Recommendations for ISP on exchange NEBW

Which ISP be best at NEBW exchange?
What I want:

1/ goog speed 24/7
2/ 1-month contract-but dont want pay- *50 disconnection fee within the first 12 months( im thinkin about O2, because is cheap, but 12 months contract:/ and from few months people got dropped speed. Maybe somebody can tell me about O2 in my area haw its be works )
3/ No traffic shaping, no port blocking or other connection mangling
4/ good ping

This is be first ISP at this home.

Well, as you don't have O2 LLU...

You might not get 1) with the ISP you mention in 2). Do a search on these forums about issues people are having with their BT-based product.

4) would also depend on the same issue mentioned above..

Matt

I see, so which ISP can i get except BT?

You can get any ISP that uses BT products. (Note, the problems with O2, are specific to their Access product) and the same issues don't affect other ISPs that use BT-based products.

I'm sure others will give their advice on what ISPs to go for and they can give their reviews.

Matt

Almost any of the normal ISPs supply their products via BT Wholesale. The most significant factor you need to consider or tell us, is how much Data you expect to transfer. If that doesn't mean much then tell us if you use iPlayer (or equivalents), p2p programs, that sort of thing.

ISPs using BTW that get frequent recommendations on here are IDnet, Zen, AAisp (if you don't need daytime usage). There are many alternatives including, Xilo who are fairly new at broadband but Matt who advised you earlier works for them and has proved very helpful so far; they have some BTW products (I think its the "Home" ones).

If you do tell us about your usage then the recommendations may change.

Matt was showing admirable restraint and excellent forum etiquette - it must have hurt.

Ok, so I need 10GB peak and around 50GB off peak. Im use most time iplayer from 5pm (and all weekends as well) and P2P programs..

You and we need to be careful about the definition of peak. Some ISPs (especially business focussed ones) consider peak to be daytime working hours. Some (especially retail ISPs) see the peak as evenings 6-11pm or 6-12pm, others combine the two as Entanet do 8am-12pm.

Also watch out as some treat weekends as normal days and others as off peak.

This means its not too easy to do the whole peak/off peak thing. If by off peak you meant unattended downloads overnight then thats really good, as a number of ISPs have generous overnight allowances.

On the whole 10Gb peak whether daytime or evenings opens up quite a lot of reasonable packages although you'd need one with the free or generous overnight. If some of your "off peak" is evenings then you'll need a bit more allowance. Even PlusNet Value would give you 10Gb 8am-Midnight and free usage Midnight-8am for £11.99 as you are not on an LLU exchange. Your pricing basically goes up from there, eg. 50Gb from Zen is £34.25 as they have no offpeak at all. So its a pretty wide range to explore. I'll let others make more specific recommendations.

I'd be very surprised if the poster doesn't use more than 60GB pm with p2p and iPlayer. Maybe he/she is forgetting p2p uploads as well.

Plusnet throttling is very heavy. I don't see any of their packages being suitable.

Xilo as you said earlier could be a good idea. Also vivaciti on a similar package.

So - Mr/Ms Anonymous , discuss it with Matt from Xilo and also check out www.vivaciti.net Surfwise 75. Do not consider vivaciti's Family packages, they are Entanet based and highly suspect at the moment.

Edited by RobertoS (Mon 21-Sep-09 23:04:25)

Good point on Vivaciti, my brain keeps forgetting the surfwise product(s).

Depends on the Xilo/BTW packages as like many they are the sensible price for the bandwidth which is not always too pleasant as a customer.

I've run into a lot of debate on the Plusnet packages. The information about the ACTUAL achieved speeds, especially during the unlimited overnight is very slight. I don't recall any actual users being tempted into revealing their throughput.

The theory is that iPlayer data gets passed through the Ellacoya's with a pretty high priority although its only line speed on PAYG and the various Pro packages. This certainly gave problems all round during say Wimbledon as BBC offloaded traffic to Acamichi (whatever) and as they get classed as a download server it took Plusnet a while to beat sense into the Ellacoya.

According to one of the pages streaming media should be Gold priority which is pretty high, the same as Web Access.

Similarly with the p2p it depends what he downloads and when. There is a heavy throttle on p2p on Value (50-256Kbps) but on Unlimited its meant to be line speed from midnight-midday. Which is 12 hours a day!

So while I take your points its not clearcut as it depends what he wants to pay and do. Then there is Pro with 15Gb at linespeed BUT the rest having to be jammed in the free overnight.

If you want an ISP that is one month rolling, great customer support then go for Xilo, I am very happy with their service.

As I am on an LLU product you will need to discuss directly with them in more detail the products available to you and any imposed restrictions which they may have.