My ISP (UKonline) is disappearing in January - any thoughts on who I should (or should not) go with as a replacement?

I am not in a fibred area.

The obvious alternative is Sky - who own UKonline and offer an easy and cheap transfer - but their routers don't have enough wired ethernet connections for my network (how easy is it to connect another router into a home network?).

Talk talk are cheap but their service seems to upset a lot.

Zen and Titan seem to have lots of satisfied customers - I should think so at their prices.

Is Newbury.net still offering connections Brian?

BT, Orange .... too many choices!

BT home hub

I am with a company called Freeola, who are very good - their support team are great, they answer the phone almost immediately ....... and they are based in this country  

Quoted from blackdog

Is Newbury.net still offering connections Brian?

Yes we are but our standard charges are not particularly competitive. I am sure that we could set you up with something that you would find attractive.


Don't forget that with BT, unless you opt out of BT Fon and BT Openzone, then you could be sharing your bandwidth with up to six other people nearby.

BT don't tell you about this, but when you do find out you can have this facility removed. Basically, every BT Home hub is providing in excess of 2 million hot spots throughout the UK.

Quoted from BrianB

BT don't tell you about this, but when you do find out you can have this facility removed. Basically, every BT Home hub is providing in excess of 2 million hot spots throughout the UK.

Of course BT Openzone is the unique selling point of BT - free wifi in places others cannot reach. Wherever I go there seems to be a BTOpenzone connection available -   I hadn't really considered how they did it.

Apparently they are also bringing fibre connection to Newbury in December ...

Quoted from blackdog

how easy is it to connect another router into a home network?

Pretty simple in theory. If you buy something like an HP Procurve switch (assuming it's more wired ethernet ports that you want), then it should be pretty simple. Connect the switch to your ISP supplied router, Homehub or otherwise, and then use the remaining ports on the switch for whatever network devices you want to connect. The HP Procurve switches are auto sensing, so there is no setup required, as are most current switches. The only issue I could possibly see is if your ISP uses really cheap, crapola routers that wont accept having a switch attached. But most stuff is built to a standard and should just work. Give me a wired connection instead of WiFi any day!  

Quoted from BrianB

Don't forget that with BT, unless you opt out of BT Fon and BT Openzone, then you could be sharing your bandwidth with up to six other people nearby.

It can be annoying. But in some instances it could be worth it for the option of using free WiFi when you are away. If you have a quick connection (I have approx 15MB, being close to the exchange), then someone pinching up to 512K isn't going to impact anything I'm doing online. Also, BT say that the customer's home connection takes priority over the Fon/Openzone connection if both are trying to use it at the same time. So customers shouldn't notice any degredation in connection quality. Having said that, I opted out, because I just dont like the idea of sharing my connection.

I'm also getting dumped by UKOnline. When they sold themselves so Sky it was only a matter of time till they were killed

Personally. I am moving to Be Online. https://www.bethere.co.uk
The service is as close to UK Onlines was as your going to get now. (I've had a meat space encounter with them in London recently and like the attitudes of their staff)
Their free supplied router is not so great tbh. So just dump that and install your own or keep your existing one.

There is no reason why you should change your router when you change your ISP. If your using the Netgear model advertised and supplied by UK Online it will be superior to any of the free devices offered by other ISPs. Just login and enter your new login details in its web setup page and it will continue to function as normal.

I'd advise staying away from Homehubs. They are the most insecure routers on the market. There is not one in existence I could not crack open in under 10mins

Don't use Wireless?  Homehubs, well the old ones anyway were poor.  You cant backup any custom configurations up.  Configure WPA and on a re-boot it goes back to WEP.  

The new ones are not much better.
Their WPA implementation is vulnerable to a rainbow table attack which makes it as fast to crack as WEP.
Secondary to that is it is possible to extrapolate their default admin passwords as a function of the default WPA passphrase.

Anyway wifi signals are really bad for your health. They disrupt sleep patterns. Will increase the rate that corneal opacity develops. And of course the cancer risk. They output more power than a cell phone on a similar slice of bandwidth.
em smog is bad, mmmm'kay?

Interesting - thanks.

I am tempted by BT - mainly because of the free BTOpenzone access and the possibility of fibre in the new year. In reality I suspect that the fibre will not reach me for a long while yet and will, in any case, cost a bomb.

If I go with them do I have to use a Homehub?  Can't I use by existing router? If the Homehub has a weakness through a default key, can I not change it?  

Be Broadband looks pretty good though - and cheaper than BT, which always helps.  If it weren't for the free BTOpenzone access away from home ...

Has anyone using BT had much experience of connecting via BTOpenzone?  Could it replace my dongle and its associated cost.

I've used Plus Net ever since they were Force 9 for the last 12 years or so. They've always been good and have started advertising on the TV recently.

Which? rate ISPs (based on customer satisfaction, best first):
Zen, O2, Be, Utility Warehouse, Plusnet, Eclipse, GreeenBee, Post Office, Sky, Freedom2Surf, Virgin, Demon, BT, Madasafish, Tesco, Talk Talk, Supanet, Karoo, Orange, AOL.

Plusnet (thanks User) are quite highly rated, but I wonder if lots of extra users gained through aggressive marketing via TV ads will cause their ratings to fall?  It seems evident that small is more likely to be beautiful when it comes to customer satisfaction.  The choice is (I think) between Be (thanks MP) and BT (for the roaming wifi).

Waiting for a MAC code from UKOnline/Sky - UKOline's technical support has been great on the rare occasion I needed it but they have handed over the MAC code issue to Sky - who can't find it!  They have promised to email it within 72 hours.

The problem is, you will always get anecdotal evidence to contradict someone's point of view.

Quoted from Greenham Common

The problem is, you will always get anecdotal evidence to contradict someone's point of view.

There is also the problem that dissatisfied customers are far more vocal and much more likely to respond to sureveys, post reviews etc.

The Which? rating for BT is 48% - given the number of customers they have this is probably not bad.  Be are at 76%.

That is a good point; it depends on how 'tested' a supplier is: how good they are in a crisis.  All the big ISPs can be quite disappointing when the chips are down.  Good broadband should be seen and not heard!  

What are virgin like?

Not used.

Dawwwww.
Be are at capacity and cannot take any new customers in this area now.
Guess that leaves me having to chump up the change for Zen till they upgrade their kit.

When I moved into central Newbury about a year ago, I signed with BT for phone and broadband. Initially I was happy with the service, about a 6MB download and it was reliable.

Since around Xmas, I now get no more than 2.5MB download, and service is often patchy with dropouts.

Before I bother complaining, I would be interested to hear of any other similar problems with BT broadband in Newbury

Thanks

We'll all be on fibre optic cable by Xmas 2011

Whose we?

My BT broadband is around 6Mb

I'm having problems recording my daily radio show because BT have slashed my speed

Anyone know of an ISP that guarentee a certain speed without charging you for additional services?

Quoted from richard.garvie

Anyone know of an ISP that guarentee a certain speed without charging you for additional services?

I would think that those that do promise a certain speed will become few and far between given the recent bad press about the majority of people getting nowhere near the speed advertised by ISPs. I get a pretty stable 14mb from BT, but I guess all it would take is for someone nearby to start using torrents to download every movie/album on the internet and my speed would fall through the floor.

Quoted from Greenham Common

Whose we?

My BT broadband is around 6Mb

People of Newbury.

Quoted from richard.garvie

I'm having problems recording my daily radio show because BT have slashed my speed

Anyone know of an ISP that guarentee a certain speed without charging you for additional services?

That's how ADSL works.  With few exceptions - to my knowledge - ADSL doesn't carry an SLA.  As for the a radio show, which would be between 128kbps and 192kbps, I'm surprised that you cannot record it.  Unless you are paying a 'cheap' rate.

5870kbps from BT.  Have not a clue what this figure means though.  

Quoted from jay

5870kbps from BT.  Have not a clue what this figure means though.  

At 5.87Mbps, this is a little lower than the national average of 6.2Mbps.  I'd say that is OK for an 8Mbps ADSL line.

http://media.ofcom.org.uk/2011.....lf-advertised-speed/

I have had many discussions with BT about my 'up to 10 mbps' broadband connection which never got me more than 3mbps but after much hassle, they finally managed to get me up to 6mbps. The trouble with BT is that the route to discuss it is always through an Indian call desk. They have their script and they stick to it, wanting me every time to take faceplates off etc also, either I have or they have difficulty fully comprehending what each of us is saying. I have option 3 which should provide a better speed but it doesn't. The normal discussion point is distance from the exchange degrading the line. When I tell them I can see the exchange from my garden, they counter with that might not be the most direct route for the connection.

If you want an independent speed test, this one works well....

http://www.speedtest.bbmax.co.uk/

A lot of Newbury is fibre optic cabled by Virgin. If you take their top package, the XXL will get you up to 50mbps but their standard with the L option should provide about 16mbps.

I'm about to try a Virgin connection, broadband only at £15 for 6 months then £20 after that and am going for their option L. I will let you know how it goes.

As I write, my BT broadband is showing: 8760 Kbps (8.8Mbps) download and 470Kbps (0.5Mbps) upload.

Quoted from Greenham Common

As I write, my BT broadband is showing: 8760 Kbps (8.8Mbps) download and 470Kbps (0.5Mbps) upload.

I assume you live in the Greenham area, but I am surprised that your speed is that high.

So am I.  I tried it late at night and I used two different utilities.

A Firefox plug-in called 'Broadband Speed Test & Diagnostics', and this one: http://www.broadbandspeedchecker.co.uk/

It shows you your area's average speed as well.

Quoted from Greenham Common

So am I.  I tried it late at night and I used two different utilities.

A Firefox plug-in called 'Broadband Speed Test & Diagnostics', and this one: http://www.broadbandspeedchecker.co.uk/

It shows you your area's average speed as well.

Well done, I got the usual 5mbps at this time using your checker

It is best to try this several time through the day.  It will change.

My computer connection is hard wired by an ethernet cable to my router but there may be, for those using it, a relationship between speed and WiFi as this BBC report suggests.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-12688839

7.3mb download, 0.8mb upload today, best it's been in ages.

17Mb down and 1Mb up. Far end of queens road. Rock solid, my links uptime has recently reached 2 months.

The age and even what material your line is made out of make as much difference as length. There was a period in the past when phone lines were made out of an aluminum alloy. Because its cheap. If you've got one of those in your path. Good luck ever getting more than a couple of Mb.

Really bandwidth is not the most important metrics for speed of your line anyway.

What you should really care about is the latency, as that is what affects the responsiveness of the connection.

If bandwidth is the number of lanes on your highway. Latency is a side effect of the amount of traffic traveling down those roads.
Does not matter how fast it is, if you spend half your time waiting for the packets to travel back and forth.

10ms is a good figure to a European destination on a clean line. Much more than that is a sign of being buffered.

That is true, but people were complaining about not having enough lanes, before worrying about the traffic!