Looking for reliable UK ISP

[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 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.

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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.



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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 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.