Looking for a new ISP

I've been with BT for a while but am finally fed with their traffic shaping during peak times. So I've decided to move away from BT to another ISP. I'm a heavy downloader (I use a premium Usenet provider) and I play BF3 (PC) and the odd 360 game online as well and I don't need a router. My exchange has just been WBC enabled but there's no LLU and no VM cable either (I do however work for VM Business). I'm not too fussed about paying more for a great ISP and I'm happy to leave my phone service with BT. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

I moved from BT to fast.co.uk.

Can thoroughly recommend.

UK support staff based I think in Godalming.

Hi,
You say heavy downloader, but it would help people recommend a provider and product if you could quantify "Heavy" some providers would class 50GB per month as heavy, another 200GB etc (we have some customers downloading in excess of a TB per month, now thats heavy!)

In reply to a post by vivaciti:

Hi,
You say heavy downloader, but it would help people recommend a provider and product if you could quantify "Heavy" some providers would class 50GB per month as heavy, another 200GB etc

The same applies to users. We had one today saying he was a heavy downloader, IIRC he said around 50GB, in peak time anyway. Others laugh at anyone who suggests 100GB is enough for anyone.

Hehe yeh 1TB a month would be pretty excessive! I would say on average I download around 50GB a month.

On average. What matters in a way is by how much you exceed that, and how often. 60GB very occasionally may be worth paying an excess charged, 120GB every 3 months or so would suggest a high enough package was needed.

Can any downloads be sceduled to overnight, and even though there is only bog-standard BT provision at the exchange it may still be relevant which one it is?

My local exchange:

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

I sync at about 7.6Mbps at the moment and my attenuation is around 32dB.

I don't normally download during the night as my PC is in my room and fairly loud. I do download during the day whilst I'm at work most of the time. As for exceeding the 50GB, I would say hardly ever. And it would be fairly easy for me to keep track of my usage anyway.

Have a look at the two vivaciti products on this page.

It's possible the LLU one is available. It uses the TalkTalk MSAN, but not the TalkTalk service, and samknows may be out of date. It could be live. The problem there though is that p2p/newsgroup type of traffic is restricted during office hours (Mon � Fri 8am � 7:30pm).

The other is a WBC product, I don't know about any peak time restrictions.

On either I would expect a connection speed between 11Mbps and 15Mbps, and over 1Mps upstream connection.

some vivaciti packages give free weekend downloads as well as overnight

Isn't that what I said about the LLU one?