Frostbite,
I've recently signed up with Pipex. Was with Freeserve since the start of the free ISP, but Pipex broadband is cheaper than FS Broadband, which is why i defected. Currently £23.44 a month, but you have to pay a one off set up fee of £17.57, whereas with FS it's free.
So far I've had no probs with Pipex, and I can still use my previous FS email addresses.
www.solo.pipex.net
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A friend is dumping BT after a horrendous year of their broadband. I have ruled out Tiscali & AOL as replacement but will be interested to hear of good experiences with other ISPs.
If you have Telewest in your area then go for Blueyonder broadband. I've been with them for quite a few years now and upgraded to their broadband about two years ago. No problems, and good service has been my experience.
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Demon Internet
£25 a month, inc VAT, with no limits on downloads. pop3 and webmail, plus a nifty service that offers fax-to-email. They give you a fax number and it can be used from any normal fax machine--the fax arrives as an email attachment. Free for the first year, then a one-off payment of £20.
Always a quick response to e-mailed tech questions and no service breaks in the last eight months that I know of. They've been great.
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I am on dial up at home and was considering tiscali broadband only because we need to have the phone line available, speed and cost is not a major problem and the freeserve dial up at home is I find not that much slower than the BT broadband at work. .
I wonder why you guys appear to be ruling tiscali out?
Any ideas on the following problem. I have a 5 amp fuse in the plug of my computer and when starting up it is blowing. I'm not sure whether it is a computer or an electrical problem.
I did have it on a double plug , one plug of which has an extension lead with five sockets for all the bits including monitor , printer , etc and the only fuse that blows is the one to the PC. I have now taken the PC plug to the second plug of the double socket but it makes no difference so the machine is left running 24/7 at the moment.
When I moved in I had a second double socket installed in the same room ( currently running a small television )which the electrician took the power from the back of the existing double socket.
He has to come back to do further work so I can get it sorted if its electrical or do you think its the computer?
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It's most likely something to do with the computer, or with the lead itself. The electrical current that blows the fuse will only flow when the PC is on and only up to the level the PC is drawing, so it's not as if the mains socket is pushing too much power into the PC - quite the opposite. If there's a short circuit in the lead, that could also cause it - has it been nibbled by family pets or kinked recently? :)
Best bet will be to try another kettle lead and see if that works -you could also try the computer in another plug socket just to satisfy yourself that that's where the problem lies.
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I'd go with Kuang. Get the kettle lead changed asap and see if that makes a difference.
If that doesn't make a difference, take the computer to another socket, pref. in a different room and see if the same still happens. I can't see that it will, but it'll make you feel better.
Have you added anything extra to the PC itself ? Is the screen driven by its own power supply or by the PC ? If its a separate lead, swap them over and see what happens.
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Thanks Kuang for the suggestions - There does seem to be a surge from the PC on starting up which is when the fuse goes . AnywayI will try another lead at the weekend as it is possible that the existing one has been kinked behind the cupboard I built recently to conceal all the computer bits.
I may have possibly compressed or kinked the lead between cupboard and wall - no family pets to blame.
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Blimey! That's a lot of amps! I actually did some tests on my own PC setup with an accurate ammeter. I'm running an overclocked P4 running at 3.5ghz, + 2x Hard disks and a large 17" CRT display, and with that lot running I get a reading of just 0.88 amps, or 212watts. Technically, I could get away with a one-amp fuse, and still run everything okay. Actually, I've got a 3 amp fuse installed, and even with a scanner and printer turned on there's no probs.
Your probs could be related to voltage "spikes", but I would have thought it would have affected other fuses. Dunno ..
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"0.88 amps, or 212watts"
Not at power up time you dont. It spikes higher than this when turned on.
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Re the plug blowing - on some older computers, power for the monitor was taken from the base unit. If that's your setup, try a separate lead fron plug to monitor - this will reduce power on spike
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Well the replacement lead seems to have cured the fuse blowing problem . I've fired her up four times on the trot without a problem so many thanks for the help and advice.
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A friend is dumping BT after a horrendous year of their broadband. I have ruled out Tiscali & AOL as replacement but will be interested to hear of good experiences with other ISPs.
why was it horrendous only ask as it may match the problems i had which were solved with a new modem from bt i now have the latest venturer modem about the size of 20 international style cigarrettes with three teardrop shaped status lights on top its a silver grey coloured unit the older black larger venturer modem had many problems . tell bt (dont ask tell ) he needs the new modem as the old modem is faulty , they gave me one without having to sign up again and i am still with them because of the improvement.
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Thanks for the replies so far - confirms my impression that Pipex and Demon might be the ones to suggest.
KTD - basically, the connection dropped evry few minutes or even seconds! BT said they had tested the line several times, whatever that means. The modem is the older black one, so would be interested to hear what the problems were.
Re Tiscali - I have read so many adverse comments on ALL aspects of their bb 'service', many on their own forums, that I would not consider them at half the price.
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Can confirm Robbie' remarks re Telewest . Have used their dial up Surf Unlimited for couple of years now. Is unbeatable 24/7 connection for (just gone up by £1 this month) to £13.99 inc.vat.During this time have had only two occasions when have had problems getting connection and disconnects are v.rare indeed. I do not think any of the other ISPs can come near them for reliability.
Now has V92 protocol in action which gives you the ability to take voice calls whilst surfing without breaking connection. This needs Caller i.d. + Call Waiting enabled (these are £1pm each) Someone calls you while you are connected. you get popup window tells you who is calling . you have choice to accept call or decline and if you accept you get 4mins.conversation before the web connection drops out.If you finish the voice call inside the time frame you just go back to the web without losing the connection. Solves problem of people not being able to get through to you at half cost of cheapo 150 k broadband and you get full 56k on download speeds TW also do 1mbps for £35 and 2mbpsd for £55.
No connection with TW Just satisfied customer.
Happy Surfing Phil I
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Regrettably, there are no cable options in the area I'm looking at.
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Before your friend goes through the hassle of switching Broadband ISP it sounds as though his problem is a hardware/setup issue and not specific to his ISP - hence if he doesn't resolve these issues he'll have the same problem whoever he is with.
- Who supplied his modem? If BT then they should support it otherwise not
- The line test performed by BT means that as far as they are concerned his line is fine, thus this sounds like a modem/setup issue as I said
- Which BT offering does he have 'BTBroadband' or 'BT Yahoo Broadband' (formerly BT Openworld Broadband)?
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I'm with Martin, there is an immediate assumption that a faulty connection must be the ISPs fault when quite often it is bad config of the computer (or even user error!)
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Have you tried using BT's website for troubleshooting? Useless.
They have been having problems with mail authentication the last couple of days. The only way you can find that out is by calling a call centre in India who give you an 0800 number with a recorded message. Absolutely ridiculous. Why not put a message on the website, for goodness sake?
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I have been with BT Broadband since it started and have had no problems at all.
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I have been with BT Broadband since it started and have had no problems at all.
me too i just dont understand the bill, i seem to be charged $68 every quarter is that not plus VAT? connection wise BT's fine i just need someone to explain the complacated bills? 4 pages of no sense...
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I have around 200 people using BTOpenWorld - very rarely do we have an issue, and its normaly not BTOW's fault when we do.
Their admin is still awful though.
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The only way you can find that out is by calling a call centre in India who give you an 0800 number with a recorded message. Absolutely ridiculous.
The idea is you call the 0800 number before the call centre. The recorded message is to tell you if there are known problems to save you the bother of ringing the call centre.
Why not put a message on the website, for goodness sake?
You mean like the one at tinyurl.com/25er2 last updated at 6.02 this evening? It does mention that very problem!
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As I've said I'm not with BT, but a neighbour is. He's been struggling with this problem for several days now and couldn't find anything on the site to say what the problem is. Try finding that page from the home page when you're unfamiliar with the site. You have to go through the greyed-out "help" link at the bottom of the page, which looks like something to do with the conditions of service. The page you want is actually two pages away from the home page. Compare that with the Demon.net page where the network status link is right there on the menu, or Nildram, where the "support area" is right there and clearly labeled on the front page.
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I can\'t understand why anyone goes with Freeserve or BT, AOL is by far the worst. Nildram,Eclipse or Pipex provide a much better service at a cheaper rate.
Also don\'t be surprised if you get a poor connection with \"Free/Provided\" USB ADSL modems as they use your computers processing power and are slower than a proper ADSL router.
If you want information about ADSL ISP\'s go to www.adslguide.org.uk
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Quite carl_a. Not to mention with a router (running some version of Linux no doubt), you won't get a virus as soon as you install the OS.
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Frostbite, no matter which ISP your friend chooses, the line is still the same, and is provided by BT wholesale. So if it's a problem with the line, it will still be there when your friend switches ISP.
I've had broadband for almost 4 years now. Started of with BTOpenwoe and switched to Plus.net last year. Was paying £29.99 to BT, and pay £18.99 to Plus for the same service, with better support.
Have to say, in the 3 years I had Openwoe, I was only without a connection twice, which isn't bad performance at all.
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Quite carl_a. Not to mention with a router (running some version of Linux no doubt), you won't get a virus as soon as you install the OS.
Only if you buy and install one that has a firewall. Plus a good one (Netgear, SMC) are a doddle to set up.
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Yes, should have mentioned that, though most domestic ADSL routers have firewalls built-in. They are indeed a doddle to set up.
Note to self: never post when drunk.
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