Desperately need new ISP - please recommend - UK - No Internet :o

[LERsince1991]

We've been with AOL for a while and its alright but its £20 a month, it must be unlimited. But its ran out and my Dad wants to shop around first so atm we have no internet and have to use the neighbors occasionally.

I've looked around and not found much really.
We have a belkin N1 router which is fine so don't want to get another one with the ISP.

We would be interested in a phone, internet and whatever else package.
We currently have sky, although we've cancelled everything so we just have freesat atm with 2 sky box's... cost too much in the end

I do use bit torrent so we need unlimited with an ISP that won't kill me
AOL have never had a problem with bit torrent it seems, my friend downloaded one thing and he got a phone call and a letter through the following day!

So would anyone be able to recommend some ISP's and packages to me?

And obviously it needs to be Mac compatible, I heard Orange internet is rubbish because of the router and not Mac compatible.

We have like 5 laptops, xbox 360, network HDD and printer that all connect to the router.

Luke.

P.S. ASAP Please We have no internet ahhhhhhh

 

[dogtanian]

We've been with AOL for a while and its alright but its £20 a month, it must be unlimited. But its ran out and my Dad wants to shop around first so atm we have no internet and have to use the neighbors occasionally.

I've looked around and not found much really.
We have a belkin N1 router which is fine so don't want to get another one with the ISP.

We would be interested in a phone, internet and whatever else package.
We currently have sky, although we've cancelled everything so we just have freesat atm with 2 sky box's... cost too much in the end

I do use bit torrent so we need unlimited with an ISP that won't kill me
AOL have never had a problem with bit torrent it seems, my friend downloaded one thing and he got a phone call and a letter through the following day!

So would anyone be able to recommend some ISP's and packages to me?

And obviously it needs to be Mac compatible, I heard Orange internet is rubbish because of the router and not Mac compatible.

We have like 5 laptops, xbox 360, network HDD and printer that all connect to the router.

Luke.

P.S. ASAP Please We have no internet ahhhhhhh

O2 have been amazing for me, haven't been able to fault them and if you have an O2 mobile (iPhone perhaps!?) the price is unbeatable. £7.50 for 4MB or £12 for more than that.

Just avoid Demon with a barge poll...

 

[Eraserhead]

Just avoid Demon with a barge poll...

There is nothing wrong with Demon. I've used them for years with no problems.

 

[hailst0rm]

O2 highly recommended. I rarely need support but when I do I've been really impressed by them. Works out even cheaper if you've got a mobile contract with them.

 

[dazey]

Bethere.co.uk
great if you can get it. I used to manage to sync at 18mbps and download from usenet at a steady 14mbps or more. Bit less now as I moved to 2.5mbps upload and there seems to be a trade off which is fine

 

[northy124]

BT, bloody brilliant ISP I say myself.

 

[Schtumple]

BT, bloody brilliant ISP I say myself.

I have to disagree, only partly, overall, they're good, however, their tech support is terrible, I was literally told "You'll have to figure it out yourself" when I had an issue relating to horrific wireless performance. However, aside from that, they're a good service.

Do NOT, go with Virgin DSL broadband, they are terrible, we have had countless emails and letter threats, along with being limited down to dial up speed because of "heavy bandwidth usage", I monitored this once, and me and my dad clocked up 400mb together during the day, we got an email the next day warning us we will be limited to dial up speeds if we carry on like this... But when our line went down for 2 weeks (they cut us off instead of someone else), they didn't want to know and also didn't apologise when they did finally fix it...

We're going to move to BT when we can, if you go with Virgin Cable (if you can), they are good, but DSL, they're horrific.

 

[northy124]

I have to disagree, only partly, overall, they're good, however, their tech support is terrible, I was literally told "You'll have to figure it out yourself" when I had an issue relating to horrific wireless performance. However, aside from that, they're a good service.

I don't use their 2Wire Modem/Router, maybe that is why I think they are marvellous as I don't have phone (never had a cut out).

 

[Schtumple]

I don't use their 2Wire Modem/Router, maybe that is why I think they are marvellous as I don't have phone (never had a cut out).

It's their home hub thing, it's good a fair few amount of bugs with it, that BT generally won't admit too...

 

[northy124]

It's their home hub thing, it's good a fair few amount of bugs with it, that BT generally won't admit too...

Oh we got a 2Wire Modem/Router, tbh anyone on BT shouldn't use their Modem/Routers as they aren't the best

 

[Schtumple]

Oh we got a 2Wire Modem/Router, tbh anyone on BT shouldn't use their Modem/Routers as they aren't the best

True, they look nice (well the Home Hub does), but they just seem to crash windows PCs wireless alot, and the only solution is to restart the router, no issues on the Mac, Xbox, iPhone though

 

[LERsince1991]

I'll look into O2 and Bt then cheers, AOL have offered us £16 for unlimited everything at 8Mbs but we only get 2 max anyway.

O2 looks good, my family is all on orange mobile phones though

BT looks really expensive? like £25 a month...

 

[Schtumple]

You do pay for a good service though, as long as you keep your current router and update the settings, you'll find it easy to get along with.

You could just go with Orange broadband and just have windows installed on Parallels or something, how often do you honestly need to go into your routers settings...

 

[afd]

Have used both O2 and BT. When I changed to o2 the only differnce I noticed was the speed (faster, I went for the £10 version) and the cost (much cheaper). You don't need an 02 contract, a PAYG mobile will do too. Or you could just buy an iphone.

 

[bigandy]

If you're committed to ADSL, BE/O2 are a very good bet.

Demon for years was no problem for me, until they helpfully changed their T&Cs and limited transfer to 50GB/month. I moved to a business contract that at the time was £80+VAT a month, just to get unlimited transfer, and ended up with the most unreliable ADSL I've ever experienced. Their support (24/7 apparently) was inexcusably inept.

BE/O2 are my choice because of their stellar reputations for providing properly unlimited reliable broadband at a good price.

 

[Chappers]

There is nothing wrong with Demon. I've used them for years with no problems.

They certainly know their Mac stuff but I had to take them to the ombudsman when I changed ISP's to BT and they didn't cancel my account. Over a year later I got a threatening letter from their debt collector for money because I hadn't been paying my bill.

I won but it wasn't easy.

 

[MagicWok]

BT are bloody awful!!!

Really horrible technical services, almost all packages have download caps, they're slow and a rip-off.

For £24.46 a month, you get this from BT:
- Up to 8mbit speed
- 256 kbit upload speed
- Unlimited bandwdith

For £12.23 (£7.34 for O2 mobile customer) you get this:
- Up to 8mbit download
- Up to 1.3 mbit upload
- Unlimited bandwidth


Even when you get the highest priced package from O2, it still beats BT hands down in price and features... also add to the fact the first 2 months are free too.

£22.02 a month (£17.13 for O2 mobile customer)
- Up to 20mbit download
- Up to 2.5mbit upload

The sweet spot is definately the 'premium'/middle package that comes in at £14.68/£9.79 that simply out-classes anything BT offers. Stay well away. Be/O2 share alot the same lines. I can personally couch also for Be's stellar technical service and forums as I have them currently, but thinking of switching over to O2.

 

[iBlue]

It's their home hub thing, it's good a fair few amount of bugs with it, that BT generally won't admit too...

This was my experience as well. BT was horrible for us (as in the husband and I) and the home hub thing was a plastic hunk of shyte.


We've got Virgin now (for phone, internet and TV) and it's not too bad. We run bittorrent occasionally as well and don't get throttled because our torrent client allows you to set max speed. The client throttles itself to suit the peak hours where Virgin can throttle you and lets loose in the middle of the night when they don't have restrictions.

Between the only two ISPs I've really got experience with - BT: complete crap; Virgin: pretty decent, or at least not nearly as crap.

 

[MacBoobsPro]

BT are crap (we have them at work).

Virgin are crap I had them at home until I got so sick of the down time (fibre optic cable not phone lines) that I switched to Sky and they have been great. I'm on Broadband Max at £5 per month for 6Mb. Quite often max out the speed especially from Apple Servers for things like iTunes and downloads.

No throttling, no limits (unless you REALLY rape it), and havent jumped on the 3 strikes and your out regarding peer2peer stuff.

Only thing is to get it at £5 a month you also need to get phone and TV from them. Even then its not a bad price without the phone and TV.

My vote is for Sky, you already have the phone right?

 

[northy124]

BT are bloody awful!!!

Really horrible technical services, almost all packages have download caps, they're slow and a rip-off.

They are not, never had down time (unless something happened due to nature which isn't their issue but they send a man out and sort it within 5 hours of phoning them), yes they are expensive but if (and I normally do) I get the tech service that I have gotten I do not mind paying that much for them. My package doesn't have a download cap

 

[steviem]

BT, bloody brilliant ISP I say myself.

You made a typo there surely? BE/bethere is my favourite ISP.

I'm on the 'pro' package, £21.50 per month and it gives unlimited download/upload, it's advertised 24mbps/2.5mbps and my router's connection speeds are currently 17.1/2.3mbps. I'm not a fan of the speedtouch router that they provide (bad memories from my time working on an ISP (clara.net) helpdesk with the Speedtouch 330), but it's easy to set up other routers with them.

Anyway, Be are really good, they even accidentally charged me double and automatically reimbursed me that money and the month's fee for their error. I didn't even know they overcharged until they told me, which was nice...

 

[LERsince1991]

Be looks alright at £13.50 a month
O2 looks alright at £12.23 a month
SKY looks alright at £10 with a package, we had sky TV but cancelled, it cost too much
AOL is a safe bet, get exactly what I want guaranteed for £16

Orange is bad in my experience from when i was at my friends house...
BT are too expensive

So its between Them 3.
I need a cheap package with unlimited downloads and that are cool with bit torrenting. speed doesn't matter since I can only receive 2MB

 

[iBlue]

^ What about Virgin? Have you looked into that?

 

[northy124]

You made a typo there surely?

No and I have stated my reasons why.

 

[Shadow]

Orange is bad in my experience from when i was at my friends house...

I'm using Orange now (we were on Wanadoo but they were bought out) and it's not pretty. They're horrendously overcharging us (we should be getting it for free and yet we're paying £20/month; thats what you get for sticking with them for so long), the tech support is shoddy at best (when I called up for a MAC code they were very unhelpful) and I swear that the connection is getting slower and slower.

I know people with Be and their connections have gone down the drain recently, although it might be an issue with their particular connections rather than with the ISP as a whole.

My uncle has (or had) Sky and he said it was awful, and thats the reason that we havn't gone with them already.

Have you checked out Tiscali? We're signing up with them very soon and their packages look really good if you get their telephone as well (~£14/mo for up to [unlimited] 8Mb with some telephone stuff in there too).