched. Sky is offering £10/month for up to 16mb! This is a wicked deal and as soon as my contract is up in September i will change to them.....

Best Regards,

+Truth

[FL460]

I am another happy 2mb Pipex customer. As I work in IT I did a a lot of research and although they are a tad more expensive, the tech support is great.I have only had to call 3 times in 3 years and was dealt with in a professional manner, in fact if they have network issues they put that info on the recorded message when you connect so you dont have to wait to speak to someone. Additionaly if you can get to another pc and go to the website and disruption is posted.
I understand that their call center/office is around North London or Watford.

cheers

[spekesoftly]

Originally Posted by FL460

I understand that their call center/office is around North London or Watford.
cheers

Pretty close - Pipex's website shows an address in Welwyn Garden City, Herts. Judging by the accents of the two helpful guys I spoke to (see earlier post), that's where my calls were answered.

[Rick Storm]

I'm with wanadoo (now orange) pay £17.99 pm for a max 2gb download per month 1.1MBps speed. I've never had any problems with the above ISP I don't play on-line games or download VAST amounts of video I surf 5-6 hours per day and I've never reached my max quota yet. Lots of MB in a giga

Rick

[EI-WAT]

Nothing wrong with AOL at all 14.99 1MB with a Free Wireless Router costing £85.00

[Saab Dastard]

I am very happywith the Telewest / Blueyonder package we've got - combined 4Mbps BB / TV costs £30 / month - no download limit.

The only gripe I have is that their email servers are a bit unreliable - they are MS Exchange, so I'm not altogether surprised.

SD

[spannersatcx]

sky broadband launched

hmm that's what I thought, so I registered an interest, answer "not expected until next year" great, seeing as I'm on a 4mb BT package currently delivering 200k at the moment (for the 3rd time since upgrading!!! a few months back

[Raven30]

Originally Posted by EI-WAT

Nothing wrong with AOL at all 14.99 1MB with a Free Wireless Router costing £85.00

Surely if it costs £85.00, its not exactly free??

[EGKK931]

Raven30

Listen to the advice already here, do NOT consider AOL!!!

I know as I have a friend, tried to change to different ISP and they wouldn't let him took over a year to get out of their evil grasp!

Literally anything is better than AOL.

[BOFH]

IO540
Zen if you are well-heeled. Rather similar to going to your butcher's than Sainsco for the Sunday roast.

BOFH

[spannersatcx]

I think it was meant that a router worth £85 you get free.

[Raven30]

Don't worry, once bitten twice shy.
Signed up to their dial up service years ago before I was any wiser. In their favour, they were one of very few in those days who offered unlimited usage and a free helpline. The downside was the memory heavy front end, the awful web mail and the bl@@dy adverts. And the channels - what a waste of resources when all you wanted to do was a bit of browsing or check your mail.
I'm sure they are better these days but no way would I touch them again.

[BDiONU]

Originally Posted by TruTh747

I currently use ntl 4mb (cable) and it costs me 24.99/month. I thought this was worth it until sky broadband launched. Sky is offering £10/month for up to 16mb! This is a wicked deal and as soon as my contract is up in September i will change to them.....

NTL are very keen to retain existing customers, especially if you've been with them a while. Why don't you ring them on 0800 054 9403, option 3, and tell them what you wrote above and ask them what they can do for you? Don't fall over with surprise if they offer you 10Mb (soon'ish going up to 16Mb) for £17.49 a month ;-)

BD

[slim_slag]

Once you have removed every last bit of their nasty software from your computer AOL broadband is perfectly OK.

[AppleMacster]

Another vote for Zen from me. Great customer service –*you speak to someone in Rochdale usually without being stuck in a queue for more than about five minutes. They even do "live" internet chat-based support which seems to be even quicker. Add to this support for the Mac as well, and it's a great package.

You get what you pay for in my experience when it comes to broadband.

[Cheerio]

I have no complaints about virgin.net. Although it seems to hang off the NTL network, for me it runs at a little over 2 meg, and has a 100% reliability so far. How an organisation responds to a quality issue is important, so I can't comment on that. But after a couple of years of trouble free service, I can recommend Virgin.

[airborne_artist]

Surely if it costs £85.00, its not exactly free??

Except that few, if any, routers cost that much. The last one I bought cost £31.00 inc next day delivery. They are so cheap that I keep a spare one in case I have a problem, as the cost of the router is diddly squat compared to the loss of a day's work without one.

[BOFH]

AppleMacster

you speak to someone in Rochdale

As a foreigner, it took a while to adjust to the accent . If you accidentally end up in a grot site, all the 'ladies' just happen to be from Rochester too.
I noticed that Beagle's recommendation of Virgin looks enticing - it's 40GB a month download before they 'have a word'. At 25GBP, it's tastier than Zen (50GB = 35GBP pm + 1GBP per GB over pm).
BOFH