best broadband around

[jeffw]

Certainly it's the backhaul from the exchange that is the main problem as far as contention is concerned.

As Julian says if you can get cable then go with that, very little ADSL2 around currently so if you can't get cable go with a BT ADSL offering from some one like Zen, Nildram or Plus Net. Don't touch the larger 'free' providers as you get what you pay for in life.....

[ChipHazzard]

I find be broadband good & have no problems with them at all, I have also found both virgin (non cable) & bulldog (now tiscalli) very good. I have also heard lot's of different things regarding talktalk from various different sources

[Nige_RS4]

Sorry dude - simply not true on the Core networks front, well certainly not Virgin Media's IP/MPLS core.

What percantage of the population can actualy get cable? Less than 25%! Which leaves the rest of us with copper suffering from under investment on the core.

I don't know of any UK adsl providers (lets not include cable providers, as they are in the minority!) that have implemented and religeously enforce bandwidth hogs.

[S4TAN]

I don't disagree with that Nige - my point was that ADSL is not contended on the copper loop, but on the uplink-to-core ... UK ADSL providers pretty much all use BT's copper loop, and most of them then use BT's network to backhaul their DSLAM uplinks to the interconnects - take for example the BT wholesale IPStream and DataStream services that they sell to so many broadband ISPs for DLE site broadband backhaul - seriously rubbish service, especially on IPStream; very high contention ratio, no CoS/QoS, won't guarantee MLPPP/LFI links, protocol overhead-heavy (PPPoATM/L2TP) etc etc - then it gets handed-off to the ISPs core network or data PoP (where there can be huge b/w capacity, but it's as good as useless to the end-user/subscriber ... the service suffers poor performance between DSLAM and Core)

You're right about cable coverage - it is limited, but that was down to the prohibitive costs of 'greenfield' civils build for the network infrastructure and/or the denial of wayleaves for civils build.

Anyway - I'm in danger of going 'uber-geek' imminently, so I'm gonna bow out of this one ...

[Blue_Thunder]

I was on Bulldog until very recently and I was very impressed with the speeds and I never had connection problems.

The only problem was the price as I was paying £32.50 a month on a 2 year-old tariff. Unfortunately BT have fooked up my switch on the phone lines, so now i'm without a phone line (and therefore broadband at home) for over three weeks whilst I wait for BT to flick a switch at the local exchange!

I was actually planning to go with Sky's £10 offer, but this thread has planted seeds of doubt...

[lemond]

SKY ....Check out the compare sites..I'm sure I founfd one with comments on it.. Sky either got a panning from unhappy customers like me... Or a big hug and kisses and maybe more(!) from happy customers.

It could be down to distance from the exchange

Anyway get your line whooooosh tested by BT they will tell you what you can expect to stuff down it... They will tell you in terms of the 'x'Mb Gubbins thatit can take and how far from the exchange you are....

You may be in luck

[jb7_uk]

Just to shove my 2p into the pot.. i agree with S4TAN... Cable is the best solution if you can get it. I work in IT and was a bit of an online gamer in my time so have tried many ISP's over the years! NTL or Birgin as they are now are head and shoulders above the rest.

As for ADSL services... We tried Tiscali last eyar and they were unbelievably bad, did a test and said we could expect 5.5mb, then they couldn't delivery anything about 1.5mb - Sky, equally have had major problems with them, as have friends of mine. Orange have also been abit ppop for a mate who had service for about 4 out of 12 weeks for a spell just before crimble!

'Be' are good if you can get their service, we have a customer on their 24mb business package and it's ridiculously good, majorly fast and painfuly reliable.

[bakerdcb]

In terms of price, the market is so competitive I reckon you can pretty much demand the best that's on offer. I've quite happily been with AOL for years, never a problem and always had their fastest service which was currently up to 8MB (Reality was closer to 5.5MB because of the local exchange) and this was £30 a month!! Phoned them up to tell them I was going with SKY for £10 a month and up to 16MB and a free router and they promptly dropped their price to £9.90 and gave me a free router. I was never going to get 16MB from SKY anyway because of the local infrastructure so I'm happy. Told my parents to give them a ring cos they were still paying £17 for a really basic package with AOL and they had their price cut by £10 as well.
I guess the moral is whoever you're with don't be afraid to negotiate the best price currently on the market.

[tombs]

See...I told you cable!

[Krammer002]

Some of us have the luxury of a BT Net Premier circuit to play with, and in Cornwall...

[graemep]

From my experience of Be the last couple of years, I would agree with the comments regarding Be - the price of the home package has dropped to £18 a month, and for that I get 18.5Mb bandwidth without any cap on download. Considering I can put up to £20 a month on expenses for a b/band connection I cant complain.

The only drawback is that their coverage still isn't national, so they dont cover everywhere.

[Nige_RS4]

Here's a good site for checking which exchanges offer cable / LLU / SDSL etc... http://www.samknows.com/broadband/sdchecker.php

Some of the figures are a few months out of date, but it should help you understand the optionas available to you.

[DavidT]

Great thread. Informative & amusing

[Nige_RS4]

This is what you need - I have a feeling it's sponsored by Virgin ... http://video.aol.com/video-detail/fonej ... 3173410638

[Peakz]

Fantastic!