I've had a letter today from that coloured company telling me that my monthly figure is going to increase to £19.99 a month due to BT costs, the network upgrade and being "outside of their area". I know I need a mac code but I've read on other forums that it's difficult to get out of the contract. I could just cancel the DD and see what happens. Anybody recommend an alternative supplier ? I've heard that the major satellite company are good but they too are likely to increase their prices sooner or later. I've got (supposedly) an 8meg line and an unlimited download subject to fair usage policy. On top of this, I've got BT's option 1 so called free evenings and weekends calls but that's £10.50 a month on top of the broadband. Constructive comments ?

All I can add is (from personal experinnce) adviod o2 like the plauge. Knows that not much help at this stage, but thats all I can offer really.

Check in the small print, it maybe that they can't change the price for the 1st XX months of the contract (the miniumum time you take it out for).

Sure someone better will be along soon!

Conversley I find o2 brilliant, £7.50 a month for unlimited download and never had a connection problem in the 13 month we have been with them (unlike BT...........)

Sky are ok. £5/month if you're in their area of unbundled exchanges. I'm on Orange, £5/month, as had a mobile with them.

Otherwise, £20 is pretty much the going rate for 8meg unlimited it seems.

O2, been with them 7 months and have been faultless. A little slow on speed, but that's just the area unfortunantly.

Lots of people on the orange complaint website have been moaning about the increases and also that they wrote in their t and c's that charges may rise. Unless you are in a cooling off period looks like you may end up paying the extra.

I've been with BE who provide the O2 service for years and can't fault them.

I've had a letter today from that coloured company telling me that my monthly figure is going to increase to £19.99 a month due to BT costs, the network upgrade and being "outside of their area". I know I need a mac code but I've read on other forums that it's difficult to get out of the contract. I could just cancel the DD and see what happens. Anybody recommend an alternative supplier ? I've heard that the major satellite company are good but they too are likely to increase their prices sooner or later. I've got (supposedly) an 8meg line and an unlimited download subject to fair usage policy. On top of this, I've got BT's option 1 so called free evenings and weekends calls but that's £10.50 a month on top of the broadband. Constructive comments ?

You can check on SamKnows Broadband - Comprehensive Broadband Information to see who supports LLU on your exchange.

Just looked at mine and we are going 21CN on the 30th of September, wonder if Sky will go ADSL2 ??!

Sky dont do LLU in my exchange, otherwise I'd be swapping from Orange.

I've been with BE who provide the O2 service for years and can't fault them.

Another BE fan.

but I've read on other forums that it's difficult to get out of the contract.

Is it a significant rise in costs? If so, id just say they are changing the cost, and its not what you signed up for.

Im sure there must be a broadband version of OFCOM that you can speak to, if they get shirty with you.

Im currently waiting for my letter of complaint to be answered by Sky, as they've reduced my download amount from 40GB to 10GB, which is a huge change, they say i can now get 10MB download, but as i could never get 8mb, im not going to see a change anyway!

They can't increase costs and keep you to a timed contract.

Orange Problems - Index - Orange Broadband, Orange Email, Orange Mobile Phones - OrangeProblems.co.uk

I know this is an odd point but have you actually spoken to BT as I find a lot of ISP's try and blame BT when they have "problems" even though it's clearly nothing to do with BT.

Example being I can get a connection to their router and see their machine, but get no further. They blame BT and say my line must be down, but obviously it isn't or I wouldn't be able to see their machines

Now moving from Orange because of the price increase, been with them for about 6 years so their loss. Going with Plusnet at 5.95 first 3 months then 11.95 for 5 meg which is as fast as we can get. Dads been with them for a couple of years with no hassle.

Im sure there must be a broadband version of OFCOM that you can speak to, if they get shirty with you.

Indeed there is. This answers most situations in a step by step way.

hth

Problems with your internet service | Ofcom

Conversley I find o2 brilliant, £7.50 a month for unlimited download and never had a connection problem in the 13 month we have been with them (unlike BT...........)

Granted the price is good, but in our experience instead of the advertised 8mb we were luckiy to get 1mb! I know this isn't the area as we used to get 2mb from UKOnline fine.

Still, could just be my area (Aylesbury) but it still wasn't great.

Sky on LLU here, they're not bad. Speed is pretty much the best available in the area.

Granted the price is good, but in our experience instead of the advertised 8mb we were luckiy to get 1mb! I know this isn't the area as we used to get 2mb from UKOnline fine.

Still, could just be my area (Aylesbury) but it still wasn't great.

If you're on an unbundled line they don't offer 8MB they offer up to 24MB and usually you will get about 8MB is you are miles from the exchange.

If ADSL2+ can only get you 1Mb then there is something very wrong with your line and you need to get it looked at.

Thanks for the comments, I'm going to look at a few options...and read the small print of my contract too, obviously.

Thanks cheezemonkhai, some useful info in there.

It was getting 2mb before hand (different ISP) and then we went to O2, where sometimes (or once!) it was 4mb, then the rest it was mainly ~1mb, sometimes 2mb for short periods which makes me think it was just the service.

We are now with BT which is meant to be 8mb, but we still only get around 2.5mb downstream (which equates to about 1.8mb on speedtest.net). A friend just down the road is with the same provider and gets 3.5mb.

To me this suggests that something is wrong with the line as you say because I can't see ~500yards casuing this much of a difference. Anything/actions you could suggest?

500 yards can make a huge difference actually.

I'd check the signal to noise values in your router and also check you have an active and not a passive microfilter.

The quality of the microfilter can make a huge difference to the speed. Also if you're on an extension try plugging the router in at the main socket with nothing else connected and see what speed it claims to synch at there.

Thanks, it is into the main socket (which was replaced after the last one smashed about a 2-3weeks ago).

Noise margin (Down/Up) 14.2 dB / 5.7 dB

Line attenuation (Down/Up) 52.0 dB / 30.8 dB

Output power (Down/Up) 3.3 dBm / 1.3 dBm

These are from the modem which is the current BT Homehub.

How would I tell the difference between a passive and active microfiter? (The ones in use are the standard ones supplied by BT.)

BT supplied ones on the little lead are active.

If you're on O2, what are you using a home hub for? If you're using a home hub it isn't ADSL2+ so you must either be on O2 via a BT line or something odd.

If you're on a BE unbundled line on O2 you will get a BEBox (ADSL router) that supports ADSL2+.

If somehow the chip in the home hub does support ADSL2+, then many of these can be really flaky, so i'd strongly recommend using the BEBox

Sorry, forgot to say we cancelled the O2 contract (to varibale and always slow/cutting out) and now are with BT broadband at 8mb speed, which is around 1.7-2.5 in reality.

The modem is the correct one for the line/contract.

TriggerFish - Firstly I assume you've made sure absolutely every device e.g. sky boxes etc in the house have a microfilter on. Having confrimed that, given how much better your friend's connection is just a few hundred yards away, I recommend you try taking your house's internal wiring out of the equation.

Undo the two screws on the front of your BT master socket, pull the face plate off. This will reveal the internal test socket. Plug your modem directly into this, reboot it and have a look at your stats again. If you see a decent improvement, I would then recommend getting rid of your ring wire (terminal 3 / orange and white wire in master the socket, just yank it out, it's redundant anyway). Then put the faceplate back on and connect up as before. If you want to try and eek out a bit more speed still, buy an internally filtered master socket faceplate and junk your microfilters.

Doing the above ring wire trick took me from 2meg to 7meg. I did it at my mates house and took him from 0.5 meg to 2.5 meg. There is no guarantee of improvement of course, but I've done it at several people's houses and only seen it not make any improvement at one. For further reading, see the excellent guide here.

Edited 23 July, 200916 yr by wega3k