Which ISP no LLU

Currently on a small village exchange. Currently with ADSL24 (via entra?) and upto about 3/4 weeks ago was fine. However currently never get anywhere near max download speeds connection @ 5800kbps so 5.0meg profile, profile has been confimed via BT speedtest.

Exchange has no LLU or ADSL2+ stuff in it. Just the normal BT/Openworld ADSL service. The exchange is Mursley (SMMS) if it makes any difference.

During the day only get upto 3meg ish and off peak this goes down the 1.8meg ish even when the geographical centers/things are green.

Looking for a package which allows ~15gb during days and ~60gb during nights/evenings or just a anytime allowance of ~80gb. Hoping to spend aroudn the same price as ADSL24 so ~£20 also hoping for a monthly contract as I can port in.

If it makes a difference I have o2 contract mobile(s) and Sky TV/Phone packages (BT line rental though)

Cheers for any advice steve!!

Zen have a 50Gb product for anytime use at £34.25 per month and would guarantee full speed at all times.

See http://www.zen.co.uk/Broadband/athome.as...

Their Unlimited (as in genuinely unlimited) business 8MB product is £90.85 including VAT.

I suspect Zen is the best bet pricing wise if you want full speed at all times and can live within the 50Gb. They charge £1.46 per GB if you stray over the 50Gb limit.

Or you could consider O2 Access at £22.02 per month. This is currently a no download limit product and also unthrottled according to most users but unfortunately O2 are not guaranteeing not to throttle it if it begins to be abused in terms of downloading. Whereas Zen are guaranteeing not to throttle within their 50Gb.

See http://broadband.o2.co.uk/home/findmore....

As I believe O2 access is a one year contract this could be an issue for you if throttling does come in for heavy downloaders later on. Zen is only a one month contract.

Or only £17.13 per month for O2 Access if you get yourself an O2 Pay As You Go mobile or move your existing contract mobile phone (if you have one) to O2.

The only place you are going to get that sort of download for that sort of money is staying with Entanet or moving to O2 Access.

As Capvermell says O2 Access at the moment would be an unwise move due to the 12-month contract, and Entanet is also rubbish just now.

I think O2 Access should improve at the end of March as there are reports of support saying that is when these issues will be fixed, (more BT Centrals presumably). WHo knows with Enta? .

I suggest if Entanet is now getting on your nerves, which is understandable, then you should look at Plusnet BBYW Pro. That exactly fits your requirements as it has a 15GB allowance, unlimited midnight to 8am and no throttling. Top-ups are 2GB for £1.46.

Or you could look at their Option 3 with 30GB but that has throttling.

Plusnet has a 90-day money-back guarantee, so if you are happy there then stay, and if not you will be able to see how Enta and O2 have progressed. There isn't much point in Enta at the moment!

Edited by RobertoS (Sun 15-Feb-09 17:58:05)

Newnet also have a 120Gb allowance (at any time) business package at £57.50 per month including VAT. That would guaranteed full speeds at all times.

See http://www.newnet.co.uk/businessbroadban...

I think the bottom line is really to consider whether you actually need to do all the downloading you currently do or if you only do some of it because the cost to you has been relatively low up to now with Entanet.

If you reach the conclusion that you don't want to pay £50 or £90 for broadband then perhaps you could watch more television that you record on a PVR off satellite or Freeview or whatever instead. I am sure that if electricity had an unlimited pricing plan we would all use it differently from how most of us tend to when knowing that it costs to leave all your lights on 24/7.............

Hmm seems I was wrong with my downloads by a fair bit seemed that my download monitor on main PC included local traffic.

Currently for the last 6 months;
Peak 3 to 10gb
Off-Peak 4 to 9gb

So no need for such a big download limit. Will be using slightly more in next few months but not much more (360 gaming) so I guess that changes my options a fair bit

Sorry to mess you gues around

Steve!!!!

Plusnet Pro is still probably your best bet for the reasons given before. As you have reduced your requirements then it should be fine.

Your only real alternative would be Newnet Home M or Home S, on monthly contracts (click the Show detail as the banner prices are annual contract / 12). But you haven't got the 90-day getout there.

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

Plusnet Pro is still probably your best bet for the reasons given before. As you have reduced your requirements then it should be fine.

Are you a salesman for Plusnet then. Plusnet are notorious for throttling even their Pro customers after they have used x number of Gbs. And having to download everything overnight is far from convenient. People rarely speak of Plusnet in the same breath as Zen., Newnet or IDNet as the former is a notorious throttling merchant whilst the latter three do no throttling at all.

Your only real alternative would be Newnet Home M or Home S, on monthly contracts (click the Show detail as the banner prices are annual contract / 12). But you haven't got the 90-day getout there.

Well at Newnet you have a 30 day get out instead as its only a 1 month contract as long as you are prepared to the very slighly more expensive monthly payment contract prices.

Zen's 30Gb package at £25 per month would probably suit the requirements of the OP as extra use can still be paid for beyond this if occasionally required.

Edited by deleted (Mon 16-Feb-09 00:43:11)

Zen's 30Gb package at £25 per month would probably suit the requirements of the OP as extra use can still be paid for beyond this if occasionally required.

Really? Please could you supply a link to that?

Are you a salesman for Plusnet then.

Argument by personal abuse/denigration is childish.

Plusnet are notorious for throttling even their Pro customers

Really? Some links would be useful.

after they have used x number of Gbs

That's a very helpful statement - not! The value of "x" is?

And having to download everything overnight is far from convenient

To you and me I agree. As the OP is coming from Enta it would seem they already have such procedures set up and only need to change the start time - as they will have to with Enta in six weeks time.

If you would like to re-read the whole thread, I think you will find my suggestions generally more realistic than yours, bearing in mind the originally stated allowance and price constraints, of which only the allowance desire has been reduced. Your second and third posts seem to imply you failed to read the opening post thoroughly, and you seem to have a different Zen product list to the one I can see.

The OP of course will make his own judgement based on what he reads both in this thread and elsewhere.

Edited by RobertoS (Mon 16-Feb-09 06:15:30)

In reply to a post by Capvermell:

Plusnet are notorious for throttling even their Pro customers after they have used x number of Gbs. And having to download everything overnight is far from convenient. People rarely speak of Plusnet in the same breath as Zen., Newnet or IDNet as the former is a notorious throttling merchant whilst the latter three do no throttling at all.

Hi there,

Traffic on Pro is line speed at all times unless you have exceeded your allowance and choose not to buy extra usage. Alternatively you can choose to have usage added on as you use it, at a cost of 98p per GB.

I'm not sure 'notorious throttling merchant' is a fair representation of us these days, yes we manage traffic on advanced protocols at peak times, however this is clearly detailed on our site and is well explained IMO.

In reply to a post by mand_beckett:

I'm not sure 'notorious throttling merchant' is a fair representation of us these days, yes we manage traffic on advanced protocols at peak times, however this is clearly detailed on our site and is well explained IMO.

He also seems to have failed to notice the link in my earlier post to the specific page detailing your traffic management.

A (paraphrase) case of all mouth and no eyes.

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

Really? Please could you supply a link to that?

http://www.zen.co.uk/Broadband/athome/fa...

What happens if you exceed your usage allowance?

If you exceed your monthly usage allowance, you will be automatically re-directed to a special Zen Web site when you connect to the Internet which enables you to increase bandwidth allowance and re-enable normal Internet access. When you reach this site, you can select how many extra GB you wish to purchase from 1GB, 2GB, 5GB, 10GB, 20GB and 50GB. Any unused GB at the end of the calendar month will be held in a "bank" for future use.

How much will it cost me to buy extra GB above my usage allowance?

If you are a Zen 8000 Lite customer, the charge is £1.46 including VAT for each extra GB over your product's usage limit (5GB).

If you are a Zen 8000 Active or Pro customer and ordered your package after Monday 9th October 2006 you will be charged £1.46 including VAT for each extra GB over your product's usage limit (25GB and 50GB respectively)

Argument by personal abuse/denigration is childish.

Oh come, come, surely you can do better than that. Where is the reference to an "ad hominem" attack that people like yourself usually spring to.

Really? Some links would be useful.

Plusnet's service is restricted to 15Gb except overnight unless you are willing to pay extra. Plusnet also seem to make a lot of traffic management errors by suddenly shaping or capping accounts that should not have been so shaped or capped and then taking days to sort it out. This is well documented in the Community Forum section of their website.

Zen's service is not shaped or traffic managed at all (hence no possibility of accidentally being shaped wrongly) and you can buy extra capacity over 50 Gb if you need it.

Edited by deleted (Mon 16-Feb-09 10:30:25)

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

A (paraphrase) case of all mouth and no eyes.

So I see that it is apparently perfectly ok for you to make quite deliberately "ad hominem" attacks on other forum members then.

You seem to be very much alone in recommending Plusnet Broadband Your Way Pro ahead of services from IDNet, Newnet, Zen, Entanet or O2/Be.

Without wishing to rock the boat any harder here. According to this page the download limit on £25 is 25Gb. But according to the FAQ page you linked to that is DOWNSTREAM ONLY so its worth a little more compared to an Up/Down metering ISP, since even someone who isn't hosting will be shift quite a lot of upstream to request & acknowledge that 25Gb.

In reply to a post by KevinR:

Without wishing to rock the boat any harder here. According to this page the download limit on £25 is 25Gb.

I must assume therefore that you are going from memory and didn't bother to check the page at http://www.zen.co.uk/Broadband/athome.as... as that product currently costs £24.46 per month after the VAT reductions. The 50Gb produict is £34.25 per month.

The arrangements for purchasing extra out of bundle data allowances seem to be the same for both products.

See http://www.zensupport.co.uk/knowledgebas...

All of my comments related to the 50Gb allowance Zen product.

Edited by deleted (Mon 16-Feb-09 10:51:38)

All of my comments related to the 50Gb allowance Zen product.

Ah sorry. I really must see my optician.

I could have sworn I read something about a 30GB product at £25 in this post, which is why I asked for a link to it. Instead of providing that you veered off into the additional bandwith charges.

Maybe I should make an optician's appointment for you as well. Perhaps basic arithmetic remedial classes as well, as £34.25 seems to be a little more than the OP wanted "Hoping to spend aroudn the same price as ADSL24 so ~£20", so approximately 75% over budget. You must work for the the government in public sector procurement.

Re "ad hominem", well found. Did you ever get 100% in a Latin exam at school, and did you obtain a GCE pass in it at the age of 14, at a time when GCE's were arguably somewhat more rigorous than now?

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

I could have sworn I read something about a 30GB product at £25 in this post, which is why I asked for a link to it. Instead of providing that you veered off into the additional bandwith charges.

But I also then amplified my post by referring to their 50Gb product.

Re "ad hominem", well found. Did you ever get 100% in a Latin exam at school, and did you obtain a GCE pass in it at the age of 14, at a time when GCE's were arguably somewhat more rigorous than now?

I only got a Grade B in Latin GCSE (in the days when Grade B was hard to get) when I was 16.

The term "ad hominem" was previously used against me by the former Communciations Director of Ofcom after I suggested he was reneging on the promises he had made regarding Ofcom's position on 084 and 087 phone numbers on a national radio program and I think I also suggested he had sold out all his journalistic principles (as a former BBC reporter) in favour of doing whatever his employer wanted him to do so that he could pick up a large salary to pay his children's expensive private school fees. Since then he has moved to an even better paid job as a corporate propaganda mouthpiece at BG Group.

Edited by deleted (Mon 16-Feb-09 12:28:45)

Prob go onto the £25 zen service, was going to try sky however years contract even if you port in seems a little off! Hmm just wait and see how long it takes to get my mac code though hopefully wont be like AOL or Eclipse

In reply to a post by Anonymous:

Prob go onto the £25 zen service, was going to try sky however years contract even if you port in seems a little off! Hmm just wait and see how long it takes to get my mac code though hopefully wont be like AOL or Eclipse

You can ask for your MAC Code through your online account management portal with ADSL24 and they let you have the code within an hour or two (its an entirely automated request process). I should know because I currently have a MAC code having also requested one from ADSL24 a couple of weeks ago. I haven't used it though because I decided I would live to regret the cheap 10Gb Broadband Your Way Option 1 deal with Plusnet when I decided to stream some video from a site that they decided was P2P instead of HTML video streaming as I would deem it to be, even though the net cost in year one for my broadband after all the discounts and cashbacks was about £3.50 per month. But there was a year's contract with a penalty of having to pay the rest of the year and outbound and inbound migration fees if terminating early too.

I have been seriously considering switching to ADSL24's new bottom level business product as that gives you 15Gb peak (8am to 8pm Monday to Friday) and then unmetered off peak, although obviously subject to the ALT slowdown during those off peak times. The price is about £22 per month inc VAT but it would mean my upstream sync speed would increase from 448kbps to the business 832kbps level (useful for online backup) I don't use more than 7Gb to 8Gb in peak hours, even in a heavy use month. Of course we should get BT 21st century network (ADSL2+) on my village exchange in about 12 to 15 months from now when everything will speed up again.

On the other hand I have been having random internet reconnection messages for the last few days due to the chronic arrangments Entanet now have with VirginMedia/NTL for fibre from their Kingston on Thames hub so perhaps I should also move to Zen or Newnet too.

No, Bob is not alone. I am on the Pro profile and my achieved speeds are perceptably faster that when I was at NewNet up to 10 days ago.

If you pay the premium for the Pro Product, your data is effectively prioritised above the other Products. Whereas this is not perceptable under normal conditions because PlusNet has ample capacity, it is certainly apparent at peak times.

Now, if the Pro Product fails to live up to its specification, I am free to move to another provider. This is a Business relationship, no more, no less.

But an allowance of only 15Gb between 8am and midnight would bother me as I use up to 20Gb in the odd month and very little of my use is between midnight and 8am

If they could offer this product with 25Gb per month or 30Gb per month then they would have a lot more takers.

PlusNet do offer the Pro Product with :

25GB Usage @ £26-85

30GB (Actually 31GB) Usage @ £31-23

I can quote you for other Usage levels

For £30 a month there's always the Madasafish option, 50GB allowance and £25.35 for the first 6 months rising to £29.35 after that.

Regards,
Steve

In reply to a post by sjr:

For £30 a month there's always the Madasafish option, 50GB allowance and £25.35 for the first 6 months rising to £29.35 after that.

Now Madasafish surely is subject to fair use or peak throttling on P2P etc so I would have thought paying the extra fiver a month to go with Zen on their 50 Gb product would be a better bet.

Hmmm I see Madasafish are clearly now part of Plusnet as the name Mand Beckett (the same Mand Beckett of Plusnet fame) appears in their defence in a recent forum posting.

See http://colinthebarman.com/2008/04/08/mad...

But I assume the Terms and Condition are significantly different from Plusnet Broadband Your Way Pro?

Richard Bacchus Says:
November 5, 2008 at 8:38 pm

I�d really like to echo the comments regarding madasafish. I signed up to globalnet in 1997 and so ended up with maaf, I signed up for their broadband package last December and everything was great, so I had my phone line rental with them as well. But, since September the service has been pathetic, with down load speeds sometimes being slower than dial up! These slow speeds have happened five times since September. Then the phone line, this started to get noisier and noisier and now I have no phone line at all, no dial tone and so unable to make or receive calls. The standard response from maaf is that it�s a problem your end, so off you go and buy new filters, cables etc, but of course the problem is with them. So I haven�t taken their advice to get a new phone and have instead cancelled by line rental and I�m counting down the time until my contract is up and I can ditch this utterly useless company completely.

I�d advise anyone and everyone to avoid madasafish like the proverbial plague, if my experience is anything to go by, they won�t be long for this world anyway.

Edited by deleted (Mon 16-Feb-09 21:56:38)

Zen works out at £7.50 a month more over the 12 months though. If you want to spend £35 on 50GB then Zen is undoubtedly the place to go. Madasafish isn't throttled like most of the Plusnet packages and at the 50GB mark looks better value than PN BBYW Pro.

Regards,
Steve

You can always find a blog rubbishing any ISP. I'm not a Madasafish customer myself but I've get my father-in-law and one of my wife's friends on MAAF and I've been quite pleasantly surprised with their performance.

Regards,
Steve

In reply to a post by sjr:

Madasafish isn't throttled like most of the Plusnet packages and at the 50GB mark looks better value than PN BBYW Pro.

That does not seem to be the experience of its customers. See above post quoting experience of Madasafish users.

No need, if I want to see how MAAF is performing I'll go visit father-in-law and see for myself.

Regards,
Steve

At http://www.madasafish.com/about-us/ it still says:-

Our Parent

Madasafish is part of the Brightview Group, established in April 2001. Brightview is fully owned by BT plc. Brightview has grown quickly into one of the UK's largest consumer Internet groups. Delivering speed, reliability and above all simplicity to our customers, Brightview continues to make significant investments in technological innovation and customer care.

This is clearly no longer true unless Brightview is yet another of Plusnet's trading names?

Don't know about that, but new MAAF signups go through Plusnet centrals without traffic shaping. Older MAAF customers still AFAIK go through Brightview centrals.

Regards,
Steve

In reply to a post by sjr:

Don't know about that, but new MAAF signups go through Plusnet centrals without traffic shaping. Older MAAF customers still AFAIK go through Brightview centrals.

Seems that About Us is out of date then.

Why on earth don't Plusnet extend their Broadband Your Way Pro data allowances then rather than mess about in this confusing way? Plusnet is a much better established brand than Madasafish.

Don't forget that 2-3 years ago Plusnet were seen as a bit of a joke, that reputation is taking a long time to shed. MAAF I don't think has ever really had its name in the gutter.

In reply to a post by Capvermell:

In reply to a post by sjr:

Why on earth don't Plusnet extend their Broadband Your Way Pro data allowances then rather than mess about in this confusing way? Plusnet is a much better established brand than Madasafish.

I have already answered you.

Madasafish simply appealed to people who liked ISPs with trendy names. It doesn't have a reputation for quality of the IDNet, NewNet or Zen kind.

Its obvious that Broadband Your Way Pro needs to have more than one data allowance available and/or if its only going to have one allowance level that it should be 30Gb and not 15Gb to compete with the opposition (i.e. Zen, Newnet, Entanet).

BBYW Pro does NOT have a single Data Allowance. It is completely flexible in 2GB chunks above the base 15GB.

If it has any shortcoming, it is that it doesn't (currently) suit the needs of LOW usage customers.

Hi,

Brightview is part of BT Retail. Madasafish is now a trading name of Plusnet. The MAAF packages are based on a Pro profile, and all traffic is in the Gold traffic queues.

We're in the process of moving MAAF customers off their own pipes and onto the Plusnet centrals, which should sort some of the peak time problems.

In reply to a post by mand_beckett:

Brightview is part of BT Retail. Madasafish is now a trading name of Plusnet. The MAAF packages are based on a Pro profile, and all traffic is in the Gold traffic queues.

So About Us on the madasafish website is therefore clearly out of date and inaccurate?

We're in the process of moving MAAF customers off their own pipes and onto the Plusnet centrals, which should sort some of the peak time problems.

What kind of service level would you expect them to be receiving in Plusnet terms? Is it Broadband Your Way Option 4, Broadband Your Way Pro or quite what exactly?

In reply to a post by Capvermell:

In reply to a post by mand_beckett:

Brightview is part of BT Retail. Madasafish is now a trading name of Plusnet. The MAAF packages are based on a Pro profile, and all traffic is in the Gold traffic queues.

What kind of service level would you expect them to be receiving in Plusnet terms? Is it Broadband Your Way Option 4, Broadband Your Way Pro or quite what exactly?

You definitely cannot read sentences of more than six words can you, nor remember one sentence once you start reading the next!

In reply to a post by Capvermell:

So About Us on the madasafish website is therefore clearly out of date and inaccurate?

Nope. Brightview is part of BT, as is Plusnet. The Madasafish product is provided by Plusnet.

In reply to a post by Capvermell:

What kind of service level would you expect them to be receiving in Plusnet terms? Is it Broadband Your Way Option 4, Broadband Your Way Pro or quite what exactly?

They will get a Pro profile, as they do now.

In reply to a post by mand_beckett:

Nope. Brightview is part of BT, as is Plusnet. The Madasafish product is provided by Plusnet.

Precisely.

So why does the madasafish website any longer refer to Brightview who no longer provide the product and why does it make no mention of Plusnet who does now provide the ADSL product sold as madasafish? The fact that all these companies are ultimately owned by BT is irrelevant to that point.

MAAF *is* part of Brightview, which in turn is part of BT.

The fact that we supply the service is irrelevant in terms of legal ownership.

In reply to a post by mand_beckett:

The fact that we supply the service is irrelevant in terms of legal ownership.

But perhaps is still far from irrelevant to your potential customer base in view of the tarnished reputation of BT broadband for heavily throttling and capping all of its own labelled broadband products.

Most customers would be reassured these days to know that they were contracting for a broadband service provided by Plusnet rather than by BT Retail.