Want to move from bt what are my options?

Hi all

as the title says i want to move from bt.
i have been with them for 2.5 years now and i am sick of their throttling, shaping or what ever they call it.

bbci player is unwatchable from 4pm till midnight and as both my kids want to play xbox while i am working and the wife is surfing (perez ect) it gets beyond a joke.

and to cap it all off i am now getting snotty emails from them telling me i have gone over the "limit" on their so called fair use policy.
considering i am on an Unlimited service how can i be going over a limit?

anyway enough whining i am just sick of bt ... so what are my options?

this is my exchange http://www.samknows.com/broadband/exchange/WSCLR

i want a truly unlimited service and decient speeds ( ok i live in semi rural scotland so 8mb is probably my limit) but even that would be wonderfull compared to the 0.3mb i usually get from bt.

There are no real options available for you if you're looking for unlimited Internet, unless you pay a good chunk for it. Say, £80+? Even then you'll find no guarantee of evening speeds.

Zen do the service for around £90 (http://www.zen.co.uk), but even they warn about speeds possibly being below than 2mbit in the evening.

You might have to settle for a capped product, and still, there's not going to be any guarantee of peformance.

Welcome to Internet in the United Kingdom.

Edited by deleted (Thu 20-Aug-09 23:48:11)

You're on a Market1 exchange so your options are limited to BT Wholesale based providers (Unless you count wireless or mobile etc services). What are your bandwidth requirements and at what times is your main usage?

well according to bt my usage seems to be 100 / 120 gb a month, but i dont trust them that this is accurate.

they fudge figures to suit themselves.

their so called speed test is the best example of that. it shows i have a DL speed around 6500mbs but the TBB one and others i have tried show the true 0.3mbs i really get !

Have a look at the top end Family/Home packages from Enta resellers like ADSL24 and vivaciti.

There's an option which might suit - depends on how often access is needed before 1800 on a weekday. Clara.Net (which introduced ADSL services much later than others, was more expensive, and has moved to provide mostly business users with hosting and net access) has their Home Offpeak account (unusable Mon-Fri 0600-1800)

Clara Max Home Offpeak

* No need to keep track of downloads
* No port restrictions
(and from the T+C: up to 832 kbps upload speed)

Where I am (distance from exchange) I'll only get 2.5 to 3 Mbps but to know that for a fixed annual fee I can transfer whatever I want from 1800, and anytime at the weekend, is actually a bit more useful to me than an ISP with 'unlimited' traffic overnight {so long as your traffic gets counted in their overnight stats, sometimes a bit less than clearly defined!)

It used to be the equivalent of 16.99/month but has been reduced with the VAT change, however they need the 12 months paid up front. (199.54 quid)

I have also been the victim of the Bt snotogram where I was threatened with a 1gb service for a month if I exceeded 100GB on my unlimited BT option 3.
The 100gb limit is deliberately withheld by BT with no mention of it on their FUP page, and there is at least one user here taking this up with Otelo, so it might pay to wait and see.
I am also not on an unbundled exchange, and though unhappy at the 100GB limit, I doubt you will come anywhere near it elsewhere, and there is the second number and free calls evenings and weekends with BT.
The likes of Sky might shout about free Internet, but their £17 connect service you would have to settle for would be limited to 40GB per month. Unless you are in a cable area, you might like me struggle to better BT despite being unhappy.

Edited by deleted (Sun 23-Aug-09 18:06:18)