Recommend me a broadband ISP please?

Werdnal

Been looking at possibility of catching up with the rest of the world and upgrading to broadband, but the more I look the more confused I get. I obviously want to speed up my connection, but the thought of freeing the phone line for calls is also a benefit.

I was quite taken by the Tiscali offer of £12.99, plus weekend calls, but have found various reviews online that say Tiscali are not very reliable of late, plus their tech support is overseas and not great to deal with.

Had a quick Google to find what other packages are about, and found several around £9.99 (which is what I pay now for dial-up), only to discover you need to buy an additional package for cheap calls etc, to get that price.

Anyone suggest a reasonably priced provider, with good support and not too many unneccesary "bells and whistles" attached?

Thanks, L

moonrakerz

Don't touch Tiscali, they have an awful press !

I use PlusNet, £14.99 a month, 3gb a month download + about £1.50/gb over that (rare!). I'm 3 miles from the exchange and am downloading at about 1.3mb.
I am more that happy with that.
If you want a really good service, try Zen - but they cost. Like all things in life "You gets what you pays for !"

PS: Be careful with combined BB and 'phone call packages ! Read the (zillions of) articles on MSE about cheap calls. Main thing - stay with BT for your line rental, Option 1, £11 per month.

woo

Mmm I'm with Plus too and although i am happy with it they have had serious issues too and have received negative press.

Pricing is 14.99 for 2GB and 1.50 per 2GB if pre-ordered or 1.80 if not.
More inclusive packages start at 21 (think that is 20GB).
Any usage between midnight and 8am doesn't count towards your usage.

Look at ADSLguide.org.uk for ratings made by Joe Public..

wonderfullife_2

Hi
Here's some ratings for you,
http://www.dslzoneuk.net/isp_ratings.php

Also go here and compare isp's
http://www.adslguide.org.uk/isps/compare.asp

If you find one that you like, then go here, and scroll down the page until you find the isp, and read what their customers are saying about them.
http://bbs.adslguide.org.uk/

If you choose one, go over to their website, and check out their T&C's and their Fair Use Policy, is it a 1mth or annual contract, download limit, speed, price etc.

Hope this helps

debs626

I'm with adsl4less, have been with them for over a year and not had one single problem. £14.99 per month with unlimited downloads. 512 download speeds.

mrJ_5

be careful ith PlusNet, can take you 5 years to pay off your free activation and modem....

p_h_p

Keep clear of Tiscali.
Their customer service stinks or it did do two years ago. Once they have you tied down to a contract you can't get out of it. Alog with the offer beware they probably will have to many sign ups than they can deal with as thats happened with talktalk.

TalkTalk - keep clear I just signed up with these back in July and have canceled the account a few weeks ago - again their customer service is useless and again was never connected during peak periods. In between tiscali and talktalk for 16 months I was with another provider (v21) with a UK call centre and have subsequently went back with these. V21 currently do an offer on free activation, free modem, 9.98 for the first month then:
512 : 14.99 a month
1mb: 16.99 a month.



V21 is now joined up with biscuit but i would sign up with v21's packages and not biscuits.

www.v21.co.uk
portal.v21.co.uk

Regards
p_h_p

Random

You're not seriously recommending V21 at this point in time!

Emails and authentication servers are up and down like nobodys business, we have no idea what will be happening when Biscit take over properly and what terms we will be transferred to, and there is no guarantee that V21's packages are even on offer any more. Customer service/technical support appear to be basically non existent if you look on the forum right now. I certainly wouldn't advise people to use them until the dust from the transfer has settled.

p_h_p

Well recently they have had authentication problems well once or twice in the last week that I have come across. At all other times v21 have been fine. The only reason I recommend V21 is because they have been the only company to so far provide broadband all the time compared to my previous internet providers who couldnt provide a connection at peak periods:
Freeserve now wanadoo I believe
virgin
tiscali
talktalk

I do not know much about biscuit so I couldnt comment on their performance but i'll be highley suprised if v21's reliability to me is affected. Regarding techinical support I have called them up on a few occasions or should I say emailed them and recieved a quick informative response. I will have to see what happens as far as biscuit are concerned. By the way yes V21 packages are still available.

Viz_2

I have been with Zen for about 18 months now. They are brilliant. Although (as above) they are a bit pricey.

Random

Someone on the V21 forum was trying to get a MAC this week because of the downtime since the changeover, they couldn't cancel their account online, they couldn't contact anyone by phone, tickets go unanswered, emails to biscit ditto, the old phone lines out of operation. Have you tried to contact them since the takeover? This person only got contact by asking an isp review site to email the CEO. It remains to be seen what happens once everything is finalised, but I really wouldn't recommend them now. Anyone thinking of joining should see the forum, its full of current customers getting jumpy and discussing new isps!

Ps, my mum has Wanadoo broadband, thank goodness, as I can use her perfectly reliable connection every time V21 goes down!