I work from home and so Internet connectivity is important to me, I also have a wife a three children who now all appear to be reliant on the Internet!

Unfortunately we live a fair distance from a market1 phone exchange with no cable coverage and so Internet tends to be limited and slow. Previously I had BT broadband (option 2) which gave me an ok speed and fairly reliable service. A few months ago however sky were desperate to sell me their broadband and talk package (albeit using BTs kit aka sky connect) but the price was good so I thought I would go for it.

Any way long story short, following a rather bumpy connection I have had loads of problems with my line. Not directly sky's fault but none the less they have not been the most proactive. Anyway it looks like the line is fixed now and the link is fairly stable however now that we are using it I am now hitting sky's redicous traffic management policies on their connect package.

I have been so desperate I even placed an order with Talk Talk (only LLU available) for a second line at a very good offer, although even they managed to cock things up and delivery is not for another 4 weeks(on top of the 6 weeks I have already waited) I also have it on good authority (from the BT Openreach engineer) there is a good chance the new line is going to inherit the line issues from my other line!

So the question is what do I do? And can any of you recommend (or not) any particular providers using either BT or Talk Talk LLU wholesale services.

I'm not a gamer but I do use VPN for work. I want to use sky on demand to download and stream video so I'm guessing an unlimited package is going to be needed. I don't want to be traffic managed although I can cope if it is just P2P. I've not got a bottomless pit of money but with the recent experience I am looking for best value - not just the cheapest.

BT are the obvious choice but expensive and overrated in my experience
Talk talk get very mixed reviews ranging from avoid at all costs to fairly good if but phone support a bit sketchy
Or do I go for one of these small providers like Titan adsl or vivaciti?

Any thoughts?  Freelander 2 TD4 Auto, SE, Narvik Black, Alpaca full leather, Rear Headrest Entertainment System, 6 CD, 18 HSE Wheels, Privicy tints

if no cable or fibre to cabinet it all depends on the distance from the exchange and type of cable i.e copper or aluminium..all providers use openreach plant

Be careful with Talk Talk, they are not top charts for customer service.

Lines are maintened by BT openreach, so who ever you choose will need to arrange repairs via them, so who is better than using BT Broadband, at least once you get past Derek in Mumbai you get things sorted

75mbps/ 10mbps

Thanks mike e - no cable or FTTC and yup fully aware BTOR plant which is why the line quality concerns me - but that is one issue. My issue now is getting the best value speed / usage policy from a decent provider. Freelander 2 TD4 Auto, SE, Narvik Black, Alpaca full leather, Rear Headrest Entertainment System, 6 CD, 18 HSE Wheels, Privicy tints

npinks wrote:

75mbps/ 10mbps

I don't need you to rub it in thank you very much  Freelander 2 TD4 Auto, SE, Narvik Black, Alpaca full leather, Rear Headrest Entertainment System, 6 CD, 18 HSE Wheels, Privicy tints

I am with Virgin Media. 60 meg (fibre optic naturally) and it's part of a package with Tivo box and phone line. The call centre is annoying as it is in Baghdad I believe but if you ask to be put through to the 'thinking of leaving us' department, they put you through to someone in England who you can understand (mostly )

I need fast internet for research for Uni work. With my Macbook Pro I have even got 60mb over the wireless connection. It does drop sometimes but even 30mb is quick enough.

Virgin do phone line internet for areas without fibre optic but not sure about costs. LL.B (Hons) - University of Derby
LOT (Lord of Time) - University of Gallifrey

Last edited by The Doctor on 24th Nov 2012 11:39 pm. Edited 1 time in total

Look at Plusnet. "Good honest broadband from Yorkshire". Actually owned by BT but cheaper and excellent customer service.  10MY (Sept 09) TD4 HSE Auto in Stornoway Grey (Now Gone)

08 FL2 TD4 SE Manual in Rimini Red (Now Gone)

+ 1 for Plus Net

+1 For plus net, have been with them for 15 + years now never had any problems. Their customer service is top notch! Freelander 2, 2014 Dynamic SD4 Santorini Black

Cheers chaps - I have heard a few good comments about plus net. I still ha e to pay for the expensive one though as I. Market 1 exchange! How of com think this is fair I don't know!???

Thanks doc ill remember that for of / when I can EVER get Virgin!!  Freelander 2 TD4 Auto, SE, Narvik Black, Alpaca full leather, Rear Headrest Entertainment System, 6 CD, 18 HSE Wheels, Privicy tints

+1 in spades for Plusnet. Excellent customer service. ...

Be true to yourself. That way happiness lies...

Any views on plusnets fair usage policy and traffic management? Not had chance to look at the small print yet! Freelander 2 TD4 Auto, SE, Narvik Black, Alpaca full leather, Rear Headrest Entertainment System, 6 CD, 18 HSE Wheels, Privicy tints

Quote:

Any views on plusnets fair usage policy and traffic management? Not had chance to look at the small print yet!

I don't know if this helps (lots of text follows...). Broadly you get a wide choice of services from Plusnet and I have recommended them to many friends who are delighted.

I am on Plusnet extra fiber and get 58Mb/s download, 18Mb/s upload, 250GB per month allocation. I can't imagine running out of usage. Anyway...

From the Plusnet website:

Broadband Usage
6. What's the monthly usage allowance?
Product Standard allowance Fibre allowance
Plusnet Value 10GB 40GB
Plusnet Extra 60GB 250GB
• Overnight usage (between Midnight and 8am) does not count towards your monthly usage allowance.
• Any unused allowance isn't carried over to the next month. On each billing date your allowance will reset to the level shown above.
[Top]
7. How can I track my usage?
You can use the View My Broadband Usage tool at the Member Centre.
[Top]
8. What happens if I go over my monthly usage allowance?
For the majority of customers an extra 5GB will be added to your allowance for the month. This costs £5 which will be added to your next bill. (Customers on some older products will be charged £2 per 2GB block).
To control how much you spend per month, use the Manage My Usage tool (found in My Account > Connection Settings).
You can use this to set a maximum monthly amount to spend on usage (ontop of your monthly subscription price). What happens when you hit the usage limit that you've set varies, depending on the type of product you have. Also, some products have more options for adding usage.
For the majority of broadband customers:
1. Go to the Manage My Usage tool and enter the maximum amount you're willing to pay each month on usage (ontop of your subscription price).
2. E.g. let's say that you pay £6.99 for your broadband subscription each month. You've got the option of:
• Not spending any more than £6.99 each month. So you'd enter a limit of £0
• Setting a limit on what you're willing to spend on extra usage each month. Do this by entering an amount in multiples of £5 - e.g. £5, £10, £15, £20 etc. (Or if you're on an older product you should enter this in multiples of £2 - e.g. £2, £4, £6, £8 etc.). This will add extra usage at a cost of £5 per 5GB or £2 per 2GB. The maximum extra monthly spend you've set will be shown.
3. If you decide that you need to change your maximum extra monthly spend from month to month, it's not a problem. If this happens you'd simply need to increase or decrease the amount you're willing to spend.
4. If you do hit the usage limit you've set your speed will be rate limited to 256kb/s until your next billing date. You can change this by increasing your maximum extra monthly spend or removing your Manage My Usage limit.
For Broadband Your Way customers:
As well being able to set a Manage My Usage limit, Broadband Your Way customers also have the option of paying for Fixed cost or Pay As You Go usage. (This option was available when the account was created. Usage allowance preferences can be changed at Control Your Broadband found in My Account > Connection Settings).
Fixed cost:
If you reach your usage limit:
• Access to Peer-to-Peer/USENET etc is blocked
• Your speed will be rate limited to 256kb/s until your next billing day
PAYG:
If you reach your usage limit:
• Extra usage is added to your account which you pay for on your next billing day
• Your speed will stay the same

Why do we manage traffic?
Our broadband service is provided over a shared network. Bandwidth (the amount of data that can be transmitted) is shared between everybody who is connected to the network. This industry-wide method allows us to provide a reliable, high-speed service at an affordable price.
As customer numbers and usage grows, we have to increase the capacity of our network to make sure there's enough bandwidth for everyone. When the network is busy, it's easy for things to get out of control. Peer-to-peer, video streaming and large file downloads can flood the network quickly and use up the bandwidth. If this happens, it reduces the speed of web browsing, email, gaming and other types of web traffic. Traffic management prevents this from happening.
With Traffic Management we can do lots of clever things to make sure everyone gets a good, fair online experience. For example we can:
• Make sure stuff that needs to be fast (like VoIP, VPN and gaming) is always prioritised - if these run slowly, they won't work properly
• Protect your interactive activities like web-browsing and email from download traffic such as music downloads
• Provide a service relative to the amount each customer pays in terms of usage allowances and experience
• Flex the network in the event of unusual demands in traffic or disaster situations (e.g. a network failure)
How is traffic prioritised?
We assign all traffic on the network a priority, with the more time-sensitive applications given a higher priority.

Higher priority traffic gets bandwidth before lower priority traffic. As the total bandwidth available is shared, this means lower priority traffic can be slower at busy times when there's less bandwidth available.

Rate Limits
We assign all traffic on the network a priority, with the more time-sensitive applications given a higher priority. As well as prioritising traffic we apply rate-limits to make sure everyone gets a good online experience.
For example: you're a Value customer, you have a 5Mb connection and in your house there is someone playing CounterStrike, someone else watching YouTube videos, and someone else trying to download from Usenet.
If we just let the traffic prioritisation rules dictate the experience the person gaming and the person watching YouTube would be fighting for the bandwidth and both activites may suffer. By applying a rate limit to gaming and YouTube we can make sure that both activities work properly, and any remaining bandwidth is given to the download (in the 5Mb example gaming would get 2Mb, YouTube 2.5Mb and downloading 0.5Mb).
Other applications are rate-limited because they are very bandwidth-intensive (for example Peer-to-Peer). Applying specific limits to these means everyone gets a fair share of the finite bandwidth available. ...

Be true to yourself. That way happiness lies...