Wow if I had seen this thread 10 days ago I probably wouldnt have signed up to UKOnline, lol!!! I saw the reviews of them, all of which are bad, but only because people cant get the connection working in the first place! I decided to risk it, being a techie I was prepared for any problems my end and was willing to risk it. Which I had problems for a few minutes, due to them using a different username for connecting to broadband, eg my username for their website being welshdemon, and my username for broadband being
welshdemon@blah.etc.ukonline.co.uk , which I was aware of after noticing it on their site in my account area, but there it was in uppercase, after several failed conection attempts I tried it in lower case and voila. Idiots! Displaying my "broadband username" in uppercase when it is in fact meant to be in lowercase, what a schoolboy error. Anyway I was up and running today, and I only signed up to them 1 week ago, exactly 7 days til I was up and running. The (automated I guess) email I received from them did say they estimate my line to be live today, and it was at about 11am. So far so good, seems fast enough. Im just on my way to leave a review for them, and if I notice any problems at any time I will edit my review.
Anyway to anybody else reading this thread and thinking of signing up to them, take everything into account.
Are you knowledgable if there are any problems to fix it yourself? (as it takes hours to get through to them apparantly and then they are rude and dont help!)
Do you live in an area which is close to your exchange? (You dont want any issues of distance etc!)
Are you in the LLU area or not? (I am, but if I wasnt, and especially if I was in a rural area or a place with a really old phone line, I would have taken this into account. Old phone lines are a nightmare)
Are you prepared to be without the internet if all goes wrong!! (I also have telewest cable for a couple of weeks until it's disconnected so if ukonline didnt work, I wouldnt have been without the net!)
At the end of the day you usually get what you pay for. This is cheap, very cheap especially the LLU areas. Therefore it may not be the most reliable and you arent going to find a call centre with hundreds of staff available on hand.
I was prepared for problems, but I have had a bit of luck (for once in my life) and its connected fine within 7 days
Only sign up with these if you are aware of the implications and prepared for issues! Its going to help you craploads if you dont have to call tech support and know how to set up the connection properly yourself, else be prepared for hours of waiting to speak to a tech support dept which apparantly doesnt help you anyway!