As the title says just wondered who you guys are with and how you rate your provider I am with Virgin Media at present and am having a few issues with - been with them for nearly 10 years now thinking of moving to BT so everything is in the same place (phone & broadband)

cheers

I had everything with BT and left them earlier this year to take everything to SKY. Best thing I ever did with regard to Interweb and phone.

If you watch You Tube, BBC iPlayer or any other streaming site (ITV CH 4 etc) BT throttle your internet connection speed right sown. BBC iPlayer has a checker for speed testing to their server and I found my 8 mb broadband which normally delivered around 6mb or less (it varied hugely throughout the day though) only delivered 700kb!!!!! Not much more than 10% of my normal broadband speed.

Upon moving to SKY I get 6.5mb download speed and 500kb upload (200kb faster than BT), the speed doesn’t seem to alter at all, no matter what time of the day I use it either. Best of all my allowance went up from 10gb to 40gb per month and no throttling of broadband speed no matter what site I visit. I can stream HD form the iPlayer (the BBC iPlayer detects your connection speed and plays the appropriate bandwidth, so now I can watch stuff without people looking like they are made of Lego)

Not only is it cheaper, but when I rang them up about an issue with the instillation and switchover (I was working away when they wanted to do it all) I spoke to a British person that I could understand!!

10/10 for SKY so far

A tag will basically be an ID code that indicates what the line is being used for, and by whom. As long as there's one there a new ISP can't take over the line as it indicates that someone else is still in control. The problem comes when companies refuse to remove the tag, which is why OFCOMs rules changed to force ISPs to get rid of them and hand over MAC codes.

Don't worry, it's nothing that can be used to spy on you. It's also absolutely nothing to do with your problem so I have no idea why you were told that. Simply having broadband means your line is tagged.

There are all sorts of things that can cause slow lines, from your router/modem and microfilters through to your phone sockets, the wiring from your house to the nearest telegraph pole, then back through the junction boxes to the exchange, and even the kit in the exchange itself. What might be key in solving this is looking at the noise margins in your router's information pages. Unfortunately many problems are with the 'last mile' which is the final stretch of cable from the exchange to your house, and getting BT to admit that can be hell. My line suffered from squirrel damage (no joke) and it took weeks to convince them.

Before you log a fault with BT you'll have to check the following:

- Make sure all your microfilters are working properly, and that there's one on every phone or phoneline connected device (Sky, etc)

- Get rid of any long phone extensions between the socket and the router

- Unscrew the faceplate from the socket your router is plugged into and connect directly to the test socket underneath

Tags are usually used to indicate the person renting the line is in default; this tends to put off other ISP's who want to take over the service.

It might be worth asking them EXACTLY what the tag is doing there.

If the pole is dangerous, BT should be replacing it, if your line is incapable of giving 2Mb, ditto!! Your ISP should be nagging BT to do this, but not all of them try very hard, I had issues with my line for 2 years with Pipex, but switching to Vispa got the line replaced within 12 weeks.

i use a small company called idnet, in the past 5 years ive been with them i only had 2 problems and both solved within a couple of hours and on a normal landline number and not some premiuim service. They also know what you are talking about unlike some of these big companies who staff know nothing and treat you like a thick **** and read a script off the computer.

Again i have no reason to leave and the prices are good along with excellent service from them.

Tags are usually used to indicate the person renting the line is in default; this tends to put off other ISP's who want to take over the service.

It might be worth asking them EXACTLY what the tag is doing there

What does this mean "the person who rents the line is in default" do you mean virgin paying BT to use the line for their broadband service or me who rents it from BT

I have never defaulted on payments and have been with virgin for 9 years and am not under a contract with them.

when you say ask the exactly why the tag has been put on the line they say every provider puts a tag on the line they say it was to identify the service provider.

Why does this put off other companies when they see a tag on the line if its not a bad thing, just confuses me.

We've used Sky broadband since it first started and we've never lost service. The router went bang and we had a replacement within 24 hours.

d/l speeds are usually about 11.5 meg all the time and u/l is around 800k.

SWMBO and I are both heavy internet users and we've never been throttled/slapped/charged extra.

Can't fault Sky Broadband.

Would have sky as well, but they only offer their connect package round here.

Both parents are on Sky, and speeds are always fast.

We're on Sky and while I would say it is a relatively problem-free service, I think they DO throttle as I've had my internet connection go down while I'm downloading from multiple torrent sites. Then as one download finishes, the connection returns (I assume this is what you refer to as throttling, it's the first time I've heard this term). I always thought it was strange I couldn't connect to the internet and yet my download connections were unaffected.

I'd also say their speeds are typically well below what you are paying for, but I assumed that was typical for all providers, and might also be caused by my specific area. How these companies get away with charging for potential maximum speeds still blows my mind.

We used to use Demon before we moved, as they were recommended by Apple and they were awesome. They would often increase our speeds free of charge and the service was faultless. That is until we moved and they wanted to charge an extortionate relocation fee. As a loyal customer that p'd me off, so I didn't return.

Hi Dave

I moved from BT who throttled between 7pm and 11pm. They refused to accept that and whenever I complained I was asked if I had a sky box attached! Their support desks could only go through a routine set of questions in order, and even when I got around that, the company still refused to accept that their service had any change of usable speed. CHecks on the BT line speed still showed that it was 6 meg, but between BT and the general internet the speed was throttled.

I am with Be (www.bethere.co.uk) on their "up to 24 meg" service and get just over 7 meg download, 1 meg upload 24 hours a day. Before I signed up they advised me what maximum speed I might get, and this is a little bit faster. I do not get email and free web space, but I still have that from BT as they want people to keep returning.

Some years before I had bought my own domain name (from easily) and that gives me email and web forwarding. That means I can redirect emails to my personal email address to whichever service I fancy, and makes me less beholden to any service provider. I happen to have stuck with the BT Yahoo email because I am used to it, but I could have used google mail, hotmail or any one of the many free services. I could redirect the web to my Flickr account home page, or whatever takes my fancy.

Much more comment and ideas with reviews on the specialist broadband web sites such as thinkbroadband.com and dslzoneuk.net for example.

Hi Dave

I moved from BT who throttled between 7pm and 11pm. They refused to accept that and whenever I complained I was asked if I had a sky box attached! Their support desks could only go through a routine set of questions in order, and even when I got around that, the company still refused to accept that their service had any change of usable speed. CHecks on the BT line speed still showed that it was 6 meg, but between BT and the general internet the speed was throttled.

.

That’s the same issue I described above. It’s only when the site you are visiting has a speedtester on it, you get to see how slow the line has become. As I said, on BBC iplayer - 700K on a line that normally supported 6mb!! Also speed goes up and down all the time anyway. SKY always seems to be 6.5mb and never any throttling of speed.

I was ultimately very disappointed with BT except when it came to repairing my external line, they were quite quick in that respect.

I've never noticed any throttling from Sky, even some monster downloads have been consistent throughout. Long durations of HD iplayer viewing haven't affected things either.

I've been with Newnet for the past 2½ years, having moved from PlusNet and had no significant problems, so from me.

Ive been with plus net for three years and have never lost service with them

I often have a look around to see if i can get a better/cheaper provider but so far have always ended up staying with plus net.

Same here Plusnet 1 year no problems , and very cheap , only monthly contract as well .

I've been with Plusnet since 2002 but am now moving away from them as a result of their increasingly oppressive "fair-usage" policy and peak time throttling which impacts my ability to work from home. Moving over to Sky who can offer me 3x maximum speed, completely unlimited and for half the price of Plusnet. Time will tell if it's a good decision

Chris

I have been with plus net for a while they are basically the clown side of BT so don't expect much ....drop outs and no service with no explaination avoid

:eek: I have to totally disagree this this, I have been with PlusNet for more than 6 years, while also managing 40+ accounts for our clients, OK there have been a few odd problems,but nothing major. Experience has frequently shown that "drop outs and no service with no explaination" are down to the quality of your physical phone line and internaly cabling.

PlusNet rely on traffic shaping too much, rather than investing in infrastructure.

I should have stated that 90% of the accounts are Business...

O2 seem pretty reasonable around glasgow area. Even have a call centre here which made switching easier, and a choice of tarrifs which they then only offer you the one based on what your line tests say your line can support. Stops you paying for something you can't use which I thought was good.

Last provider I only got to speak to someone that didn't have a pre prepared card in another country when I was leaving them.