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Be unlimited is suffering congestion issues during the evenings

Be has been having problems with congestion and with it's peering that is letting it down badly,

Since last Sunday evening some customers who live in several different parts of the uk have seen latency rise so far be have not made any public statement about it or announced it on their status pages,

The last time was around some 3mths ago & lasted for 2weeks & was a network wide issue but was similar to this

They call their selves the KINGS OF PING , they don't seem to know that the lower it is, the better ,

Support maybe polite etc but are unable to be of much help, even with potential line faults yeah they do 24-48hrs monitoring, but that is pretty much useless if it does not record events such as disconnects ,
 
They are a horrid company, i believed the hype and joined them and have had nothing but issues since my first day of connection back almost a year ago.

Connection is less stable than any ISP ive had previously, (drops sync atleast twice a week, and its not my line, connection prior to the day of migration with prior ISP had several months uptime).

Peering and routing via Linx regularly has issues (just need to look at BEs private forum to see it).

Oh and i agree the kings of ping thing is a joke. The ping times i get from them are actually slower than my prior 2 providers and thats when everything is apparantely working as it should be at BE.

I wont mention the IWF issues and how their stupid proxy has previously blocked whole domains like webs.com sites. Let alone perfectly legit content from sites like filesonic.

Support is shockingly slow to respond and fix anything, and often claim they have fixed things only for the issues to return a few weeks later.

Phone support is as good as useless, ask when something is gonna be fixed and they can never give you an ETA of when...... Thats off course if you dont get cut off on the overseas flakey telephone connection before the call is over.

They are a horridly overhyped ISP and ill be happy to be gone from them when FTTC hits my area at the end of September. BE will be the shortest run ive had with any ISP.

The worst thing is they have this loyal fanbase type following, which bite anyones head off that dares mentions any issues they may have rather than try to help people with actual sense.

Unlimited they may be.............. They also have unlimited amounts of problems. I cant remember a day thats gone by when the beusergroup site hasnt reported some issue of some description they are having.
:crap: <<< sums it up.
 
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Well they again saying that they fixed it, but within days it's happening again, so they just lie to customers it would seem,& yes i have noticed their small amount of loyal fans that stop at nothing in doing their uttermost to preserve the good name that be has over the years apparently earned, what annoys me if the problem is with it's peering partner linx then if that cannot be resolved why don't they use a different peering company or whatever they are ? hardly rocket science is it,
 
Idiot fanbase also over on thinkbroadband are currently arguing with an anon poster. One of their fanboys also seems to want to claim you have reviewed BE twice on here cyclope with no evidence to show otherwise.

Post by the anon
http://forums.thinkbroadband.com/which_isp/t/4035304-choosing-an-isp.html

Post by the BE fanboy in follow up
http://forums.thinkbroadband.com/which_isp/t/4035310-choosing-an-isp.html

Pretty sad a company with a news item on this site desperate for trade after recently losing thousands of LLU subs on O2/BE trying to rub Talk Talks nose in their billing problems.

The service is also congested and as you state 100% truthfully with constant peering and routing issues. Its also full of long term fanboy idiots that help nobody and just defend the company.

Everyone do yourselves a favour avoid this shambolic ISP.
 
Truth4free,

Please take a moment to reflect upon our website rules as we generally don't like people using bad or insulting language against others on our forum, especially when it's against an ISPs general customer base. Speaking like that will only serve to harm any legitimate argument that you or may not have against a provider. Thanks.

http://www.ispreview.co.uk/rules.shtml
 
Truth4free,

Please take a moment to reflect upon our website rules as we generally don't like people using bad or insulting language against others on our forum, especially when it's against an ISPs general customer base. Speaking like that will only serve to harm any legitimate argument that you or may not have against a provider. Thanks.

http://www.ispreview.co.uk/rules.shtml

From what i can see......... I did NOT insult anyone on THIS forum.

Not insulting the userbase as a whole either. I am in complete agreement with cyclope on the issue. Who is obviously part of the userbase just as i am.

The product is horrid, there is nothing positive to claim about it. Everything i have stated is entirely true. I am more than willing to provide evidence of any claims that need to be proven.

They have a core element (i hope that is clearer and more acceptable) which are supporters of the product.

I have no doubt once upon a time BE was a wonderful service, but it hasn't been for at least a year.

How they won The Best Consumer Fixed Broadband ISP ISPA award for 2011 is any persons guess, especially when 2 of the things taken into consideration is supposedly "ping times" along with "customer service".

BE have congestion and constant routing and peering issues that have been discussed numerous times all over the internet. So how in the name of everything sane they have consistent good ping times must be some type of miracle i haven't seen.

As for their customer support its 1) Overseas 2) Slow in dealing with complaints 3) When phoning them you either get cut off entirely or the call regular cuts in and out (goes silent). Appears to be some cheap half baked VOIP system. So another miracle as to how that would be ranked as good.

I wonder and do i dare even say.... Did they win the ISPA award because...
1) They sponsored a category in the ISPA awards this year which according to the ISPA site costs thousands to do
and
2) The judges, (again listed on the ISPA site) one of which is a head staffer of thinkbroadband which seem to ban and lock threads with BE criticism but allow abuse from this core element of supporters.

The other judge even more ironically and pretty funnily is from LINX the company who is POSSIBLY at least in part to blame for the congestion/peering/routing issues BE have. So right there almost by default I WOULD GUESS (this bit i obviously can not prove just an opinion) were 2 votes.... Hmmmm

Good to see you posted the BE wholesale story with them whining at Talk Talk though. Glad more than a single individual saw through that little charade from them. Maybe if they are lucky they will get some of the 16,000 users back they lost earlier in the year, or get some more resellers to start flogging their poorly performing product.

I feel sorry for the ISPs that got taken into reselling it and having to support all the people with constant disconnects now.
(can link to examples).

I wont even start on their fantasy FTTC product which is likely a year off that they keep hyping up or the other billion charm offensives they try to pull.

Apologies if any of that was against rules or close to them.
 
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This is the reason for my post: "Its also full of long term fanboy idiots that help nobody and just defend the company". Calling an ISPs customers "fanboy idiots" won't help your effort to point out other legitimate concerns. If you avoid insulting people and just focus on the problem then that is far more constructive.

Separately it should be said that we've never seen an ISP with a 100% customer satisfaction rating, thus you usually measure the risk when migrating to a new ISP by the broad number of people who are satisfied. However that doesn't mean to say that you won't be one of those that aren't happy, just that with a good ISP your chances of getting burnt will be less.

BE has won a lot of awards and recently almost came top in Which? magazine's customer survey, which saw it gain an 81% satisfaction rating. Put another way that means that 19% or so, which would include you, might have gripes or problems. Not ideal but by contrast AOL UK had a 27% rating and many other big ISPs sit near the 50% mark.

Having said all that, BE does have a problem right now and that will affect its performance and appearance in the future.. unless they resolve it. Such is true of all providers.
 
They can win as many awards as they wish, no matter how dubious they are (or rather what i suspect they may be).

The fact they are 20th out of 50 on this sites reviews (actually even below an ISP not even trading anymore when i last looked) speaks louder than any corporate award.

Especially one where a judge is from an organisation BE do actual business with for their peering/routing. They may as well just rate there self as brilliant.

As for percentages in which magazine......... I do not read it but if its like other so called xx% percent surveys then I wonder how many in actual human body numbers rated BE? I suspect the providers which did worse had more people rating them. I doubt the likes of BT or Virgin had the same tiny figures as what were ranking BE.

Pretty meaningless figures if they only had a few hundred or thousand rating one provider but tens of thousands or more rating others.

Like me having 2 cakes,
1 cake is 50ft and i take 50% of the cake and give another 50% to a business colleague so i have a 25ft slab of cake.
Another cake is only 1ft but i give all that cake to you, you get 100% of the 1ft cake. In reality terms though whos got more cake to eat???

Or like one of those TV adverts which say xx% thought xxxx product was superb........ Then you read the small print at the bottom and wonder why its based on some weird odd number like 873 people (couldnt they get a even 1000 or was it a case of they did but some ranked it so bad they threw away that data just like i gave you the 1ft cake as it wasnt *cough* balanced enough).

I also dont know if you have access to BEs private forum Mark, but i wouldnt say they have as many happy bunnies as they would like or is sometimes perceived at the moment.

I will say they i accept calling a customer base fanboy idiots was wrong of me. Though i genuinely did not mean the entire userbase in that remark and apologise if it was taken that way or in a manner not suitable.

I also accept some are entirely happy with BE, however that doesnt alter the fact the company has numerous ongoing issues and more than just myself are dissatisfied with them and my complaints and the OPs are entirely justified and valid.
 
Someone clearly likes the terms 'fans', 'fanboy'and 'fangirl' a lot - terms that to me are extremely insulting, demeaning and offensive

http://www.ispreview.co.uk/review/reviews/5326.html

In reality they are fanboys and one big fangirl that lurk on BEs private forums and run around the entire internet trying to dismiss any bad comments about BE (You watch one will be along shortly after this review to dismiss it all).

The comment above, a personal attack, is in my opinion completely unacceptable

Add to that being called a 'fanboy idiot' is an insult

Being an IT professional, it could also lead to a damaged reputation - something I personally regard quite highly. Being called a liar in other broadband related forums and other insults here and elsewhere may not look good to a future employer or potential customer.

I might be a member of the BE Usergroup, but only recently became so and I did not take the decision lightly. I was asked at least twice previously and said no. I did not join to get a continuous stream of abuse and insults. I joined because I am passionate about helping others with their problems and making their BE experience better. Also, as well as being a member of the BE Usergroup I consider myself a member of the general userbase.

Sometimes I suffer with problems like everybody else.

My line isn't the most reliable, my sync is lower than it should be (a problem purely at the feet of BT and not BE) and I get regular disconnections, but BE support have always been extremely helpful in this respect and if it wasn't for their persistence, I would not have had my dropwire replaced. This is something I never ever got BT, my previous ISP to acknowledge, let alone fix.

There will always be those that are unhappy - my advice is then to move on elsewhere (especially if you only signed up for 3 month contract). Or is it the fact that BE is one of very few truly unlimited ISP's left that forces one to stay, especially since UKOnline has now closed. It's not the reason I've been with BE over 5 years - that is because for me they have been a very good ISP

Add to that a good few of the recent negative reviews seems to be very, very similar in nature, language and style and if by the same person would be clear contravention of the rules here.

I will happily provide the specifics, but I feel that is best done offline using the appropriate complaints procedure for this site.

I value people's different views and opinions and that is why reviews are a good thing - however when someone has a particular grudge and this distorts their view which they then traipse all over the Internet with, the reviews just beome farcical.

After over 5 years on BE. I have built up lot of experience of them - sometimes moreso that BE staff and certainly other Usergroup members. As I have done so elsewhere. I am glad to admit that BE do have their problems (the website being and systems being very high on that list), as does every other ISP on the planet, but they always do get fixed albeit it may take several weeks or even months (very much dependant on suppliers most of the time). No different in fact than IPStream and congested VP's. This is the pure nature of the game, I'm afraid.

At the end of the day, if anyone is unhappy with an ISP and cannot get the issue resolved to their satisfaction they are generally with a decent ISP like BE let out of the contract to go elsewhere

Nicola
 
Firstly who says my views were aimed at you? Did i mention your name? Who is it a personal attack against?

Furthermore...
Isnt your current job that of a G.P at a practice in London and not that of an IT professional? So how would that "damage" your reputation as an IT professional?

The very fact you have turned up here trying to dismiss bad comments about BE though would tend to suggest the comment has merit.

You have turned up here to do nothing more than to cause trouble.......... I WOULD ALSO SAY TO STAFF WATCH OUT FOR FURTHER POSTS FROM PEOPLE THAT ON ANOTHER CERTAIN SITE DO NOT WANT ANYTHING NEGATIVELY SAID ABOUT BE TURNING UP HERE ALSO

As to what you find "extremely insulting, demeaning and offensive" I am more than willing to highlight to this entire forum some of the terminology you use towards people (THAT IS MORE THAN ONE PERSON BEFORE YOU SAY WHAT YOU SO OBVIOUSLY AND PREDICTABLY WILL STATE NEXT) on the internet.

Shall we start with how you accuse people with issues that conflict with your own opinions of being the same person on another ISP review based site and continually do it.

Shall we also highlight the name calling you aim towards more than a singular individual that has issues with BE?

Oh and how in general in your Usergroup role you dismiss any problems BE are having, to VARIOUS PEOPLE in various forums, until more than a singular individual points out evidence BE are suffering problems including CONGESTION AND PEERING WHICH THE OP HERE POINTED OUT. Only then do you admit there is an issue. In fact lets list that example of your behaviour now shall we and your general attitude towards those that complain about BEs problems.

http://forums.thinkbroadband.com/beunlimited/4028799-network-problems-again.html

This is just an example of how you deal with people that confirm there is an issue with BE...
http://forums.thinkbroadband.com/beunlimited/t/4035581-network-problems-again.html

As to this....
Add to that a good few of the recent negative reviews seems to be very, very similar in nature, language and style and if by the same person would be clear contravention of the rules here.

If that is aimed at me? Ill tell you right now i have one account here, and have never had an account previously on ISPreview nor reviewed ANY ISP here previously... That was until i was so disgusted with BE as a provider, its usergroup members mentality which you are demonstrating here and i can show you have demonstrated elsewhere, rude staff and in general poor performing service that i decided to sign up and tell people just how horrid the whole thing is.

Be very careful of the false accusations you continually are making around the internet towards people, because i wont stand for them.

YOU and a few other desperate supporters of BE have already made false claims about another user negatively reviewing BE on this site more than once. As i pointed out above. Do not even try to do that to me. I have reviewed them here once and once only.

Its no wonder why the OP of this thread, myself and recent reviews on here are so disgusted with BE.

The service stinks, your accusations, stink and perhaps if you find terminology like "fangirl" so offensive then maybe you should not as a so called "usergroup" member of the ISP concerned hurl abuse at the users on other forums.

What a fine company face you are, making false accusations about people.

If staff would like me to alter my review and remove any terminology within it they are more than free to ask me to do so and i will more than freely comply.........

It wont help your hopeless moral cause of defending BE though the service is still rubbish and it will still score the lowest mark possible.

In fact i dont even know what your moral crusade is towards this company which clearly has ongoing issues, which can be clearly proven with the link above which ive posted, the constant near daily issues the usergroup reports and so much more. (All of which im more than happy to show as i stated from the outset ill prove any claim that i make that needs backing up).

I suggest you go back to thinkbroadband and make your wild accusations on there like you have been doing, where they tolerate you and others individuals that mooch around the internet accusing people of multi reviewing BE because its for the negative. They probably tolerate you and that other person i have mentioned above to cyclope because one of the top staff at that site is an ISPA judge which like you must love BE to vote for them in awards.

Apologies to staff here in advance but this individual is rude to others on another site we dont need their rudeness, false accusations, trouble making and in general attempts to deny BE have issues and censor those issues here.

WE DONT NEED YOUR "FACTS" EITHER NREDWOOD where you accuse users of posting on BEs forums with other accounts when they are banned from them.

Shall i link to that debate also which you had previously accusing a person of stating something they never did?

EDIT: I particularly like this defense for BE........
http://forums.thinkbroadband.com/beunlimited/t/4036770-network-problems-again.html

Consumer ISP, not like Easynet????

Oh is that why BE have a Wholesale division and flog their product to other ISPs and have staff running on here in news items moaning about other organisations billing mess ups when BE itself have a slap happy prior history at sending in debt collectors (Which again can be proven).

LOL in short go away...
 
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You can claim all you want you are not the same person, however it is a huge coincidence that both you and the person who posted these seem to think mistakenly I am linked to medical practice

http://forums.thinkbroadband.com/beunlimited/t/4020765-re-well-done-be.html

http://forums.thinkbroadband.com/beunlimited/t/4020595-re-well-done-be.html

http://forums.thinkbroadband.com/beunlimited/t/4035632-re-network-problems-again.html

I've never had anyone else suggest I'm a GP, work in medical practice or am a medical practitioner of any kind

I can see where the idea came from as I have said I work for the NHS and have a little bit of medical knowledge which is as a result of being a first aider and several years experience of working in the NHS and a care charity.

The NHS isn't all about GP's (although some do like to think it is) - there are other NHS occupations

I can assure you I've always worked in IT and will always work in IT

You have completely lost all credibility and your last reply says it all

Nicola
 
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AFAIK you are employed as a GP by the NHS i can show where i got that info here if you wish. I do not make claims i can not back up.

Secondly I am not that user from thinkbroadband.

Thirdly after spending 30 minutes to visit your links (which as suspect were a waste of time). From reading through the thread you linked to in its entirety which your first and second links go to. That user never claimed they were POSTING on BEs forum. Which was your accusation.

Its no wonder they got annoyed with you and your accusation when you refused to provide evidence of your claims they POST on BEs forum and they only ever claimed and stated they READ BEs forums. Id encourage everyone to read it and see that person concerned only ever stated they read BE forums NOT post on them. Thus your claim was false.

Your initial claim...
http://forums.thinkbroadband.com/beunlimited/t/4020536-well-done-be.html

The outcome of your claim...
http://forums.thinkbroadband.com/beunlimited/t/4020820-well-done-be.html

The only thing i will say is the person concerned was not very polite to you but considering how long that thread was and how many pages you insisted they had done something they clearly had not its no wonder they lost it.

False claims just as you have Now started to make here

The third link you seem to have got back entirely what you deserved after you initiated the sarcasm and the person concerned treated you in a similar fashion. Perhaps you should not speak to people in a tone you yourself dislike.

I don't need any credibility with regards to my review on this site. It clearly shows people how they can see just one side of BEs service there self by calling them up and experiencing the call cutting out or worse cutting you off entirely. That no matter how much you may dislike the fact is entirely true. I empower and encourage people to read my review and go try right now calling BE themselves with the info i provided.

The very fact it also says BE Usergroup members run around the net trying to defend the company and you are here right now trying to make out im someone you have issues with on another site and wish to defend BE as a company by spreading accusations about myself also gives it credit.

That is two accurate remarks from my review just for starters.

It does not take much for people to know who they should believe in a review if one area which is commented on can be shown to be true.

You being here defending them just gives it more credit. I suppose i should thank you really.

Can i ask would you mind if i edit the review and post a link to this forum thread to further demonstrate what i had to say is true.

Unless of course you want to admit its all true for yourself. and save people the trouble of making the phone call and then in addition listen to you defending the company here?
 
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Some of the last few posts here have gone a bit over the top and are now breaching several of our forum rules.

http://www.ispreview.co.uk/rules.shtml

2. Please do not post abuse towards other forum members and take special care to avoid making any kind of personal attack upon others; such posts should be reported to the sites editor.

3. Trolling is not allowed (someone who intentionally posts controversial or contrary messages with the intention of baiting users into an argumentative response).

5. Try to make constructive posts and topics.


Please stop and try to keep within the rules or we'll need to become a bit stricter.
 
The terminology of certain users the person concerned took issue with in my review of BE has been removed. I have done this as a gesture of goodwill rather than by any forced request. I hope this will appease the person concerned.
 
All i have to say on the subject is keep checking ukinternetreport.co.uk this is constantly updated and so far this congestion or whatever the problem may be,has been visible on it so this alone would indicate Bethere has problems affecting their network at this moment in time
 
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All i have to say on the subject is keep checking ukinternetreport.co.uk this is constantly updated and so far this congestion or whatever the problem may be,has been visible on it so this alone would indicate Bethere has problems affecting their network at this moment in time

Yep and although for some reason over the weekend (IE sat 27th and sun 28th) the issue seemed to go away on linx-gw1.betherenow.co.uk or http://ukinternetreport.co.uk/?p=d&id=103 this Monday evening it has returned with a nice big bump for a few hours at around the 8pm time frame again.

As i type the daily chart looks like this....
http://i55.tinypic.com/mbiveo.png

and the weekly....
http://i56.tinypic.com/4l68sj.png

27th and 28th ironically a weekend things were fine (Ignoring the packet loss blip). Monday evening and its back. Which is weird, from my experience weekends are more busy than week days.

I guess its just one of the mountain of things they will pretend they have fixed which never has been fixed and will be swept under the carpet and ignored in the hopes people will shut up about it.

Ive also noticed a potential issue with linx-gw2.betherenow.co.uk or http://ukinternetreport.co.uk/?p=d&id=78 which hasnt AFAIK been mentioned anywhere thus far.

Every 3 days (approx) that appears to suffer a short period of packet loss, the next should happen towards the end of tomorrow (30th) or early on wed 30th if the pattern continues.

At first i would have totally blamed Linx but that isnt the case as some other Linx gear seems to have been fine. In fact
linx-mc-gw1.betherenow.co.uk or http://ukinternetreport.co.uk/?p=d&id=178 which is obviously some type of regional link (or im guessing that from the MC bit in it) is fine, hasnt had an issue in ages which tends to point the finger at the service being overloaded in other areas.

So much for BEs previous wild claims of having "excess" capacity and promises they would expand if ever approaching anything congestion related.
 
the problem hasn't been resolved only by be buying more peering bandwidth will solve that , but i suspect that they have somehow switched/routed the traffic differently ,as no one seems to be still complaining about it, but the issue still prevails on some part of the linx network that bethere have the use of, hide it rather than add more capacity perhaps
 
I think its more likely people have just given up complaining, as they do with so much BE never properly fix.

Whatever the case the problem is clearly still there and clearly at a regular time period quick screencap tonight of the chart as i type illustrates nicely whats happened Mon and Tues night.....

http://i54.tinypic.com/24gt8g4.png

Oppps!

Or its possible as it wasn't messed up over the weekend people haven't yet noticed its returned. Give it to the end of the week ;-)
 
It would seem to be affecting thinkbroadband.com it's self now & therefore not as easily visible, but according to posters on the be members forum it has done this in the recent past a few times, but as for it being purely co-incidental or not one can only speculate on it
 
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