Orange, Plusnet or stay put?

Hi. Im currently with Nildram Broardband2go with Hometalk 500 for £15.65 a month but I am thinking of changing to something cheaper.

Ive had a look at the forums and am somewhat confused by all the different types of service avaliable like LLU or ADSLMax, shaping etc. (though I think I understand throttling now)

Ive used some links to get a bit of info
Speedtest.net average - 635 down and 375 up. Ping 43
thinkbroadband speed test - 2664.20 Kbps ( 2.6 Mbps ) down, 371.73 Kbps ( 0.4 Mbps ) up.
BT Wholesale 957kbps
and my exchange is http://www.samknows.com/broadband/exchange/STBOTLY

The headlines from Plusnet caught my eye at £5.99 per month. but the forum wasn't favorable and if I understand it right, is only maximum 2meg, not 'upto 8'
Another post mentioned Orange. My exchange is Orange LLU enabled (though I dont really know what that means, no throttling??) The package I would go for is Home Starter at £9.79

Both are 18 month contracts, im currently on 30 day. My internet use is general surfing, the occasional youtube and the like. 5pm to midnight. I rarely come close to my current 2gig per month limit.

So, my question then is, should I change to one of these providers? Is there someone better? I think my connection feels slow. Is it going to get worse moving away? I know you get what you pay for but saving £5-10 per month would be nice but is it a mistake to sign into 18 months?

Many thanks

Edited by deleted (Tue 10-Mar-09 21:16:29)

In reply to a post by matty_hunt:

The headlines from Plusnet caught my eye at £5.99 per month. but the forum wasn't favorable and if I understand it right, is only maximum 2meg, not 'upto 8'

All of PlusNet's current offerings ate ADSLMax i.e. Up To 8Mbps.

Look carefully at the throttling profiles of each product and make sure that you understand the effect of this on your ACTUAL usage.

Also, make sure that you understand the REAL Price behind the Headline price i.e. what you will pay per month from the 4th to 18th month.

PlusNet does do what it says on the Tin. Make sure that you read the Tin.

Edited by deleted (Tue 10-Mar-09 21:35:42)

I don't know what Hometalk 500 is. But for your usage on just the internet side I suggest Newnet Home Lite. (Though note that they count upload as well as download).

Plusnet would have been a good idea for you to try until recently when they removed their 90-day money-back guarantee. On the package you quote it is now an 18-month minimum period, which is a bit disastrous if it doesn't suit. It is true "up to 8Mbps", but the throttling/shaping regime is quite heavy, see the table when you scroll down this page. I remember seeing the "2Mbps" statement recently. I think that was someone's analysis of what the service amounted to, but I also seem to remember it being quite a convincing post.

The good point would be if you wanted a phone bundle with it, if that is what you have now.

Orange I would steer well clear of. I believe they are one of the two major players with a decreasing number of customers.

Nildram is also dodgy as it now belongs to Tiscali. Customers seem to be being moved over to the Tiscali network with severe loss of usability. You might find this comparison interesting.

LLU just means the company in question has their own equipment at your local exchange. That often means they can offer a faster and cheaper service. However, a few companies use it instead to make a larger profit but providing a worse service.

From the exchange you've listed, you should avoid Talk Talk, they are horrible. Orange don't seem like a very good company to me either. So imo LLU is probably best avoided.

Plusnet is a good option, except for the 18 month contract, the are quite an honest ISP (now at least) and worth going for so long as ou can get the permanent cheap deal.

You might want to consider 21cn too, which is on our exchange. It offers all the speed benefits of a good LLU provider. Not many ISPs offer 21cn at the moment, but the few that do have one month contracts. I'd probably recommend Entanet for their 21cn packages (but not for normal adsl atm).

It would be useful if you could post your line statistics (line attenuation, IP Profile etc). From that we could tell you what your potential line speed might be.

Edited by deleted (Tue 10-Mar-09 21:49:49)

The Hometalk is just 500 free minutes of phonecalls per month. Its all on existing bt line and line rental so not like talktalk etc.

In reply to a post by 12eason:

You might want to consider 21cn

It would be useful if you could post your line statistics (line attenuation, IP Profile etc). From that we could tell you what your potential line speed might be.

Hi thanks for the reply.
What is 21cn? - found it! http://www.enta.net/21CN/
How do i get these stats?

Edited by deleted (Tue 10-Mar-09 22:02:32)

So how much of the free 500 minutes do you use? Bear in mind that on a straight BT Evenings and Weekend plan with paperless billing, d/d payment and 12-month phone contract the cost before day-time calls is £11.25pm month (in the immediate future). The Post Office is slightly cheaper. (But avoid Post Office Broadband).

Well I pay £10.50 per month on BT line rental and very rarely use the telephone and if I do I use 18185.co.uk so only costs 5p connection charge, call is free. so Im not concerned about loosing Hometalk.

21cn is short for 21st century network. It is BTs next generation network and pretty soon most ISP will offer it. Currently though the main player is the wholesaler Entanet who have the countries first complete WBC network. The provide their end-users with broadband via resellers like Adsl24, Ukfsn, Vivaciti and TitanADSL. When you look at their packages it's important to specify you're after Adsl2+ rather than adsl max.

Again though, the speed you'll get will depend on your distance from the exchange, it might not be worth it. What's is our current IP Profile?

Then look at that Newnet package I linked to before.

You can find out your IP Profile by entering your details into the BT speedtest site;
http://speedtester.bt.com/

To get your line attenuation you'd have to look at your router's main status page. Where that is depends on the make or model of our router, so it'd be easier just to get the IP Profile.

Edited by deleted (Tue 10-Mar-09 22:05:16)

BT's line rental prices go up in April btw.

This is all I get from the BT speed test

1487 kilo bits per second (Kbps), your service bandwidth will have been quoted to you in kilo bits per second.

Your IP address is 88.108.121.117, your browser is reported as being Mozilla 5.0 and is running on Windows XP.

This has gone up from 957 Ive been getting all night.

Is that the info you were after?

cheers

It should of given you a page like this;

------------------------------------------------------------------------
Test1 comprises of Best Effort Test: -provides background information.
Your DSL connection rate: 8128 kbps(DOWN-STREAM), 448 kbps(UP-STREAM)
IP profile for your line is - 3000 kbps
Actual IP throughput achieved during the test was - 2785 kbps
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I've bolded the relevant part.

Got to wait 30 mins before I can use it again. Will try in explorer because im not getting that info in firefox

cheers

Odd, it's usually 3 hours.

eta: I think the details you posted before were from the preliminary page.

Edited by deleted (Tue 10-Mar-09 22:21:18)

Enter your details here; http://adsl24.co.uk/checker/ it should tell you all you need to know.

Exchange

Your line is connected to the BOTLEY exchange.

ADSL availability

Your exchange is enabled for the ADSL Max (up to 8 Mb) service.
BT wholesale estimate your line can support up to:

5.5 Mb


ADSL2+ availability

Your exchange is enabled for the ADSL2+ (up to 24 Mb) service.
BT wholesale estimate your line can support up to:

7.0 Mb


Line status

Your line currently has a live broadband service present. This means you can migrate to us for free.

looks like the reports I got when I was on a Legacy product,
as there would be no profile with Legacy
you are on a max product?

Errm - read the price I gave . (Or is it £11.50?).

Edited by RobertoS (Tue 10-Mar-09 22:27:28)

Yeah, do it. Looks like you have a p. good line, despite those naff speedtests earlier.

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

Errm - read the price I gave . (Or is it £11.50?).

You know, I just get confused over BTs prices anyway what with all their penalty charges. Really am glad I'm rid of them.

WIthout seeing the exact line sync speed, attenuation and noise margin I'd hold off of saying a good line the estimator is just an estimate and can be off, so double checking will help

http://www.kitz.co.uk/adsl/frogstats.htm describes how to get the figures
and
http://www.farina1.com/adsl will usually make sense of them for you, i.e. give you a max speed for ADSL and ADSL2+

It looks like it could be a fixed speed connection ~ 2Meg? with that result.

Yeah, but the upload speed doesn't tally.

Had a look at the post again and you're right both upload rates higher than 288kbps.
Is his connection LLU then?

I don't think Nildram do LLU. (I just looked in their forum; christ, talk about sinking ship.)

In reply to a post by matty_hunt:

Another post mentioned Orange. My exchange is Orange LLU enabled (though I dont really know what that means, no throttling??) The package I would go for is Home Starter at £9.79

I've been on Orange and its predecessors for years.

I find Orange reliable, fast (I'm getting consistent 6.6 Meg download speed on their 8 Meg package) and value-for-money.

However, their support is the pits. They don't listen, are often unintelligible and just sprout from a pre-digested script of "solutions".

Only take Orange if you can manage without their support. The Home Starter package includes a Siemens wireless router which you can set up manually if you know a bit about routers and network connections.

Also be aware that this package includes taking over your phone calls but not your BT phone line, which might clash with your existing contract with BT.

Do you have Sky TV?

I don't think Nildram do LLU.

They are moving people over to Tiscali LLU. That's what's causing all the trouble.

Ive tried again but still not getting any information like you suggest. Also my modem model is not listed on that other site. a similar model has a link to a blank page so I have no idea how to get the stats you asked for.

Have rung Nildram tech and the guy there just said I was on data stream and could migrate to anyone. Couldn't, or wasn't interested in telling me anything else.

Had a look at entanet. The 2Plus Allowance 3 £11.50 package would suit. However, I have an old usb origo asu-8000 modem. Would I need a new modem/router for ADSL2+ to work? (i guess theres not one included for free!)

In reply to a post by matty_hunt:

Had a look at entanet. The 2Plus Allowance 3 £11.50 package would suit. However, I have an old usb origo asu-8000 modem. Would I need a new modem/router for ADSL2+ to work? (i guess theres not one included for free!)

That package ceases to exist at the end of the month. Users will be transferred to one of the ones on this page.

The BT speed test we want doesn't work on Datastream so that explains that.

Yes you will need a new ADSL2+ compatible router. You could try this site for your router stats.