Ask4 Reviews

Promised 200mbps wired 100mbps wireless. Received 2mbps wired, rarely works wireless.

Support services claimed to be sending out contractors. No contractors came.
Refused any further support.

Ask4 did not provide any minimum internet speed or realistic peak times as they are required to under Ofcom Codes of Practice

I use the internet a lot as a student. I've used this service for 2 years now and I have to say that I've not experienced worse internet than here.

Pros:
When it works download speed is fast
Easy to set up

Cons:
Packet loss 20% of the time with higher ping (Got max 80% packet loss for 10 mins)
Limited devices
Upload speed is slow
Randomly disappears (especially annoying when trying to upload a 3gb video for a project and when it's 70% the WIFI cuts out)

Had Ask4 in my student halls last year.

Only 30Mbps per second as standard, with 3Mbps upload. Speeds up to 100Mbps were offered but cost stupid amounts.

They limited you to 2 devices on network unless you paid extra, so my desktop, phone, what about my laptop??? Luckily due to poor WiFi connectivity I was experiencing they gave me a refund on my multi device purchase.

Speeds in the afternoon and evening were awful, consistently less than 5Mbps.

Support gave me the runaround for almost the whole time I was there, telling me to run the same tests over and over before admitting it was a capacity issue. The speed was never fixed.

Ask4 has appalling customer service. They have lied about sending engineers out to fix issues. They have ignored complaints about their service.

They are a pain to set up in the first place and when things eventually go wrong as they have several times to this accommodation over the last year they will delay doing anything about saying they sell of their "service" to third party providers so they end up with no control.
The latest issues have been going on over 6 weeks now affecting over 121 people in this building. they keep saying they are "sending engineers out" or my personal favorite "They have already paid a visit" This was a complete lie as the staff at this accommodation had no knowledge of any visits.

Just go with a decent provider as ask4 is run by untrustworthy people

DON'T BOTHER! If you're running two devices then it works okay. My laptop and phone work fine when connected but I had to pay £15 for extra devices so I could use my wireless printer and my Playstion 3! Which because of the poor quality of the wifi never keeps me signed in for more than 20 minutes making playing online games impossible! If you're a student then I highly recommend you get your own wireless router for things as this is absolutely poor! Also the customer service team are less than useful and pretty much refuse to help in any situation!

Ask4 is stuck in the 90s before the time of smart phones and tablets. As a student there is no way, not even by paying, to get more than 6 devices connected at the same time. My communication with customer service regarding this has been like talking to a brick wall – they clearly don't care about their student customers. Avoid if at all possible.

Pros:
Speed - Depending how far you are you could reach 39mbps
No throttling - 99% no issues but have had days when worse than 5mb
No Caps - Currently none but this may change

Cons:
No Setup Instructions - not for average user
Support Hours - Office Hours only for phone, internet tickets 24/7 depending on what you raise
No Email - unlike other ISP's no email service provided
Webspace - non provided but believe a lot of ISP's are phasing this out
Initial Setup Fees - varies depending on package you take but could be looking @ £90 plus cost of cable router if not already got one
Poor Communication - don't keep customers updated or provide relevant feedback most of the time
No Bundles - unlike other ISP's currently they only offer internet access
Faults - Can be costly to customer in regards to diagnosing faults

Overall - If they sorted out their customer support, gave better feedback then they will do well

update: this review is now worthless as the company ceased trading this week

ASK4 is not a very good provider for a number of reasons:

It takes forever to set up, you have verify each one of your devices, It doesn't let you use a router (!?!?), which I find is ridiculous!

I had to by a WI-FI access point which cost me extra money and It doesn't even let me set it up.

The staff are not helpful all they do is refer you to the website set up descriptions, They don't come and fix the problem (which is not helpful!).

Overall I don't find it is very user friendly, too complicated and too time consuming to set up and organise, difficult to set up a WI-FI connection, and requires the registering process to be repeated every month (Like I have nothing better to do!)

I have no problems with speed when connect to it, but it makes no difference most of the time!

First of all, to get set up you plug the Ethernet cable into the wall, hook up your laptop/pc and open an internet browser. Your taken to the Ask4 portal, which lets you set up your Ask4 Account, decide which broadband package you want. Your also offered other add-ons, such as 4connect which allows you to connect 5 or more devices to the net via a lan-swich or router for an additional £15 (yes, your only allowed one mac address connected to the net at one time). However, if you don't feel like paying there are very easy ways to get around this (such as using your routers mac address).

I first tried the inclusive package of 4mb. I was very surprised to find that it was strong enough to browse the net, and play Xbox live/online games which no lag. I Was very impressed, although i had paid £70 for the advanced 30mb/s package. This led to my first pleasant encounter with the Ask4 tech support...

There tech support staff are extremely helpful. Used to virgin’s incompetent call-center staff, I was surprised to find minutes after the email I sent them, the problem was resolved and I was receiving my full speed. My second encounter was about NAT type (as it is set to moderate by Ask4 by default). I sent them an email at about 10pm and half an hour later I received a phone call telling me to restart all devices connected to the net and the NAT would be open. Their staff are friendly, helpful and best of all they actually know what they are doing.

The speed of the broadband package you pay for will always be up to scratch. I payed for the advanced 30mb/s package, and I usually received 34mb/s-30mb/s at peak times. Impressive, since with virgin I was paying for 50mb/s and at peak times I received only 10mb/s with mass amounts of packet-loss. For online gaming (including Xbox live) you should never have any problems.

The value for the student broadband is cheap. I recommend if you use the net mainly for gaming and downloading use the ‘advanced’ 30mb/spackage or the ‘elite’ 60mb/s. My flatmate brought the 60mb/s package, but I can't see the difference when gaming to due my 30mb/s package being lag-free for gaming anyway. If you just use the web for social networking the free broadband offered to student accommodation would suffice.

Overall, so far Ask4 have been a breath of fresh-air after the horror I have endured with Virgin. The speeds are always constantly maxed, lag free gaming and fast browsing and downloads is what I hoped for with an expensive virgin broadband package. Now I have all of that at a fraction of a price, with a company who hire competent staff. Bravo Ask4!

My experience with Ask4 has been so enjoyable. They state there connection speeds that you pay for yet always manage to exceed them. I was on 10Mb I averagely recieved around 15Mb/s. I was then upgraded to a 50Mb package and recieve around 60 - 80Mb/s.

Their sales team are very helpful, and tech support that is second to none.