<div class="gmail_quote"><div>Sorry about the quotes below (Google hasn't made it easy to cross quote in replies), unless I'm doing something wrong!</div><div><br></div><div><meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8">Lucian Wrote...</div>
<div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline">"Imho, the only real ISP in London is BE (<a href="http://bethere.co.uk/" target="_blank">bethere.co.uk</a>). And even with<br>them you might not get a quality connection because of the old<br>
infrastructure, but at least they're trying.<br>The rest are just, well, living in another world, severe capping (at<br>times) and ridiculous upload speeds (always). UK is lagging with about<br>10 years behind (some parts of) Europe when it comes to internet<br>
quality, unfortunately..."</div><div><br></div><div>Agreed completely about bethere, I've installed it at several (small)</div><div>companies I've worked at since moving to the UK, and had it installed</div>
<div>
at home for 2 years before moving to a property that only had Virgin</div><div>cable (more below). Bethere's Annex-M service is AFAIK unrivalled</div><div>completely. 21mbps/2.7mbps completely unlimited with static IP for </div>
<div>£21/month! Preposterous.</div><div><br></div><div>As far as cheap and cheerful goes, you don't get better, and as long</div><div>as you're in an area with decent DSL (and bethere coverage), and </div><div>aren't too far from your exchange, nothing compares!</div>
<div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10.8333px; border-collapse: collapse; "><br></span></div><div><br></div><div>Commenting on Christopher's post from above:</div><div>
</div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex;"><div><div class="h5">I had the misfortune to use Virgin's "20 Meg" service. It seldom</div></div>
achieved much over 7 Meg, and would occasionally give bursts to 19 Meg,<br>
showing that it wasn't local limitations reducing the speed. Their<br>
"fibre network" is actually only partially fibre to the cabinet, and the<br>
vast majority of it is crappy quality coax. They have severe download<br>
caps - your speed will drop to about 10% of the speed you get at best<br>
for up to 24 hours. This cap comes in at ~ 1Gb of data, so downloading<br>
two Linux distros in a day isn't really possible.<br></blockquote><div><br></div><div>I've now had the (mis)fortune of Virgin at 3 premises in South London. While</div><div>the first install was nothing less that horrible, months of letters, repeated (useless)</div>
<div>visits by Virgin staff and external contractors (eventually got a large refund, apology,</div><div>and free service for some months), in the last 2 years I've had next to no</div><div>problems with the service since moving into the last place.</div>
<div><br></div><div>I don't disagree that Virgin, and the smaller cable companies they've swallowed up</div><div>have their own share of problems, but it's not all like that. 6 months ago, I was offered</div>
<div>free upgrade to the 50mbps service for 12 months (with a £20/m increase after that.).</div><div>It can be slow during peak hours (5pm -> 10pm), but outside of that, I can quite happily</div><div>get 4MB/s + either from large public site (Microsoft/Apple) or via accumulated torrents.</div>
<div>It's not unusual to get 2-3MB/s from an Ubuntu/Centos repo at any time when I'm doing</div><div>updates either.</div><div><br></div><div>On top of that, their rate caps that you mention are called Virgin STM, and are relatively</div>
<div>well publicised (at least on consumer forums). The (approximate) rules are:</div><div>- Use over <early_threshold> amount between 10:00 and 15:00 and be shaped for 5 hours</div><meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"><div>
- Use over <late_threshold> amount between 15:00 and 21:00 and be shaped for 5 hours</div><div>Where the thresholds are:</div><div>- 10mbps cable - 3GB and 1GB (early and late)</div><div><meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8">- 20mbps cable - 5GB and 3GB (early and late)</div>
<div><meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8">- 50mbps cable - ?GB and 5GB (early and late)</div><div><br></div><div>The fix is simple though, go crazy from 10pm until 10am and you'll have no problems, and</div>
<div>use it for 'normal use' in other periods. I download an awful lot (not mentioning content), often</div><div>nearing 1TB a month and have never had an issue. The one time I was shaped during the </div><div>
evening, the service was woeful, but was still perfectly fine for web browsing, IM, and probably</div>
<div>even Youtube, if you're that way inclined.</div><div><br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex;">
<br>
They persist in falsely advertising "unlimited" internet and specious<br>
speed claims. They also sell browsing data to various "targeted<br>
advertising" companies, so your browsing habits are broadcast to all and<br>
sundry. Your service will be disconnected for "violations" if you<br>
either complain about their abysmal "service" or if you connect to any<br>
filesharing site (they even classified Sourceforge as a pirate software<br>
site). They are entirely without either scruple or clue.<br></blockquote><div><br></div><div>I'm yet to see/hear anything of that nature, if they were to disconnect my service</div><div>(I'd assume this would mean cutting my current contract too?), I'd simply pick up</div>
<div>and go back to Bethere, or maybe BT Infinity if its in my area by then.</div><div> </div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex;">
<br>
Their TV "service" is an appalling joke, too. When our local cable<br>
company was "Cable Camden" then "Cable London", the service was great.<br>
They had well over 90% of the households around here because of the<br>
non-existent off-air TV signal. By the time Virgin had been here for a<br>
year, they had just under 5% of the households....<br>
<br></blockquote><div>Diff between North and South London maybe? </div></div>