[Hampshire] [OT] BT Broadband?!
Hello folks I find myself being tempted away from the reliable plainness of UKFSN/Entanet broadband towards the glossy excitement of BT broadband. For these reasons: * I need a new wifi router anyway, and I'll get a free one with BT. * It will probably be cheaper once the free UK landline calls and other goodies are factored in. * They offer lots of free wifi hotspots via BT Fon and BT Openzone, which will be of interest to me if I get a smartphone or tabletty thing. Has anyone used BT Fon? Is it any good? I have experience of wrestling with BT Broadband customer support on behalf of customers -- it's often not fun. But on the other hand, for a lot of people BT Broadband is very reliable. What does the team think? Would moving to BT be a mistake? cheers Chris -- Chris Dennis cgden...@btinternet.com Fordingbridge, Hampshire, UK -- Please post to: Hampshire@mailman.lug.org.uk Web Interface: https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/hampshire LUG URL: http://www.hantslug.org.uk --
Re: [Hampshire] [OT] BT Broadband?!
I find myself being tempted away from the reliable plainness of UKFSN/Entanet broadband towards the glossy excitement of BT broadband. There are many ISPs worthy of support. BT are not amongst them. * I need a new wifi router anyway, and I'll get a free one with BT. And numerous things won't work - don't expect to run SIP through it, for example. I'm sure there's a good reason for that; an incumbent telco wouldn't even dream of screwing up a communications system that competes with its service, would it? * It will probably be cheaper once the free UK landline calls and other goodies are factored in. If you want cheap phone calls, there are loads of ways to do it. Beating BT on price is dead easy - I can quote you for that, if you want. Be aware that BT's free calls come with strings attached - check the maximum duration, for example. * They offer lots of free wifi hotspots via BT Fon and BT Openzone, which will be of interest to me if I get a smartphone or tabletty thing. And you will become one of those hotspots. I have experience of wrestling with BT Broadband customer support on behalf of customers -- it's often not fun. But on the other hand, for a lot of people BT Broadband is very reliable. Of all the broadband-related callouts I've had, BT are the cause of almost all of them. I had one a few weeks ago, for example, where a customer was getting his outbound email rejected by BT's filters because his IP address had sent loads of spam. But this was a dynamically-allocated address, and the spam was nothing to do with him... What does the team think? Would moving to BT be a mistake? Ho yuss. There are a number of worse things you could do, but we probably shouldn't talk about things like that in polite company. Oh - and BT's DNS *sucks*. Vic. -- Please post to: Hampshire@mailman.lug.org.uk Web Interface: https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/hampshire LUG URL: http://www.hantslug.org.uk --
Re: [Hampshire] [OT] BT Broadband?!
Hi, On Thu, Jul 14 at 12:19, Chris Dennis wrote: * I need a new wifi router anyway, and I'll get a free one with BT. You can buy a wifi-adsl router for under a tenner online. I think the one BT gives you retails for about 25+VAT without the broken firmware. What does the team think? Would moving to BT be a mistake? I can't believe anyone would consider BT reliable. We're forced to use BT wholesale monopoly for a connection the vast majority of our problems are with BT's connection, our ISP has been 100%. Our line has slowly degraded from 6.5Mbps to 4 over the years. When we hit the action threshold for complaint/investigation someone in BT's central office hits a button that investigates and regrades our line with a lower threshold and they tick the box for repaired to customers satisfaction. -- Bob Dunlop -- Please post to: Hampshire@mailman.lug.org.uk Web Interface: https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/hampshire LUG URL: http://www.hantslug.org.uk --
Re: [Hampshire] [OT] BT Broadband?!
Hi Chris I certainly have very limited experience, but of the few people I have heard complain about unreliable broadband and / or routers, all were with BT. Knowing that when your business relies on broadband the most important criterion is that it works all the time, that alone would warn me off. Although I use Zen and am high in the price stakes because of it, it has performed perfectly and my Mum's allegedly high-speed virgin cable has only just started to offer a higher performance. So on cost I may save £10 a month at very best - that ain't worth one bit of down-time in a year for me. My wifi router came free from freecycle, so you might be lucky as well. Totally see the attraction of hotspots for your situation though - maybe you could always meet in a certain chain of coffee houses who have a membership deal? So for what it's worth even the hint of a reliability risk ain't worth the potential saving, but that may not be the same for you. Cheers -- Ed -- Please post to: Hampshire@mailman.lug.org.uk Web Interface: https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/hampshire LUG URL: http://www.hantslug.org.uk --
Re: [Hampshire] [OT] BT Broadband?!
On 14/07/11 12:19, Chris Dennis wrote: Hello folks I find myself being tempted away from the reliable plainness of UKFSN/Entanet broadband towards the glossy excitement of BT broadband. For these reasons: * I need a new wifi router anyway, and I'll get a free one with BT. * It will probably be cheaper once the free UK landline calls and other goodies are factored in. * They offer lots of free wifi hotspots via BT Fon and BT Openzone, which will be of interest to me if I get a smartphone or tabletty thing. Has anyone used BT Fon? Is it any good? I have experience of wrestling with BT Broadband customer support on behalf of customers -- it's often not fun. But on the other hand, for a lot of people BT Broadband is very reliable. What does the team think? Would moving to BT be a mistake? I use BeThere isp, good if they have equipment in your area. -- alan cocks Ubuntu user -- Please post to: Hampshire@mailman.lug.org.uk Web Interface: https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/hampshire LUG URL: http://www.hantslug.org.uk --
Re: [Hampshire] [OT] BT Broadband?!
On Thursday 14 July 2011 12:19:59 Chris Dennis wrote: Hello folks I find myself being tempted away from the reliable plainness of UKFSN/Entanet broadband towards the glossy excitement of BT broadband. For these reasons: * I need a new wifi router anyway, and I'll get a free one with BT. * It will probably be cheaper once the free UK landline calls and other goodies are factored in. * They offer lots of free wifi hotspots via BT Fon and BT Openzone, which will be of interest to me if I get a smartphone or tabletty thing. Has anyone used BT Fon? Is it any good? I have experience of wrestling with BT Broadband customer support on behalf of customers -- it's often not fun. But on the other hand, for a lot of people BT Broadband is very reliable. What does the team think? Would moving to BT be a mistake? cheers Chris BT FON/Openzone has by far the greatest coverage for Open hotspots. This is unmatched by even any areas with WISPs. I have conducted numerous wifi mappings of numerous towns and cities and can vouch for this. In Winchester alone, BTOpenZone/FON account for over 90% of the Open access points and have almost wall-to-wall coverage in both City and residential areas. The speeds of these FONs for you to use when away from home vary greatly. If you use someone who is in the sticks on a 2M connection, you will get a VERY small share of their bandwidth. If you hit an area with someone with a 20mbps connection, you would see fair speeds. I can not comment for their performance or reliability, as I never use them. Im a pure hater of BT personally, but being the big guns they are, they clearly have more resources. BT have poor customer service and subject their users to horrid DLM (the case for all 21CN/FTTC users even on other ISPs). I use AAISP personally, simply because they offer everything a geek needs to get a decent internet w/ both 21CN, BE L2TP over a Virgin Media link. The free router, access to FON and cheaper calls as part of a bundle is a tempting offer, and is probably the only good things BT have going for it in my personal opinion :-) - However, go for it. Order it online, or over the phone. That way you have the Distant Selling Act thing on your side. So if you don't like it, you have a statutory cooling off period. -- Please post to: Hampshire@mailman.lug.org.uk Web Interface: https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/hampshire LUG URL: http://www.hantslug.org.uk --
Re: [Hampshire] [OT] BT Broadband?!
On 14 July 2011 14:35, Ian Grody l...@grody.me.uk wrote: On Thursday 14 July 2011 12:19:59 Chris Dennis wrote: Hello folks I find myself being tempted away from the reliable plainness of UKFSN/Entanet broadband towards the glossy excitement of BT broadband. For these reasons: * I need a new wifi router anyway, and I'll get a free one with BT. * It will probably be cheaper once the free UK landline calls and other goodies are factored in. * They offer lots of free wifi hotspots via BT Fon and BT Openzone, which will be of interest to me if I get a smartphone or tabletty thing. Has anyone used BT Fon? Is it any good? I have experience of wrestling with BT Broadband customer support on behalf of customers -- it's often not fun. But on the other hand, for a lot of people BT Broadband is very reliable. What does the team think? Would moving to BT be a mistake? cheers Chris BT FON/Openzone has by far the greatest coverage for Open hotspots. This is unmatched by even any areas with WISPs. I have conducted numerous wifi mappings of numerous towns and cities and can vouch for this. In Winchester alone, BTOpenZone/FON account for over 90% of the Open access points and have almost wall-to-wall coverage in both City and residential areas. The speeds of these FONs for you to use when away from home vary greatly. If you use someone who is in the sticks on a 2M connection, you will get a VERY small share of their bandwidth. If you hit an area with someone with a 20mbps connection, you would see fair speeds. I can not comment for their performance or reliability, as I never use them. Im a pure hater of BT personally, but being the big guns they are, they clearly have more resources. BT have poor customer service and subject their users to horrid DLM (the case for all 21CN/FTTC users even on other ISPs). Speaks the man who's probably never had to deal with talktalk :-) -- Please post to: Hampshire@mailman.lug.org.uk Web Interface: https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/hampshire LUG URL: http://www.hantslug.org.uk --
Re: [Hampshire] [OT] BT Broadband?!
Hi, On 14/07/11 12:19, Chris Dennis wrote: What does the team think? Would moving to BT be a mistake? There are very few ISPs I would want to move to less than BT. The vast majority of friends that have asked me for help with broadband problems has been with BT. Their offshore customer service has been singled out as being particularly poor. To top this, it has recently become public that the BT Homehub allows BT access to your internal network: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/05/24/bt_snooping/ I would recommend IDNet.net as an ISP. They are the best service I've ever had and I miss them since I had to change to Virgin. The promise no blocking or throttling and no contention once your data reaches their network. Their customer service is based at their HQ in the UK and calls are answered by the engineers that run the service. On there pro home packages your line is registered as a business which puts you into the traffic priority class so you win even in the evenings. The best router I've ever had was a Draytek 2820n. Yes, it's a £150 router but it got me an extra 1.5Mb (5.5Mb, up from 4) over the figure I was getting with my old cheap modem. I would also recommend the following steps: * Get an XTE2005 filtered faceplate for your master socket from ADSLNation.co.uk (if your modem is connected to your master socket - filters not needed on the other sockets) * If not, use their XF-1e filters on all sockets. * If you have a Sky box either put a 2nd filter on it or disconnect it from the phone if you're out of your 12 month lock in. * Get one of their twisted-pair modem cables. Cheers, Paul. -- Please post to: Hampshire@mailman.lug.org.uk Web Interface: https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/hampshire LUG URL: http://www.hantslug.org.uk --
Re: [Hampshire] [OT] BT Broadband?!
I have been loving BT infinity, but might replace my router ad the older home hub is basic. Can't comment on much else, have not used BTFon really. Anton - Anton Piatek (sent from my phone, please excuse any typos) email: an...@piatek.co.uk blog/photos: http://www.strangeparty.com pgp: [74B1FA37] (http:// www.strangeparty.com/anton.asc) No trees were destroyed in the sending of this message, however, a significant number of electrons were terribly inconvenienced. On Jul 14, 2011 2:37 PM, Peter Andrijeczko peter.andrijec...@gmail.com wrote: Hi Chris Keeping it honest, I have BT Fusion with the Home Hub 2 and it's very reliable - I have the unlimited option at £25 a month but as a home worker my company pays for it anyway - so price is secondary to me. I had huge instability problems when I first got BT Broadband about 4 years ago, eventually the causes were found to be internal home cabling and the totally crap BT Home Hub 1 - the Home Hub 2 is much better, it still has a couple of firmware quirks but I don't think my service has been down more than one in the past 18 months, and I am a heavy user of broadband. As for FON, I'm opted into it, I'm in a semi-rural area so I don't think there are that many people that use my hotspot so I've not noticed any slowdown because of it - and the benefits of good coverage outweigh the opt in. BT are ABSOLUTELY TERRIBLE for support or whenever you need to change any of your services - but I've always found the services themselves to be fairly good. Regards Peter On 14 July 2011 14:14, alan c aecl...@candt.waitrose.com wrote: On 14/07/11 12:19, Chris Dennis wrote: Hello folks I find myself being tempted away from the reliable plainness of UKFSN/Entanet broadband towards the glossy excitement of BT broadband. For these reasons: * I need a new wifi router anyway, and I'll get a free one with BT. * It will probably be cheaper once the free UK landline calls and other goodies are factored in. * They offer lots of free wifi hotspots via BT Fon and BT Openzone, which will be of interest to me if I get a smartphone or tabletty thing. Has anyone used BT Fon? Is it any good? I have experience of wrestling with BT Broadband customer support on behalf of customers -- it's often not fun. But on the other hand, for a lot of people BT Broadband is very reliable. What does the team think? Would moving to BT be a mistake? I use BeThere isp, good if they have equipment in your area. -- alan cocks Ubuntu user -- Please post to: Hampshire@mailman.lug.org.uk Web Interface: https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/hampshire LUG URL: http://www.hantslug.org.uk -- -- Please post to: Hampshire@mailman.lug.org.uk Web Interface: https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/hampshire LUG URL: http://www.hantslug.org.uk --
Re: [Hampshire] [OT] BT Broadband?!
On Thursday 14 July 2011 16:40:48 Anton Piatek wrote: I have been loving BT infinity I seem to remember that envy is one of the seven deadly sins. Get thee behind me Satan. ;-) Lisi -- Please post to: Hampshire@mailman.lug.org.uk Web Interface: https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/hampshire LUG URL: http://www.hantslug.org.uk --
Re: [Hampshire] [OT] BT Broadband?!
On Thursday 14 July 2011 14:59:07 e-mail phillip.chandler wrote: Speaks the man who's probably never had to deal with talktalk You too? Even my husband knows what I think of TalkTalk, and will relay it to pushy salesmen! Lisi -- Please post to: Hampshire@mailman.lug.org.uk Web Interface: https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/hampshire LUG URL: http://www.hantslug.org.uk --
[Hampshire] [OT] BT Broadband?!
I've just moved to FTTC with Plus-Net. They are an independent part of BT but their support etc is all UK based. The OpenReach guy turned up right on time and after introducing himself he went off to the Cabinet to set up that end. After an hour he returned and replaced the BT Socket and checked the phone. With all that working, he did a line test and got 39.9Mbits steady from the exchange. PlutNet had sent me a Netgear Wireless Router. We connected it up to the modem, I changed the username/password and I was online. Initially I was still running at 4Mbits. I logged a support call and half an hour later my Download capacity and line speed went up. Soon I was getting 24Mbits. After a week, I can download files at a steady 4.2Mbytes/second. (Approx 35Mbits or so) The line has been rock solid so far. Am I pleased with the service? you bet. (grin) Stephen D -- Please post to: Hampshire@mailman.lug.org.uk Web Interface: https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/hampshire LUG URL: http://www.hantslug.org.uk --
Re: [Hampshire] [OT] BT Broadband?!
On 14 July 2011 17:38, Lisi hants...@googlemail.com wrote: On Thursday 14 July 2011 14:59:07 e-mail phillip.chandler wrote: Speaks the man who's probably never had to deal with talktalk You too? Even my husband knows what I think of TalkTalk, and will relay it to pushy salesmen! Unfortunately my experience of talktalk was far more worse. At the end of our 18 month contract they dragged their heals when we wanted to transfer to BT. The contract finished end of april, and we have only just had our BT phone for a week because of talktalk. So cheapest is (unfortunately) not always the best option. -- Please post to: Hampshire@mailman.lug.org.uk Web Interface: https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/hampshire LUG URL: http://www.hantslug.org.uk --
Re: [Hampshire] [OT] BT Broadband?!
On 14/07/2011 13:05, Bob Dunlop wrote: Hi, On Thu, Jul 14 at 12:19, Chris Dennis wrote: * I need a new wifi router anyway, and I'll get a free one with BT. You can buy a wifi-adsl router for under a tenner online. I think the one BT gives you retails for about 25+VAT without the broken firmware. I've got a Home Hub 1 somewhere - it worked at the beginning, and was useful when my original cheap replacement stopped working, but the Netgear I replaced that with has worked solidly ever since. BT Vision still works through it, and there is no danger of me becoming a FON hotspot. Home Hub was never as flexible as the Netgear, and hid lots of useful stuff in its arcane menu system. I've only tried FON itself a couple of times - in quite residential parts of Andover I got a couple of networks identified, but I only ever connected to one of them once with a tiny bandwidth, and the connection dropped terminally after 10 minutes. The broadband has been down twice. The first was when the extension cable from the phone socket to the router failed, and the other took BT support a short while to sort out - this Indian call centre was pretty efficient. I only went with BT because otherwise they'd have charged me £50 to remove my ISDN line. I've generally been happy, and keep on getting useful discounts to keep me that way. I get 6.5 Mbits on an 8Mbit line, which is good enough for me. The only real problem I have is that one of the BT-supplied Comtrend mains ethernet devices stopped working last night, but I've had it several years now. Time to put in a proper Cat5/6 cable in! Simon -- Please post to: Hampshire@mailman.lug.org.uk Web Interface: https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/hampshire LUG URL: http://www.hantslug.org.uk --
Re: [Hampshire] [OT] BT Broadband?!
Lo, At 16:40 14/07/2011, you wrote: Hi, On 14/07/11 12:19, Chris Dennis wrote: What does the team think? Would moving to BT be a mistake? There are very few ISPs I would want to move to less than BT. snippage The best router I've ever had was a Draytek 2820n. Yes, it's a £150 router but it got me an extra 1.5Mb (5.5Mb, up from 4) over the figure I was getting with my old cheap modem. I would also recommend the following steps: * Get an XTE2005 filtered faceplate for your master socket from ADSLNation.co.uk (if your modem is connected to your master socket - filters not needed on the other sockets) * If not, use their XF-1e filters on all sockets. Found those * If you have a Sky box either put a 2nd filter on it or disconnect it from the phone if you're out of your 12 month lock in. * Get one of their twisted-pair modem cables. I couldn't find the twisted pair modem cable on adslnation, are they out of stock or do they have a different name? Thanks Martin N Moderator of MiniDisc,amithlonopen,bwfc Yahoogroups -- Please post to: Hampshire@mailman.lug.org.uk Web Interface: https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/hampshire LUG URL: http://www.hantslug.org.uk --
Re: [Hampshire] [OT] BT Broadband?!
On 14/07/11 21:44, Martin N wrote: * If you have a Sky box either put a 2nd filter on it or disconnect it from the phone if you're out of your 12 month lock in. * Get one of their twisted-pair modem cables. I couldn't find the twisted pair modem cable on adslnation, are they out of stock or do they have a different name? Sorry... You'll find them in Shop ADSL Cables Pro+ RJ11 - RJ11 ADSL 2+ with the length on the end of the name. Cat5e or Cat6 works just as well with just the centre pair connected if you can make your own cables. These bought ones look neat though. Cheers, Paul. -- Please post to: Hampshire@mailman.lug.org.uk Web Interface: https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/hampshire LUG URL: http://www.hantslug.org.uk --
