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Looking for a new ISP

Hi,

I'm currenly on O2 Home Access and the service is terrible. I'm receiving between 0.15 MB-0.40 MB at peak times, being disconnected from online games at peak times and despite several promises of the problem being fixed, it has not improved.

I'm looking for a new new ISP but I feel my options are limited. Every ISP I look at can't offer their LLU service and I am worried about getting similar problems to those I'm getting with O2 Access again. The obvious choice to me is BT but I've been told there is no reason they would be any better or have an advantage over other providers just because they are BT.

So, I'm looking for some advice and/or recommendations. Maybe some of you have been or are in the same situation as me? Maybe someone is even at the same exchange and can share their ISP and experiences?

My local exchange is Clovelly: http://www.samknows.com/broadband/exchange/WWCLOV

The maximum my line can currently provide is 2MB.
I would require a very high or unlimited usage limit.
I would like to keep payments below £25 if possible.

Thanks.
 
True unlimited usage is going to be a bit difficult to achieve in a BT only area, although PlusNet might be able to help. Entanet vISP's like ADSL24 also have some good usage allowance levels. However both providers seem to suffer from a few performance woes at the moment.

If you want quality then IDNet, Zen, Fast.co.uk and ICUK should be considered but don't expect to find unlimited usage allowances. Having your cake and eating it on a BT network seems quite difficult these days. High usage allowances at low prices tend not to come with a balance of slower speeds and lower support quality.
 
nil desperandum

I am on O2 for my sins .changed over 7 weeks ago . terrible sppeds and pings . i asked for my Mac code on Monday (even tho' it was going to cost me £197.00 to get out of the contract) and LO ! yesterday my speeds were faster than they have ever been and my pings are excellent . Coincidence???
 
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I am on O2 for my sins .changed over 7 weeks ago . terrible sppeds and pings . i asked for my Mac code on Monday (even tho' it was going to cost me £197.00 to get out of the contract) and LO ! yesterday my speeds were faster than they have ever been and my pings are excellent . Coincidence???

Yes it seems the promised fix may have finally arrived yesterday. According to the O2 forums, many people reported an improvement lastnight, myself included. Although many p2p users are now flooding the forums with complaints of the traffic management policy.

I'm certainly not getting too excited yet though. O2 still have some work to do to make me happy. It's been a few months of terrible service.

Hopefully things will be better from now on. I really can't be bothered with changing ISP unless I really have to.
 
Well O2 have let me and many other customers down. The service has become slow yet again and I am getting disconnected from online games. The time has come to say farewell to O2 Home Access once and for all.

I have been looking around at ISP's all weekend and IDNet/Zen/Fast.co.uk/ICUK really appeal to me.

I am slightly worried about download limits and I have no idea how much I currently use. I have always looked for unlimited packages but I am thinking maybe I don't actually need all of those Gigabytes.

According to the Zen calculator, my monthly usage would be around 14GB but another calculator says around 35GB. This is quite a difference when looking for a broadband package.

I play a lot of online games, both on PC and Xbox (including pacthes/updates). I browse around the internet a lot. I stream online radio quite often and I watch the occasional video on youtube/iplayer/4OD. I don't download torrents at all.

I know it's impossible to give an exact number from what I've told you, but I would appreciate some advice on this.

Thanks.
 
Online games don't generally consume masses of data because they rely on the transfer of small information packets at a low latency to function properly; though game patches can consume a lot. Basic web browsing, email and even online radio usage aren't huge hogs either. Video viewing can be problematic; 1hr of a web-based iPlayer stream could eat 300 to 600MB depending on the quality.

To me it doesn't sound like you need a massive allowance but it’s something only you can know. It might actually be worth asking O2’s support department if they can tell you how many GigaByte’s your connection has consumed each month for the last 3 months. This kind of information should not be difficult for them to produce; most ISPs offer it as part of an account management page.

Alternatively you could adopt a mid-range 15GB package with an ISP and if you consume that too fast then merely upgrade to a more flexible option. There are also plenty of free Internet Connection Monitor applications around to help you see what amount of data you really consume (search our forum for a few related topics on that).
 
Thanks for your advice, Mark.

I requested my MAC code from O2 and they allowed me to get out of contract early due to all the problems I've had with the Home Acces package. I received a MAC within an hour of my phone call!

I've now signed up with IDNET on their 30GB package and I should be connected by 6pm on 14th Dec.

Hopefully they can provide me with a better service than O2 did.
 
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