Both D’log and Troubled Diva have been enduring a nightmare with BT for their phone / internet / telly type service of late. So I guess the word on the street is don’t go with BT.
Since moving to Birmingham I’ve used the local cable network for my comms. Originally it was Telewest, then a merger saw the NTL brand win out and now it’s part of the Virgin empire. And it’s always been great. The engineers install it in good time, take about 5 minutes doing so, and other than the very occasional drop-out in the middle of the night lasting a half an hour or so there are never any problems. I think this might be because the physical connection is simple – a big tube running down the street is piped into and that’s about it. No messing with ADSL or bootstrapping new tech onto old. And while I know Virgin aren’t the best company in the world and that I’m not using the telly or phone aspects this particular division (Birmingham South) get the two thumbs up from me.
Oh, and it’s a real unlimited service. I have torrents pumping and stuff uploading all the bloody time and they’ve never complained.
Of course I’ve spoken too soon now. It’s all going to go horrible wrong, I can tell.
It probably won’t go horribly wrong now.
But oh, if it does, Customer Services are equal parts Dante and Kafka (with added “on hold” music). Beware.
I mostly agree – but given Virgin’s record of mucking about and then crapifying a service, and the incremental evidence of same with the cable franchise, the day will come when you will be weighing up your options with BT. Unless some start-up manages to deliver a better service using some other technology.
I’ve been with the cable monopoly for years too without much problems. I occasionally need to reset the modem (like once every 4 months or something) but for the most part its solid. I get enough speed most of the time for most things and like you say it really is unlimited. I can’t see myself switching to a copper provider however cheap they sell it. Proper cable is just that bit more solid.
I figure in urban areas like this we’ll be doing it all wirelessly next and that’ll be the point where we abandon thick cables.
I absolutely loved my Telewest cable when I lived in Moseley. It’s as you say, completely rock solid. I never had an outage at night either, although yes, the moden froze, but only twice in about 3 years.
The big trenches they dug all around the area were horrendously disruptive and noisy, big concrete-smashing hammers and tarmac cutters, and then bloody digger things. The compressor noise alone was really dire. But it was definitely worth it.
Bloody BT is all I can get where I live now, and on a really shaky infrastructure, although the key is to get with a provider who actually takes responsibility for that within the contract. Pipex and then Demon don’t/didn’t, and were severely naff, always blaming BT, who then always blamed the IP. Zen does take responsibility for the whole shebang, and it is far, far better, again approaching the stability of cable. But I only get 512 MBps! I think you get 10, don’t you?
I really bloody object to having to pay for a landline telephone I never, ever use though. That’s the pits.
Sounds like you’re a candidate for WiMAX then brenda :-)
Can’t agree more about the cable, we’re getting TV, Phone and Broadband for £20 a month. Catch up is worth that alone. No problem with speed really, it’s gets a bit slower at night, but it’s fair enough the amount I pound it. Not had to deal with Customer Service yet, but to be fair, I’ve never had good dealing with customer services …
I’ve heard Be are good for ADSL, apparently they actually disconnect you for the BT network and onto their own super fast stuff.
No cable out here in the sticks, and the ADSL is just about at the end of the telephone line. We selected Virgin and at the beginning they were dreadful – wrong modem, expensive tech line, etc. But the system does work well now even if the bandwidth is low (I think the fastest download is only 60kb/sec while upload is 30kb/sec. That’s the price for living in the middle of nowhere!
BTW, I did look into satellite but it’s very expensive, simply not an option.