ISP recommendations?

So, who, in the opinion of the fount is offering the best service at the
moment?. Cost is secondary to reliability, but is a consideration.
UK call centre is a bonus, but frankly I'd rather talk to a clued up techie
in Bulgaria than a fuckwit in the UK.
If anyone can get a kickback, and I can get uptimes that exceed Demons
frankly piss poor performance, ie, longer than 5 minutes before the
connection drops, that'd be great.

 

Hmmm. Just rung them with regard to DHCP. I used Bulgarian as an example,
not 'I wish to speak to a Bulgarian'

Thankfully, my hovercraft is not full of eels. Wow!, a call centre person
that understands DHCP lease times and pooling. Makes a change.

Anyone else in the running?. Allegedly my MAC is on its way.

 

IDNet.

 

Good call. Who's currently holding the free month's subscription, in the
great ukrm IDNet daisy chain?

 

Are you sure it's Demon dropping the connection? I say that 'cos I've
had a lot of problems with connections dropping with my previously
reliable router. I've upgraded the router to a v. expensive Draytek and
so far it's stayed up longer than long staying up thing on Viagra.

 

If you'e already a Sky subscriber, it's worth looking at their bundled
deals. I get "8Mb broadband" (in reality 3~4Mb) and my basic TV
package for 22.50 a month, which effectively feels like 'free
broadband'. And I don't think I've had a problem with in the 4 years
I've been using it, either.

 

^^^^^^^^^^^

IRTA as "darsy chain" and positively *boggled* for a moment!

 

Judging by my experience it might well be. And even if it isn't they
are about as much use as a chocolate teapot when it comes to sorting it
out..

After my epic 2 weeks of trying to get Demon to sort out my line
instability I went to IDNet. And my line became stable almost
overnight.

Phil

 

I've been a customer of this lot for a good seven years by now:
http://www.aaisp.net.uk/.

They're not cheap, but they're very upfront if/when they are issues
and their support people are *very* clued up and helpful. I wouldn't
still be with them if they weren't any good...

Oh, and they can also offer Be lines if you're in a Be area.

 

http://www.aaisp.net.uk/news-fttc.html

<perk>

Now that sounds good, far better than dangling at the absolute end limit
of an adsl connection as I am.

 

You might want to have a look at the pricing before you perk up too
much. But yes, I've been tempted by that as well...

 

Bah. I was referring to this service: http://www.aaisp.net.uk/ethernet.html

Not the FTTC as that's still BT dependent.

 

Ah, I wondered why I couldn't find any pricing info. Yersh, that's a tad
beyond my budget.

Indeed. No dates nor nuffink for my exchange - bit more info here:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2009/mar/23/btgroup-broadband

It seems the BT availability checker does tell you if you are in an area
that's going to offer it.

Thread swerve - I know that adsl2 or whatever it's called 'learns' the
line speed over the initial switch on period - is there any way to get
that reset to make it learn again?

 

I've swapped my router with a neighbours. My router, on his line to Plusnet,
is rock solid. His router, a Netgear, is also rock solid on his Plusnet
connection. Flaky as a flaky thing on my line. No line faults.

For historical reasons, Plusnet is not an option.

 

Switch the router off overnight. There is a timeout after which it goes
through the learning process IIRC.

 

Hmmm, like the look of being on a one month contract. If I go for them, may
as well get someone on here a one month free thingy.

 

Sounds like a line fault. I presume they got BT to do a line test?

 

<tremble>

Switch. Off. You mean no internet?

 

"I couldn't find anything wrong with your line guv". And somehow,
mysteriously it'll start working again perfectly..

Especially once they pump out the line box in the road, clean out all
the silt and seal it up again.

Phil.

 

No fault found. I suspect I got the equivalent of a bed bug letter.

Previously, the fault has lain with Demon and their logging and/or DHCP. One
of their more highly skilled chimps once explained what the issue was. I
suspect he was moved on because he knew his stuff and deviated from the
script. I don't think it helped that he seemed to give a shit and was
thouroughly polite and professional either.

Ah well, MAC applied for, time to move on.