For UK residents - need ISP advice

Although Tiscali claim to be unlimited, I've now had 3 'unfair usage' warnings from the company.

Their peak hours are 18:00-23:00 Mon to Sun! ...well I'm at work outside of those hours (apart from the weekend ). During that time usage should be restricted to '...normal Internet use only, e.g. browsing, emailing etc...'

Large file downloading, ie Second Life by the looks of it, can only be done during offpeak hours, when I'm at work lol...

..so is anyone in SL regularly for a number of hours, and not having issues with their ISP ?

...also which package are you using with the ISP ?

thanks!!

BT Business Broadband (Unlimited) does the trick for us Unfortunately probably the most expensive package, but since OH works from home it's worth it for us. And it just happens to make SL easy for me

I use Toucan, which is part of Pipex now and do get the 'fair usage' e-mails. I now get put onto a dual usage at peak times with other heavy users. Funny thing is, it actually seems to improve my connection rather than hinder me.

I do believe that BT do actually have real unlimited access. Often people aren't aware they are being limited in the peak hours and find they have problems logging into SL or problems when they get in.

I'm using BT Yahoo Option3 Unlimited. Costs about £25 a month. My wife and I both use SL a lot in the UK evening and weekends and our son plays other online 3D games, all on the same 8Mbit connection. Been using bandwidth at that rate for at least 6 months and never had any warnings about excessive use. I also upload several Gb every month to my websites.

Since changing from a wireless router to a wired network our packet loss is now always 0.0 and a frame rate of 44 FPS in most sims with every graphic option on. When using a wireless network even with good signal strength, we all suffered from packet loss, lag and crashes.

No complaints about my current service or performance. Hope this helps

Nick

I personally use Sky broadband, totally unlimited for £10 a month (if you have the tv) my ONLY complaint is that its constantly trying to get the best bandwidth which under normal use is ok... but when you are on SL .. you REALLLY dont want to have your connection cut while it resync's (only happens after 10 mb connection so 10 -16mb (ADSL2 is a bit flakey)

Otherwise good service no problems

I am with BT Broadband. I was on the lowest allowance @ £17.95 a month but got billed an extra £11+ for going over the limit in March (45GB). I do have 2 computers running a lot of the time. I have just upgraded to unlimited and am glad to hear that they do not seem to have a peak period.

Try UKFSN, Demon (the Home Office 8000 package), Pipex, Eclipse (the Evolution option 3 package). I've been with PlusNet for over 4 years. They were good, turned totally rubbish last year, blocked my attempts to leave and I only stayed after they switched me to a business account. I would not recommend PlusNet to anyone. Be sounds ideal for SL so long as you don't mind paying extra for options such as email(!) and fixed IP address. Basically you're looking at a minimum of £25/month. Anything cheaper just won't give you the kind of bandwidth you'll need for SL. Zen internet is good, but a bit more expensive.

For more info about ISP's visit... http://www.thinkbroadband.com/ formerly known as ADSLguide.

I've been on Option 1 for a while. Jus had my second warning that I'd gone over but they won't charge me this time .. LOL
Anyway, bit the bullet and upgraded to Option 3

Seems incredible that an 'Unlimited' ISP should complain of excessive usage .. being a physics technician it seems incredibly stupid that is.

I read some while back that IPSs sometimes in this situation secretly turn your latency down a bit.

All UK ISPs reselling BT's IPStream product are limited - even those selling themselves as unlimited! Pipex's *unlimited* service is *limited* to 100GB a month, but the service is abysmal. Demon limit you to 50GB on their 8MB ADSLMax package and reserve the right to change that limit without informing you. So it could go up or down and you could exceed it even though you thought you were using their service responsibly. With BT Broadband, Tiscali, etc., you should expect much lower limits.

To avoid this problem altogether (I also like to download films besides play SL) I switched to Be Unlimited (http://www.bethere.co.uk). It's an ADSL2+ service so you can attain speeds up to 24Mbps (1.3Mbps upstream) and it costs £24 UK pounds per month.

They do not do traffic shaping, their service is genuinely unlimited and they've never asked a single customer to restrict the amount they're downloading. They recognise the selling power this gives their product and intend to keep it that way.

How do they do this? Well they are an LLU ISP. That is, they install their own equipment in BT exchanges so they don't have to pay wholesale costs to BT. There is a downside to this: It might not be available unless you live close to a city centre, but you can visit Be*'s site and enter your postcode to check coverage.

Since I joined Second Life (over a year ago), I've used Pipex (2Mbps), Demon (8Mbps) and Be Unlimited (24Mbps), and the last of that bunch outperformances the others by miles - not just in terms of speed, but in low latency and consistent performance day and night. (It's *generally* uncontended, meaning speed doesn't drop at peak times.)

I can't sing their praises enough, hence this tome of a waffly post.

I am on Talk Talk broadband, £21 per month, free national calls to landlines included (well you pay for the phone, and the broadband is included, they say)

Never had problem with SL

Service isnt the best but i dont expect miracles for that price and package.

Yep BT Broadband Unlimited....more expensive than tiscali but for the amount of time Im online its worth every penny...whats the point in having an expensive computer and not being able to use it as/when/how you want to.

I know everyone likes to complain about NTL (Now Virgin Media) and they are probably not the cheapest provider but I have had no issues and as far as I know it is also unlimited. I am on the 4meg cable connection and over the last 3 years I have not had any reason to complain (total outage that I noticed probably about 3-4 days)


Cheers

Virgin Media is no longer unlimited. There's been considerable uproar about it in the media recently because the imposed limits are quite severe compared to other providers.

http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/digitaltv/a46103/virgin-to-cut-heavy-downloaders-speeds.html

To the OP: a good place to scope customer satisfaction with regards ISPs is Think Broadband. (http://www.thinkbroadband.co.uk) The site has built up a subscriber base of tens of thousands of users since its inception around 2000 (it was called ADSLGuide back then). I know I've always checked the ratings and forums on that site since first obtaining broadband in 2001. In fact, I'd highly recommend you ask your question in a general forum over there because you'll get the most qualified response based on numerous factors - not just one person's usage patterns, which may differ a lot from the next person's.

The limit on that particular 'unlimited' package is 65GB. We badly need better ISP regulation in this country because as far as I'm concerned, it's misselling. You'll notice information in the small print about the Fair Use Policy that kicks in if you download too much.

They get a rating of 2.5 out of 5 at ThinkBroadband.

Here's another useful link:

http://www.thinkbroadband.com/isps.html

No problems at any time with UK Online (www.ukonline.co.uk) and have been regular SL user for over a year.

thanks for all the replies guys .....bethere.co.uk is unfortunately in my area ....

the BT package .. I assume it is now called 'BT Total Broadband - Option 3' at ..well lets call it £24.99 a month really, ignoring there 'specials' ... thats the unlimited one, and if it is limited to 65GB .. well according to Tiscali I only downloaded 17.5GB over 2500 hours .. so I'm kinda well within that limit ... and its only £7 more than what Tiscali are charging me for a 2MB speed... (BT check reckons I'll be able to get 5MB..)

I haven't found their small print .... but would be a major breach of advertising code, when under their 'unlimited download page' they state :

'Option 3: UNLIMITED downloads. Perfect for taking advantage of everything broadband has to offer. Download movies and music, play games online, watch video clips and listen to the radio – all with no limits. '

..at the moment this looks the one..... thanks all!!

Another vote for BT option 3... been with them for years. Little on the expensive side but no download limits, got the BT hub linked by ethernet to main PC and wireless to laptop with no problems, and with the BT hub phone you've got free UK evening and weekend calls and I can phone my brother in the US for 1.25p a minute (I could even phone the LL support line at that price too if needed).

You also get 250 inclusive wi-fi minutes a month, which you can use with the BT hotspots as well as t-mobile (this gives you internet access at any McDonalds and Starbucks in the country, as well as other places that you might actually WANT to get your laptop out in!).

I did try accessing SL through wireless access at Euston Station last week... I don't reccommend it! Public hotspots just don't have the capacity....

It's not an advertising breach according to OFCOM, provided they give other information in the small print. And here it is (this is for option 3: Unlimtied):



Focus on the last three words. It has been established at various sites, that BT's Option 3 Fair Usage Policy kicks in (and you start receiving warning letters) once you download 65GB within any 30 day period.

As I said above, we need better regulation of ISPs because the way they band around the term 'unlimited' when they're *really* selling limited (and often traffic shaped) packages is absolutely outrageous.

I'm very happy with Virgin Media cable (ex-NTL).

Their recently-introduced limits are scored daily from 4pm-midnight, I think on the middle 4mb package it's in the region of 750mb during that time triggers the stuff. The effect of hitting that limit in any one day is that your speed gets reduced until midnight - down to 2mbit on the 4mbit, not sure about the others. AFAIK, it is not a "you are a bad person" situation - they're not going to threaten to cut you off or whatever, your connection just slows down.

Given that SL's bandwidth cap slider only goes up to 1500kbit (i.e. ~1.5mbit) anyway, there wouldn't be any meaningful effect to SL if you did run in to that cutoff. Either I'm never hitting the limiter, it's not yet implemented in my area, or I'm hitting it and simply not being aware of it. I might try beating the tar out of my connection this evening and then trying SL / Joost and see if there's any tangible degradation of service, and run some proper speed tests.

(It's a generally good idea to leave your Big Downloads, legitimate or otherwise, to off-peak hours - as a kindness to your "network neighbours". Before coming to work today, I got my xbox360 to start work on downloading a few gigs worth of game demos and trailer vids - they'll all be done before 4pm, so it's not going to register on this limiter cap thing.)

Hi.

We use Demon, and have been doing for just under a year now. The speeds we get is really good, I do recommend them.

Good luck on your search.

http://www.demon.net

I would advise checking out this forum

http://bbs.adslguide.org.uk/

I have been with telewest cable, ntl, bt and virgin, and if its not cable ... there are serious problems with ADSL speeds at night across the board ... apart from "be" probably who are 24mbps

due to contention on the networks of the various adsl broadband companies, this forum details the woes of various broadband users, but after about an hour of reading you can generally find out the one that might suit you

I am with virgin adsl at the minute .. it has its problems, but a visit to the virgin adsl forums and a posting by someone there alleviated a lot of my hassle with slow speeds

I used to have BT unlimited and didn't have any issues with "fair use" but the customer service and tech support was the worst I've ever experienced. Not to mention the downtime was a lot more frequent than anyone would like.

I have UK online unlimited 8mb download (£20/month) and not a single issue with them. 24/7 tech support who were the only ones to decipher what a router in American was.

I spend a large number of hours in SL - since thats what I do for a living. I also play a lot of MMOs, mostly betas where you have to download the full game and frequent patches. Loads of uploading to my website and hubbie's 2 band websites. Not to mention a lot of downloads of network American TV - I figure if it's free to watch there it should be free for me

Whne I first moved across the pond, every ISP except for America Online (yuck) only had download limits. Now it seems that they still have them, but call it unlimited with a "fair use" clause. That's almost as wrong as how they push usb modems onto every customer, which means they may pay for 8mb but connection from computer to the modem is around 10mbps. SL doesn't support wireless, yet my laptop has a faster connection of 54mbps then those things.

I use Nildram and have never had a problem.

Their web-based e-mail is very poor, though.

Looks like i'm the odd one out .... or am i ??

I use AOL premium 8 Meg .... I have 2 desktops hard wired and laptop running wireless 24/7 Cost's me £25 a month and i have never had an unfair usage whatsit in my life

The only time i ever had any issues with AOL was while they upgraded my connection from 2 meg to 8meg ( For free btw ) I had about 3 weeks of unstable connection while they worked on the line...since then ... runs like a dream

Its funny , If i ever tell somone im with AOL they allways say the same thing " Hmmm AOL i herd they are crap ...the software is a hog " Well i can tell you from experience ... they are far from it

I have never put AOL software near my PC's , i just fired up the NETGEAR router they sent , Connect it to my phoneline and PC's ( they sent 3 by mistake too hahah ) and configure it manualy ( so no need for the software ) and off i go .

I never have a problem ... my connection is on 24/7... its fast all of the time ... i got 2 brand new NETGEAR routers that they sent by mistake ...all for £25 a month

I'm on a 4MB NTL/Virgin cable connection. I d/l about 2 - 4 GB per day and run SL without any restriction.