Pipex - Should I stay or should I go now?

Hi,

Yes, yes I know another one to add to the list of lost souls.

I've been with Pipex for several years now, from a 512k link in my old house up to the current Pipex Go 2Mb link which I upgraded to last year.

Now, my wife uses the Internet a lot now for emails etc for her home business selling children's books. Also the kids have their own PCs and they're taking up more bandwidth as well, and as I've got the Netgear DG834G (which I have to admit has been a great router) can't throttle the bandwidth, only the wife and children!!

Got this from Samknows.com and I know from previous experience I am only 900m from the exchange..

Be: Enabled
Bulldog: Not available
CPW / TalkTalk: RFS date set (Date unknown)
Easynet / Sky: Enabled
Edge Telecom: Not available
HomeChoice: Not available
Lumison: Not available
Node4: Not available
Orange: Not available
Pipex: Not available
Tiscali: Not available
WB Internet: Not available
Zen Internet: Not available

Now, as I need more bandwidth, I'm gravitating to either Sky or BE. I sent an email off toe Pipex to ask them about their unbundling, but they haven't replied yet with any answers, which I suppose is typical for them.

Don't get me wrong, Pipex has been good on the connection front, and in the last five years, I've only had two outages, but I did have a problem when I moved house and took the number (yep I can see some of you wince at that, it was painful!). Customer services suck though, luckily I've not had hardly any cause to call them.

On the Sky front, am worried that I switch over to them and find that I only get a max of 4mb, which wouldn't be much cop, and also they don't have outbound migration if I had to jump ship from them.

BE seems to be more robust, but it does look like you pay for the service.

So, the question is, which one should I go for? The Sky cheap option of

Well out of the 2 (Be/sky), Be seem to be the better of the 2. A lot of things are going wrong at the moment with sky and so on and their CS are bad. Be have a good record and although their CS is in bulgaria, apparently their pretty good from what ive read on here. If your after reliability and faster speeds id suggest Be

On the Sky front, am worried that I switch over to them and find that I only get a max of 4mb, which wouldn't be much cop, and also they don't have outbound migration if I had to jump ship from them.

Hi, I may be mis-understanding you here but Sky do offer an LLU MAC key for outward migrations [but you will have to consider the 12-month contract] and are Be not also LLU so the same issue would apply? Do Be offer outward migrations?

I went with Sky and it was a leap of faith I have to say, but I'm on Mid at 7Mb - rock steady and solid, even wireless but I am very close to the exchange.

Good luck - Blue

Similar position to you and today got my MAC from Pipex after 5 years with them and signed up for Zen tongith mainly becasue of theri reputation for stability, consistent speed and CS. So far the process seems impressive in terms of being kept infomed.

I was intersted in BE but they ahve decided not to enable exchnage yet but they currently look good value and look fast. For me as there is no LLU it came dowm to ADLS24/Entanet or Zen and in the end you ahev to jump.

Had an interesting chat with Pipex today, cos surprise surprise, they hadn't come back to me with some answers when they said they would.

I asked them firstly about when Pipex would begin installing ADSL2 into exchanges, as I'd read previously that they were very much keen to push ADSL2. The response I got was that because of the soak-up of Bulldog, they are having to put future projects on a backburner whilst they sort out issues with the take on of Bulldog customers and the problems they have. As of yet they have no available plans as to when they will start unbundling the exchanges. If any do go through it'll be under the Bulldog umbrella, so look out for that on your exchange.

I also asked them about my 12month date, which I have as 3rd March. I did state that because Pipex are lagging behind, with no sure date as to when they would undertake this work, I might have to look at taking my business elsewhere.

Surprisingly, for once the Customer Services person I got sounded quite knowledgeable and I didn't have to wait either.

I did some tests and found that on the standard ADSL line, I could get up to between 5.5 and 5.9 mbps, and on an ADSL2 line, could get 12-16mbps.

Pipex simply have no product at the moment with which to compete, which I imagine is frustrating for the sales department. Customer Services were not able to offer me any form of carrot with which to stay, i.e. Pipex Max unlimited for less..

They did try scaring me saying that 'quite a few people have gone across to the ADSL2 range being tempted with the network speeds, but have had nothing but trouble'. Granted, people do have problems with their broadband connection, but these are generally in the minority.

So 3rd March is the date when I'll look at getting my MAC from Pipex and jump ship. Shame, cos although they do have issues with CS, the connection I've had has always been reliable.

I think after doing further checks, I'll go to BE instead, just really not sure about the Sky monopoly..

ScrozUK