Best ISP for YouTube and i-Player?

Is there an ISP (with FTTC) that is better than others for reliable HD playback from YouTube and i-Player?

I have no problems with 1080p stuff on YouTube and just on 6 Meg ADSL2+ services.

Better question is how many hours a day of these services do you plan to use?

Well a couple of hours in the evening I guess. I am currently with Virgin 10 Mb and get very variable results. Was on 50 but downgraded and don't really notice any difference. If I had a reliable connection I would probably try a film service but there is no point with the current poor connection.

In which case it looks like the Virgin Media network is congested in your area, then pick whichever FTTC provider meats your budget/needs

Impossible to predict with certainty how congested another ISP will be. Which LLU providers are available in your area?

Well I was thinking of going with either AAISP or Eclipse which are both available.

AAISP seems to have a good reputation, but a friend of mine is with Eclipse and gets good HD streaming from i-Player. Is there likely to be much of a difference between the two?

AAISP is possibly the best, but if you use it during the daytime (9am-6pm) Monday-Friday it is likely to be hideously expensive. Evening, weekends and 6am-9am is sensible pricing, and 2am-6am is £3.90 per TB.

I've used both AAISP and Eclipse this year - both run at about 6.5 Mbps during the day, and both dropped to 4 or 5 during the evening.

I'll be using it evenings and weekends so looks like AAISP is the way to go. I just wondered if the routing from different ISPs to YouTube and i-Player varied which meant that some might be a better choice (less congested connection), irrespective of the actual connection speed from me to them.

Routing will vary, but most likely your current problems are not peering or routing issues, but local congestion in the cable network.

In reply to a post by canalwaters:

AAISP seems to have a good reputation

I can't speak for Eclipse personally but on technical and reliability points, and features if fixed IP addresses and/or IPv6 and such are a concern for you, AAISP are the canine's gender specific organs in my experience (I switched to their FTTC service about seven months ago). Even in the evening period when things are traditionally busiest I can't say I've seen any issues with bandwidth or latency that I've put down as a problem at AAISP (i.e. no problems that I'd not expect to have affected other ISPs equally) and I generally get the full 40/10 sync rates out of FTTC.

If you are using the connection in the working day (0900 to 1800) the peak rate charging can mount up very quickly - that is the only negative that springs to mind. High-def content from iPlayer or youtube can quickly eat enough to be costly if you aren't careful at peak time. For my use pattern that isn't an issue at all so it might not be for you either, but it is something to be aware of. Upstream traffic is unmetered at all times, though that is not a significant benefit unless you upload a lot (i.e. if you plan to run servers from home, actively use P2P much, or upload photos/videos or other large content often).

Edited by deleted (Fri 10-Feb-12 17:32:22)