what are ISPs like now days? FUP, packet shaping etc...

nickthegreat

Hi,

For several reasons I haven't had to deal with or choose an ISP for around two years. I was with BE on their 24 meg package and (despite pretty unintelligent CS) was largely happy due to no FUP (that i was aware of) or throttling of bandwidth.

I'm now looking again, but live in a student area, meaning that BE and Sky both seem to promise around 8-12 meg for their 20 meg broadband, which i don't really consider to be worth the money. Most other providers seem to have quite strict usage policies.

Which brings me to BT infinity (£28/month, then £38). They seem to think i can get 36meg here, which is great. But does anyone have experience as a reasonably heavy user on their service?

also, what is the score with moving house? i'm certainly not going to be here for another 18 months....

Sorry for all the questions, and thanks in advance!!

Nick

qpop

Hi Nick

Take a look at my thread regarding dire choice of broadband providers at my new place.

I wouldn't trust BT Infinity - wouldn't touch anything provided by BT with a barge-pole, http://community.bt.com/t5/BT-Infinity/bd-p/BTInfinity see here for the community forums and read through some threads. There seems to be a "soft-limit" of 300GB downloads before speeds are throttled, although this is actually contrary to their FUP (which I found after a bit of searching, not clear where to find it from the main page: http://bt.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/10495/~/broadband-usage-policy)

a 36mbps connection on a new, little-tested protocol, with unknown contention rates, etc. may end up being inferior to 8-12mbps with a decent ISP.

It really depends what you want to use the 'net for. One thing BT will do on Infinity (as stated) is throttle P2P at "peak" times - 4pm-12pm.

Be Unlimited provide a monthly rolling contract deal, but it's pretty expensive.

I couldn't get Be on LLU in my new place, so ended up going for XILO/UNO broadband. I haven't used it for nearly long enough to form an opinion but my ping is generally sub-30ms for gaming (which, as I'm sure you're aware, is far more important than download/upload speeds, if gaming is what you need the connection for)

The Xilo Pro Home is max 16mbps, rolling contract, no kit provided, £48 connection fee, £18pm. If the service continues being as good as it has been the last couple of days then I'll feel its great value for money.

hareng

nickthegreat wrote: »

Which brings me to BT infinity (£28/month, then £38). They seem to think i can get 36meg here, which is great. But does anyone have experience as a reasonably heavy user on their service?

Firstly take notice of qpop.
Secondly you will have to have an idea of the usage and whether peak or off peak.

There are very few packages that offer reasonable bandwidth within peak times unless you pay over £30 p/m.
I pay £23.99 p/m for FTTC 40Gb peak and a true 'unlimited' after 12 at night, no throttling and no peer to peer. So if wanting to download numerous Gb, do it after 12. Also 12 month contract many are not listed in Broadbandmax i am on the 2meg upload.
http://www.webtapestry.co.uk/adsl.html
http://speedtest.net/result/1334467016.png

qpop

sorry, wrong thread. Please delete.

Mark_In_Hampshire

BT Infinity is, I believe, an 18 month contract and does have traffic shaping.

I think all the other providers are 12 months (for the fibre to the cabinet service) and there are no shorter contracts.

You could look at IDNET, Zen and Aquiss - believe at least one of them has an uncapped, unthrottled service but by the time you take line rental into account too you could well be looking at a fair sum per month.

BE are just sulking and sitting on their hands with regard to fibre, so nothing doing there as, from what I can observe, a flood of customers desert them. However if you can put up with the slow speeds, it might remain your best option for cost and contract length and I think they can also install the line on monthly terms too.