Thinking if getting a new ISP

[dux]

I've been with nildram for about 5 years now and they gotten progressively worse over time since being taken over by many shitty companies. I used to be on a 4mb line that got max speeds happily. I'm still on that 4mb line that is now lucky to even achieve anything more than a 2mb line speed. Awesome. I just ran speedtest.net 3 times and each test on a different location gave me 0.78, oh god.

So I need a new ISP. Who's good these days and who's terribad? I don't have cable in this area or any fancy fibre optic cables, just good old fashioned adsl. And what about email address? As obviously changing an ISP is gonna make my old one redundant it's just that I wouldn't even know where to begin remembering on which sites I'd need to update my details on. Erk. Although I expect you guys would tell me to use gmail now instead, right?

[Thrik]

I was very happy with Be* and then once I moved to Nottingham I started using TalkTalk which I've also been very happy with. Both are LLU ISPs (means they buy/own part of BTs exchanges rather than just using them) and can deliver 24mb/s through ADSL depending on your distance. With Be* I was really close so I got 20mb/s, with TalkTalk I'm a bit more distant so it's just 8mb/s. But it is extremely reliable and their general service good. Critically to gaming — and this is something Sky and many other ISPs don't do — they will work on the way your line is set up to deliver excellent gaming latency (even if it means a small speed cost). After their tweaks on their end my pings in Battlefield dropped from like 25–35 to 10–15.

I use Gmail for my emails and it works beautifully with Windows Mail through POP3 or IMAP, though I use their 'business' set-up (free) which lets you use your own domain.

[Ginger Lord]

I've used BT in 3 houses in 3 different locations (Rural Norfolk, city centre Cumbria and suburbs Nottingham) and its always been good for me. Of course if things go wrong it would be a nightmare phonecall to India, then again I've heard terror stories of pretty much all ISP's.

Forgot Thrik's in the mighty Nottingham

[dux]

lol

TalkTalk have the UK's largest next-generation broadband network (covering 85% of the UK) but it hasn't reached your area just yet.

lol be*

Sorry, but your phone line is unable to support our broadband. Please contact your telephone provider if you require further details.

[Serenius]

Do they have a service in England that's the equivalent of Verizon's FiOS or AT&T Uverse for a reasonable price? It's hard to beat $55/mo. for 25 MB down/15 MB up.

[Ginger Lord]

Our phone infrastructure was done in the 1900's, fibre optic areas are few and far between. A lot of cities are only just getting it now, BT want a few £bn to do the country.

[Psy]

I switched to Xilo on Monday and they're great as my speed is as fast as it possible can be with my line and I haven't had any issues such as high latency or connection drops. I'm on the Pro 16 Home package which is an LLU package so it costs £40 to migrate over but with unlimited usage and a lack of throttling I'd say it's definitely worth it. I'd also recommend Fast who were the ISP I was with before I switched to Xilo but only because their prices are steep and I kept hitting the monthly 20GB usage limit so I'd spend half the month throttled to 20kb/s which was a bit rubbish. Apart from that their service was flawless right through the period that I joined which started back in October '07.

Either way, they're the top 2 ISPs on ISP Review and so I recommend you check them out.

[dux]

I just looked at Xilo and all the services they can offer me have a cap

I guess I'll just have to stick with nildram's up and down speeds and unlimited cap as there's nothing better for me here.

[Psy]

Well, the Xilo packages do have a 200GB off-peak limit which applies sometime during the night (no idea when) and all weekend which is pretty nice of them.

[Defrag]

I also moved away from Nildram because it became a rip-off bag-of-shit with terrible service / speeds / relability. A real shame considering they used to be one of the best ISPs around. I'm on Be these days and it's excellent.

[dux]

Hey d00ds I have a few questions about migrating that are confuzzling me. When I give the new ISP my mac code, they say don't cancel my current contract just yet otherwise I could be without internet for a while as it takes a few days for the new ISP to activate me. So like, if they have my MAC code now, will I just get automatically switched over to their connection without even noticing until they notify me by email or something? Once that happens I should quickly tell my old ISP to go away, right? As they could keep charging me if I don't tell them to cancel even though I've asked for my MAC code and said I'm migrating?

And he new ISP I decided to go for after looking through tonnes was zen. I've always heard good thing about them and all the reviews were good saying you really get what you pay for which is what I want to hear as they do charge more. £21inc vat for a 50gb cap, fair enough. Nildram has taken an absolute dive now they got taken over by OPAL. I'm currently typing this with a connection speed of 0.60. Awesome.

[Thrik]

Yeah it should migrate fairly seamlessly, though you probably won't be able to just keep using it as your router will need to be reconfigured for your new ISP (or you just use the one they supply). It will most probably just stop working when you're switched.

[Skjalg]

aye, what thrik said. If your internet is down and you restart your router, then suddenly get internet back. Then most likely you are now using your new ISP.

[dux]

Ah of course that's so obvious. Duh.

[dux]

Holy crap this is proving difficult! The isp I'm with now (Nildram) who were taken over by Opal (part of TalkTalk, bunch of fuckers) wouldn't give me my MAC code through email. Got a poorly worded email with typos asking me to call them as they needed more information! So I thought fine, whatever. Yeah, I was sat there like a lemon for up to 30 minutes on hold and then this automated voice tells me to "PLEASE LEAVE A MESSAGE OR CALL BACK LATER" What the fuck! No, I will not. So I just fired them off a pissed email demanding them to give me my MAC code. It's not that freaking hard.