Downgrading from 1 mbit to 512 broadband

joemardo1

I have been with bt broadband 1mbit for past year and a half. After year was up I rang them threatening to cancel and was offered a discount for next 5 mths at £19.99 instead of £24.99, which of course I took up. Now the 5 mths is almost up, so I rang them again but no luck this time. They will revert back to £24.99 a mth after discount offer is over. So I got my migration number and I am now signing up to AOL silver at £17.99 a mth. Its only half the speed (512kps) but unless I am downloading any files I wont notice any difference, as I was on AOL before (quite like them actually, though for some people the software is problamatic). Fingers crossed that the software will work ok for me, and maybe even that the speed might stay at 1mbit if the engineer forgets to pull the right switch.

The point I'm trying to make is, unless you are downloading large files or playing online games there is no need for speeds greater that 512kps for general web browsing. I noticed no difference whatsoever to general web surfing when BT increased speed last year from 512 to 1mbit.

views appreciated

Joe

dagger_meerkat

Why do you want to downgrade from 1Mbit to 512Mbit when speed capabilities are on the upside to 8Mbit and later this year will reach 24Mbit?

Check out freedom2surf here , they will migrate you for free and charge you only 14.99 a month with a 2GB cap, and as it seems you only do web surfing, this will be more than enough for you. If not, they hv a package which costs 19.99 per month with a 10GB cap, more than enough for the average web-surfer. Depending on your exchange, these prices include speeds for upto 8Mbit and from previous experience, freedom2surf are the best regarding customer service, reliability and up-time. I have been with them for some time, and they are excellent.

I would avoid AOL at all costs, they force you to use their rubbish interface, when it comes to quitting them, they spam you with letters and e-mails so that you may stay. And to be quite frank with you, they are losing customers very quickly. Now there must be a reason for that and I think its coz they suck big-time.

Personal recommedation: Go with f2s, you won't regret it one bit.

Rex_Mundi

For browsing at the moment, the difference betwwen 512Kb and 1Mb is not going to be noticed too much. However, we are just beginning to see the start of the next generation of broadband offered in the UK. ADSL2 is going to be offered by at least two companies around the autumn. This will offer speeds of up to 24Mb. The word on the net is that through next year, we are going to see these type of deals offered all over the country.

As things stand at the moment, these extra speeds will only be noticed by people who download a lot. There are bits of talk on the net about new services that will appear alongside these speeds. These will include HDTV movies/shows streamed straight to your computer as you watch them. This is not fully possible with the internet speeds that are available in the UK at present.

I read a report recently that stated that they fully expect this new generation of speeds to take over in the UK and 1Mb to 2Mb speeds to be 'entry level' speeds for broadband. During the next twelve months there is every chance that the broadband scene in the UK is going to change completely. I would not sign up to a fixed 12 or even 24 month contract because of these changes. It could end up very frustrating to find that a 512Kb,1Mb or even 2Mb connection is not quick enough to access new services that we will see spring up alongside the new 'superfast' broadband that is starting in the UK.

On a seperate note. I fully agree with dagger, I wouldn't touch AOHELL with a barge pole. There's got to be something in it that they are losing customers left right and centre at the moment. Hopefully people are waking up to them. There are many ISPs that offer a one month or three month minimum contract term. Any of these deals would leave you free to migrate to any new services that may appear in your area.

joemardo1

Appreciate replies. Actually my phone line will only support 1mbit at the moment. So what I'm hoping is that as speeds increase they just offer the increased next tier up speed for the same price i.e £17.99 for 1mbit. What I find is as reagards aol people either like it or hate it, any probs I have had with it is regards the software they use. They have ended the free tech support too, now it's an 0870 number. A very good thing about them is (especially on dialup) if you threaten you are going to leave them, they give you a free month, I have had a few of those from them in my time. Probably do the same with broadband once your year is up. When 512 broadband was £27.99 with them and most other isp's they rang me up and offered it to me for a year at £19.99 ( I was on dialup at the time) Another good thing about them is no caps, download as much as you want.

The reason I went with bt after being with aol for over 4 years was that my partner won a free years bt broadband in the local press.

Joe