[sclug] Recommendations for an IAP

[Alex Butcher]

On Fri, 20 Apr 2012, Neil Brown wrote:

> I wonder if anyone here can recommend a decent access provider, who can
> provide in the Newbury area.  I don't believe that my street has either
> cable or fibre, so I think I'm limited to DSL.

I've been using Eclipse for 10 years now. They aren't the cheapest, but I
rarely have problems, and when I do, they're usually down to BT (or, at
least, Eclipse /say/ they are...)

Tech support when my connection has actually been broken has been a bit
iffy, but again, that's down to BT's fault diagnostic procedures as well.

>
> Ideally, I'd be looking for:
>
> 	- static IP(s)

I got 8 (6 usable), free of charge. Not sure if you'll get that now, though.

> 	- decent upload speed ? I like to VPN back home when travelling, and
> 	- watch the occasional film stored on the network.  I'm currently
> 	- getting about 0.4Mbit, so the experience is not good...

I get 7Mbit/s down, 0.4Mbit up, which is pretty standard across ISPs, unless
you're paying for a business-grade connection.

> 	- decent download too, of course, but I'm not expecting the line to
> 	- support more than 4Mbit (notionally, at least)

I've never experienced congestion within Eclipse's network, which is what
matters, and what you can control without moving house or getting a new line
put in.

> 	- a substantial usage allowance, since I use the line for
> 	- downloading / streaming in place of a TV

I think it's 50GB, and unlimited overnight these days.

> I don't need web hosting, parental control software, a "free" router or
> anything like that and, if I need technical support, would rather that the
> phone was not put down because I'm not using Windows.

None of those are a problem. .co.uk domain hosting is ?4 per month, and
includes SMTP mail delivery and PHP or ASP-enabled web hosting. I think SMTP
mail delivery is worth it.

> (I'm happy to stay with BT for the phone line; it's the Internet
> connection which is important to me here.)
>
>
> Any recommendations greatly appreciated.

Other geek-friendly ISPs are Zen, Andrews & Arnold.

My parents use TalkTalk, and get a slightly faster connection than me for
less than a tenner a month. Good value for them, but you don't get any of
the geek toys, and TalkTalk do have a habit of doing things like Phorm.

>
>
>
> Neil

HTH,
Alex