More first impressions of Xilo

Another UKOnline customer (16Mb/1Mb) forced to find another ISP thanks to their closure. Been a customer for about 4 days ago far.

Was tempted by their lack of traffic shaping. I'm an avid WOW player and some ISPs mistake their traffic for P2P after a major content release which basically puts them at the "back of the latency queue" - leaving the game unplayable. Ofc their forum presence here and positive... image helped decide it too.

The migration (Pro 16 Office) was remarkably smooth - about 30 minutes of downtime... and even with 8ms interleaving (was on fastpath with UKOnline) my latency is a lot lower than it was.

But then my connection to the net started "randomly" disconnecting me.

After five years of custom with UKOnline, this was a bit surprising since I'd only ever experienced disconnections when the local exchange had an outage (about 3-4 times). It later turned out that I was being disconnected everytime someone phoned my landline (and believe me, it's only ever telemarketing people trying to flog me mobile phones - or elderly relatives). Might have been other occasions too - but I could pretty reliably disconnect myself by phoning my landline.

I know what you're thinking - microfilters - but I use a a faceplate on the Master socket which splits the signal at the source - and just for [censored] and giggles, the extension has another filter on it too. Same gear I used on UKOnline, didn't change a thing but the login and password on my router.

The biggest irritation was the support line that's closed on weekends and after 5pm UK time. The online support is "okay" but it's frustrating to have conversations that are staggered every 4 hours or so.

They've suggested that maybe my upload speed is too high - but I'm reasonably certain that I had this level on UKOnline (although maybe not exactly 1Mbit). So now my upload is going to be capped to 512 because apparently C&W don't support a 768kbit profile. That extra 256kbit was important to me

Edited by jamesx2 (Fri 17-Dec-10 17:54:42)

The disconnection issue is very frustrating and one that C&W are working to resolve but still appears to be an issue on some lines - we have yet to find any similarity between people that have it and ones that don't.

The biggest irritation was the support line that's closed on weekends and after 5pm UK time. The online support is "okay" but it's frustrating to have conversations that are staggered every 4 hours or so.

Apart from when we were waiting for C&W to run some diagnostic testing, all replies bar one (of just over an hour), have been within 5 minutes of your update. Can you advise if you have another ticket open from the single one on the account under another address?

I know that C&W are running software upgrades around the country currently and will see if I can get further information on what this may fix, if anything.

Just to add, even though our phones end at 5pm - we answer emails around the clock including weekends.

Matt

Edited by uno (Fri 17-Dec-10 18:12:50)

I am migrating over on the 29th and its to tiscali where xilo have more control on the dslam. We were spoilt on ukonline, I also expect to lose stability but at least on tiscali xilo will have more power to help if needed. Losing SRA from ukonline is the killer on this.

Well i sent "Xilo" a message asking them to tell me the following

"440
Subject: difference btw pro16 home and pro16 office ?
Department: General
Status: Open
"

Sent on the 22nd of 12 and still no reply, seriously doubting i wanna spend my money on a company that can't even be botherd to answer a simple question not a good start.

And to find out you have to pay for there stupidly overpriced pro24 package just to get a chance of Fastpath is very very cheeky and then to find after paying so much more than my uko account ever was it has a cap of 75gb per month ?!? taking liberties tbh.

But alas Be cant be bother to sort out extra capacity at my exchange so i have no other choice looks like it'll have to be these cowboys untill i can actually get a local hub here or be expand capacity, not a good start not good at all.


Btw how hard is it for you to actually publish the difference btwn

pro16 home and pro16 office ?? they look identicle apart from the price so maybe thats why it's taking so long to answer my ticket as your as confused as i am????.

And why show the home inc of vat yet the other 2 office and pr24 exc vat ? talk about make u jump though hoops.

Edited by djay (Tue 28-Dec-10 10:30:02)

In reply to a post by djay:

...
And to find out you have to pay for there stupidly overpriced pro24 package just to get a chance of Fastpath is very very cheeky and then to find after paying so much more than my uko account ever was it has a cap of 75gb per month ?!? taking liberties tbh.

But alas Be cant be bother to sort out extra capacity at my exchange so i have no other choice looks like it'll have to be these cowboys untill i can actually get a local hub here or be expand capacity, not a good start not good at all
....

Whilst perhaps you should have had a reply, I wonder how many small quality outfits are dealing urgently with sales requests rather than providing emergency help to people with problems over this period?

How did you send the message?

Re the quote above . How very odd that these "stupidly overpriced" over-priced "cowboys" can continue to offer a decent service when the straight-forward honest Sky-owned UKOnline are being closed down, the only possible reason being they aren't making enough profit, and Be for whatever reason won't supply additional capacity at your exchange. That could either be it isn't profitable for them to do so or there isn't physical space.

Sounds a bit to me as though you just had a bad day .

And by the way, there are several reports of xilo/uno speeds and latency being noticeably better for people who have moved from UKOnline than they were with them. I wonder if it's to do with price?

Edited by RobertoS (Tue 28-Dec-10 12:47:41)

No, it's nothing to do with price, just where you happen to be located in relation to a PoP.

Expecting an immediate response from Xilo/Uno during the Christmas holidays is a bit silly.

In reply to a post by djay:

Sent on the 22nd of 12 and still no reply, seriously doubting i wanna spend my money on a company that can't even be botherd to answer a simple question not a good start.

I'm sorry, but as has been pointed out, there has been a Christmas break and we're in no rush to deal with sales queries. Sorry.

And to find out you have to pay for there stupidly overpriced pro24 package just to get a chance of Fastpath is very very cheeky

Why? Every ISP will offer different services, with different prices. If you're not keen on one, you can always go for a cheaper option. No one is forcing you.

and then to find after paying so much more than my uko account ever was it has a cap of 75gb per month ?!? taking liberties tbh.

Not really. That is the product. We have to pay for the amount of capacity used across Tiscali Wholesale backhaul, just like we do with BT Wholesale. This is why you wont find a truly unmetered BT-based ISP.

But alas Be cant be bother to sort out extra capacity at my exchange so i have no other choice looks like it'll have to be these cowboys untill i can actually get a local hub here or be expand capacity, not a good start not good at all.

With that attitude, I don't think you should join us. You seem to be against every ISP you have posted about in this thread stating "Be cant be bother[ed]" - when it may just be impossible to do so, ala Poplar exchange and calling us "cowboys" could be seen as a libellous comment.

pro16 home and pro16 office ?? they look identicle apart from the price so maybe thats why it's taking so long to answer my ticket as your as confused as i am????.

You've obviously been on here for a while, enough to post this... and this has been discussed many times. It's contention 50:1 Home, 20:1 Office.

And why show the home inc of vat yet the other 2 office and pr24 exc vat ? talk about make u jump though hoops.

Because some are home services and some are office services. Most offices will be VAT registered, where as home users (generally), won't be.

Matt

I pity your next ISP!

In reply to a post by Finguz:

I pity your next ISP!

#

Your with sky so you got the isp you deserved anyway enjoy your overseas call center.

Post deleted by tommy45