A good isp that does not block or cap and is UK based

[Pasquin0]

Unfortunately after one year of free DLD I have become aware of restrictions for DLD and UPL by numerous ISP providers in UK

I wonder if anyone is using ISP providers that allows DL or UL without restrictions in UK

Please let me know!

If we are going to be many that may change, ISP providers are going to loose far too many customers because of their restrictions than maybe we will have better chance to survive.

[..Ñøßߥ..]

Unfortunately after one year of free DLD I have become aware of restrictions for DLD and UPL by numerous ISP providers in UK

I wonder if anyone is using ISP providers that allows DL or UL without restrictions in UK

Please let me know!

If we are going to be many that may change, ISP providers are going to loose far too many customers because of their restrictions than maybe we will have better chance to survive.

I guess it depends what you mean by restrictions, i have a 2mb connection with British Telecom, its not the fastest available, and its sure not the cheapest, but in the 6months ive had it, ive yet to notice any outages, its reliable and the only "restriction" is a monthly limit, i think is 40gig (more than plenty for me)  as i am on a residential package, you can always plump for the business package which i beleive to be totally uncapped. I also have a 2mb connection at my office, its runs fast and smooth, never had a noticeable outage, so BT get my recommendation. You might also note BT are upgrading their service as we speak with 8mb soon to be available in many areas, also with a super 800k plus UL capability, not sure on what packages and at what price, but worth a look for sure.

[KM]

BT... you're lucky that quicks and me_here are offline because of BT's crap service otherwise they would have pounced on you for recommending them... lol

Personally use telewest, who are regarded as one of the best ISPs in the country, not only do they offer faster connections but they do not suddenly decide "you used more than we wanted, here is a huge bill for £200, pay up or get cut off, your choice" like certain ISPs do *cough* *cough* BT *cough* - they are also cheap as well... most ISPs charge more for a 2Mbit connection with usage limits than telewest charge for 4Mbit with no usage limit...

Only other ISP who offers anything similar to telewest are NTL, but they have a reputation for bad service - apparently they have recently removed the monthly usage limits and decided instead to start using "traffic shaping" (meaning stopping you from being able to do things that use any bandwidth) although they are in the transition stage atm

[..Ñøßߥ..]

lol KM, and for most of the country who dont live in the telewest area??

I was an ntl customer, i switched to BT

Perhaps Ghost & Mehere forgot to slip the BT engineer a little brown envelope? 

[Bearded Blunder]

*waits to see if NTL do start shaping in my area* apart from that, i've had a ton of short outages hopefully this is settled down now, in fairness to them, they have done a lot of work to their network & increased speeds & bandwith limits (increased rather than actually removed but i seem to be coping with a 75 Gig limit)..

Since NTL & Telewest have now merged http://www.telewest.co.uk/announcement/merger_completion.html it's moot if they won't traffic shape too as NTL are alleged to (personally i've seen no evidence)

Members of my family have had endless strife with BT......

at this point in time, i'm unwilling to make any firm recommendation of anyone...

[TheMacDaddy]

Correction 

Bulldog Broadband are a good isp which is now building in reliability

For as little as £29.99 a month you get your phone line and a 8 meg down and 60kbs up always on connection
There are no user limits either

This company is also on the verge of releasing there 24 meg down 1.3 meg up package

check them out and see what you think

www.bulldogbroadband.com

Also another one i am looking at is

Be There

This company now has 24 meg down and 1.3 meg up running already but there is the issue as to if they cover your area where you live
You can check these out here

https://www.bethere.co.uk/

The price there showing as of posting this is £24 a month

Downside is you need a bt phone line as this company only provides the internet service

[KM]

Telewest and NTL merging did get a lot of telewest users worried, however they promised that they would keep them separate... have to see how much of a lie that turns out to be, lol

Only time will tell what will happen with the best ISP in the country and the second worst ISP in the country merging... (wouldn't class NTL as the worst... at least they don't demand that all customers have viruses installed on their computer like a certain american ISP that is on a mission to destroy computers all over the world) but if they try anything with me then they are going to regret it... lol

Bulldog has had a good launch, however time will tell what happens with them once they become more established, currently they have a new network with a small number of users on - once they get more and more customers on they will start to realise problems and it's how they respond to them that everyone will have to see... they are seriously pushing the limits in terms of low cost and they probably will not be able to sustain it especially with their current policy of trying to get all of the heavy users...

[..Ñøßߥ..]

at least they don't demand that all customers have viruses installed on their computer like a certain american ISP that is on a mission to destroy computers all over the world) but if they try anything with me then they are going to regret it... lol

hmmm i wonder which isp he could be talking about surely not the ever wonderous aol? 

[KM]

* KM waits for ghostship to post "oh, we had problems with bulldog so couldn't get online with them... so we are using AOL instead" that would leave me laughing for hours

[..Ñøßߥ..]

lol

[GhostShip]

AOL are dropping market share and have alwys been on my "never" list because i for one dont require my windows setup destroyed to accomodate a nanny service from AOL also I dont like them deciding what sites I can and cannot connect to, as they curently do to many of their customers.

I have connected to Bulldog ok and it looks like I have done ok out of the move.
BT are of course in sour grapes mode and are trying to obtain money they are not entitlted to by saying as the line was suspended I have to pay for it , a suspension is by definition a temporary event, they made it clear the service was never going to be re-activated and therefore I call that a ceasation of service not a suspension.

Still I will have to pay the extortion money to keep my good name ,,over many months   

The moral of the story is this : if your ISP suddenly changes terms and conditions like BT did then drop them like a lead brick, as they are taking your cash under false pretences, offering a service they have no wish to provide.

[ñòóKýçrÕôK]

OK *steps up to podium* As an AOL user I will say that I hear people whine EVERYDAY about AOL service and their practices YET, funny enough, I have YET to find a webpage I cannot visit, or a file I cannot download. Could it be that the whiners just do NOT know how to keep their computers clean??
Could be, since the most of the complaints seem to be about AOL connectivity issues. Of which I have NONE, NADA, NILL, NOT. Call it bragging, call it whatever. I have a more stable connection than most users of broadband simply due to the fact I BELIEVE because I keep my pc cleaner than the "acverage" user. Someone please point out to me the viruses that my ISP forces me to put on my computer. I consider myself to be an educated user and as such I say that YOU as a user have the responcibilty for the wellbeing of your machine. Personally I never install anything that I suspect has the potential to harm my pc. Personally I don't think not one pc user should be allowed to connect online until they take some sort of class on internet protection and safety and PASS it.I am also willing to bet that 95.9999% of most pc troubles these days originate in spyware, malware, or virus oriented programs. Another 2% in driver issues or driver compatability with other drivers in other programs (such as Windows Defender and Tiny Firewall Service don't seem to work well with each other). The other 2.0001% most likely fall into the catagory of operater error such as deleting program files instead of uninstalling programs propperly. My point to this whole little rant of mine is that, If YOU as a USER wish to put something on a "don't do" list or label something as hazzardous then do your homework at best or simply TRY the suspect program. Otherwise don't knock it till you try it because personally you can optimise almost anything for a better performance. AOL included. As for a bandwidth cap I am on dialup so I cannot say except that I have never had a file I couldn't get in 1 way shape or form if I wanted it bad enough. And you also MUST remember to call a dandelion a rose does NOT make it a rose (meaning several viruses out there use similar names as certain AOL software drivers so that they can corrupt your aol service). This is also true with Nortons Antivirus, McAfee Antivirus(however it's spelled), Avast Antivirus(my personal choice being Avast Pro), and yes AVG (good but not as good as Avast Pro in my belief). As the operator of your computer it is YOUR personall responciibilty to protect your pc for it's own optimal output. AOL is a good service dispite what many think. I've used it for several years and thanks to my own personal level of pc protection I seldom ever have problems with it. *steps down from podium*

[KM]

there are 2 problems users have with AOL:
1. the fact it forces you to use their software to be able to use the connection, that is by far the biggest problem as this does cause problems on many computers, and is extremely difficult to get rid of if you do decide you've had enough of it
2. the fact that once you do cancel, even if you do decide to reformat and reinstall everything on your computer to get a clean computer, you still then have to try and cancel the service - which in most cases means CHANGING YOUR BANK ACCOUNT! which is simply unacceptable to have to change your bank account to cancel

and before you try to deny either of those, i have seen AOL software alone fuck up a clean system, and i am not aware of a single person that has canceled AOL without having to either change bank account numbers or get the bank to block payments (asking the bank to block payments is of course the easiest option however many banks refuse for some reason, leaving a change of account as the only way to get off of AOL)

never heard anyone saying the connections are bad or unstable (unless you insluce the unstable system you get as a result of using their software) however using any other ISP without those 2 other major flaws will get you the same quality connection (just without the forced transparent proxies in most cases) - it is expected to have uninterrupted connections with no downtime nowadays (although personally i think the couple of times that my ISP has shut the connection down for maintainence at like 4am is more than reasonable)

[ñòóKýçrÕôK]

I have never tried to cancel their service so I cna't comment on that at all. As for other all I can say is I have used it for years and I almost never have any problems from it.

[GhostShip]

I have spent hours removing AOL software and restoring settings on two or three machines, they are the only company I have come across that do this.
As for the not filtering issue...

http://news.com.com/AOL+charged+with+blocking+opponents+e-mail/2100-1030_3-6061089.html

http://www.bandzoogle.com/blog/blogposts/aol-blocking-emails-1423.cfm

And as KM mentioned, "borrowing" folks money ...

http://news.com.com/5208-1030-0.html?forumID=1&threadID=16031&messageID=136784&start=-1

and just for fun

http://anti-aol.org/aol/evil.shtml     


I hope folks can see why we are not fans of the lock in software that they provide.