Onetel as an internet provider

marylee

I have just upgraded to btyahoo internet paying £13.99 for 120 hrs a month internet access. However, I also use one tel pay as you go and by checking their website I found I could have unlimited access for the same price. there is also a day package which I think will suit me fine at £6.99, access between 8am - 6 pm and fri mn - sun midnight. I would like to have members opinion on this. Is onetel any good, I have used them before for cheap phone calls, but not recently? I am quite happy with bt internet but it is not very competitive. The reason I am staying with them is I do not want the hassle to having to sign up and not very good to set up the internet account. Also with BT when I cancel, I was told I had to ring 150 to cancel surftime and then ring another department billing to cancel again. I am a bit confused with all this. Thanks

Patr100

Until I got my cheaper Broad band from elsewhere, I used Onetel for 24/7 for 13.99 - 2 hour cut off. No limit on use.It was generally reliable and had no probs during peak times or engaged tones. There was one time when I had problem with connecting - tech support wasn't very good in my opinion - they blamed Windows when I was pretty certain the issue was external - if not Onetel then related to my BT line or echange but it cleared itself.

I would say they are OK but for more recent views try the forums at https://www.ispreview.co.uk

marylee

Patr100 wrote:

Until I got my cheaper Broad band from elsewhere, I used Onetel for 24/7 for 13.99 - 2 hour cut off. No limit on use.It was generally reliable and had no probs during peak times or engaged tones. There was one time when I had problem with connecting - tech support wasn't very good in my opinion - they blamed Windows when I was pretty certain the issue was external - if not Onetel then related to my BT line or echange but it cleared itself.

I would say they are OK but for more recent views try the forums at https://www.ispreview.co.uk

Thanks for this infor, did you have to download their software? I guess as I am still on their pay as you go, I can just download their software until I change to broadband. Not very sure aobut it, as some of my friends have problems when they upgrade to broadband with BT of course. Thanks

Patr100

No I didn't download any of their software. i always make a manual dial Up connection althogh you can use the Windows wizard - it's very easy. One tel also have help pages which expalin with picstures how to set it up which I can dig out and link for you. you just need your exisitng username, password and the relvant access number which they provide according the Plan you are registered on.

It's not clear with them but an important thing is that once you have a username and password , if you are changing ior upgrading or downgrading your internet plan with One tel is to log onto your Account Control Panel and do it from there. If going on to a paid plan eg off peak it should ask for payment detials and upgrade immediately - when i downgraded from 24/7 to PAYG i(as an emergency backup) it remained on 24/7 until my month due was up depending on when the due date fell.
The dial up numbers are different for each plan but you then keep your username and password - I think you get an email with the detail when you sign up for each plan or they are on the site.

Reed_Richards

Just to say that my experience is the same as Patr100 - used to use Onetel until I got broadband. As an ISP I have no complaints about Onetel - except that, as mentioned, their "unlimited" dial-up drops the call after two hours, making it impossible to download really large files. But I think that is par for the course. Their service was reliable and I almost never had problems connecting.

Patr100

You can pay a few quid more a month for their Gamers Plan with a 4hr cut off I think.
But if you need to download large files with dial up simply use a free download manager program which means you can resume where you left off whe you disconnect and then re connect - i couldn't have lived without it - I even still use it on Broadband, I have always used Download Accelerator whcih has some ads for the free verision but no spyware although you can pay to remove the ads or there are other similar programs others use such as Getright and Flashget although I really prefer DAP.Get it from:
http://www.speedbit.com/DAP7/Default.asp?

Reed_Richards

Unfortunately, the file I was trying to download required some complicated login and authentication procedure which defeated any download accelerator I tried (and I tried at least two of the three you mentioned). Anyway, I got broadband so problem solved.