Best internet provider in sydenham?

[butters]

Hi All

Any recommendations for the best internet provider in the area? Currently with virgin, but the service craps out on the regular and the traffic is too high on weekend evenings so hardly any signal at all.

All advice gratefully received! Need something with some oomph as we are big on streaming/gaming.

[Parker1970]

Virgin is known to over-subscribe sadly.

Avoid TalkTalk they have the worst customer support reputation of all of them.

To be honest, most other ISP's use BT's network anyway. Personally I find it better to use BT as you won't get bounced from pillar to post by your ISP blaming BT and BT blaming your ISP

Sadly, where I am in Sydenham is on an exchange line so I cannot get Fibre. I currently have regular broadband (around 7MB download) but I stream just fine and I am aslo an avid MMORPG player (World of Warcraft, Diablo, Star Trek Online etc) and don't have any issues at all with my connection. The only thing that takes a while is the initial download and/or expansions.

PlusNet have a very good reputation, they are a subsiduary of BT but PlusNet's prices are better and also have a reward program for bring them more customers. One of my developers at work pays next to nothing for his fibre connection because his reward schemes discount it so much due to the people he has sent PlusNet's way

[monkeyarms]

Hi All

Any recommendations for the best internet provider in the area? Currently with virgin, but the service craps out on the regular and the traffic is too high on weekend evenings so hardly any signal at all.

All advice gratefully received! Need something with some oomph as we are big on streaming/gaming.

ha, did you have the same Dark Ages night that we did last night?

[prehensile]

I use Zen; not especially cheap (and not FTTC in Sydenham, either), but
1) they're not total bastards (like Virgin or BT),
2) they don't oversubscribe, and retention is low,
3) they seem to have a department whose job it is to kick BT's arse,
4) their tech support don't assume you're an idiot, and often you'll be talking directly to an engineer.
Been a customer for a few years now, nothing but good things. Was with Virgin before then - never, ever again.

[monkeyarms]

My problem with Virgin is very very simple: we completely lose internet access far too often. When we lose access, we lose access for a whole day or whole night. I work from home, so it's unacceptable. I used to quite like the excuse to take my laptop to a cafe or pub with WiFi for a bit, but it now happens about once a month, so it's not funny anymore.

[stuart]

I use Zen; not especially cheap (and not FTTC in Sydenham, either)

I'm with Zen on FTTC on the 8778 exchange so that's not entirely true. Been with them 10+ years after a disasterous time with BT.

I run a business that is entirely reliant on high speeds & 99.99% uptime. Zen delivers this though not cheaply plus it provides static IPs and multiple IPs if you need them. It has a support desk cleverer than me which is always reassuring though seldom used unless I'm reconfiguring something.

The only real alternative for this level of service for small business/high end residential is A&A (
http://www.aaisp.net.uk) who also have a passion for privacy (and embarrassing Home Office ministers).

Both these use Openreach for the last mile. IMHO they are a lot better at managing Openreach than BT which is sort of ironic. But the backhaul and peering is different and provides a performance and reliability BT Internet uses would die for.

Technically fibre to the door or cable should be better. But Virgin consistently show how you can screw it by being too greedy punting unlimited into a too limited network with techs who mostly can't do more than follow a script.

But Zen & A&A are overkill if you want to save money and are prepared to use mobile internet as a backup.

Stuart

[alywin]

Well, watch out for mobile too: I'm on mobile broadband (long story), and it's been rubbish the last few evenings - keeps putting me on to EDGE, which is dire. As for streaming, frequently you can forget it.

[butters]

My problem with Virgin is very very simple: we completely lose internet access far too often. When we lose access, we lose access for a whole day or whole night. I work from home, so it's unacceptable. I used to quite like the excuse to take my laptop to a cafe or pub with WiFi for a bit, but it now happens about once a month, so it's not funny anymore.

Thanks for responses all. And agree monkeyarms, its made working from home impossible. let alone try and stream a movie on a Saturday night or god forbid log on to online gaming!