Reliable broadband, doesn't need to be cheapest or have features.

tomstickland

Update: I've just been looking at http://www.adslguide.org.uk and compared some names in terms of speed, reliability and customer service and it looks like Zen do really well. Nildram are a close second. Demon are third out of my choices. BT (who I'm with now and happy with) are 4th and Tiscali 5th. So I'm going to look at what Demon, Nildram and Tiscali have available and then make a price-service decision.

BT: all up to 8MB/s 2GB monthly for £18.99, 6GB for £22.99 and 40GB for £26.99
Demon: up to 2MB/s for £19.99 pcm
Nildram: 512KB/s for £19.99 pcm, 2MB/s for £22.99, 8MB/s for £25.99
Zen: 256KB/s for £17.99, 8MB/s for £24.99

Bit of a bind really. The BT deal isn't bad, but how good is 2GB per month limit? Demon looks a bit better. £20 a month and 2MB/s speed. £3 extra per month for Neldram. Zen are a bit all or nothing. ONly 256KB/s for £18, but 8MB/s for £25. Is the extra £7 worth it?

Update2: Pipex are also in the ground between BT and Zen
2GB limit for their £14.99 pcm service and £23.99 for a 15GB limit pcm.
Telewest are similar, but £25 for a 1MB service.

theloft

tomstickland wrote:

I need to be going for 8MB/s I guess? It is pretty expensive. I need to go and look at another option now. Primus? I've already moved my calls over to them.

Tom -As I've already informed you my Primus BB is fine, but they only offer up to 2Mb at present. It is unlimited (for 1st year anyway) but if you want really fast speeds then this won't be for you. But it is very competitively priced with the rebate etc.

dadrock

Check how long the contracts are for Tom. Avoid the 12 moth deals. Some like Nildram are a minimum 1 month contract and give out MAC codes if you want to move ISPs.
Demon do have a consistently good name. AFAIK they dont offer free MAC codes though - worth thinking about.

tomstickland

I'm lacking some basic understanding.
For example, what speed do I really need? Dial up is 56KB/s, so 256KB/s is 5 times faster, and 1MB/s is 20 times faster.
Is there any way I can test what speed I'm running at at the moment?

I don't download music or video files very often, so will a download limit affect me?

dadrock

http://www.adslguide.org.uk/tools/speedtest.asp

The speed you'll get will also be affected by how far you are away from the exchange too, plus the amount of congestion from other users at your exchange. Out of all the recent ads for "up to" 8mb broadband, I reckon only half can get close to that, at best.
I get about 4.5mb on my 8mb line.

If you dont do much downloading, I'd go for a 1Mb - 2Mb connection. Its when you start using ADSLMax 4Mb+ connections you may find reliability and stability probs.
Enter your phone no in http://broadband.nildram.net/?is=hpm1-bb
to get an indication of what you could get.
Check http://www.dslzoneuk.net/distance.php for a rough guide to your distance from your exhchange.

Rex_Mundi

tomstickland wrote:

I'm lacking some basic understanding.
For example, what speed do I really need? Dial up is 56KB/s, so 256KB/s is 5 times faster, and 1MB/s is 20 times faster.
Is there any way I can test what speed I'm running at at the moment?

I don't download music or video files very often, so will a download limit affect me?

If you need to get an idea of how much you may download in a month, try the BANDWIDTH USAGE GUIDE on Zens site. If you fill in the details about how many hours a week you spend on different services on the net, it will give you an idea of how much you will download each month. Don't forget though, this is only a rough guide.

As far as speed goes. I'm more than happy with 2Mb from Zen. Webpages load pretty much immediately, and my downloads go as quick as need them.

Quincy_3

tomstickland wrote:

I'm lacking some basic understanding.
For example, what speed do I really need? Dial up is 56KB/s, so 256KB/s is 5 times faster, and 1MB/s is 20 times faster.
Is there any way I can test what speed I'm running at at the moment?

I don't download music or video files very often, so will a download limit affect me?

I always see it like this, If you get 512kb connection and then get a 2meg connection you wont notice much difference at all in downloading/viewing web pages, but you will see a heck of a difference when downloading stuff, so if you dont download stuff the 512 connection will do.

LukeSkywalker_2

Where is this heralded drop in prices and increase to 8MB speeds??