Broadband packages

[Al Wyn]

Whats the best value broadband package currently available out there?

[Jamo]

Depends what you want broadband for?

Downloading or browsing?

[S2central.net]

All broadband providers are NOT the same -

http://www.moneysupermarket.com/broadband

If you want my advice - stay away from the newbie phone & broadband providers - as a general rule they are working off ******-all margin and can't afford the technical strength (or the best people) that you tend to find with the established providers.

[Greg_S]

force9 have got some good deals going, but like jamo said depends what you need it for

[Lloyd]

I can easily recommend a company called Zen Internet. Simply 1st class customer and or technical service as well as fairly competitive price point.

I think they've done very well in ISP rankings over the last few years for said service.

[iain1067]

if you van get cable via ntl then that's good a lot better than BT, uk call centres on line help just night and day difference,

Iain

[Al Wyn]

Blimey just been searching through a few old threads then come back out and 5 replies to the post. Its just for general browsing, occasional download etc family stuff and of course `the forum` Had heard, as Paul said, some of these phone package deals were badly supported.

[Fat Audi 80]

BT - Very happy and IIRC its about £13 a month or something. You get a 2Gb email account too and its always on no hassle etc...

[S2central.net]

Must say I have been with Pipex for five years in three different houses - never had one technical issue - not ever. Only stupidity I had with them was when moving house once when I wanted to keep my number and they needed me to go thru some stupid procedure of disconnect and reconnect as at they time they weren't linked into BT's NOC that could automate a move.

I have stayed with BT for voice all that time... The whole VoIP thing just isn't mature enough for mass deployment in the house. Sure Skype and such works to a point but when the networks aren't congested but the voice quality really suffers in times of packet loss (or lengthy alternate paths) which inevitably occur even on todays networks.

[Lloyd]

One other option worth considering is BT's new 'all in one' package.
Mobile + Fixed calls + Broadband.

You can get your mobile calls capped at 25p for a whole hour - mob to mob, mob to landline. That's pretty good.

Just one bill to sort out each month too

[S2central.net]

That would be great if it works ... We often get pilaged on the current phone bill for calls to mobiles which aren't free on our current plan.

Paul

[Jamo]

Check this site out: http://www.ispreview.co.uk/review/top10.php


Pipex used to be the daddy until they got taken over and they're support is no longer as good and they introduced capping.

Still a very good choice though. Avoid places like Bulldog etc

NTL / Telewest is the best for downloading as the upload / download kb limit is very good plus you not capped on how many GB you can download a month and the ratio is dependant on how many people in your street have cable modems not at the exchange with ADSL.

ADSL is the best all rounder as it is cheaper but it's naff for downloading, better for browsing as most ISP put a download cap on your account.

[s2_bo]

I can easily recommend a company called Zen Internet. Simply 1st class customer and or technical service as well as fairly competitive price point.

I think they've done very well in ISP rankings over the last few years for said service.

Ill second that.

Zen are Excellent.

We have 2 8mb BB accounts with them plus 3 hosting packages and a SMTP feed.

Never had any issues. However they have now started capping to 50Gbs/month on there standard packages. and the uncapped ones a very expensive.

So depends what your after really.

[waad_uk]

Depending on your usgae, I have heard good things about metronet.

Basically they offer a cheap service that has a usage limit. When you exceed this limit you pay per Mb BUT upto a ceiling price whcih I think is comparable to most ISPs.

So this means if you have a light usage month you pay less, or if you have a heavy month you pay upto an amount comparable to most ISP`s....

Reliablilty was good (Havent checked recently) and so was their customer service

[alg]

Must say I have been with Pipex for five years in three different houses - never had one technical issue - not ever. Only stupidity I had with them was when moving house once when I wanted to keep my number and they needed me to go thru some stupid procedure of disconnect and reconnect as at they time they weren't linked into BT's NOC that could automate a move.

I have stayed with BT for voice all that time... The whole VoIP thing just isn't mature enough for mass deployment in the house. Sure Skype and such works to a point but when the networks aren't congested but the voice quality really suffers in times of packet loss (or lengthy alternate paths) which inevitably occur even on todays networks.

I was with Pipex until they started to cap downloads unilaterally with no warning on 'unlimited' package (old fair use clause).
Moved to some new set up who went bust !!!! Then went to Bulldog (excellent package..but taking no more residential business). And guess who took them over.....PIPEX. Still my music P2P frenzy has settled and I get an excellent service uncapped. In addition I should see no increase in residential numbers on their cables at the exchange