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April 2nd, 2006

Broadband

I still use dialup.

Yes, I know, shocking isn’t it, especially for someone who makes his money on the internet, but I thought I’d come right out and say it.

I haven’t upgraded to broadband at my house because just about every service seems to either demand a year’s subscription or there is some sort of penalty for not signing up for a year when you read the small print, such as a significant charge for unsubscribing. As I’m only going to be there a few more months it isn’t really worth it.

At Maddie_C’s house though the time has now come to enter into the new age of technology, and this week seems like a good one to set the ball in motion. But which broadband supplier to go for? It looks tricky. On paper Tiscali is looking like a good deal, but I’m rather hoping that some readers might have some wisdom to share. Are there any good companies or ones to be avoided? Any advice given in the comments (without being too libelous) would be very much appreciated. Thanks in advance for your help. Sorry, by the way, to be a bit dull and technical today. It has been a good but rather busy weekend.

19 Comments »



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19 Responses to “Broadband”


  1. Chas says:

    I guess that I should put in a plug for SureFish. We’ve had our ups and downs, and it isn’t the cheapest, but it does support Christian Aid.

    April 2nd, 2006 at 8:03 pm
  2. Dave Warnock says:

    Dave, Just the obvious. Keep everything separate. So do not use the broadband supplier for domain registry, dns, webspace or email addresses, then you can switch supplier easily.

    It is better if they support you plugging in a variety of broadband routers so that you can have wired ethernet, wifi and firewalls of your own choosing (basically providing there is an option that is not a USB powered hub).

    April 2nd, 2006 at 8:15 pm
  3. SimonD says:

    I’ve been using PlusNet for the last 18 months and they’ve been fine for me.

    Cheers,

    Simon

    April 2nd, 2006 at 8:19 pm
  4. mymarkup.net says:

    Sent påkommet, men: Bloggöl på Tranan

    Cartoon by Dave Walker. Find more cartoons you can freely re-use on your blog at We Blog Cartoons. Jag…

    April 2nd, 2006 at 8:42 pm
  5. Nigel says:

    Dave, Have a look at this site They have a page where you can do a comparison of broadband service providers. I use Zen which frequently comes top in the comparison charts for speed, reliabilty and customer service.

    April 2nd, 2006 at 9:01 pm
  6. Jack the Lass says:

    No idea about the technical specifications, but I use BT-Yahoo broadband and it’s OK enough. They have different rates dependent on your usage, I found them a bit useless before the phone line went live (I wasn’t just upgrading to broadband but getting a brand new phone line and all sorts), but actually once they accepted that I wasn’t actually Mr A Notmyname and sorted that little cockup out, the actual service has been fine – no better or worse than most of the others, I reckon.

    April 2nd, 2006 at 9:07 pm
  7. Tired&Emotional says:

    I use Pipex who also have the monthly contract option. I’ve had no problem with them at all. Used to use them at work as well.

    Highly recommend.

    April 2nd, 2006 at 9:35 pm
  8. Paul says:

    I’m with UK Online. £10 per month for 1Mb, uncapped usage – don’t think there’s a better value deal out there. But it’s only available at that price in some areas, otherwise it’s £15.

    For genuinely impartial consumer advice on this subject see:
    http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/cgi-bin/viewnews.cgi?newsid1092034925,22928,

    And one last tuppence worth – I had NTL for a couple of years at a previous address and it’d go down every now and then, sometimes for a couple of days, so I steer clear of them now.

    April 2nd, 2006 at 10:27 pm
  9. Tiffer says:

    I really like ndo, 2gb cap tho. but no minimum contract i think, only 11 pounds a month for 256. Does me fine.

    April 2nd, 2006 at 10:28 pm
  10. Chris says:

    I went for a really small broadband company, hoping the customer service would be better than the big boys (I heard all sorts of nightmare stories). It wasn’t.

    So, all in all, no company is perfect.

    April 2nd, 2006 at 11:47 pm
  11. Andy Bastable says:

    I’m with Tiscali and have no problems what so ever. £14.99 a month and no cap. Suuuuuhweet. :)

    April 3rd, 2006 at 7:47 am
  12. JonnyB says:

    Seconded what Nigel said – it’s a great resource and all pretty impartial.

    I’ve just sacked Metronet (Plusnet) for one of my two lines as the customer service went through the floor. I also just signed my elderly father up with Newnet, who seem OK.

    I’d probably go for Zen, but I’m a fairly heavy user. Best advice – unless you’re really strapped for cash, don’t skimp on the customer service and technical side for the sake of a pound a month.

    April 3rd, 2006 at 10:30 am
  13. Simo says:

    I’m with plus net, they have been fantastic, very good at keeping me informed about setting up the account and any other changes (waiting for the free upgrade to 8mb at the mo) all for £14.99 per month, if you go to http://www.notashamed.co.uk/onmebus and click the link it will even help me out as you get a slight discount for others signing up through your recommendation.

    April 3rd, 2006 at 10:37 am
  14. Chris says:

    I use Pipex, and find them pretty good. You might want to check out adslguide.org for more info on each provider. Plus there’s a customer rating service so you can see what their punters think about them :)

    April 3rd, 2006 at 11:30 am
  15. Youthblog says:

    Dave,

    From my experience: Avoid GIO like the plague!
    I now have Force9 and they have been fab on reliability, price and tech support PLUS they have upgraded my speed from 1 meg to 2 meg at no extra cost. http://www.force9.net

    April 3rd, 2006 at 12:55 pm
  16. Chris Clark says:

    Did you know not all broadband is really broadband. It has a specific technical meaning which to most people just meant fast and now fast links which aren’t actually broadband are called broadband. It is a sort of language conflation which happens elsewhere with words with rather more important meanings like love, truth etc.

    April 3rd, 2006 at 3:20 pm
  17. Septuagent says:

    Septuagent has a BT line and uses BT Broadband at (allegedly) 2.2 mbps. The subscription to BT Yahoo as an ISP includes Anti-Virus and Firewall for your own PC + Anti-Spy, and you get email virus protection on your web mail as well. (Also pop-up blocker and parental controls). No troubles and a good deal. There have been several upgrades which have arrived for free, but don’t get much mention in the media. The BT Yahoo browser is a tabbed version of IE which is useful if you need to access a mixture of sites, some of which only work properly with IE.

    April 3rd, 2006 at 7:15 pm
  18. St says:

    NTL were so inefficient at setting up my direct debit that instead of the first three months free I got the first year free. I reminded them after four months too. After receiving an assurance that they would not back-charge me I shut up.

    Since then, although expensive (£24.99), they have been very reliable and I can add cable TV for a good package price. If I wanted to.

    April 4th, 2006 at 8:25 am
  19. Kathryn says:

    Am I too late? Probably…but we’ve had assorted dramas with tiscali, and wouldn’t recommend them (its just the hassle of changing addresses etc that is delaying a switch to fresh fields). Which seems to suggest that it’s often the luck of the draw…

    April 7th, 2006 at 9:11 am