ISP for Downloading and Streaming Video

I'd welcome any advice about choosing an ISP for downloading and streaming video in a household where two or three people could be using the connection at one time. Reliability is an important concern as is ease of dealing with support should something unexpected happen.

Currently with IDnet who have been faultless with ADSL for years, possibly too expensive for streaming and downloading. Any advice would be very much appreciated.

Thanks in advance.

At the same premises? Or moving elsewhere.

If staying there, what does this checker say for your phone number? Please copy and paste the result including the line above the table, editing out the phone number. Don't worry about the layout.

Sorry about the jumbled format. On a train doing this on an iPhone. Exchange is Mile End. Staying at premises.

Thanks Roberto


Featured Products

Downstream Line Rate(Mbps)

Upstream Line Rate(Mbps)

Downstream Range(Mbps)

Availability Date

High Low High Low
FTTC Range A (Clean) 80 66.9 20 20 -- Available
FTTC Range B (Impacted) 80 56.9 20 12.2 -- Available

WBC ADSL 2+ Up to 6 -- 4 to 8 Available
WBC ADSL 2+ Annex M Up to 6 Up to 1 4 to 8 Available
ADSL Max Up to 5 -- 3.5 to 7.5 Available
WBC Fixed Rate 2 -- -- Available
Fixed Rate 2 -- -- Available
Other Offerings
Fibre Multicast -- -- -- Available
Copper Multicast -- -- -- Available

Thanks Roberto!. This time with Cabinet number.

Staying at premises.

Telephone Number xxxxxxxxxxx on Exchange MILE END is served by Cabinet 28
Featured Products

Downstream Line Rate(Mbps)

Upstream Line Rate(Mbps)

Downstream Range(Mbps)

Availability Date

High Low High Low
FTTC Range A (Clean) 80 66.9 20 20 -- Available
FTTC Range B (Impacted) 80 56.9 20 12.2 -- Available

WBC ADSL 2+ Up to 6 -- 4 to 8 Available
WBC ADSL 2+ Annex M Up to 6 Up to 1 4 to 8 Available
ADSL Max Up to 5 -- 3.5 to 7.5 Available
WBC Fixed Rate 2 -- -- Available
Fixed Rate 2 -- -- Available
Other Offerings
Fibre Multicast -- -- -- Available
Copper Multicast -- -- -- Available

I don't think ADSL2+ would cope if the group of people all wanted to stream different things at the same time, so it looks like FTTC (Fibre to the Cabinet) is the thing to go for. Your speeds on the 76Mbps products would be 10x your ADSL speeds from those estimates, and even the 38Mbps ones would eat anything you threw at them.

Sky if you have SkyTV. Otherwise of the big boys choose between BT Infinity and Plusnet. I'd prefer Plusnet because of the UK support. After those, (I've excluded TalkTalk just out of gut feel, but they may be OK), things start getting expensive. Don't go for anything like the BT 20GB download allowance one, that will simply not be enough.

Edited by RobertoS (Sun 01-Mar-15 22:46:11)

And me none of them, I wouldn't remomend BTretail Sky or tt , and i have first hand experience of plusnet and certainly couldn't recomend them with their peak time increase in latency and jitter levels, and reduced throughput, due to congestion either internally or their handover pointr with BT aren't scaled properly and as for support that reading the pliusnet forum is variable in quality to say the least

Edited by tommy45 (Sun 01-Mar-15 22:51:45)

Should I consider FTTC with either Zen or IDnet or is it just far too expensive? Do you get that much more for the extra £'s?

Does paying for an activation charge bring any benefits what-so-ever?

Thank you.

Something tells me you haven't been with BT Sky or TT.

I went from 5-6Mbps with O2 LLU, (before Sky bought it), to IDNet FTTC 40/10 - that was £28pm or thereabouts on their lowest tariff and was fine. But at the end of the 12 months I felt it worth trying Plusnet 40/2 at £16.49pm instead and haven't regretted it.

Upgraded twice since and now on the 78/19 with a legacy pricing of £19.99pm and my phone still with BT Retail. To get that price now you have to take Plusnet phone, otherwise pay £2.50pm more and a higher setup cost.

Plusnet are experiencing growing pains - up by about a third in the number of customers since I joined, with occasional slight congestion problems but nothing dramatic in general. A few customers do of course have bigger problems, as happens with every ISP. Tommy is one of two people who post regularly running them down - I forget what upset him in the first place.

If a few of you are sharing the cost, then maybe worth looking at Zen, IDNet and AAISP Home:1

Correct i wouldn't have a service with any of those 3 , for a start 2 of em are MPF only and the other has dire customer support, Just having to deal with their dire outsourced support for telephony is challenging enough there's no way on this planet i would take bb from them (BTretail) And their routing /peering leave a lot to be desired as well as lack of static IP (residential ) then there is the Web blocking and censoring nonsence

Edited by tommy45 (Mon 02-Mar-15 00:56:42)

Currently I manage a few FTTC lines

Talktalk Retail which has been flawless, don't get me started on their phone support haha

Sky which has been fine and their call centres are uk based so at least you can understand something

my 2ndline is talktalk business the CS seem pretty nice and are uk based also.

In reply to a post by tommy45:

Correct i wouldn't have a service with any of those 3 , for a start 2 of em are MPF only and the other has dire customer support, Just having to deal with their dire outsourced support for telephony is challenging enough there's no way on this planet i would take bb from them (BTretail) And their routing /peering leave a lot to be desired as well as lack of static IP (residential ) then there is the Web blocking and censoring nonsence

So you're recommendation isn't based on anything concrete like experience

I notice you bad-mouth Plusnet too although that's your ISP. You must really hate yourself.

Why would i hate my self? You think that was badmouthing my isp,lol If the truth doesn't make good reading tuff, I speak as i find, and i always have

As for experience of other isp's as iv'e said 2 are MPF only (Sky &TT) so i wouldn't consdider them based on that alone, And BT ,their outsourced telephony over the past yrs i consider a good enough indicator of what their bb support is like
But i also don't like my bb subjected to censorship and web blocking (that i have had experience of in sky's case) i was with uk0nline in past years . and BT's residential bb doesn't even offer statip ip's another reason i wouldn't tough bt bb
Oh and if you read my first post i think its clear enough that i wasn't making a recomemdation as i would not recomend any of the 4 , i have given my reasons which doesnt have to be based on my experience , i wouldn't put my self through that hell no

Edited by tommy45 (Mon 02-Mar-15 10:53:40)

Oh and if you read my first post i think its clear enough that i wasn't making a recomemdation as i would not recomend any of the 4 , i have given my reasons which doesnt have to be based on my experience , i wouldn't put my self through that hell no

But the OP is asking for a recommendation. All you've done is rubbish the ones that have been made.

Does that help him in any way?

ok not sure what you decided in the end but for this as a shared house then you can go for SKY FTTC 40/10 (which I have) and that runs 3 people no problem, costs £37 per month including phone line (£13 each for 3 users). If you want to use the 80/20 service if you have HEAVY users, then its £30 per mths, so for 3 people its £10 per mth plus telephone line = £16 each plus phone calls.... Round to £20 each and have most UK phone calls for free.

I have not had any "problems" with SKY and for now I am not looking to use anyone else.

Thank you to everyone who has taken the time to reply. It helps, even rubbishing ISP's, as it isn't too difficult to read between the lines.

I've still to decide. I'm sure I'm not alone in wanting my connection to just work without having to worry about it or learn Klingon in order to resolve a problem. I'm happy, perhaps reluctant, to pay a bit extra to have piece of mind, but the difference in price seems disproportionate unless I am missing something. Do the niche ISP's- IDnet, Zen, etc, offer that much more for the extra money? Is it value for money, if even for the first contract, to make sure everything is connected and working properly?

Well each ISP offers their services at a different price point. If you are looking "premium" budget take a look at plusnet. They have UK support, price is competitive, especially with their 80/20 product compared to Sky. They do pile 'em and sell 'm cheap though. Remember that you will be tied into an 18 month contract with plusnet and as I have found if you want to cancel early then it will cost you over £14 per month for the remaining contract. Also remember you don't have to have your line rental with plusnet you can have it with another provider like the Post Office etc, plusnet charge an extra £2.50 a month if you do not take line rental with them.

If you want a premium provider then you are looking at Zen or IDNet. Zen tie you in for 12 months, you don't get any introductory offers as that is not the market they are in.

Zen has no traffic shaping during peak hours although I have never seen any impact of traffic shaping on my plusnet fibre.

Zen would be my choice as I work from home 7 out of 10 days and their customer service is second to none, so I would be paying £10 extra per month for peace of mind

For me:

1. Reliability
2. Speed
3. UK Customer Service
4. Cost

Don't forget to take the price of the phone line into the equation as that can cause price comparisons to jump, some of the bigger players are charging almost £17.00 for a phone line whereas some of the smaller ones only charge just over £11.00 per month.