Web Tapestry, possitive experience so far

When I was looking for an FTTC ISP there were so few that fit my requirements and those that did had widely varying prices. I decided to take a bit of a risk and go with Web Tapestry.

Partly because they were one of the cheapest, but mainly because of the support I got when I phoned them to ask about their service, having routed subnets, DMZs etc., the person I spoke to was very friendly and helpful, and more to the point he knew what I was talking about instead of a lot of these big companies that are just fronted by a sales clerk.

Got my service ordered over the web. You can't specify you want static IP addresses as part of the order you have to send an email with that information afterwards. But I wasn't charged for the subnet (8 addresses) which is absolutely brilliant (and to be honest it's the way it should be).

More help on support from Ian to understand how to configure my routers with their network, slightly different to bridged ADSL modem and a VPN router which I had before, but got all that under my belt.

Install was scheduled for 6 days, BT came, the guy was very good and quick (he was a bit taken aback by the fact my whole house is CAT5 cabled and all he had to do was plug the router in the wall and all the magic happens in my wiring closet, you see something new every day were his exact words).

20 minutes, all up and running.

At this point I was still waiting for my new router, my old one only had a 10BaseT WAN port so I couldn't check the line speed immidiately, but all services were operational.

A couple of days later, got my routers. Set up the main gateway, came up with the expected IP address (perfect) and a 38Mbps/8Mpbs put a smile on my face.

Only hitch I've had is that the rest of my subnet isn't routed properly. I suspect this isn't web tapestrys fault as the IP's are not even being routed to their network at the moment so I am waiting on a reply from them on this.

So far, service has been reliable, support has been excellent taking hours and not days to get response on emails, phone support was great and I'm paying less for my new FTTC service than I was for my old ADSL2+ service which has to be the biggest bonus of all.

Only one thing I'd say to them is to spend a bit more time on the web site. It lacks a bit of information and friendliness, but don't be put off. They remind me of Nildram in the early days, you remember reliable, friendly, small enough to care, big enough to deliver.

which package did you pay for - any traffice shaping/fair usage that you are aware of ?

Isn't their FUP a little strict though?

"We do not consider any usage below 40GB per month to be heavy or excessive. Should a user's usage exceed the fair usage limit, then Peak Time Traffic Shaping will be applied to the line"

http://www.webtapestry.net/terms.html#fairusage

Hi,

Interesting review - thanks for posting.

I'm hoping to be able to order soon (paths next to the cabinets are just getting dug up by a utility company so power must be going in) and am currently leaning towards BT Infinity for the following reasons:

- It's unlimited - i'm not a heavy downloader and don't do torrents or any P2P but I don't like the thought of having a limit and one day I do a lot of streaming and my connection gets limited or something.

- There is a big price difference to WT:
- It's free install (£48 on WT)
- I can get £20 back from Quidco
- 3 months free

- You get BT OpenZone minutes

The only shame about Infinity is you can't get static ip's and the long (18 month) contract.

I'm interested in what the slightly different network setup is? - are you able to explain how the setup works (and link to the forum thread you refer to?)

What are your ping times like?

Thanks,

Ian

Edited by deleted (Thu 14-Jul-11 10:10:43)

My biggest complaint with WebTapestry is poor information management. They have two different websites advertising two sets of products, but when ordering only one set is available..

http://www.webtapestry.net/

versus

http://new.webtapestry.net/

The former advertises unlimited data subject to fair usage (per the FUP). The latter, which is obviously newer, advertises specific allowances: but the FUP has not been updated to reflect. Only the latter is reflected in the ordering system.

I emailed them a couple of weeks ago to ask if uploads were included in the FUP/allowance (plus some IPv6 questions), but I never got a response.

Assuming the "new" information is correct and uploads are unmetered then I'd seriously consider them, but only if I can get some assurance that their support is not as disorganised as their marketing!

The ordering system shows the installation as free for all FTTC packages, despite what it says at the bottom of http://new.webtapestry.net/broadband_superfast.html !

See my other post criticizing their information management

Edited by DougM (Thu 14-Jul-11 10:26:19)

Removing the exclamation mark from the link makes it work .

They do (like so many others) have a fair usage policy, for the FTTC product set at 60GB a month. Traffic shaping only kicks in if you exceed that and not for normal web activities like email, web browsing etc. However strictly speaking, their fair usage policy doesn't actually set any limits for the upto 40Mbps product, it only lists the up to 8Mbps product (though I'm sure the same policy is probably applied).

http://www.webtapestry.net/terms.html#fairusage

They call it their BroadbandMax which kind of is their top speed pack for either ADSL2+ or FTTC which share the same package name and pricing.

40Mbps down, 10Mbps up, unlimited off peak usage, free IP addresses and £24.99 pm.

Any traffic shaping they may do if you exceed the limit is restricted to 8am to midnight monday to friday and off peak is unlimited.

They have a completely uncapped/unshapped product (their "Office" product) which is listed at £45 when you order but doesn't state if that includes VAT.

I've been tracking my usage on their control panel, it's a bit rudimentary, but it does the job. So far I've used just under 4GB peak downloads in a week and 6GB peak uploads (I'm using Carbonite for online backups which accounts for all of this upload volume).

I'm going to monitor the service closely, and if I have to I'll upgrade to a higher tier, but at £25 a month it's excellent value, and it's not BT.

I'm going to drop them a line and get some further clarrification on their policies though as the online documentation clearly hasn't been updated since launcing the fibre product and we all could do with having a bit more info I think.

I can only tell you at the moment their support is second to none. I emailed them yesterday late on as I got my second router in and couldn't get the subnet to route. I found out the whole subnet routing was not working.

I got an email back from Ian at 3:30 in the morning telling me he'd fixed it (typo in the Radius config). Now it just so happens I was still up and about at that time of night and was able to try it. Bingo!

I agree their website needs some serious work, a bit of pollish would make them really stand out as a major supplier, that's the only thing that had me debating about going with them up until the day I ordered.

I'm going to suck it and see for a while, test out their usage policies and try and get some more info on the service, but so far, so good. If the policies are a bit too restrictive, they have their office products which are fully unlimited, and still cheaper than BTs unlimited fixed IP business product as well.

This is really interesting and I am seriously considering their products.

Can I ask one thing of you?

Please would you type tracert bbc.co.uk into a command prompt, and paste the results in here.

Thank you. It's great that you are having such a good experience.