RedTomato
Casual Member
Hi all at ISP Review,
I'm supporting a deaf family moving to a new ISP. We're heavy users of Facetime / Zoom. Often 4 Zoom calls at the same time (parents working from home & kids getting schooling via Zoom) plus simultaneous side-channel FaceTime calls to online BSL interpreters for the Zoom calls, meaning sometimes 4-6 video calls going on simultaneously.
Current ISP is Vodafone SuperFast Fibre 76, now at end of contract.
Have rarely if ever seen that 76mb. Sometimes as low as 3 or 4mb up especially at peak times, but still strangely still 15mb+ up. ( Had to resort to using 4G cellular for Zoom, not ideal.) Vodafone connection began dropping every 30 mins, Vodaphone / OpenReach came out and replaced the drop wire (from telephone pole to our house) last month. Connection and speeds rather more stable now, but still not ideal. Facetime calls / Zoom still stuttering / dropping from time to time, & connection still drops from time to time, especially under heavy load.
I have narrowed the choice of new ISP to:
- Zen - 50mb down / 12 up for £35 / month,
- Virgin Media cable - 200mb down / 20 up (plus some other extras) for £34 /month.
(Was with Virgin before Vodafone, and they had their issues, so this is not as good an offer as it might seem. FTTP, Hyperoptic etc not available)
I know little about this area, but seems this will depend on consistency and latency / jitter / stability in working hours and evenings.Could I ask you guys what your ISP recommendation would be for best quality / smoothest video calls?
I'm happy to spend a bit extra on a third party modem or router if it will help. I've just bought (but not yet set up) Amazon Eero wifi (highly recommended on Ars Technica) to take care of the wifi side of things.
Postcode is HA9 (NW London) and local exchange is Wembley LWNWEM https://availability.samknows.com/broadband/exchange/LWNWEM
Thanks -RT
I'm supporting a deaf family moving to a new ISP. We're heavy users of Facetime / Zoom. Often 4 Zoom calls at the same time (parents working from home & kids getting schooling via Zoom) plus simultaneous side-channel FaceTime calls to online BSL interpreters for the Zoom calls, meaning sometimes 4-6 video calls going on simultaneously.
Current ISP is Vodafone SuperFast Fibre 76, now at end of contract.
Have rarely if ever seen that 76mb. Sometimes as low as 3 or 4mb up especially at peak times, but still strangely still 15mb+ up. ( Had to resort to using 4G cellular for Zoom, not ideal.) Vodafone connection began dropping every 30 mins, Vodaphone / OpenReach came out and replaced the drop wire (from telephone pole to our house) last month. Connection and speeds rather more stable now, but still not ideal. Facetime calls / Zoom still stuttering / dropping from time to time, & connection still drops from time to time, especially under heavy load.
I have narrowed the choice of new ISP to:
- Zen - 50mb down / 12 up for £35 / month,
- Virgin Media cable - 200mb down / 20 up (plus some other extras) for £34 /month.
(Was with Virgin before Vodafone, and they had their issues, so this is not as good an offer as it might seem. FTTP, Hyperoptic etc not available)
I know little about this area, but seems this will depend on consistency and latency / jitter / stability in working hours and evenings.Could I ask you guys what your ISP recommendation would be for best quality / smoothest video calls?
I'm happy to spend a bit extra on a third party modem or router if it will help. I've just bought (but not yet set up) Amazon Eero wifi (highly recommended on Ars Technica) to take care of the wifi side of things.
Postcode is HA9 (NW London) and local exchange is Wembley LWNWEM https://availability.samknows.com/broadband/exchange/LWNWEM
Thanks -RT