Thetownend.com

I need to upgrade to broadband, I'm paying £14.99 per month anyway for a very slow service. I just went to download the Foo Fighters Album and it was going to take over 16 hours!
I may be patient but not that much.

Anyway I guess a lot of you have broadband so any
tips on ones to use/try etc would be gratefully recieved.
I don't need any top of the range really quick one,
just one that will be reasonably fast for using the internet
and downloading songs etc.

Thanks in advance. :D

We've got AOL bb, it's alright for a non-nerd like me (1meg)

Does the job for £19.99/month

I am on Wanadoo, its £17.99  a month and I think it is 1meg but not 100% sure!

Mine is £17.99 a month shared between 4 people - so £4.50 a month. That's 2mb ntl which is pretty quick.

Ntl is ok but only went with them as they do most peoples around here.

If you're looking to download be aware of download limits that the ISP may impose on you.

I'm on 512k broadband, unlimited downloads for £22.50 inc VAT. Think I might get a faster speed next year though, although the service I've had is brilliant. I'm on freedom 2 surf. They do a range of speeds with various download limits. Would recommend them to anyone.

http://www.f2s.net/

Sounds like a good deal, shame about the customer service -

Below is a copy of a letter that won a competition in UK as complaint letter of the year.

A real-life customer complaint letter sent to NTL (to their complaints dept....)

Dear Cretins,

I have been an NTL customer since 9th July 2001, when I signed up for your
3-in-one deal for cable TV, cable modem, and telephone. During this three-month
period I have encountered inadequacy of service which I had not previously
considered possible, as well as ignorance and stupidity of monolithic
proportions. Please allow me to provide specific details, so that you can either
pursue your professional prerogative, and seek to rectify these difficulties -
or more likely (I suspect) so that you can have some entertaining reading
material as you while away the working day smoking B&H and drinking
vendor-coffee on the bog in your office:

My initial installation was cancelled without warning, resulting in my spending
an entire Saturday sitting on my fat arse waiting for your technician to arrive.
When he did not arrive, I spent a further 57 minutes listening to your
infuriating hold music, and the even more annoying Scottish robot woman telling
me to look at your helpful website....HOW?

I alleviated the boredom by playing with my testicles for a few minutes - an
activity at which you are no-doubt both familiar and highly adept. The
rescheduled installation then took place some two weeks later, although the
technician did forget to bring a number of vital tools - such as a drill-bit,
and his cerebrum. Two weeks later, my cable modem had still not arrived. After
15 telephone calls over 4 weeks my modem arrived... six weeks after I had
requested it, and begun to pay for it.

I estimate your internet server's downtime is roughly 35%... hours between about
6pm -midnight, Mon-Fri, and most of the weekend. I am still waiting for my
telephone connection. I have made 9 calls on my mobile to your no-help line, and
have been unhelpfully transferred to a variety of disinterested individuals, who
are it seems also highly skilled bollock-jugglers.

I have been informed that a telephone line is available  (and someone will call
me back); that no telephone line is available (and someone will call me back);
that I will be transferred to someone who knows whether or not a telephone line
is available (and then been cut off); that I will be transferred to someone (and
then been redirected to an answer machine informing me that your office is
closed); that I will be transferred to someone and then been redirected to the
irritating Scottish robot woman...and several  other variations on this theme.

Doubtless you are no longer reading this letter, as you have at least a thousand
other dissatisfied customers to ignore, and also another one of those crucially
important testicle-moments to attend to.  Frankly I don't care; it's far more
satisfying as a customer to voice my frustrations in print than to shout them at
your unending hold music. Forgive me, therefore, if I continue.

I thought BT were shit, that they had attained the holy piss-pot of god-awful
customer relations, that no-one, anywhere, ever, could be more disinterested,
less helpful or more obstructive to delivering service to their customers.
That's why I chose NTL, and because, well, there isn't anyone else is there? How
surprised I therefore was, when I discovered to my considerable dissatisfaction
and disappointment what a useless shower of bastards you truly are. You are
sputum-filled pieces of distended rectum incompetents of the highest order.

British Telecom - wankers though they are - shine like brilliant beacons of
success, in the filthy puss-filled mire of your seemingly limitless inadequacy.
Suffice to say that I have now given up on my futile and foolhardy quest to
receive any kind of service from you. I suggest that you cease any potential
future attempts to extort payment from me for the services which you have so
pointedly and catastrophically failed to deliver - any such activity will be
greeted initially with hilarity and disbelief quickly be replaced by derision,
and even perhaps bemused rage. I enclose two small deposits, selected with great
care from my cats litter tray, as an expression of my utter and complete
contempt for both you and your pointless company. I sincerely hope that they
have not become desiccated during transit - they were satisfyingly moist at the
time of posting, and I would feel considerable disappointment if you did not
experience both their rich aroma and delicate texture. Consider them the very
embodiment of my feelings towards NTL, and its worthless employees.

Have a nice day - may it be the last in your miserable short life, you
irritatingly incompetent and infuriatingly unhelpful bunch of twats.

John

NTL Broadband starts at £17.99 for 1 meg and does not require a 'phone line. Free install too.

I was on NTL last year and they were actually very good, though they did try and charge me 2 extra months for reasons I couldn't quite fathom..

Yeah I've heard some people have had problems. It's worked alright for us to be fair, lost connection a couple of times but normally just reset the router and it's fine.

Never had to call customer service luckily.

That is including phone as well though phone calls tend to be quite expensive compared to BT.

Think it's a bit more expensive if you're not a student though.

Download limit is 30 Great Britains's a month but to be honest we've gone over that and they don't care unless you're using more than twice that.

Whits - what's this plusnet like? Looks quite good.

good as gold, think its 21.99 for 512/256, they are slowly getting around to upgrading everyones speed but they are still unsure what to do, plans via bandwidth (download 45 gig a month at upto 8mb's) or just cap everyone and keep it simple (1mb). shall see what happens.

I've only ever had one problem but that was sorted within an hour so i can't fault them, the connection never hangs to which is a bonus because the router is downstairs and its a long way :D

been a happy customer for 4 years

I was having a gander on their site you see, it's £21.99 for 2mb they're advertising which isn't bad.

Has anybody seen the bulldog broadband?

yeah i've just been looking at that, maybe i should upgrade my modem so i can actually get those speeds  :-))(  :(

ahhh my exchange is being upgraded in july, fooking countryside  :evil:

Does anybody use a wireless router and have digital phones in their house? Will they interfere? The cordless phone didn't work when we got the router  :?

i have a wireless router and digi phones no probs at all

Cool just wanted to know, because my dad wants to skank the router when I finish uni in a years time  :-))(

for gods sake dont go with tiscali or ntl!

leaving tiscali took nearly 2 month through there fuck ups!  if i have to listen to another overseas operator ill fucking scream!

im now with a small british company called pipex
http://www.pipex.net/

probably not the cheapest but quick service and a britsh call center!
not racist just fed up when i cant get my point across as the person on the other end of the phone has know idea what im talking about!

pipex are cool ! also freedom to surf another smaller british firm get really good reviews!
hope this helps!

i'm with NTL, £17.99 1 meg unlimited d/l's.  Its ace, and even the customer service was too.  Needless to say, i'm quite happy with them...

tiscali costs £14.99 per month

I'm on BT Yahoo (2meg) with 3 pcs hooked up through a wireless router. Think we're paying £26.99/month which is a fair whack, but it's split between 3 of us and BT were the only provider offering a 9 month contract at the time.

The service has been excellent to be quite honest. We've only lost connection once in the 7 months we've had it.
The only problem I had was with some dodgy detailing of the offer but one 45min phone call later and there was £90 worth of equipment in the post for free.

We were supposed to have a 30gb limit but to date BT haven't imposed it.

We've got a wireless router based network, and corless phones, we've not had any probs as a result.

It's the old school cordless phones, you know with big arial thing you pull out  :soapy tit wank:

Stopped working when we fot the router, just checking expensive digi phones wouldn't do the same

Thanks for all the info there, and the letter was class too,
will get changed to broadband asap, cheers.

Might be worth investigating: http://www.bulldogbroadband.com/index.asp