Need help to switch ISP after 4 years!!

I have been with PlusNet (previously force9) for over 4 years. I am still paying over £ 21 for their service. I cannot say that I am unhappy with them, as their service is pretty reliable if not the fastest (I get about 1.7 GB download at night). I am surprised to see that the prices have come down considerably and I need to make a decision to either move to a new ISP or negotiate my rate with Plusnet.

I have read a lot of the posts in here but still not sure what I should do. My closest Exchange is Richmond/Kew with LLU operators being O2, Bulldog, Tiscali and AOL. (Plusnet is not listed).

I was thinking about moving to O2 as I am a mobile user with them and can get a good rate of about £8. However I have read some negative reviews here. So any help from you guys would be most appreciated.

Thanks

Cyrus

The negativity is about only the access thing afaik. O2/Be LLU is very good.

Hi - I have used several ADSL suppliers over the past 7 years: BT then Tiscali then Eclipse - and have been with O2 for 9 months now. IMHO they are the fasted and most economical (in my area for me). I reliably get 14mb down/1mb up for under £10pm which is awesome.

I have an O2 PAYG mobile which I top-up a minimum of £10 every 3 months for my son and this gives a discount on their regular/ non-mobile phone user pricing.

I also found their UK based tech support and customer svcs excellent to use.

Good luck.

The O2 LLU service is excellent. (There was a major fault for a lot of today but that has been fixed).

Nearly all the complaints are about the Access service as they got the forecasts badly wrong, and BT take 3 months to deliver upgrades for that.

LLU complaints have been mainly about the Canterbury exchange, and that has gone on for months. Apparently fixed last week.

Thanks guys.

Sounds like O2/Be would be good ISPs to move to. I am amazed that some of you get over 14mb download!! I only get under 2mb at anytime with Plusnet.

cheers

cyrus

The maximum speed your line can go at depends on the length and condition of it. We can give you some idea of that from your line stats here.

The speed your ISP delivers is often a totally different matter.

Have you tried phoning Plusnet to ask for your MAC code - they might offer you a cheaper deal to stay, as you're happy with them it might be worth it.

Before you move do a speedtest at speedtester.bt.com and see what your
line is set at. It might still be at 2Mbs

PLusnet are doing 12 month contracts for existing customers on the new
cheaper products but you have to ask.

Kew appears to be a Market 3 exchange which means that you get a massive
discount too with PN.

Meldrew

Thanks Meldrew,

I tried the BT speed tester, however after putting in my home number it asked for additional validation:

"In order to confirm that the telephone number entered previously co-responds to correct account on the network, can you please enter your normal login name below,(e.g. [email protected]) and then click GO"

I tried my used name for plusnet but did not work. Any ideas?

Yes it is Market 3. You said massive discount from Plusnet. Can you explain? Do I jsut ask them?

Also Plusnet is not listed as LLU on Kew exchange but O2 is? I thought this makes a big difference in speed. Am I correct?

Thanks!

Cyrus

It wants the username that is held in your router for logging in. You should be able to find it easily from the router GUI.

How much faster or not LLU goes over what you get now depends on your line length and quality. The BT speed test gives us a clue, but if you could find the line stats in your router at the same time as you look for the username they will tell us quite accurately what you could get.

If you don't know your way round your router have a look here.

To get the market 3 discount from Plusnet you have to take a new 12 month contract, and its a new product with different traffic management levels.

Once you get your figures from the ADSL hardware, www.farina1.com/adsl can give you an estimate of what services like ADSL2+ (as commonly used on LLU products) will achieve

Hi,

Thanks guys, that worked. Here is the test result from BT:

Test1 comprises of Best Effort Test: -provides background information.
Your DSL connection rate: 7456 kbps(DOWN-STREAM), 448 kbps(UP-STREAM)
IP profile for your line is - 6000 kbps
Actual IP throughput achieved during the test was - 1448 kbps

And here is the line stat from my Netgear Router:

Netgear Woreless ADSL Firewall Router DG834G
System Up Time 04:49:41
Port Status TxPkts RxPkts Collisions Tx B/s Rx B/s Up Time
WAN PPPoA 1224 1306 0 10 53 04:48:25
LAN 100M/Full 9189 65 0 37 0 04:49:39
WLAN 11M/54M 10037 1995 0 96 17 04:49:31


ADSL Link Downstream Upstream
Connection Speed 7456 kbps 448 kbps
Line Attenuation 20 db 9 db
Noise Margin 14 db 26 db

Let me know what you guys thinks

Cyrus

www.farina1.com/adsl says

"Your line should perform very well under ADSL, the estimated speed based on your data is higher than what is to be expected for that attenuation.
Most lines achieve around 7876Kbps

Your ADSL2+ speeds are likely to be in the range 18000Kbps to 20000Kbps. "

Which means an ADSL2+ supplier would be a lot quicker connection speed.

BT Speedtest is poor result, but I think with Plusnet this includes the ISP network management and not sure what the priority is on that, and this varies according to your package, and time of day.

Thanks,

just so I am clear: Plusnet is a ADSL supplier and O2 is an ADSL 2+ which is whay I should move to someone like O2 or Be?