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Reviews

Looks like Fast 4 will be in the top 10 soon, they're already more highly rated than Zen ! and a couple of more good reviews or so, any they should be ahead of Idnet, knocking Idnet out of the top ten.:eek:

http://www.ispreview.co.uk/review/c...=1&sortby=avgscore&direction=desc&startrec=15

Didnt want to put this in the speeds thread.

IMO, its quite blatent someone has been posting false reviews.

Fast4 has almost the most reviews, I think only tiscali has more (for obvious complaint reasons), and only about 18 more at that. Plusnet is even, and that seems to be because of the raft of email problems.

And bear in mind how long tiscali has been going, and the fact they are complained about all the time. Dispite that, they only have 18 more reviews!

So we are supposed to beleive that dispite being a relitively young ISP, it has more reviews than Zen, eclipse, AOL, orange and BT(!), and most of those are shining reviews?

Pull the other one fast4. I dont know who in Fast4 did it, but someone did. You can note the widely proclaimed 'Best in class' status taken from this site which is displayed on the Fast4 homepage.

I await the comment 'perhaps they have a lot of happy users'. Of course, that means they have a load more than Zen, which has been going for how many years, and how many problems do we see from them in this forum?

:rolleyes:

I think the reviews for Fast4 should be suspended. I know it cant be proved, but the reviews in comparsion with other ISPs stretches belief really.
 
I await the comment 'perhaps they have a lot of happy users'. Of course, that means they have a load more than Zen, which has been going for how many years, and how many problems do we see from them in this forum?

:rolleyes:

Could it be a lot of votes from one very happy user? ;)

I suppose it could be argued the users from ISPs like Zen don't have any ISP problems so don't visit forums like ISPR :shrug:

Unfortunately, if anything is amiss, I doubt it can be proved. It may be worth reading the actual reviews, but I don't pay much regard to the ratings.
 
According to Kits:

The Fast4 reviews seem to be just new members who just join to post a review, the members who have been here stuck in this mess haven't posted any reviews.

So its not just a case of possible false positive reviews but the people having problems haven't posted negative reviews either ... maybe if they did the reviews would start to balance out a bit?
 
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So its not just a case of possible false positive reviews but the people having problems haven't posted negative reviews either ... maybe if they did the reviews would start to balance out a bit?

To be fair, there doesnt seem to have been any real problems till now, and it looks like most people are waiting to see what happens (although that could soon change).

The biggest teller is the sheer number. 62 for a new ISP? The only reason for the other high numbers (tiscali and plusnet) is complaints and problems.


Mel said:
I suppose it could be argued the users from ISPs like Zen don't have any ISP problems so don't visit forums like ISPR

Indeed, but then most the reviews for Fast4 are glowing...so that doesnt explain it either. :shrug:
 
Unless you have concrete proof I'd be very careful making accusations of false postings.

I'm sure Mark is keeping an eye on the IP addresses being used to post reviews about Fast4 and would have taken action before now if there was any indication of abuse going on.

It's well documented you are anti-fast4 based on your posts on this forum. It seems you are only capable of reading negative comments about fast4 and stirring accordingly.

I've yet to figure out why you have such an axe to grind other that you seem to be some sort of consumer-champion wannabe.

It is entirely possible that the speed issues aren't as widely spread and you, one of the moderators and a handful of other vocal members try to make out.

Vocal customers always tend to try and create lost of noise to try and suggest they are in the majority.

People like you always try and jump on the bandwagon just 'cos it's there.

I think your posts should be suspended until you get a better grasp on your imagination, but there we go. :)
 
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And bear in mind how long tiscali has been going, and the fact they are complained about all the time. Dispite that, they only have 18 more reviews!

Looking at those reviews, there's a cut off point of January 2006, presumably all reviews prior to that are deleted as they are well out of date.

So how long the ISP has been going doesn't really come into it, or if anything it might count against a more established ISP because people may have reviewed their ISP long ago and still be with it and with no reason to look for a replacement never come back here to update their review.

I would have expected proportionatly more reviews of Tiscali based on it's size though and the number of complaints http://www.ispreview.co.uk/new/complain/complain.shtml
 
But..... the reviews only go back to January 2006, so it's not going to be a good yardstick to measure the new boys on the block against the established isp's.

I bet that quite a lot of this years enthusiastic reviews would be from the poor sods caught up in the V21-Biscit fiasco & were so overcome with joy at actually being able to connect.

Anyway at least a new thread was started to bash F4 which is an improvement on derailing other threads.
 
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In case you havent noticed, I havent commented on the speed issues since it was supposed to be cleared up, dispite many people reporting problems.

Im aware it looks like Im demonising them, but you cant tell me 62 posts with mainly glowing reviews is legit...

IP addresswise, its not exactly difficult :confused:

I certainly do not pretend there is a majority.

Its not a bandwagon, if you care to actually *read* what I put, I go by what my opinion is on it. Thus being, it cant be sustained proved by Mels recent posts. I always said this from the start, as did others.I said this about another ISP, with the rep telling me I was wrong. Well, I was damn well right and people got into all sorts of hassle with that ISP. Exactly what I tried to avoid.

Course, you have any proof otherwise, lets have it.

In case you are wondering (as others maybe), Im not doing this to be proved right. Im not doing this to look big, or get attention. Getting attention for a username on a forum doesnt float my boat tbh. I will however, say I told you so because maybe some will listen to me next time.

Anyway, Ive given my explanation (in the Fast4 forum back some pages if you care to read), and I stand by my opinion that not all of the reviews for Fast4 are legit.

And for the record, I think Fast4 are coming up to almost a year now, and I didnt think they would last a year. So they can stick a big finger up at me, and I have to eat humble pie, as long as the issues get sorted.

I still cannot say it enough - I want them to succeed. Because I want cheap, unlimited broadband! That would be brilliant in this day and age of increased capping and traffic shaping. And down the line, if they have, I'll hold hat in hand and say Im a cynical, misrable old git who was totally wrong, and will apologise unreservedly.

Mel: That I didnt see, I thought they carried over from year to year. Still, the theory holds, especially in proportion to Tiscali as you mentioned.
 
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you could argue the same about the enta resellers suddenly jumping up to the top from nowhere, afterall theve been fiddling the ratings for them on the dsl zone
 
I would, if I knew who the resellers were!

It wont really show up here though, unless its all under one reseller, not in total numbers anyway.

How did you find that out? I always though Enta was good going by what various people said (not the reviews). Put me right off if true.
 
See you have all been having fun while I was busy with other things.

There is a new reviews system not sure when it will be in place. I do monitor reviews and any suspect ones are then investigated by Mark.J notice I say suspect ones. I am a little saddened that those with problems didn't bother to review them but it is upto the members their choice.

Reviews are automatically deleted over a period of time as in the ISP industry things are always changing and what couild be one months devil is next months angel :D

Since we only allow you to review once we do allow you to update the review. You will notice in some sections reviews have been left longer than the 12 months this is due to them being updated regularly as the ISP changes either starts to have problems or improves.


People like you always try and jump on the bandwagon just 'cos it's there.

I think your posts should be suspended until you get a better grasp on your imagination, but there we go. :)

I would have thought if peoples posting rights were to be suspended that would be Mark.J's decision.

you could argue the same about the enta resellers suddenly jumping up to the top from nowhere, afterall theve been fiddling the ratings for them on the dsl zone

We are not DSLzone, our reviews are monitored and will be removed if suspect and the person placing the review doesn't respond to any PMs sent.

Now can I please ask if you feel any reviews are suspect to post this in the webiste forum where Mark.J will deal with your fears.
I have now moved this into the website discussion forum.
 
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on a side note l personally would find it interesting if old stats could be routinely archived, l personally would find it interesting in the perspective of comparing archived results with current since it would give reasonable indication of how services have improved or otherwise.

another idea would be to list whether they have an LLU network, reason being is LLU would possibly put me off a provider depending on the speed they offered... take BE for instance they offer 8+Meg in fact lve seen ppl get over 12meg however you have a provider like AOL who only offer ADSL Max download speeds on their LLU network and if thats all lm going to get then l would rather not pay extra fees to migrate in all honesty this is my reasoning for wanting to know whether providers offer LLU regardless of how unlikely my exchange is to be upgraded.
 
Good morning folks.

There are a couple of things about Fast4 that may be worth pointing out. They, like some other providers, drop new customers a message asking for a review to be made on our system, hence you’ll see a greater number. So long as this is done fairly for all (public) and does not promote the posting of positive reviews then I’m usually fine with it.

Typically the door swings both ways as when problems arise users can return to update and air their difficulties, which is partly why Fast4’s forum gets more posts for a small ISP than some others.

Naturally we tend to remove any reviews that have more than a basic element of suspicion to them, but anybody aware of how the Internet works will also know that there is no silver bullet for telling legitimate from illegitimate. IP’s change, people use different browsers/e-mails, proxy servers, spoofing and all sorts.

Reviews do get removed all the time though, but never on any significant scale (just one or two each week) and this is applicable to all ISP’s, I’m not specifically referring to Fast4. Presently I’m only aware of one Fast4 review that may get the boot, but nothing further. That’s about normal for any provider.

Regarding Entanet, for the most part their vISP’s are actually pretty solid and have gained a good reputation, so we shouldn’t be too surprised that they do well. However the eyes of suspicion have been raised over ADSL24 on more than one occasion, much as they have with different providers, such as ICUK.

I think that about covers it and certainly some members, which aren't always customers, have been too keen to demonise specific ISP’s unfairly. Criticism/praise doesn’t break any rules, but an excess of the same thing every single day can begin to look like trolling.

On a lighter note, the re-coded reviews system has entered beta and though I can’t get it to install properly (well that’s bug testing for you), it is making good progress and just needs some of the final features added before I can start customising it to ISPr.

One other thing that I haven’t uttered a word of yet, we also have a new ISP Listings system with search features and extra details. It’ll take a couple of months once complete to re-do all the data, but I think you’ll all like it :) . I’ve got a lot of work to do.
 
Good morning folks.

There are a couple of things about Fast4 that may be worth pointing out. They, like some other providers, drop new customers a message asking for a review to be made on our system, hence you’ll see a greater number. So long as this is done fairly for all (public) and does not promote the posting of positive reviews then I’m usually fine with it.
.

That answers a few questions then Mark, personally I feel that is not a fair way to do things, some customers may well feel intimidated in to posting a positive review, it does however go some way to explaining why such a small and new ISP gets it's high ratings.

If you are happy with that situation, so be it.

It does go some way to explaining the difference in the ratings on here, compared with those on Thinkbroadband, I will not comment on DSLZone, I think we all know what happens there.
 
Naturally we tend to remove any reviews that have more than a basic element of suspicion to them, but anybody aware of how the Internet works will also know that there is no silver bullet for telling legitimate from illegitimate. IP’s change, people use different browsers/e-mails, proxy servers, spoofing and all sorts.

Interesting read, thanks Mark.

I assume though that the IP addresses for the reviews all point back to Eurisp or their previous supplier? If not I'd be tempted to remove any reviews without legitimate IP's - there really is no valid excuse why someone would need to hide behind an anonymous proxy when posting a review.
 
what about reviewing an ISP thats just been migrated away from? thought l had left a review on AOL but l dnt think l did however f l had done l would have edited it to show my migration and the reasoning as to why l left...
 
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lol l have a tendency to miss some things sometimes :p
 
i think if there are any bogus reviews its because you only show the top ten and it is easier to click on one of them rather than scrolling through the site to read reviews and i suspect isps in the top ten are getting a lot of trade because of this, i would like you to extend the top ten to a top twenty because idon`t think there is alot of points difference between no 20 and no10 and it will give people more choice on picking an isp
 
I had a quick look through the Fast4 reviews earlier on and thought that there was a fair balance of reviews from both happy and dissatisfied members. I'd have been more concerned if all or an unhealthy majority of the reviews gave 10/10 for everything.
 
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