Considering leaving Entanet

As most people have recognised by now, Entanet seems to be on a downward spiral of late, with congestion getting worse, speeds dropping, and tighter limits soon to be enforced if rumours prove true. I live in a non-LLU area (Northern Ireland), so what would be recommended to me for £20 or less per month, which provides as close to unlimited downloads as possible, while still remaining speedy at all times?

Have a look at the O2 Access package.

Normally I would say O2 Access, but it looks a bit as though a recent influx of Entanet users may have temporarily over-loaded them as well - though nothing like the current IPSC chaos. Note the discount if you have an O2 mobile phone.

O2/Be have a track-record of upgrading as necessary, in fact Be have just announced another pot of cash for this. (That may be LLU only though).

I suggest you sit it out for at least a week, (though possibly get a MAC ready as it is valid for 30 days and you don't have to use it), and browse the O2 forum in the meantime.

Or you could summon up your courage and sign up via Quidco by the 19th, that's Monday but maybe tomorrow is the cut-off date, and as long as you clear all your cookies etc first you should get a £70 cash-back (less £5 annual fee).

As O2 have a 30-day money-back getout you are fairly safe even though at the end of the 30 days you are committed to another 11 months.

Otherwise you are looking at serious money from IDNet, Zen and Newnet, with nowhere near the Entanet allowances, or Plusnet Pro with unlimited usage midnight to 8am.

I would recommend O2 Access with Plusnet as the escape route if unhappy.

With so many ex-Entanet customers complaining about O2 Access, I'd be tempted to stay with Entanet for a few more weeks, to give them time to resolve the current WBC and IPstreamConnect issues.
It's by no means certain Entanet will provide more bandwidth (at £69.70 per Mbit on WBC), but they'll be certain to lose a very large number of customers if they don't.

O2 Access have their own problems (probably caused by the uber downloaders jumping to the next ship), and many are complaining about poor speed and / or very high pings.

O2 / BE LLU doesn't seem to be suffering as badly, but it's bad enough to make BE / O2 dip into their pockets for a "multi million pound network improvement scheme which should start easing congestion within a month to six weeks".
Although it doesn't say, the implication is this upgrade applies to their LLU products.

With a 12 month contract, I'd be tempted not to try O2 until things settle down.

Yep, although I think for this OP my suggestion works as with O2 he has the 30-day option, then with Plusnet he has a similar 90-day option and only a monthly contract.

So he has 3-4 months available away from the chaos to see how things settle. And all of it refundable subscriptions.

Now wait a minute...... !!!!!!

that would be the one I would avoid.

1 - mass influx of customers to O2 at the moment.
2 - long contract.

I would look at aaisp or zen's £80 product.

unlimited for below £20 is just unrealistic on ipstream.

Edited by Chrysalis (Sat 17-Jan-09 23:39:44)

Not really going to get constant speeds and near unlimited downloads for £20 on IPstream.

Would you be able to make do with an ISP that has an umlimited off-peak allowance ?

I agree, been seeing very high latency on o2 home access since my move from Enta.

I'd go on Sky's LLU service or UKOnline if available.

If not Plusnet if you can do all your downloading overnight.

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I agree, been seeing very high latency on o2 home access since my move from Enta.

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One thing to remember when discussing O2's offerings is the major difference between "access" and the other packages. Access is BT-based and available at any exchange, the rest are LLU services using Be's network (Be and O2 are owned by the same group these days). The Be based products currently offer much better value from what I've heard, the problem being that they are no present in all exchanges (and there are line length limits that will affect you if you are far from the exchange).

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Plusnet Pro with unlimited usage midnight to 8am.

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What do Plusnet call "Unlimited" these days, is it still a whimsical & magical word that can be remoulded at any time to fit what they say or have they started to provide what the word actually means to most people without consulting a thesaurus or dictionary ? (From Midnight to 8am of course.)



Highlander.