Broadband query/Best 1mb service

[James Vertigan]

My brother and I are fed up with not being able to both use AOL at the same time or have broadband thanks to the "wrong sort of cables" in our area, so with our parents permission, my brother and I are thinking of putting some money together to transfer one of our 2 NTL lines to BT (apparantley we can do this and still keep the NTL number, as the number we will be using is the modem/fax number) - is this possible?

We are probably going to go for the 1mb service... we have looked at BT, NTL and AOL broadband, but are not sure of the best ISP to use as they all seem to offer the same sort of service at the same price.

So, we'd like your opinion please...

[MovedGoalPosts]

Yep it should be possible to retain your phone number when you change from ntl to BT, may take a little while to sort out though, but no doubt BT will try and sort it for you.

As for broadband, make sure when you get the new BT line setup, BT know you will want Broadband on it. I've heard that sometimes they "cheat" in adding lines and split them - phone works OK but the split line couldn't support the ADSL.

As for ADSL ISPs you might get a reasonable comparision on sites like www.adslguide.org or www.ispreview.co.uk. There are so many names to choose from.

Don't just look for the cheapest price. Do you want any add ons like webspace, email addresses, etc. Do you download a lot of stuff so could caps or throttling of connections be an issue? Do you want an ISP that gives you loads of added content such as the Yahoo, or AOL things, or woudl you be happy with just googling for the stuff you want? Do you want antispam, antivirus and such like cheap or bundled? Watch out for AOL if you don't want their proprietary email and browser software.

[Chris W]

Originally Posted by James Vertigan

My brother and I are fed up with not being able to both use AOL at the same time or have broadband thanks to the "wrong sort of cables" in our area, so with our parents permission, my brother and I are thinking of putting some money together to transfer one of our 2 NTL lines to BT (apparantley we can do this and still keep the NTL number, as the number we will be using is the modem/fax number) - is this possible?

We are probably going to go for the 1mb service... we have looked at BT, NTL and AOL broadband, but are not sure of the best ISP to use as they all seem to offer the same sort of service at the same price.

So, we'd like your opinion please...

how many times have i seen sites like adslguide and ispreview posted on here. please search both the forums and the internet before asking questions... or read the forum ettiquite thread.

[James Vertigan]

Sorry your majesty! Quite frankly I'm baffled by all this ADSL and 1mb stuff... I just want a nice fast connection that I can use all the time without getting bumped off by faxes being sent or coming through, or another person signing on, and have decent quality streaming etc...

And my brother says he's not sure whether ADSL is any good... but I don't know!

Frankly MB there was no nead for that attitude and I have edited the unnesscessary comments from your post.
Please be nice to people.

[paulyoung666]

Originally Posted by monkeybreath

how many times have i seen sites like adslguide and ispreview posted on here. please search both the forums and the internet before asking questions... or read the forum ettiquite thread.

have you had a bad day my mate ????????????????????

[Charlie_Bubble]

Originally Posted by James Vertigan

Sorry your majesty! Quite frankly I'm baffled by all this ADSL and 1mb stuff... I just want a nice fast connection that I can use all the time without getting bumped off by faxes being sent or coming through, or another person signing on, and have decent quality streaming etc...

And my brother says he's not sure whether ADSL is any good... but I don't know!

How much are you looking to spend a month on the ADSL? I'm looking around at the moment and the three that I have shortlisted are plusnet, pipex and Zen. They have what I want, email, good rep and most importantly, newsgroups. Pipex is free connection at the moment and about £35 a month, plusnet has a connection charge of about £50 and is about £35 a month. Zen have a £50 connection fee and is about £40 a month. Zen seem to have one of the best reputations from the posts on adslguide, but obviously it's a few quid more a month.

[Chris W]

Originally Posted by Pem

Frankly MB there was no nead for that attitude and I have edited the unnesscessary comments from your post.
Please be nice to people.

Sorry! let my frustration get the better of me...

Originally Posted by paulyoung666

have you had a bad day my mate ????????????????????

yes i have... but now i am home, have some fags and a pint of john smiths so feeling better now!

sorry again!

MB

[Bifta]

Originally Posted by Charlie_Bubble

How much are you looking to spend a month on the ADSL? I'm looking around at the moment and the three that I have shortlisted are plusnet, pipex and Zen. They have what I want, email, good rep and most importantly, newsgroups. Pipex is free connection at the moment and about £35 a month, plusnet has a connection charge of about £50 and is about £35 a month. Zen have a £50 connection fee and is about £40 a month. Zen seem to have one of the best reputations from the posts on adslguide, but obviously it's a few quid more a month.

You get what you pay for, in my case however, I pay Pipex for a 1 meg connection and I get under a quarter of that speed (Yes, well done Pipex, an 8 week fault you've done nothing to cure, you've surpassed NTL in respect of poor tech. support), so in my experience I'd go for one of the other two you've listed (or Nildram)

[ntl customer]

We are probably going to go for the 1mb service... we have looked at BT, NTL and AOL broadband, but are not sure of the best ISP to use as they all seem to offer the same sort of service at the same price

BT Broadband is pricey for what you get - no email, webspace, newsgroups etc. Do not even be tempted to use their £19.99 package that they are massively plugging in the press at the moment - there is a 1Gb cap per month which even a person who uses diaup 24/7 can exceed within 48 hours by downloading at full pelt.

ntl: - again I would avoid like the plague unless you have no other option. Am on them at the moment but in the process of moving to ADSL as there are many "issues" which cause the service to become annoying to use after a time - like email not working whenever it wants to, proxy hopping (changing proxy several times just to get to one page, oh what fun ) and the news service which, quite frankly is useless. The reliability seems to have improved a little but it is still not good enough as there are still timeouts when downloading articles.

AOL I would also avoid if you have not used them before. I doubt if you can network it so you can share it as I have read somewhere that you cannot use other hardware with their service as you are stuck with their cruddy USB modem.

I'd go with Plusnet, Zen or Pipex . I have been with the latter twice before and have always found their service to be fast and reliable (well...ish because the 2nd time round it kept disconnecting but I suppose it was a BT fault) with email that works, news that works and no proxies!!

And also don't be tempted by the offers of "free modems". These are usaully USB and mean that you do not have an always on internet connection in the sense that you lose your connection and IP when you switch off your PC and have to "dialup" everytime to connect (yes there are workarounds but if you want a connection that is always on then you might as well go for the ethernet modem/router). Mind you, if you do sign up to an ISP offering a free USB modem then keep it as backup or flog it on Ebay

[James Vertigan]

My brother says we would be able to network the computers, so we'll have to look for an ISP that supports this.

Personally I'd like to go to AOL broadband (from AOL dial up which I'm running at the moment) as that way I can keep my current email address and Buddy List etc...
Just seearched and found here:

http://www.aol.co.uk/broadband/networking.html

that you can network AOL broadband, and even dial-up apparently now as well!

[ntl customer]

Originally Posted by James Vertigan

Just seearched and found here:

http://www.aol.co.uk/broadband/networking.html

that you can network AOL broadband, and even dial-up apparently now as well!

However you are still stuck with their choice of hardware. I'm not sure if you can choose something else or if they still use proprietary software like they did a while back.

Just 1 question, can you use AOL dialup without installing any of the software at all (ie. just setting up a conneciton in dialup networking like you'd usually do with any other ISP) ?

[DrAwesome]

Originally Posted by Pem

Frankly MB there was no nead for that attitude and I have edited the unnesscessary comments from your post.
Please be nice to people.

MB is correct forum members should be encouraged to use the search option in the forum as most questions and answers have been given before.

whats the point of having a search option within the forums if its use is not encouraged.

[ian@huth]

Originally Posted by DrAwesome

MB is correct forum members should be encouraged to use the search option in the forum as most questions and answers have been given before.

whats the point of having a search option within the forums if its use is not encouraged.

Whilst I would be the first to agree that members should use the search facility more there are instances where this is not the best advice.

If you are asking for an opinion on something, the same question may have been asked a few months ago but the answers given then may not be appropriate now.

Take Bifta with his ADSL experience. If you had asked for his opinion on Pipex just as he was waiting for it to be activated he would have probably said that it was the best service under the sun, otherwise he would have chosen another ISP. Ask now and you would get a completely different opinion from him.

Originally Posted by DrAwesome

MB is correct forum members should be encouraged to use the search option in the forum as most questions and answers have been given before.

whats the point of having a search option within the forums if its use is not encouraged.

That post has nothing to do with whether he was right to suggest the use of the search - his original post contained unsuitable and offensive comments which were removed.