Best Value Broadband in the North

Ulick · June 16, 2012, 02:18:14 AM

I'm with O2, took the deal out a few years ago so not sure if it's still around, but £7 pm for uncapped ADSL on a rolling monthly contract. I'd regularly get around 1000kbps downloading torrents and would probably be hitting about 120Gb a month.

Smokin Joe · June 16, 2012, 07:25:20 AM

Quote from: Tony Baloney on June 15, 2012, 10:44:15 PM
Don't give up hope Joe. I was using a fecking satellite dish to get internet access up til about 6 months ago. It would be helpful of everyone in your area registered their interest with BT.

Where are you based?

My exchange is Benburb

Minder · June 16, 2012, 07:43:54 PM

Fionntamhnach - What is the most reliable broadband speed checker? I am on BT Infinity and signed up for the increased speeds a couple of months ago, they reckoned i could get 70mbps but it never gets much above 40mbps. I take it for the 70mpbs speeds you need a wired connection?

BT have a beta speedtester http://www.speedtester.bt.com/ but i have read there are issues with it.

Ulick · June 16, 2012, 09:44:41 PM

Quote from: Fionntamhnach on June 16, 2012, 07:33:59 PM

1000kbps isn't much, that's 1 Meg!

It's a lot for one application to be constantly downloading at that speed i.e. if I had my torrent application downloading at my full broadband speed I wouldn't be able to do anything else, plus you are limited by the speed others upload. I have a media server connected permanently to the web downloading torrents and streaming videos to the telly. On top of that, we've laptops, mobile devices and the telly itself all connect to the web without any noticeable lag. I think the ADSL deal is 20Mb but to be honest the whole fixation with download speeds is a nonsense. The average household doesn't need anything more than 3 or 4Mb for streaming video and average downloading. IMO what's much more important is downloading capping, contention ratio, ISP blocking and traffic shaping. That's what I look out for when looking at broadband deals.

Ulick · June 18, 2012, 10:59:29 AM

Informative post Fionntamhnach but I stand by my assertion regarding download speeds. If you have good contention ratio 3 or 4 Mb is more than adequate for streaming even HD as streaming files don't all have to arrive at the same time before playing. Sure people with wireless enabled tellys are using iPlayer HD widgets to play video files, even though there's nowhere near that kind of speed between the wireless box and the telly - they just have a little lag at the beginning while the file caches up.

1 Gig broadband is grand but in my opinion is all geared towards SaS (software as service), internetTV and at the end of the day screwing more money out of people via subscriptions. At work I've a 1Gbps pipe into SuperJanet and at home I've a 1Gbps wired ethernet network connected to the internet through the O2 ADSL router. Even though I primarily work in multimedia with large files I haven't noticed any advantage to being in the office and can work just as well from home. The average residential user is going to be asked to fork out for relatively expensive internet connections, the vast majority of whom won't come close to even using or needed a fraction of it.

STREET FIGHTER · November 30, 2012, 09:44:20 AM

Hi

Any good broadband deals to be had the the minute?

BT or Sky probably the only real options in my area.

SF

Harold Disgracey · November 30, 2012, 12:52:38 PM

Try Plusnet, they usually have some good deals going. They're owned by BT, but you'll get a much better customer service from them. I've been with them for years and told them recently I was considering switching to BT in an effort to try & boost my line speed. To persuade me to stay, they reduced my line rental to £9.75/month, gave me a new router and sent out an engineer out to see if they could boost my speed. Now operating at a whopping 760kbs!

NAG1 · November 30, 2012, 02:13:59 PM

Quote from: Harold Disgracey on November 30, 2012, 12:52:38 PM
Try Plusnet, they usually have some good deals going. They're owned by BT, but you'll get a much better customer service from them. I've been with them for years and told them recently I was considering switching to BT in an effort to try & boost my line speed. To persuade me to stay, they reduced my line rental to £9.75/month, gave me a new router and sent out an engineer out to see if they could boost my speed. Now operating at a whopping 760kbs!

Anyone else with Sky and experiencing really slow wireless connection?
Mine wont even play a youtube video through without buffering, have changed the channels etc and has made no difference, am thinking of pulling the plug and switching to BT. Im not that far from the exchange so should have a decent speed.

screenexile · November 30, 2012, 02:35:12 PM

Quote from: NAG1 on November 30, 2012, 02:13:59 PM
Quote from: Harold Disgracey on November 30, 2012, 12:52:38 PM
Try Plusnet, they usually have some good deals going. They're owned by BT, but you'll get a much better customer service from them. I've been with them for years and told them recently I was considering switching to BT in an effort to try & boost my line speed. To persuade me to stay, they reduced my line rental to £9.75/month, gave me a new router and sent out an engineer out to see if they could boost my speed. Now operating at a whopping 760kbs!

Anyone else with Sky and experiencing really slow wireless connection?
Mine wont even play a youtube video through without buffering, have changed the channels etc and has made no difference, am thinking of pulling the plug and switching to BT. Im not that far from the exchange so should have a decent speed.

Had that problem with Sky for a while. Between 6 and 11pm an any night the speed would dramatically fall to 7/8kbps which was a complete joke. They tried to tell me it had nothing to do with them and that they were piggybacking BT for our service so basically tough luck.

Went to BT then and haven't had any problems since.

NAG1 · November 30, 2012, 02:37:57 PM

In my old place had BT and there was no issue at all with the speed, could stream without any bother now its thats slow wouldnt even bother turning it on.

STREET FIGHTER · November 30, 2012, 03:41:06 PM

Quote from: screenexile on November 30, 2012, 02:35:12 PM
Quote from: NAG1 on November 30, 2012, 02:13:59 PM
Quote from: Harold Disgracey on November 30, 2012, 12:52:38 PM
Try Plusnet, they usually have some good deals going. They're owned by BT, but you'll get a much better customer service from them. I've been with them for years and told them recently I was considering switching to BT in an effort to try & boost my line speed. To persuade me to stay, they reduced my line rental to £9.75/month, gave me a new router and sent out an engineer out to see if they could boost my speed. Now operating at a whopping 760kbs!

Anyone else with Sky and experiencing really slow wireless connection?
Mine wont even play a youtube video through without buffering, have changed the channels etc and has made no difference, am thinking of pulling the plug and switching to BT. Im not that far from the exchange so should have a decent speed.

Had that problem with Sky for a while. Between 6 and 11pm an any night the speed would dramatically fall to 7/8kbps which was a complete joke. They tried to tell me it had nothing to do with them and that they were piggybacking BT for our service so basically tough luck.

Went to BT then and haven't had any problems since.

S.E what sort of package do you have with BT?