broadband prices

codprawn · 22 February 2008, 15:30

I was asked by a customer to help them set up broadband. I normally avoid this sort of work but she is a lovely old lady so I agreed to help.

What happened to all the good cheap deals? The prices seem to have risen a lot since I last looked - typically averaging £18 a month for unlimited.

Tiscali seemed to have the best deal so I signed her up - it turned out that despite me choosing a broadband only package it was actually broadband and phone. This seems to me deliberately misleading. They have headings for "broadband" and another for "broadband and phone". i would have thought that by clicking on "broadband" only that is what you would get!!!

I am so pleased I have a proper 20mb cable connection!!!

In other words - beware!!!

v666 · 22 February 2008, 16:36

Tiscali

Be do unlimited for £14 pm at 8 meg down and 1.3 up if you are on one of their exchanges. If you are not on their exchange then I would guess the upload would be a bit slower.

I have their pro version that gives 20 meg down (24 max) and 2 to 2.5 meg up. I have found their service and support excellent.

Tim

codprawn · 22 February 2008, 16:59

Surely you need to live next door to the exchange to get those speeds???

just tested mine now - not too bad........

TonyC · 22 February 2008, 17:05

I've just changed from Orange to Plus.net and im on their pro package (im an avid online gamer

) and from alot of the support forums and stufff out there, i reckon that orange and Tiscali are two of the poorest ISPs atm.

I wouldve signed up for Be but they dont provide in my necks of the woods - however a line fault that Orange said never existed was found in 2 hours by my new ISP, and it git fixed the next day

Tim M · 22 February 2008, 17:25

I hate shopping for broadband; I moved about 6 months ago and spent ages researching for a good deal. I was with Virgin before that and it was ideal. We had all the channels, broadand and phone for a reasonably low monthly amount.

My new place couldn't be hooked upto Vigrin, and I decided that I didn't want to be tied to a long contract, so went with Freeola, which is £24.99 a month, and allows me to cancel at any time. It's allegedly 8mb. Not sure if thats a good price for what I get or not!

codprawn · 22 February 2008, 17:32

Do a speedtest at www.speedtest.net

Tim M · 22 February 2008, 17:36

codprawn · 22 February 2008, 18:21

I wouldn't pay £25 per month for that!!!

Having said that it is prob all your line is capable of but I would shop around - just watch the cheating scum don't con you!!!

Tim M · 22 February 2008, 18:51

It's weird; when I had the BT man come round and hook us up when we first moved in he said we'd probably be able to get it around the top end of what's available as we live very close to the exchange. Given I am in the center of Portsmouth you would think you could connect at a really high speed.

codprawn · 22 February 2008, 18:55

Complain to BT - they may need to turn the gain up on your line - also try with/without a filter.

hobbit555 · 22 February 2008, 19:19

did a test on mine
ISP Plusnet
They sell up to 8Mb speed
I live 150 Metres from exchange
Speed achieved 1906Kb/s

£27.99 Per month

codprawn · 22 February 2008, 20:03

Try a few different locations on the site.

Poly · 22 February 2008, 20:59

I had a heated discussion with BT regarding their claimed 8Mb/s on our office connection. The first point to note is that all the providers will sell as "up to 8Mb/s" and make no promises.

I suspect the contention ratio is as important as the distance to the exchange. We see a noticable difference in speed test results at different times of the day - so at 3am we get close to 4 Mb/s but at 4-6pm ish (when everyone in the nearby houses comes home it can be less than 2!).

One final point - if you are getting poor speeds worth doing a virus check etc - we found a virus (which had set up an smtp server and was mailing out spam) on a machine in the office which reduced our connection to less than a meg.

DJL · 22 February 2008, 23:09

If you’re having speed problems the first thing to do is find out what speed your ADSL modem/router is synchronised to the exchange. You should have two figures - up and down stream - something like 668800 down and 44800 up.

Keep an eye on these for a couple of days and note the slowest speed the modem connects. If the results you get from one of the speed test sites - http://www.speedtest.net/ or http://speedtester.bt.com/ - are pretty much the same as your sync speed then unfortunately your probably getting the best speed your likely to get regardless of your ISP.

You can try better quality micro filters and removing phones/extension leads etc - running CAT5e twisted pair instead of standard telephone cable in the house can make quite a difference.

If there is a big difference between your router synch speed and your actual download speeds (try speed tests over a couple of days) your IP Profile might be stuck. The exchange is supposed to work out the maximum reliable rate at which the network can send data to your adsl modem. It’s quite common for the profile to get stuck, so even though your connection to the exchange may support a higher speed the network is only serving data at the rate specified by your IP profile. Your ISPs technical support should be able to force an update of the IP Profile.

I’ve had stuck IP profiles several times now – one of my lines was upgraded from 1Mbps to and up to 8Mbps service recently, however the IP Profile stayed at 1Mbps. After a phone call to get it reset its now running at 6Mbps.

Limey Linda · 22 February 2008, 23:28

Just for comparison purposes. We pay $45.00 per month for cable service up to 9Meg download. Usually runs at around 7meg.
Cheers T.

codprawn · 23 February 2008, 01:59

Thats even more expensive than the Uk - and people think everything is cheaper in the USA..............

Cookee · 23 February 2008, 08:23

I subscribe to the top of the range BT service at home -

Not that great, it's meant to be "up to" 8MB

bogib · 23 February 2008, 08:42

This is what I got this morning, the company pay for my internet which is unlimited download and speed to be 12 meg (I think) cost is I believe GBP 12 a month.

Bogi

bogib · 23 February 2008, 08:52

Went a bit further into the Speedtest and found this, my company is dealing with the slowest speed provider

Bogi

Cookee · 23 February 2008, 09:00

Did another test with speedster.bt and got this:

Test1 comprises of Best Effort Test: -provides background information.
IP profile for your line is - 7150 kbps
DSL connection rate: 448 kbps(UP-STREAM) 8128 kbps(DOWN-STREAM)
Actual IP throughput achieved during the test was - 458 kbps