Which Broadband ?

[PlanktonBoy]

Ntl again my end, no problems but they can be a pain when you need to get hold of em.
And i have it running through an Ntl phone line not Bt

[delboy]

i have ntl phone line and seperate internet line as well so dont use my phone line

[John Marshall]

NTL broadband, no probs only user trouble

[PlanktonBoy]

With Ntl you can use your internet and phone at the same time Delboy,
thats one of the plusses of broadband

[pingu]

been with aol and now aol broadband about 10 yrs now never had a problem but will add its not like other internet providers as is more of a complete package
aol broadband does not work with windows 98 or below and can no longer use fax without leaving old modem on

[Old Smoothound]

Hi Guys,

My hearfelt thanks for all the info it has been an eye opener. I run windows XP proffessional so i guess most Broadband software will run on it.

I think i have narrowed the field down to two providers, but as always ii will just check it all again and then go for it.

Again many thanks for your feedback.


Cheers
Shaun

[Simon TorbayFishing]

Don't ever install AOL on your machine because it takes over your computer. Likewise Freeserve if you use their CD.

Tiscali are good. NTL used to be really, really bad but I've not heard anything recently.

As for BT I signed up as a business user. Same price as household, no bandwidth restrictions and the best tech support you could ever ask for. The support for business is a local call number and I've never been on hold for more than 1 minute. The two times BB went down they set up a free phone dialup modem number while it was down. I cannot fault business BT which really is saying something because I cannot stand the company itself.

Shaun,

I am with BT Business user. Its expensive comapred with home user rates but have no bandwidth limitations and a contention ratio of 20:1 instead of 50:1
Also in two years I have never lost service. So basically I am a very happy bt broadband user.

The reason I went with bt is because they are(or were) the only company who would send me a bill in the same way as I recieve a telephone bill. So by the time I've claimed the VAT back and put the costs through the books it works out less than a home user unlimited bandwidth package.

Another thing is that when the son gets home from school and starts his online games the business users are going home so we rarely if ever get lag caused by our connection.

Hope this helps

Dave

[DownSouth]

One of the main reason for going for the BT Business package is the fact that you will get a static IP address. This allows for easy maintenance of your computer/systems remotely because you can log on to from anywhere you can get access.

Shaun, if you are retired and mainly a daytime user, then I believe the difference in contention ratios will have little effect on your download speeds as most 'Home' users are working in the daytime and bandwidth only starts to become a little stretched at around 7pm till 10pm, though having said that, a recent report I read in an IT paper reckoned there was little noticeable difference between a 20:1 and 50:1 contention ratio because most users of 20:1 ratios put much larger demands on their broadband connection.

[devondave]

well i have a 3mb connection with telewest and i cant complain at all but with download speeds of 2750kb/s would you?