ISP recommendations - best for reliability?

Hi,

I live in hope that I will eventually get a MAC from TalkTalk, at which point I need to select a new ISP. My exchange appears to be one of the exchanges that BT forgot - it's Hook. The only LLU is TalkTalk.

What I'm looking for is reliable speed. I'm just over a mile from the exchange and in the good days of freedom2surf, I could get close to the 8Mbs promised. Since Tiscali I've been lucky to get 4Mbs and with TalkTalk I occasionally get less than 0.5.

I'd like to get back to getting close to 8 again, consistently. We download between 40-60 gig a month, most of that in the evenings. I do occasionally work from home. I don't care very much about price. I also don't mind p2p throttling if necessary.

I was looking at aaisp, but am slightly worried about the peak time limits. However, it appears many of the other smaller isp's offer larger peak time limits but the peak extends in to the evening, which is when the bulk of our traffic happens.

Any suggestions?

Sarah

I suggest choosing from the following, all of which are monthly contract. Note that on all of them your upload speed will be 448kbps or 832kbps, depending on package. Above 832kbps is only possible on WBC-enabled exchanges:-

Vivaciti Family 30 or Family 60, perhaps Office 45. These are all Entanet based;
IDNet Home Max or Supermax - note the 832 upload on that;
Zen Active or Pro. I think they also have some packages with 832 upload.

See these comparisons.

I assume you have ISP-independent email so that won't be a problem.

Just joined aaisp last week. So far, no issues at all. Yes, base package for them (on a 21CN connection) only allows for 4Gb of peak-time traffic per month, but this doesn't bother me as I'm out at work most week days anyway. And this isn't really a limit per say. If you go over, they will charge you a bit more. The other option is to change the base package and buy more units per month instead (there is a price calculator on their site).

As someone else has already posted, there are many alternative ISPs to choose from. Guess its just a question of what you're looking for.

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

I suggest choosing from the following, all of which are monthly contract. Note that on all of them your upload speed will be 448kbps or 832kbps, depending on package. Above 832kbps is only possible on WBC-enabled exchanges:-

Vivaciti Family 30 or Family 60, perhaps Office 45. These are all Entanet based;
IDNet Home Max or Supermax - note the 832 upload on that;
Zen Active or Pro. I think they also have some packages with 832 upload.

See these comparisons.

I assume you have ISP-independent email so that won't be a problem.

Roberto: Why not one of the adsl2+ surfwise packages offered by Vivaciti?

In reply to a post by Anonymous:

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

I suggest choosing from the following, all of which are monthly contract. Note that on all of them your upload speed will be 448kbps or 832kbps, depending on package. Above 832kbps is only possible on WBC-enabled exchanges:-

Vivaciti Family 30 or Family 60, perhaps Office 45. These are all Entanet based;
IDNet Home Max or Supermax - note the 832 upload on that;
Zen Active or Pro. I think they also have some packages with 832 upload.

See these comparisons.

I assume you have ISP-independent email so that won't be a problem.

Roberto: Why not one of the adsl2+ surfwise packages offered by Vivaciti?

Have you checked to see if the exchange is 21CN?

If you do you'll find the answer to your question

In reply to a post by Anonymous:

Roberto: Why not one of the adsl2+ surfwise packages offered by Vivaciti?

Because I was thinking the OP wouldn't be happy with a package from TalkTalk Business Wholesale.

Surfwise Complete would be Full LLU as well, which I hardly ever recommend. It and Surfwise Variety have the TT 100GB FUP and P2P throttling unless the Surfwise Fileshare option is added, but looking at Sarah's post those restrictions may be acceptable.

Having said that, yes, you are right. The OP does have those available and if the line could do over 8Mbps they may be worth her thinking about.

@Sarah - Anon has a point, if you have a shortish line, which it seems you do. You may be able to get high speeds on Surfwise. The wholesale packages should be better than TT direct, in the same way as many ISPs on BT Wholesale are better than BT Broadband.

If interested, please try to find and post your line stats - see here for help.

Edited by RobertoS (Sun 27-Mar-11 00:39:11)

Thanks for all the good advice everyone. Apologies for the delay in answering, but in odd timing, my broadband has been down all week.

I've had a look at the isp's mentioned.
Vivaciti - only the business 100 package would work - 95% of our downloading is between 6pm and midnight, and if this time is included in the peak time limits, it might as well be the total download limit.
IDNet has much the same problem, although larger limits. Their home max might work.
Zen so far looks very positive.

I could be interested in a package from a reseller, but only if I'm going to get substantial speed improvements. My modem is unfortunately not mentioned in the list, but I think I've managed to get the stats you mentioned below.

Actual Data Rate - Up Stream 832 (Kbps.), Down Stream 8128 (Kbps.)
Noise Margin - Upstream (15dB), Downstream (6dB)
Attentuation - Upstream (15dB), Downstream (25dB)

The only errors mentioned that aren't at 0 are
Interleaved Path FEC Correction - Near End Indicator 748, Far End indicator 248561
Interleaved Path CRC Error - Near End Indicator 7, Far End Indicator 422

What do you think?

Edited by deleted (Sun 03-Apr-11 18:01:33)

In reply to a post by SarahS:

Actual Data Rate - Up Stream 832 (Kbps.), Down Stream 8128 (Kbps.)
Noise Margin - Upstream (15dB), Downstream (6dB)
Attentuation - Upstream (15dB), Downstream (25dB)

What do you think?

Going by your stats it appears Talktalk have not moved you over to their ADSL2+ (LLU) service, you are still on their BT (spit) ip-stream based ADSL1 which is a up to 8 meg service and is [censored]. On their ADSL2+ you should get at least 16 meg sync. Best thing to do is register on Talktalk's forum and ask to be put on their ADSL2+ service. The OCE's should be able to do this (assuming there is capacity on your exchange).

In reply to a post by baby_frogmella:

you are still on their BT (spit) ip-stream based ADSL1 which is a up to 8 meg service and is [censored].

No, otherwise UP Sync would be 448.

OP most likely on ADSL2+ LLU capped to 8 Meg.

In reply to a post by XRaySpeX:

In reply to a post by baby_frogmella:

you are still on their BT (spit) ip-stream based ADSL1 which is a up to 8 meg service and is [censored].

No, otherwise UP Sync would be 448.

OP most likely on ADSL2+ LLU capped to 8 Meg.

Perhaps talktalk have wrongly put her on ADSL1 max premium which has max upload of 832kb? I say this because if she was on ADSL2+ her upload would be 1019kbps on that attenuation, irrespective of her download sync rate.

OP, best thing to do is post on the talktalk member forums, ask them to move you over to the "up to 24 meg" service. They will also troubleshoot your speed issues.

Edited by deleted (Sun 03-Apr-11 19:07:27)