Switching ADSL MAX ISP

Our household has been with the same ISP for a really long time and I feel i've had enough of the poor service and after multiple takeovers has left us with poor customer service. We started with Lineone, which got taken over by Tiscali, which got taken over by TalkTalk.

We live in a very rural area and our exchange only has access to "ADSL" and "ADSL MAX" (Checked on Samknows).

I've looked around on this and a few other forums, but information can be outdated and I want to be sure I'm buying the best service for the money.

My requirements:
- Un-throttled
- No blocks
- Low latency for gaming

Looking forward to your replys,
LTAAD

What do you mean by no blocks?
Also what sort of usage limit can you live with?

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

What do you mean by no blocks?
Also what sort of usage limit can you live with?

I'm not quite sure myself, looked around on some potential ISP's websites and some of them advertise the packages as being unblocked (I assume it means they don't block certain sites, ports, etc... for example filesharing).

As for usage limits I'm not quite sure too, if the ISP offers unlimited off-peak hours I'd take advantage of this. But to give an estimate, I would say I wouldn't use anymore than 30-45GB, I used http://bpplanfinder.com/usage_calculator.php but my use can vary from day/week/month so I can't really confirm what my average usage would be. (Sorry, I'm not much help)

In reply to a post by ltaad714:

I used http://bpplanfinder.com/usage_calculator.php

Completely untrustworthy!

e,g. "Based on avg. email size of 20 kbps" - a bit speed for an email!

Please can you give us the link to the samknows page for your exchange, even though you've already checked it?

Actually, when I input my data, the usage comes back around what I used prior to 'Web 2' type sites. Nowadays it's double or treble that. Mostly objects, add-ons, widgets, thingummies and doohickies.

In reply to a post by XRaySpeX:

In reply to a post by ltaad714:

I used http://bpplanfinder.com/usage_calculator.php

Completely untrustworthy!

e,g. "Based on avg. email size of 20 kbps" - a bit speed for an email!

I really couldn't care, none of the calculators would be even 70% accurate. Which is why I left a 15GB difference. I'd prefer that over leaving somebody to guess a random number between 0 and ???? . Also, if you look at some of the other descriptions you would see that they're calculated based on bandwidth per hour, which I guess is why they list songs as being a speed too. I'd explain further but I don't really know how to get my point across without wasting my time.

Edited by deleted (Tue 06-Mar-12 01:07:47)

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

Please can you give us the link to the samknows page for your exchange, even though you've already checked it?

http://www.samknows.com/broadband/exchange/NECFD

In reply to a post by camieabz:

Actually, when I input my data, the usage comes back around what I used prior to 'Web 2' type sites. Nowadays it's double or treble that. Mostly objects, add-ons, widgets, thingummies and doohickies.

What would you advise then?

I've checked another source for that exchange and can't find anything you don't see on samknows.

All my suggestions say "up to 24Mbps"downstream, or similar, and up to "1.3/1.4Mbps" upstream. As you know, in your case those packages will only give up to 8Mbps down and 448kbps upstream.

My suggestions, in alphabetical order!

1) ADSL24 Standard Home 30.
2) Plusnet Extra with Pro add-on to avoid the traffic management also shown on that page, and gain prioritisation.
3) vivaciti Allowance Family 30.

ADSL24 and vivaciti look very similar. The big difference is that ADSL24 is via Daisy and vivaciti via Entanet.

Plusnet is a 12-month contract on the face of it, but in fact is 10-day notice but you have to pay deferred charges such as the router if you take one. (Click the "No annual contracts" question mark). The £11.99 is only for the first 3 months on your exchange, after that it is £17.99. Pro is £5 per month.

No need to waste your precious time explaning when it is too obvious that songs are proportional to their running time. No so emails was my point.

Plusnet Extra with th Pro add-on, assuming your rural location will allow you low latency.

In reply to a post by XRaySpeX:

No need to waste your precious time explaning when it is too obvious that songs are proportional to their running time. No so emails was my point.

By wasting my time, I meant that you probably already get the idea, and that nobody would really care. I did not mean my time was too important

Edited by deleted (Tue 06-Mar-12 11:22:00)

In reply to a post by camieabz:

Plusnet Extra with th Pro add-on, assuming your rural location will allow you low latency.

Had a search and "low latency" means fastpath, which I'm currently on, so I don't see a problem with getting this if I change ISP.

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

I've checked another source for that exchange and can't find anything you don't see on samknows.

All my suggestions say "up to 24Mbps"downstream, or similar, and up to "1.3/1.4Mbps" upstream. As you know, in your case those packages will only give up to 8Mbps down and 448kbps upstream.

My suggestions, in alphabetical order!

1) ADSL24 Standard Home 30.
2) Plusnet Extra with Pro add-on to avoid the traffic management also shown on that page, and gain prioritisation.
3) vivaciti Allowance Family 30.

ADSL24 and vivaciti look very similar. The big difference is that ADSL24 is via Daisy and vivaciti via Entanet.

Plusnet is a 12-month contract on the face of it, but in fact is 10-day notice but you have to pay deferred charges such as the router if you take one. (Click the "No annual contracts" question mark). The £11.99 is only for the first 3 months on your exchange, after that it is £17.99. Pro is £5 per month.

I already have a decent router, so wouldn't been needing one.

What is the difference between Daisy and Entanet? Which one would you go for?

In reply to a post by ltaad714:

Had a search and "low latency" means fastpath, which I'm currently on, so I don't see a problem with getting this if I change ISP.

Not quite. Fastpath basically means there is no interleaving on your connection. Interleaving can increase latency but it's there to mitigate problems on lines, such as higher than ideal noise.

The best way to measure latency is to do traces to some gaming servers and compare to non-gaming servers, then compare non-gaming server results with others, and you might see if your latency is higher than others' latency.

Or compare with other gamers, but bear in mind their location and that of the server(s).

On Plusnet Extra with no Pro add-on (but will possibly add it sometime in the future):

bbc.co.uk - 26ms average - 9 hops
thinkbroadband - 26ms ave - 7 hops
TBB speedtest - 25ms ave - 6 hops
google.co.uk - 31ms - 11 hops
Plusnet Homepage - 32ms - 9 hops

If you have any specific gaming servers, post their IPs and I can test to see if the pings are better or worse (again the caveat of location applies).

Those seem around what I'm getting at the moment, I was just worried incase my latency goes back to what it used to be around a year ago (80+ to everything).

In reply to a post by camieabz:

bbc.co.uk - 26ms average - 9 hops
thinkbroadband - 26ms ave - 7 hops
TBB speedtest - 25ms ave - 6 hops
google.co.uk - 31ms - 11 hops
Plusnet Homepage - 32ms - 9 hops

That must be Interleaved.

On Fastpath from here they are all 10-11 ms except Plusnet which is 19 ms.

See my sig or profile link. Fastpath.

In reply to a post by camieabz:

See my sig or profile link. Fastpath.

• Don't see it in either!
• Anyway, never believe them as often out-of-date.
• If fastpath, it's damnably slow path
• 

Edited by XRaySpeX (Tue 06-Mar-12 14:10:40)

Added a detailed report format to assist in spotting it.