Seeking an alternative ISP to Namesco

Been with Namesco since 2007 and the tech support used to be first class. A short while ago they moved their tech support over to India and although it may be pretty good as sub continent support goes it is not a patch on previously and now everything is simply very hard work and not particularly productive.

Enough is enough so looking to migrate but who to. I have specific requirements:-

I am 6.5km from a rural exchange (Marton who came 7th in BT's Race to Infinity).
Attenuation rate downstream is 63db and upstream half that.
SNM is usually c.10 but fluctuates with rain/frost etc. Only very rarely dropping to 6 but more often hitting high teens.
When the line is stable I get a downstream datarate of 1.5/1.6mbits and a transfer rate of c.1.1/1.2mbits and upsteram 448k data rate and c.375k speed.

Twice in last 6 months I have had line issues, lots of crackling, hissing, clicking on the line when I do a 17070 quiet line test and both data rate and speeds drop remarkably. BT's151 always say they can not find a problem. Namesco tell me that they can find no issues via BT wholesale so as usual I am stuffed in the middle and no longer someone in the UK to talk with!

I need to find an ISP who has UK only tech support, will go that extra mile to resolve these long exchange run issues and hopefully will give me the speeds (or better) than I currently get when the line is OK. Have done a bit of research and ZEN seems to come out near the top of the heap.

Before I jump ship I would really appreciate knowledgeable views on ISP's

Many many thanks in advance chaps and chapesses.

Off to find a Router forum now cos need to find one that hangs on to poor lines well i.e. decent chipset/firmware etc.

Bruce

Marton, Middlesborough or Marton, Blackpool? Different solutions to your problem.

Hi Roberto, just been reading your very clear website.

My Marton is Marton in Warwickshire between Leamington Spa and Rugby. Only BT equipment in the exchange I believe.

The first thing to do is to connect a corded phone into the master socket preferably the TEST socket within it if you have that type see this image, the TEST socket is the one at the back and the removable section is where any extensions can be wired into.

If you still hear noise when doing the quiet line test then it is a voice fault and has to be reported to/sorted by BT (never mention broadband to them) or whoever provides the phone service.

You really need to get them to sort it!

(http://www.samknows.com/broadband/exchange/CMMART)

As well as Zen another premium ISP service worth looking into is that from IDNet link

Broadcom chipped routers e.g. some Netgears can be quite good on some long lines as can the 2Wire HGV2700 from BT broadband.

Ah, I didn't see that one, at the borrom of a list with several others that start with "Marton" but have another word after.

You mean this exchange then, in which case (tongue-in-cheek), the best solution for broadband is to move!

As it is, Zen is a good option. I think IDNet possibly have better value packages with comparable support, but I haven't researched the support side in detail. (If you navigate away from that page on their site, make sure you don't end up on the (better) ADSL2+ page as you can't get that).

Top of the list in terms of probability in getting the problem actually sorted out is AAISP who seem to have the most sophisticated customer line monitoring of all ISPs. They have a very good reputation for achieving the desired result.

If you need a lot of allowance in business hours you will probably find you cannot afford them for long. If your usage is mainly consumer hours then they become very competitive, once you understand the unit-based pricing. I can help you with that if you are interested.

See this comparison.