ADSL query

[nmg]

There are enough technically competent people on my flist for it to be worth me asking this question here. For the first time in a decade, I find myself in possession of a BT phone line. ias and I want a broadband connection in the house - which UK providers would people recommend?

(important factors are no download quotas and a static IP - I'm currently wavering between Zen and Nildram)

Comments

[http://users.livejournal.com/_nicolai_/]

I believe both to be competent, with Zen being slightly cooler (more geek-oriented edge features).

[nmg.livejournal.com]

The Sotonites seem to be split between them, which lead me to believe that they're both good - your comment is exactly the sort of extra info that I'm looking for.

[hatter.livejournal.com]

Maybe add bulldog to the list, you may end up with more bandwidth for your money, which may be a consideration. Most usefully is that the upstream connection is likely to be bigger than with the same downstream size elsewhere. Check to see if they're physically in your local exchange, as that's how they come up with competitive packages.


the hatter

[nmg.livejournal.com]

Bulldog don't have a presence in Southampton - they'd otherwise make a good choice, if it weren't for the fact that we've just got a BT line...

[mr-tom.livejournal.com]

I have used Zen in the past. They were fantastic. Really good customer service, and their tech support spoke linux. And having a fixed IP is a great thing.

[nmg.livejournal.com]

Sounds good. Looks like Zen might be the one to choose.

[sbisson.livejournal.com]

Merula is excellent (as are Wizards who resell Merula connectivity). It's what I use...

(Nildram had just been bought by GX who trade as Pipex)

Bulldog cap, so probably worth avoiding.

[fluffydave.livejournal.com]

I'm with Nildram, got a static IP address (which I pay extra for :/ ) and 1mb Download.

They arn't the cheapest but in 2 years I've had 2 problems, can't argue with that.

[fluffydave.livejournal.com]

Actually should probably point out that these outages wern't during office hours. One was at around 3am (So I went to bed), one was around 8-9pm one night.

[simonb.livejournal.com]

I'm with Zen; the important things to me are that they give you a /29 for free and can provide from a /28 to a /24 if you pay for them. They are also happy to have you provide the names for the reverse DNS as well. It would be even better if they used the hack which UUNET used to do to provide per-customer rDNSs when its less than a /24, but I can understand why they'd also not want to do that!

[hsw.livejournal.com]

We use Nildrum, and you'd have to hassle A for information about it, because the advantage of marrying a network techie is that all that is his toy, and not my problem.

It works.

H

[gnommi.livejournal.com]

we have zen. dave recommends it, never had any downtime at all, or any other probs. we have 5 static IP's which didn't cost any extra too. also, there are no download quotas.

[makyo.livejournal.com]

I've been happy with Eclipse. I've been with them for a couple of years now, and on the few occasions I've had cause to speak to their tech support, they've come across as competent and helpful. I got a static IP address (not sure if they still do this - they might have run out) and they have no download quotas. Their Usenet service was bobbins for a while, but has been excellent for the past several months (they switched upstream provider to someone who knew what they were doing).

[purplestuart.livejournal.com]

Nildram - I use them for my work's ISP, we have 4 lines and no outages of any sort in the 4 years we've had 'em. The staff are very friendly and helpful when i have called them in the past too. I choose them due to recommendations from adslguide.org which is well worth checking out if you haven't already

[perdita-fysh.livejournal.com]

I'm with eclipse and they've been fine, but I'm about to recommend zen to a client as they seem to perform better according to http://www.adslguide.org.uk/