ADSL recommendations
Virgin Media are starting to piss me off. Our (cable) net connection is dead slow. I’m thinking of moving to ADSL. Anyone got any recommendations as to (a) ADSL providers or (b) horror stories suggesting that I should stay on cable?
http://www.fireflyuk.net
They really are good. A small operation, but they know what they’re doing. The only draw back might be if you’re miles from the exchange. Cable should be faster than adsl.
7 minutes later
Demon have always been good for me, quite expensive but a free fixed IP, no problems with downtime, good speeds etc.
10 minutes later
I’ve used UK Online for over a year now and never had the slightest problem. Fast (In my old flat, I could get 22Mbps ADSL2+. In my current flat, I can get 15Mbps), relatively cheap (£20-30pm depending on speed you opt for), and reliable. Oh, and no download limits.
25 minutes later
Stick with cable. There are rumoured to be some rather nice upgrades coming along *soon* - and the upload rate is far faster than ADSL.
If you’re determined to move to ADSL, I’d recommend either going with Plus or Pipex.
27 minutes later
I’d say stick with cable and shout loudly into the vacuum that is modern tech support from any organisation.
Always been an ADSL man myself, but cable gets you a faster connection currently and frequent speed upgrades, ADSL increases in speed but has always been behind. I don’t hear that many people complaining about reliability from cable either.
ADSL can be a nightmare, isn’t always but everyone has problems at some point. I was with Freedom2Surf for around 3 years and was VERY happy with them all along until last September when I upgraded to ADSL Max (aka up to 8Mb currently with 24Mb to be trialled). ADSL Max is rate adaptive in that it gives you the best error free connection it can synchronise, meaning that the further from the exchange you are, the slower your speed. I’d around 3km so I get 6Mb. My line seemed to be getting noisier over the summer but I didn’t notice it affect my connection until I moved to ADSL Max (traditional ADSL wasn’t rate adaptive). After moving to ADSL Max I was frequently stuck with 16Kb which is the lowest speed that rate adaptive ADSL will sync at, due to the noise on my line and not infrequently couldn’t connect at all.
I complained bitterly but politely at least 8 or 9 times into the aforementioned support vacuum with no resolution (BT do the line tests and they reported a user equipment fault for which I shelled out more of my hard earned on a new router to no avail). Eventually, my employer took the bull by the horns and ordered me a new business telephone line at home with an ADSL line from another supplier.
The BT engineer arrived to install my new line and I explained the reasons for the line, so he replaced the cabling and master socket for my existing line while he was there. After that, the existing line worked perfectly but it’s fate was sealed by the fact that my company was paying for a connection and so I didn’t have to any more.
Moral of the story, stick to the technology you understand. ADSL is a completely different set of technologies, quirks and faults to understand and you may end up figuring out your problems alone. Cable has better speeds and possibly better reliability, but if you want to change, Freedom2Surf were great aside from this blip. Reasonably cheap, otherwise good customer support, static IP, no blocked ports, an independent support forum and a network status blog. Just don’t use their web hosting according the blog or their mail system according to their forum.
What do you mean slow anyway? Their network is slow, or your connection speed is low according to the deal you are on. How fast is a download from somewhere which is capable of sending you data faster than you can receive it (such as an CD iso from an Ubuntu mirror)?. How far are you from your nearest BT telephone exchange. Get some speed estimates from ISPs (they have online estimators) before you move.
It might be worth shouting into the vacuum first of all.
62 minutes later
Stick with cable and call the tech support. It’s happened a few times for me that the exchange outside my house got badly cabled and ended up with a very high signal/noise ratio (iirc, you can also see that on the web interface of the modem, if you have an ancient motorola websurf like mine).
I’m on the 10MBps speed right now, and even though the upload is pretty crap, I get ~400kB/s across the Atlantic to the office servers, and 1MB/sec from servers in London.
You might also want to bookmark this page about the service status.
http://www.ntl-isp.ntl.com/ServiceStatus/
And don’t forget to ask for a discount if they throw you about too much.
114 minutes later
I use http://www.BeThere.co.uk who do local loop unbundling. Therefore, if you live close enough to the exchange you can get up to 24meg. They provide the router which comes with 802.11g and ethernet ports. The router can also do some sort of voip-pass-through, although i’ve not tried it yet.
I live a couple of miles away from my exchange, and possibly on a dodgy phone line and get 5meg down, and just over 1 meg upstream.
They’re not cheap compared to some of the other outfits - I pay 25 quid a month for unlimited traffic. Overall, I’m very happy with them, and will soon migrate our office ADSL from Demon (boo) to Be (Demon suck).
David.
8 hours later
If you are going adsl, then try tiscali, my connection hasn’t gone down at all in almost a year(Its just my router). I am only on a 1meg connection at the moment as I live in the middle of nowhere about 4 miles from the exchange. I cant comment on the tech support as I haven’t used it. Its really good value, and unlimited as well(useful for all those feisty herds!). My contract ends in august, but I think I will just stay with tiscali, and try and get the speed upped as the phone line has been improved. They only send a crappy usb modem, so buy a decent router instead.(Not a Zoom X5!)
8 hours later
I just moved from ADSL *to* Cable because my DSL (Max) “Up to 8Mb/s” was usually around 1Mb/s and often was syncrhonous - 448Kb/s each way :(
I hassled the ISP and BT and they did precicely fuck all about it. BT even had the cheek to say they had looked at it, it it was now “fixed”.
Virgin are indeed rolling out 20Mb/s next month. I believe they are also looking to trial 50Mb/s and 100Mb/s in some areas.
9 hours later
I have only horror stories of NTL (now Virgin) but you were originally a different cable, weren’t you? Perhaps the NTL virus has passed into your system.
I use Demon FWIW. Bit more expensive than a real cheapo company, fixed IP and unlimited usage. Very good tech support, but I’ve only had to use them once and then it was a BT problem anyway. And that is at problem. Doesn’t matter what isp you choose, if the problem is with the behemoth BT.
IIWY, I would persevere with cable in the short term as ADSL is quite variable depending on the area you are in, how far from the exchange etc.
Maybe in a few years, Virgin will have fixed all the NTL problems and I can go back to cable … blimey, look, a flying pig!
10 hours later
What’s the connection like in the middle of the day? You might just be seeing contention based on usage in your street up to the street box and on to your UBR. FWIW, I’m with Web Tapestry - http://www.webtapestry.net/ - who are a small outfit who love what they do. If you do go ADSL, talk to them, and buy a Zyxel P660R or P660HW from broadbandbuyer.co.uk to go with it, as Zyxels are great on long lines with high SNR numbers. Quote my name to webtap after you order and I get a finders fee too ;)
12 hours later
WebTapestry +1
They have been flawless since I moved from Pipex (who suck).
13 hours later
[...] In a comment on Aq’s site, Paul Freeman mentioned the NTL virus. The virus has eaten into the previously excellent Telewest and made a mockery of everything Branson has claimed for the Virgin brand. [...]
14 hours later
@Adam Sweet: There’s some misinformation in your post, all ADSL products are rate adaptive and the performance thresholds laid out by BT always accounted for fluctuations in signal to noise ratios and degradation of copper lines. In fact, although it wasn’t always made very clear the terms and conditions would have mentioned that any ‘fixed-rate’ 2Mbps service was classed as ‘up-to’ as well, with acceptable performance covering anything from 400kbps to the full 2Mbps.
Not to mention ADSL Max has absolutely no potential to handle 24Mbps. ADSL Max is just your standard ADSL technology but using all of the available pots on a copper wire to try and give you the best speed. It’s faults or line damage in the pots unused at 1 or 2Mbps that crop up when people upgrade and as annoying as those may be, BT engineers only have to seek to provide a stable, 64kbps service under OFCOM regulations. If it’s stable but slower than your grandma you’re pretty much stuck with it.
7150kbps is in fact the maximum throughput you can achieve on Max when factoring in overheads, and to get any more you’ll have to go to ADSL2+ which BT intend to roll out nationwide by 2011. Yes, I’m serious.
As you mention, ADSL is a complex beast with all manner of points of failure and loss of connection quality. If you can get cable, stick with it because although you’re pretty much in a provider lock-in the technology is that much better.
44 hours later
I use Black Cat Networks’ ADSL offering, and I’m happy with it :).
2 days later
whatever
25 weeks later