What about some other ISPs then

Having read through most of the posts all I see being recommended are Newnet, IDnet, and Entanet resellers for most of the questioning posters.
Is that it?

Most of the posters looking for an ISP seem to be either ones that want "unlimited" with reliable speed rates,good pings etc etc, and those who who just want to surf the web and download small ammounts of data etc,

Surely there are other ISPs that can be put forward or are the others just not good enough to compete with those mentioned at the start of this (rather long - sorry) post.

Cookie

If an ISP is not recommended it means that nobody is publicly prepared to recommend that ISP. Doesn't that say something about the ISPs which are recommended?

If you have a look at thinkbroadband's ISP comparison facility, and lurk on the forums of the ISPs that seem to get the best ratings, and perhaps do the same on DSLZone and ISPreview, you'll find (as you suspect) that there are a number of ISPs worth considering. Personally I would never recommend an ISP of which I had no experience, and given that I've only experienced a few, insufficient to start making meaningful comparisons, I don't feel qualified to recommend any at all. I would simply recommend you do your own homework - oh, and avoid getting tied into long contracts!

Yeah, they should be raking in the money from migrations and new applicants.
I agree they must be "good" to be recommended but can't believe the others are "bad" just because they aren't.
There must be some hidden gems out there waiting to be recommended on this forum otherwise it is just

Cookie

Long contracts, yes they are best avoided if possible and there is nothing like a good lurk now and again.
Time to sleep my friend.

Cookie

Some of the bigger ISP's can work quite well for many people. It seems that the larger the customer base the more dissatisfied customers there are, by the same token there must be an even greater number of satisfied customers. It's really a case of deciding whether you want to go with one of the larger ones and be satisfied or not according to actual experience or trying one of the more niche isp's with a a good reputation. It is difficult to steer any one to a particular ISP as most problems (If any) don't become apparant until you have been with them for some time.

A case of suck it and see.

You are quite right in saying the ISPs not recommended may still be very good. However it is much easier to recommend an ISP if you hear very few horror stories about them. Generally the smaller ISPs which are growing tend to have better and more responsive customer support - guess why.

I myself was very happy with Virgin ADSL for 18 months until I had reason to get in touch with their customer support (not really for ADSL related reasons). Their 'attitude' so annoyed me that I decided to migrate.

look at the forums with no or little posts, often the sign of a good isp as no-one whining about naff service

Nildram for example, which give me a good service for starters.

OP, apart from the obvious questions such download limit, contract terms, TM, port blocking and any other aspects that you are looking to have as extras ie webspace, etc...the salient question that you have you may have overlooked is do you want your isp to compete on the basis of price or quality of service.

Good Luck in your search