ISPs and other annoyances

[wellinghall]

GRRRR!!! I have just had another conversation with Force9, after waiting for ages and ages and ages on the phone. Have they connected me yet? No. Can they tell me when they will connect me? No.

They have said that they will ring me back this evening, and I am prepared to give them this long. But if they don't, then that's it.

So - can anyone recommend a reliable ISP?

And is this the end of the annoyances? No! (Smart people will already have picked this up from the Subject line ... ;-) ) I've also got a pension company to chase, as well as a decorator. There are also other annoyances that are no-one's fault. Like, the lawn still needs mowing. But with the weather we've been having, our colds, and various other things keeping us busy, it's gotten rather ... long. And that just puts me off mowing it even more! And we need to arrange new carpets for upstairs. (I'll spare you that story.)

And then there are the work annoyances, and the village annoyances; but I'll save these for separate posts.

I want to get in one of these ^^^ (see userpic), and fire off a few 17-pounder shells ...

Comments

[king-pellinor.livejournal.com]

Demon. Haven't had a problem in years, and back when we did they were very helpful.

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the recommendation. On the strength of it (and sigisgrim's suggestion), I've got in touch with it.

[lil-shepherd.livejournal.com]

I'd recommend Plusnet who we are with, and who are in many ways quite excellent (their website is very impressive), but there are two problems. Firstly, they are actually owned by BT. Make of that what you will, though it does mean they get lines sorted out quickly. Secondly, their sales/marketing people are... er... inefficient. Their tech staff are terrific and diagnosed my problem as a faulty router quite quickly. Unfortunately, the instructions to marketing to send me a replacement went astray several times... and I am still waiting for an envelope to send the faulty router back. However, they haven't questioned me about it.

(NB I expect to hear from them now as they have crawlers out looking for mentions - they then e-mail you to ask if they can help. And do.)

[didiusjulianus.livejournal.com]

One thing: plusnet ARE force9.

[sigisgrim.livejournal.com]

Demon; not the cheapest, but by far the best.

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

Thanks for that. Force9 have now got my connection working, so I have at least got a breathing space - but in the long term, I am determined to move to someone else.

I started off on Demon, but then had some problem with them, and switched. I can't remember what that was, though, and I find it hard to believe they would have been worse than F9 over the past nine years or so.

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

Hmm, the T-34 sounds good ;-)

Creatrix used to pass a bright yellow Scimitar (I think it was) in Peckham on her way into work every day.

[philmophlegm.livejournal.com]

Clare Associates (and hence Bunn and I) are with Zen, but they might be a little pricy for domestic use.

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the recommendation.

[rustica.livejournal.com]

I'm with BT internet. Not the cheapest, but does exactly what it says on the tin. Well, sort of. Installed software on 3 different computers = 3 totally different experiences... took a long time to get the last one sorted, but we got there in the end. I don't notice it's there (in a good way!) - and isn't that exactly what you want?

[(Anonymous)]

Several people I know have not done so well with BT, including the lot who ended up paying me quite a lot to untangle the mess that BT support made of their network when they tried to install a broadband router from BT.

[alitalf.livejournal.com]

Several people I know have not done so well with BT, including the lot who ended up paying me quite a lot to untangle the mess that BT support made of their network when they tried to install a broadband router from BT.

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

... and for that comment.

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the recommendation ...

[alitalf.livejournal.com]

plusnet/force9 were bought by BT sometime last year I think. They went through a phase when I was looking at alternatives, and shortlisted ZEN, Demon, and Clarnet, and would have probably chosen Zen had Force 9 not improved so it wasn't worth the effort of moving, then finding other suppliers for the services that the suppliers I listed do not provide ...

[sigisgrim.livejournal.com]

What does F9 provide that Demon (etc.) doesn't? (Apart from poor service.)

[alitalf.livejournal.com]

I can't remember what things Demon didn't provide apart from the multiple domain hosting and costing less - it might have been one or more of:

• mailing lists
• notification (circular) lists
• effectively unlimited pop3 mailboxes
• Scripting, though at f9 only on a separate server

As far as I can remember, Claranet had the highest customer satisfaction rating last year, ZEN the best reputation for ADSL performance and reliability, and Demon had probably the best spam filtering, though that seems to have been a bit compromised by pictorial spams.

If Demon had been able to host my domains without costing a fortune, I would probably have moved there anyway. The snag is I would have needed to host my domains elsewhere, then using the pop3 boxes on the hosting company I would not have had the advantage of Demon's spam filtering - unless I just jumbled all the mailboxes together and forwarded them to Demon. Untidy and messy, so I would have gone to Zen for raw ADSL speed and reliability, and then gotten a hosting account where the TS site is or somewhere similar.

[sigisgrim.livejournal.com]

Of your list I know Demon has:

• unlimited pop3 mailboxes
• scripting

I don't know what the provision for:

• mailing lists
• notification (circular) lists

However, as they are a provider for professional organisations, as well as private punters, I'm sure they could have provided a suitable package. The only downside might have been the cost.

Regarding ADSL performance and reliability since all ADSL in the UK is provided via BT there isn't much to differentiate different commercial suppliers. It is BT who provide the connection and fix the problems, but it is Claranet, or Zen, or whoever who take the call from the customer if there is a fault. They simply then contact BT. The only real difference is the contention ration that the supplier buys off BT. Most residential ratios are 50:1 (i.e. 50 subscribers sharing the nM bytes of bandwidth); most commercial ratios are 10:1. If a supplier is trying to provide greater apparent speed then they have probably bought a lower contention ratio from BT; 20:1 or 25:1 or something like that, but BT would charge them more for that. So either their profit margin must be reduced or their charges higher; or they are making a loss. There is actually very little profit margin in the Telecoms industry, most of the money is made by the likes of BT; i.e. the people who own the physical infrastructure, the copper and the fiber.

The wonders of having worked in the telecoms provision market for three years!

[estiel.livejournal.com]

Don't believe you could get the new ISP I chose after recent problems, but it's great so far (hate to say that out loud, though). It's broadband and so more expensive than the dial-up I had. Broadband/DSL here runs $45-50/month.

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

I'm paying £15 pm, which I think is probably fairly typical for the UK. That's meant to give me "up to 8 Mb", though I'm certainly not getting that.