Internet Service Provider Recommendations?

[JtB]

Orange are increasing my broadband tariff from £23.49 to £32.30 per month (yes, that's a 37% increase). Part of the reason they are giving is that they have increased supplier costs for the part of the network to my house that they don't own.

Not surprisingly I'm now looking to change provider. What I'm looking for is unlimited broadband (with a wireless router) and all national and international (to Europe at least) phone calls included any time of night/day.

Any recommendations anyone?
Shaun.

 

[Slim]

I've been looking at changing myself and (so far) Virgin Media seem to be the best of the bunch. The broadband service seems to be pretty good. I'll expect they'll charge a bit for the inclusive phone service though.

My current service is with TalkTalk. The phone service (including free international calls) is fine but the ADSL broadband can be quite poor for speed reliability and limited downloads.

HTH

 

[Over The Hill]

If you hear of Topletter - Dont use them!

 

[XmisterIS]

I use BT, used them from the start, been with them for about 7 years now. Never had a single problem with them.

 

[marinyork]

Virgin off-net is very poor. Cabled broadband is all right apart from STM. It's the fastest provider for browsing. If you're downloading on virgin STM could drive you rather bonkers and many people out there seem blissfully unaware it runs for 9 hours a day. The new 50Mbs product doesn't have STM (yet).

Virgin Media offer all geographic calls to landlines in the UK for £7.95 + line rental. There aren't any products for unlimited fixed rates to the rest of the continent. Bundles are best but they cost a fair bit £50-86 range.

 

[HJ]

Have a look at this thread in the Electric Café (where this tread should be)...

 

[Bigtwin]

I must be the leading expert on this, having been through about 15 of he bistards. All he big names, all shite.

Now with Utility Warehouse. Broadband been very good, and very reasonable on cost, esp with free phonecalls too. Tech side is excellent, but like all of them the customer service/accounts is run and staffed by people from the plant Irritating Morons Talking Shite on Speed, but that's all of them.

Recently got BT to connect up the office for tedious reasons. Never again. Cocked up everything from tech to billing in a way that left me looking for the corpse of Jermey Beadle. If I tell you they cut us off for 4 days, changed the phone number without telling us, then billed us for two complete services, that will give you SOME, just SOME idea of the ****wittery involved.

 

[Black Sheep]

talk talk have been cheap for me

 

[Danny]

I have used UKonline for several years - not the cheapest, but provide good customer care and a free helpline.

Zen regularly gets good reviews, and friends I know who use them think they're great.

 

[cisamcgu]

I'm with Virgin (was Telewest) - excellent Broadband; fast and reliable (their online backup, V-stuff, is complete cr*p though). My parents are with BT and they have had no problems.

 

[Crackle]

Zen here, excellent service but not the cheapest.

 

[marinyork]

What's STM?

We've been with Virgin for about 10 years. Never had a real problem, and only a handfull of dropouts.

http://allyours.virginmedia.com/html/internet/traffic.html that is their version and theory. Telewest never had STM, it was NTL's idea that got taken up in the post-merged company.

 

[JamesAC]

....

Zen regularly gets good reviews, and friends I know who use them think they're great.

+1

I've used zen for about 5 years. The only downtime has been due to BT.

 

[lazyfatgit]

Of the 3 isp's i've used, virgin (cable) has been by far the best. All the rest (ADSL) were subject to the vagiaries of the rather useless BT line.

 

[Bman]

http://allyours.virginmedia.com/html/internet/traffic.html that is their version and theory. Telewest never had STM, it was NTL's idea that got taken up in the post-merged company.

I hate this. The biggest problem with VM.

Cable connections are fast and reliable. The only problem is VM's monopoly on the cable infastructure. I not allowed to download a single DVD of data when I get home from work. It could download in 1hr, but I have to wait 5 hrs, till 9pm to freely use my connection