Brain Exploding - Need help choosing an ISP

I'm moving over to the UK from Germany where I1&1 give me a stable 6meg connection that has failed perhaps 3 times in four years and I lost email about the same amount of times. I have no download limit, I also have a good ping time for online games. I am an occasional Homeworker, which means I need to download a hefty 800 meg file in one go about once a week. I don't want a business account, I'm only working from home every now and again..

Now the brain exploding part.

Reading the forums here it seems that not one single ISP in the UK can deliver a service worth having... I've looked and looked and looked and yet the more I dig, the more my head opens up and deposits my brains on the wall in confusion.

Please, please, please, can someone point me in the direction of an ISP that can deliver me a stable broadband. Currently I pay 25

what do you want then unlimited with FUP or defined limit such as 20 GB ?

FUP is what again?

FUP = Fair Usage Policy

FUP stands for Fair Usage Policy.

It's a deception on the part of many ISPs offering "unlimited" services that are anything but unlimited. Such providers will typically offer a service without stating a limit on how much you can use and then have a policy which states (often very vaguely) that if your usage is deemed excesive they may either restrict your usage or cease your service.

Okay... Getting the picture... What about Eclipse or Zen? Any good?

Suggest that you check out the Eclipse & Zen forums - I haven't used either personally.

simpler to define what you want than to suggest ISPs without defining your requirement or specifying the specific package of interest.

As far as I can tell Eclipse are a traffic shaping theme park and Zen are outside your

In reply to:

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As far as I can tell Eclipse are a traffic shaping theme park

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pmsl

If Ofcom/the ASA had any teeth they'd force the likes of Virgin/Pipex/Tiscali/Orange/Talk Talk/Plusnet to admit this in their ads as punishment for trying to deceive the masses.

Would be great seeing Uma Thurman whisper this seductively on the telly ads.........

Okay, let me tell you about my day, you tell me what I need.

I do a small contract, a little bit of home working. This involves downloading a beta copy of the software (once a week - can be at just under a gig). I then sit and test, reporting bugs back via a HTML paged database. I get around 20 or 30 emails per day while doing this. I also need to post to a forum.

I am conected to the internet pretty much the whole day (about three times a week).

Outside of this, I also write books, the proofs of which need to be uploaded as PDF files every day.

I also like to play on-line games, so a ping time would need to be low.

So, I need a large amount of download allowance per month (at least 20gig) and a reliabale email server. I need a download speed around 5-6 meg and a ping time of around 15-20 ms.

How am I doing? Need more details?

And the 20 pound is an estimate. If the service is good, I wil go higher.