ADSL24 or Zen? Or someone else?

Hello,

I'm moving house soon, and will be moving to an exchange with just Sky and TalkTalk LLU, plus BT 21CN WBC has just been activated:

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

I'm currently on Be, and enjoying consistently high speeds with the ability to download what I like, when I like, without having to worry about peak and off-peak times. I previously used ADSL24 for several years in various locations for ADSL Max, and found their service to be very good, although having being spoiled by Be, going back to a limited peak-time cap may be slightly annoying. With Zen having doubled their monthly caps, I was thinking that their 100GB or 200GB package might work well for me. Does anybody have any opinion on how ADSL24's 21CN service (MurphX) compares to Zen?

One of the other potential options open to me includes ADSL24's TalkTalk-based LLU. The name "TalkTalk" kind of makes me want to run a mile, but I gather wholesale services using their technology are actually OK. That said, it would involve "full" LLU, which I may be keen to avoid, having heard various horror stories.

Finally, there's Sky with their unlimited LLU broadband. I've never really been one for the traditional consumer ISPs, preferring the flexibility and performance of niche ISPs. However, they're reasonably cheap, and I hear their LLU product is actually quite decent. An option if I'm desperate, perhaps?

Does anybody have any opinions on what might be my best choice here? I'm inclined to stick with the familiar and go with ADSL24, and just try to avoid too much downloading/streaming at peak times, but perhaps I should give Zen a try? Cost is mostly not too much of an issue, although I think Zen Pro at £35/month would be my upper limit. (I'd be quite attracted to AAISP were it not for the relatively high bandwidth costs.)

Thanks,

You'll not be disappointed if you choose Zen.

No messing about with ridiculous off peak hours, a good network owned and operated by the ISP and not reselling someone else's service and excellent technical support.

And put it this way, with the exception of the fibre packages you only have a one month contract so can easily move if you find them not to your specific requirements.

(BT impose a 12 month period on all ISPs selling FTTC up to 40/80 Meg products)

Edited by techguy (Mon 26-Mar-12 11:26:31)

Vivaciti Variety is shared LLU using the TT DSLAM, on monthly contract, so you could try it. Make sure you have a monthly contract phone as well, (which I think they do, and the Post Office does), in case you decide to go full LLU with anyone later.

Expensive if you take the file share bolt on, but worth considering perhaps.

Sky.

'Techguy' I second that, Zen's support is second to none.

They also have no traffic shaping what so ever and they have recently doubles their useage allowances

Edited by Ripley (Mon 26-Mar-12 20:48:13)

Well, I ordered Zen yesterday, for both my phone line and ADSL - sent them an e-mail and a very helpful gentleman called me back to get everything sorted out. Have had regular status e-mails since, and both the phone line and broadband should both be provisioned by the 11th of April. So far so good.

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

Vivaciti Variety is shared LLU using the TT DSLAM, on monthly contract, so you could try it. Make sure you have a monthly contract phone as well, (which I think they do, and the Post Office does), in case you decide to go full LLU with anyone later.

Expensive if you take the file share bolt on, but worth considering perhaps.

Agreed, very happy with my experience so far with this service.

let us know how you get on once installed

Are you on a 21CN exchange?

I am indeed on a 21CN exchange. ADSL was activated today (or possibly yesterday, but I only had the chance to check today) - sync speed of 14697Kbps down, which is a lot better than the BT speed checker's estimates of about 6Mbps for ADSL2! A speed test is showing 12.72Mbps down, which is faster than my old house, so I'm happy so far!

http://www.speedtest.net/result/1885531956.png

Hopefully Zen will prove good in general day-to-day use - I'm sure it will.

I am also thinking about moving to Zen, however it would be on adsl so max speed would be around 4.5mbps. How is it going for you so far, does the speed stay consistent throughout the day and do you notice any slowdown during anytime of the day when watching youtube videos (buffering wise) or download things?

Thanks