Provider recommendation

Hi troops, I've been with tesco broadband for a few years now and never had any problems up until the past few months. Although my connection is decent early in the morning, it's really become impractical to use at most other times (less than 0.1mps?!). I'm in Ayrshire, in the SW of Scotland.

I've been considering changing ISP but I'm not really sure if this will make any difference. I'm currently on a £25pm package which is supposed to give me the best possible speeds (which BT reckon is around 6.5mbps). I'm sure there are bound to be better ISPs and better deals for this amount of money (or even cheaper) but this is one area in which I'm not really up to speed.

Can anyone recommend any good ISP's that may get me a better deal or better speeds? Any help would be much appreciated as it's no fun having dial-up speeds in these days of large files!!

Which exchange are you on?

http://www.samknows.com/broadband/search.php

Dalmellington exchange, east ayrshire

Unfortunate, no LLU.

Have a look at NewNet, Zen, IDNet for a quality ISP.

I'll have a nosey, thanks

Do you have any idea how much you download per month in GB? That is the most useful thing to know when targeting a non-LLU ISP.

I'm not really sure, use the laptop every night but I can't say I do much heavy downloading (probably due to the fact that it would take forever). Got a PS3 running online as well, but that's only a few hours a week max.

It might be worth downloading tbbmeter to see if you can get a handle on the amount of data you use.

See http://www.thinkbroadband.com/tbbmeter.html

People have raised privacy issues with that tool. I don't know if they have been resolved.

I think I'd go for a NewNet tariff in your situation.

just looking at the ISP's you recommended, the NewNet one was the one that appealed to me the most. Looking into it a bit further just now, thanks for your advice mate

Greetings from North Ayrshire.

For less than you are paying now, you could get PlusNet Pro which prioritises ALL of your traffic at ALL times. It also gives you unmetered service between midnight and 08:00.

Now, if all you fo is a bit of browsing and email then you could even use PlusNet Value which throttles everything other than Browsing and email but Prioritises Gaming traffic. Unfortunately, like me, you are on a Marhet 1 Exchange so will not benefit from the Market 3 discounted pricing.

I can also endorse Newnet who provide an excellent no=nonsense service at a very reasonable price.

Cheers wheelnut, got me debating the pros and cons of both now lol I'm sure I wouldn't get anywhere near a 15 gig limit and the advantage of unmetered usage off-peak is handy as well.

In reply to a post by The_Dood:

........ I'm sure I wouldn't get anywhere near a 15 gig limit ........

Ah! so what you really need is PlusNet Pro-Lite

Does priority traffic from plusnet make any noticeable difference? I'd be quite happy to pay an extra couple of bucks for faster speeds but after doing some trawling through the user comment forums, there do seem to be a lot of grumbles on the plusnet area. The general opinion of newnet seems pretty solid, although I must admit to preferring the off-peak hours of plusnet, and if my speeds are noticably faster, I'd be more inclined to veer towards them....

EDIT - I'm now seriously considering IDNet simply down to the fact that there seems to be so many positive reviews.

Edited by The_Dood (Mon 28-Sep-09 12:55:49)

Yes it does. The download speed on a Pro service is very very noticeably faster than the throttled profiles. I am on a Pro profile and my daughter is on a BBYW Option 1 profile which is very similar to the Value Product. My download speeds are far faster than hers.

I used to be with Newnet and their traffic is truly unthrottled though it can suffer from contention at extreme peak times. Whereas this was never an issue for me, I preferred the PlusNet Pro product for two reasons:

1) My traffic is prioritised at ALL times by throttling the cheaper product traffic.

2) If I have a large download to do, I can do it at night for FREE.

Having said that, if PlusNet went south and I had to find another ISP, it would most probably be Newnet again.

PM me if you decide to go with PlusNet.

had a quick look at my router stats to see if maybe that was contributing to my slow speeds at certain times, although I don't really know enough to say yay or nay to be honest. My DS rate is 5952 apparently with an attenuation of 18? I think I'm just getting slow connections at peak times, same as everyone else I guess. Only seemed to happen in the past few months or so mind you.

Anyways, I'm caught between IDNet and Plusnet Pro now! Plusnet has a bigger DL limit and the optimised connection sounds great, but there's an awful lot of good feedback about the IDNet unthrottled plan too. Monthyl contract could be useful as the exchange details did say something about Q3 2009 for a 21CN network (?!) but I'm not a big believer in BT....

Appreciate your help and advice with this wheelnut

If your Downstream Attenuation is 18db, your Sync speed should be ~8128Kbps ..... unless you have a poor S/N ratio Margin.

Can you check your DOWNSTREAM figures for these three parameters and report back.

I have a downstream attenuation of 37 and my sync speed is 7648Kbps with S/N ratio Margin of 6.5db.

Note that the PlusNet contract can be terminated with 10 days notice. If you have taken a "Free" Router, Connection or House Move, you will be liable for the cost of these if you leave within the first year (costs are waived after 12 Months).

You are spoiled for choice between PlusNet Pro and IDNet. Select the one that best meets your needs in terms of function and flexibility.

The only d/s stats I can find are: rate of 5952, DS margin of 15, and attenuation of 18 (using the info from the kitz site).

If I get good speeds with plusnet, I'd say that the larger download limit and unlimited off-peak hours suits me better, but I did come across a few disgruntled customers last night whilst doing some homework.

The Downstream Margin of 15 suggests that your sync speed will rise to > 7000Kbps if you re-boot your Router. Try this and report back.

You need to look at the detail of the disgruntled user threads to see whether there are specific issues or if there are underlying problems. With the recent change to a 10 day notice period, you can always get out if the service doesn't live up to your expectations.

Just reset the router and now I've got 6432kps, ds margin of 13 and attenuation of 18.

OK, it looks as though your line has suffered an instability at some time, resulting in you S/N Margin being set to 12db by BT.

If left alone, it will probably come back down to 6db within about 3 months. However, yout ISP can request BT to reset it though they don't like doing this.

Keep checking the Downstream Margin at between 8pm and midnight and record if it drops by > 3db. If it does, that would indicate that you have a noisy line and even if reset, it will quickly jump back up to 12db