Brits: Need some ISP suggestions

[darfgarf]

At least you guys seem to have plenty of options

technically yes, but the only ones that are actually realistic are virgin or O2/Be, and virgin give you a great connection, and then throttle it to 1Mbps if you dare to use it between 3-7pm or whenever


BT have this great clause that says 'if it's not our fault and you call us to fix the line, we charge you the cost of a whole new line' (£120 odd)...

 

[Prometheus]

Just wanted to bump this to say thanks, chaps. I'm now with O2, and, barring a minor disaster where they were unable to send the activation confirmation yesterday even though it apparently did go live then (you're not supposed to hook up the router and all that until you get it - apparently their notifications system went down), everything is running great.


I've also finally retired my flagging old router, since they supplied one that's of much better quality, and which has a much more intuitive interface.


I'm getting a much faster and more reliable service for much less money. My download speed is now just under 10mbps, and my upload speed is just over 1mbps - my new upload speed is what my old download speed was!


So, yes, thanks for all the suggestions and whatnot, you lot.

 

[darfgarf]

Just wanted to bump this to say thanks, chaps. I'm now with O2, and, barring a minor disaster where they were unable to send the activation confirmation yesterday even though it apparently did go live then (you're not supposed to hook up the router and all that until you get it - apparently their notifications system went down), everything is running great.


I've also finally retired my flagging old router, since they supplied one that's of much better quality, and which has a much more intuitive interface.


I'm getting a much faster and more reliable service for much less money. My download speed is now just under 10mbps, and my upload speed is just over 1mbps - my new upload speed is what my old download speed was!


So, yes, thanks for all the suggestions and whatnot, you lot.

it's worth noting that the o2/beboxes may overheat from time to time, causing the connection to reset itself for no reason, solution 1 is turn it off for a minute (only happens once every couple of months for us anyway), the other is to strap fans to the damn thing


still the best connection you'll get this side of laying fibre yourself

 

[slaeshjag]

it's worth noting that the o2/beboxes may overheat from time to time, causing the connection to reset itself for no reason, solution 1 is turn it off for a minute (only happens once every couple of months for us anyway), the other is to strap fans to the damn thing

Pretty much every router I've ever had crashes/drops connections/won't allow new connections at a irregular interval for no apparent reason, and is the reason I now have a computer to do the job instead

 

[darfgarf]

Pretty much every router I've ever had crashes/drops connections/won't allow new connections at a irregular interval for no apparent reason, and is the reason I now have a computer to do the job instead

same here, but we're yet to find an adsl modem that can give the same speed as the router, but seriously, what person would put a low frequency arm core in to a chip and have it overheat (broadcom i'm looking at you! >.<)

 

[Prometheus]

it's worth noting that the o2/beboxes may overheat from time to time, causing the connection to reset itself for no reason, solution 1 is turn it off for a minute (only happens once every couple of months for us anyway), the other is to strap fans to the damn thing

Really? This thing (the "O2 Wireless Box IV", according to the label) seems to be more air-vent than casing. :blink: I've never seen a router with ventilation on all sides (including the base), until now. :lol: (And yet it's still more solidly-built than my old clunker of a router.)

still the best connection you'll get this side of laying fibre yourself

Indeed, it very much seems to be!

 

[darfgarf]

Really? This thing (the "O2 Wireless Box IV", according to the label) seems to be more air-vent than casing. :blink: I've never seen a router with ventilation on all sides (including the base), until now. :lol: (And yet it's still more solidly-built than my old clunker of a router.)


Indeed, it very much seems to be!

maybe they realised they suck then, the quite large pile of fried thompson routers in our lounge all jsut have teh bototm vent, which seems a bit stupid really, why put an air vent in the bottom only?

 

[Asiyura]

I've fried quite a number of ADSL modems too, the previous model from my provider was a cheaply built piece of crap that went awfully hot…


I stripped the last one from its case and pasted adhesive heat sink (you know, those for video cards ram chips) on the hottest components.


(It resulted in not frying the modem, just overheating it

)


But the latest one is a Sagem, I've fixed it to the wall and it's working.


The occasional reboot because of an internal bug, but nothing more.