I have NTL World broadband and only pay one price for 24/7 access to the net

Works for me

http://www.adslguide.org.uk

I was looking at this site earlier.

That's an excellent site btw.

I use Demon Broadband which is £25 a month for unlimited access etc etc.

Generally it has been excellent although their email servers can grind to a halt occasionally.

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by Vinnie
http://www.adslguide.org.uk

I was looking at this site earlier.

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Good idea. It is a good site and has some beginners FAQs.

Essentially, there are two technologies which fall under the heading of Broadband:-

ADSL, is provided through an existing BT telephone line. You don't have to use BT as your service provider. The ADSL guide web site provides a list of other providers and identifies the good/bad ones.

Cable is the alternative and involves either Telewest or NTL (depending on where you live) running a dedicated cable into your house. If your area has got cable, there's a good chance that there is already a small distribution box on the outside of your house. The installer simply runs a new cable (the same size as a TV ariel cable) in through the outside wall into the room where your PC lives.

If I had the choice I would have opted for ADSL (but it's for techy reasons as much as anything). However in my case, my local BT exchange has yet to be upgraded. So, for me, it was cable or nothing.

It works just fine and for most normal users the differences between the two types of service are not worth going into.

The standard Cable service is marginally quicker than the same ASDL service. NTL connections are available in 3 speeds. The middle (silver) service is the equivalent of the standard ADSL service and costs about the same £25/month. NTL have a slower (bronze) service - still twice the speed of normal dial-up - at is £15/month. The gold service is 1M/bit and I think is about £35-40/month (but I suspect that this was an introductory offer).

We use BT broadband, it's £25 a month and that's 24/7 - there aren't any additional charges, and our connection is always on

I just got broadband (Like *really* just - i've only been surfing on it ofr 5 minutes) And we got BT - seems okay so far apart form the dodgy software we were provided with along with the equipment - had to download new stuff off the BT site.

I know that BT has a kind of maximum acceptable usuage that is equillent top approx 200 MP3 downloads a day or they can stop providing it for you - i guess thats so that its not open to quite as much commercial abuse

when i've phoned BT broadband and asked questions i've been told that there's a 150 hours and anytime over that there's a charge (local rate i'm guessing) and when asked if there was a limit to downloading they said 1kb a day (whatever that is) that could be a lot depends what you like to download.

huh?
That does't make sense.. that 150hours thing is for BT's dial-up net access service..

whatever you do, if you get adsl don't get service from btopenworld.. they're one of the worst isp's in existence..

Zen Internet and Nildram consistantly win awards for their services

You'll be looking at about £25 a month for the service, anywhere from free to £50 as a one off setup fee, and about £30 for an adsl modem

Any questions, feel free to bug me

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by Stoo

Zen Internet and Nildram consistantly win awards for their services

You'll be looking at about £25 a month for the service, anywhere from free to £50 as a one off setup fee, and about £30 for an adsl modem

Any questions, feel free to bug me

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soo far soo good with me and NTL, but i know of a friend who would be happy to do..... bad things to them!
ive read good things about Zen and Nildram, two small companies that have won many awards for their service, the only reason we went with ntl is cos we have cable with em


(Edited by nemesis 27/03/2003 23:36)

Yeah, with cable you're pretty much stuck with whatever company deals with your area.

Another NTLer :shrug: their broadband service is pretty much okay, the only problems I've had have been because of a clash between my firewall and DHCP.

Though I have noticed that the cable modem gets *really* hot after I leave loads of junk piled up over it for a day or two

We're with NTL. They have 3 different prices for different services now, which is good because not everyone wants to download the Animatrix whilst also chatting to friends and listening to Lipstick FM. We have the 600Kb (I think), but might upgrade to the 1Mb for an extra tenner. We pay £25.99 at the moment for internet and phone but couldn't resist a few tv packages on top of that

I've been with Nildram since Nov 2001, and when I moved house in July 2002 I didn't even consider anyone else, went straight back to them. They've topped the ADSLGuide speed tests for the past 6 months, and they've support is meant to be excellent (only needed it once when I first got ADSL and they were great - was them that pointed me to ADSLGuide )

As a side note, BT Wholesale is running a half price installation offer till the end of the month (which means that all ISP's should be doing this offer) which only gives you a couple of days to take advantage of it. Some ISP's are gonna carry on this offer (at their own expense) others won't so either order ADSL in the next couple of days or wait a bit to see if another offer comes along. I've heard that BT is doing a price review atm, considering their plans to bring out a Home1000 product.

We have NTL, who I must say have been rather pleasant to deal with recently. Service is stable and fast in our area, but it really does differ from area to area. We have 1MB for 35quid a month.

They have brought in a controversional 1GB/day limit, but I supsect they only really punish persistant offenders going way over a gig.

For ADSL, Clara.net used to have a good reputation (dunno if its still good), and as other have said i've heard Zen is a consitently good ISP.

Anyway, we'll definately be with Cable for the forseeable future.

we've got ntl which as far as i'm concerned is great, but if you believe the ad men and if you live in one of their "areas" (which are few and far between) telewest broadbands blueyonder is supposed to be the dogs back wheels

I used to have Blueyonder cable and to be honest thought it was fantastic, I never had any problems and think only ever lost my connection once in the whole year I had it

I now have BT Broadband and can honestly say I think it's pants, I find that if I am online after lunchtime I am constantly getting disconnected and it at times goes so slow, bt say its to do with the usb ports and I should have nothing but the modem plugged in to them , well firstly I tried that and it made no difference and secondly why would it make a difference after lunch??? I can be connected for 5/6 hours in the morning no problems apart from some slowness yet after 12 I get d/c'd and after 6pm its terrible!!!!

That's the reason I say not to bother with BT's service

looks like NTL has the majority of votes. *goes off to investigate*

cheers guys

[EDIT] it might just have to BE BT NTL isn't available in my area (it's available in Swindon though *flashback to a Red Dwarf remark*) it's not fair. goits.

(Edited by EvilWillow 29/03/2003 13:43)

Well, only if you can get ntl or blueyonder cable where you live, if not then you'll have to go with some form of ADSL..

If you have to use ADSL, then go for either Zen or Nildram

Happy hunting