Looking to change ISP in Magor (S Wales) - ideas?

I'm currently with UK Online (via IPStream as I have no other choice living in a rural area - http://www.samknows.com/broadband/exchan...). However, I'm having a lot of trouble with the awful traffic shaping that is applied in the evenings and now nearing the end of my tether, so looking to move if I can find an ISP that will be any better.

I'm not looking for any kind of lenience toward P2P, binary usenet, torrents or any of that stuff as I couldn't care any less about it - my primary interest in the evenings relates to developing Linux applications with a group of friends and as such, we use a central FTP repository to hold our projects.

Due to external FTP being shaped by either UKO or BT, it is PAINFULLY slow downloading anything from our server. I can upload things without a problem at line speed, but downloading files that are only 10-200mb can take so long - I can't get anything over 15-20k/s. During the daytime the connection is totally fine, but that's of little use to me as I'm in work - scheduled downloading does help now and then, but as there is no real set pattern as to what/when I need to download some packages, I can't rely on this.

I've seen recently that PlusNet have introduced a premier product that (apparently?!) allows untouched bandwidth all month (15gb, £20 a month) that may be of interest - I'm pretty sure my usage is below that - but a friend who is with them complains of the same shaping issues, and of course they are also well documented on these and other forums.

So, any ideas? TalkTalk LLU are apparently in my exchange, but I'm wary of touching them with the proverbial barge pole, so it seems I'm really only left with the ISPs that can deliver the IPStream product but are less likely to shape traffic so harshly.

A monthly contract would be better (just in case!) and I'd be happy paying £20 a month and I don't have concerns about webspace, free modems etc being included. Every ISP I look at seems to have some kind of shaping policy or I can find some horror stories on one forum or another - surely I can't be wanting too much?!

Thanks for any advice!

Newnet or Zen. IDNet are usually top of the list but their forum looks less happy than normal at the moment.

Are IDNet suffering with a lot of problems then? Their forum (presumably there is only idnetters.co.uk?) doesn't seem particularly over-run with issues, and I notice a fair few newbies posting about their happy experiences after migrating from shaped connections (i.e. Sky Connect).

While their service is around a fiver more expensive than I'm currently paying, I think that would be easily offset by the better connectivity experience.

I was on Zen 1mbit for ages before I switched to UKO and for a good few months I enjoyed the much faster service I was getting. I sometimes wish I stayed at Zen, but they are a lot more expensive (was £30 a month for 1mbit!) and their caps are not the best - having never been one to want to bother watching their Internet connection I worry that moving to a capped provider may cause the odd problem (the other half enjoys the iPlayer and iTunes store a bit too much!), but I'm fairly confident I shouldn't be near the 30gb IDNet offer.

I've only looked it the forum on this site, and I only looked because I have seen a few negative comments about the last few months. Agreed the Enta leavers who have gone there look happy.

I thought IDNet and Zen pricing was almost identical?

(Edit - Ha! The IDNet 30GB I think was 25GB yesterday).

You could also look at AAISP. Very small peak allowances but an overnight unmetered spell as well as an off-peak allowance.

Edited by RobertoS (Tue 24-Feb-09 16:02:20)

Ah, I hadn't thought to read the forum on THIS site about them... doh!

Thanks for your input so far, it has been useful - and from looking at what A&A offer it seems they may also be pretty good for me, especially as I'm in work for some +95% of their peak hours (had to read that a few times to see if they meant off-peak and had made an error!).

I guess I'll just have to take a punt on one or other of these and hope for the best!