In reply to a post by zyborg47:

I have a domain, but I only use it for email, I suppose I could use it for a website, but that would cost more and I don't need a website. But domains are cheap, and businesses normally buy them to stop others using them.

Who do you use for this? I have been using 123-reg for email forwarding but they now tell me that they are stopping this service so I plan to move

In reply to a post by Michael_Chare:

In reply to a post by zyborg47:

I have a domain, but I only use it for email, I suppose I could use it for a website, but that would cost more and I don't need a website. But domains are cheap, and businesses normally buy them to stop others using them.

Who do you use for this? I have been using 123-reg for email forwarding but they now tell me that they are stopping this service so I plan to move
[/quote

I do similar - just use the domain for email.

I have been with TSO Hosts for about 15 years, but they have advised me that the renewal price will increase from c£23 pa to c£73 pa for hosting so I will move before the next renewal.

Does anyone have any recommendations?

Edited by michaelh (Thu 22-Aug-24 13:41:48)

In reply to a post by jchamier:

My family in US has Spectrum (Charter cable) which works well but speeds vary wildly, from 400 Mbps down to 80 Mbps at peak times. Their neighborhood has AT&T Fibre which is much faster and more consistent (same as UK FTTP in design) but the neighbourhood social media pages are full of outages, so my family ignore it.

I think I heard my cousin saying that Spectrum is available where she is, her opinion is that broadband is a load of poop in the states.

The BDUK process seems to be fair and open, the small alt nets don’t really want the complexity of doing the small villages and rural areas with miles between homes. Shame that nobody but OR bid for these; but they have the experience of rural. Even virgin media with their large national network didn’t bid.

Fair and open? look, there is a pig flying past your house.

You can see why OR are heavily regulated, and the other networks are not.

Yeah, but they still get money from the tax payers and government.

In reply to a post by bobble_bob:

ISPs advertise faster is better (and sure it is) and people think they need to go faster and faster as a result and pay the extra it costs even if they will never notice those faster speeds

Its all marketing

Well done.
Marketing and manipulation.

In reply to a post by Michael_Chare:

Who do you use for this? I have been using 123-reg for email forwarding but they now tell me that they are stopping this service so I plan to move

IONOS,

I have no issues with ISPs offering a range of speeds at varying prices, as long as they aren't being dishonest with their service tiers (e.g. selling you 1Gb when their network is only in a position to deliver 500Mbps).

It's not the ISPs job to find out what an end user actually *needs* and to insist on providing that instead, if I tried to order a 2Gbps service and was asked by the provider what I was intending on using it for that would put me off because they don't need to know.

Exactly like buying a 1.1litre or a 3 litre car.

The problem being when ISPs offer speeds acting like you NEED it

My aunt has a sales rep from Virgin come over to her house when they had Virgin in her area, acting like she needed to upgrade from her 40/10 fttc connection to FTTP 2gbps, despite all her using her connection for was Netflix now and again and Whatsapp and living alone (and telling the rep this)

Shes not tech savy so assumed she needed it

Edited by bobble_bob (Sun 25-Aug-24 18:36:17)

What you go for depends on what you need and can afford. I put my last surviving aunt on Talktalk 150 and she loves it, she's 91 years old and is happy using streaming TV services and the likes of Whatsapp (not all oldies are technophobes).

150 would not work well for me at times either home in Wales or home in Spain. I've had the grandkiddywinks staying in Spain for two weeks so, lad is on his PS5, gal is video chatting with chums in Wales, wife is streaming HD and I'm running two PCs in the ham radio shack. Then when you look at pricing there is not a massive difference in pricing between the likes of 100 and 1gb...depending on your budget. The difference in prices for the Talktalk 500 and 900 packages is two pints a month

In reply to a post by bobble_bob:

The problem being when ISPs offer speeds acting like you NEED it

My aunt has a sales rep from Virgin come over to her house when they had Virgin in her area, acting like she needed to upgrade from her 40/10 fttc connection to FTTP 2gbps, despite all her using her connection for was Netflix now and again and Whatsapp and living alone (and telling the rep this)

Shes not tech savy so assumed she needed it

This is the problem and a lot of people don't have the knowledge to know, they don't require it. Take Talk Talk, 150Mb/s is £28, which is about average I think for that speed, but if people get talked into the Gigabit package or 900Mb.s because Talk talk don't seem to go up to 1Gb/s, anyway that is £39.95, until it goes up to it's normal price of £45. May not seem a lot but for someone who is counting the change and trying to keep to a budget that £11 odd could make a difference, certainly in the winter. ISPs are very good at trying to talk people into something they don't need.

Then they also do the., we will give you super-duper speed for 24 months at such a price, don't forget the price rises that happens every 12 months, then at the end of 24 months the prices rise right up to the out of contract prices and the providers let it happen.

The only reason Plusnet emailed me was because they wanted me to change to FTTP, but I keep a very close eye on all my contracts, not that i have many these days. The only one I have that I am locked into is the 12 months I renewed for my broadband last week. I tend not to do contracts if I can get away with it.