Which Broadband ISP?

[Elton]

Mat Hillman:

 

for example I have my broadband with BT,

LOL! And who do you work for?

 

Err, what news server do you use for BT broadband?

 

atb,

 

Elton

[rickster]

i have AoHELL sorry i mean AOL broadband, its ok but nothing special and VERY expensive for what you get. if its mainly text based browsing you do then i belive tiscali does a 128k a 150k a 256k and so on. If you stay with them and find the 128k is not fast enough or if peggy hosts her website from home you can always increase the speed of the line however you wont be able to decrease the speed. Another thing to look at is some ISPS have no implemented a bandwidth cap bt is 1 gig i think, seems alot but if hosting a site its nothing, i use about 2 gig for my site a month.

 

sorry if its not much help steve but keep away from AOL

[Mat Hillman]

Elton:

LOL! And who do you work for?

 

Err, what news server do you use for BT broadband?

 

atb,

 

Elton

Well as I occasionally delve into the murkier side of the net, MP3s, file sharing etc I thought it prudent not to use my employer for my connectivity

 

news.btopenworld.com works fine for me, although as I understand it officially it's not supposed to!

[Elton]

Hmmm....that's not working for me. It downloads the groups, but not the news itself

[Mat Hillman]

I assume you are using turnpike for newsgroups ? if it is downloading the list, then the server is giving you access. Maybe the BT server doesn't support NEWNEWS ? (i'm guessing here) try switching that option off in Turnpike.

[Steve Burke]

Thanks everyone, please keep the advice coming!

 

Bulldog isn't as good value as it first appears as the price doesn't include e-mail. 2 e-mail addresses cost about £5 per month extra.

 

I still have the e-mail problem with Tiscali which I can clear manually. I e-mailed Tiscali several days ago but had no reply. Is this typical?

[Mat Hillman]

www.adslguide.org.uk is an excellent website to compare various providers, they also have specific forums for each ISP, so you can check out what other users are saying about them too if you have time ;-)

 

Mat

[corydoras]

I'd go for Demon. You get a fixed IP address, handy if you want to host your own http server one day.

[Newt]

Steve - I'm working with a UK guy on the www.windowsbbs.com forum - he was having problems with his home network - and found out his ISP only allowed the use of a USB modem (so a USB connection from modem to PC) which meant the cheap, easy fix wasn't possible.

 

Nothing really wrong with a USB modem I suppose but if you want to run a router/switch at your home to allow multiple PCs on a single account and do some other good things, the USB device is around 3 times more expensive than the more usual sort and harder to get help with. And USB networking is about 50 times harder to troubleshoot than ethernet (with the standard network cards).

 

Make sure the ISP you choose will allow ethernet connection to their modem.

 

[ 11. June 2004, 03:32 PM: Message edited by: Newt ]

[davidP]

Most of the home broadband packages in the UK seem to insist on USB connection. I suspect it's because the vast majority of PCs have USB whilst only a comparatively small number have ethernet cards, so it's much easier for the ISPs. When I was looking around for my package some of the ISPs told me I was specifically not allowed to connect more than 1 PC onto a home USB package, and if I wanted to connect more machines I had to buy a more expensive package. Fortunately I found a router specifically designed with a USB socket to accept the connection from a USB modem.

http://www.draytek.co.uk