[Wiltshire] Any ISP recommendations please?

[David Fletcher]

On Fri, 2021-10-29 at 11:54 +0100, Ralph Corderoy via Wiltshire wrote:
> I've been mooting changing from PlusNet for a while thus my interest
> in ISP recommendations when Dave asked.  I do find Andrews & Arnold a
>  bit confusing for the non-technical consumer but then that's
> probably not the market they're aiming at.

Everybody here probably has more technical knowledge than most so I
appreciate that Zen has already allocated me a static IP address and
will also be able to switch on IPv6 for me, perhaps after I've done a
little reading! They have also sent the ID and passcode that I need to
put into the router to obtain service, so there is no restriction on
using a router other than the one that they will supply.

For my needs I think Zen should be perfectly adequate for now as I am
happy to, for example, continue to use the 1&1 secure SMTP servers to
relay my outgoing email. I basically want something that all "Just
Works" reliably which the "Super"hub 2 no longer does and which enables
me to forward all of the ports I need to my server which the hub 4 does
not. Putting a line at the top of the config page helpfully informing
the user that port forwarding is for the purpose of enabling the use of
web servers, email servers etc. then disabling the use of port 25 is
surely the work of a shower of cretins with whom I have no desire to be
associated in any way.


> AAISP will arrange a 'copper pair' (dummy phone line) for A/V DSL,
> 
> They use the term ‘copper pair’ a lot.  I've come to understand they
> mean the pair of copper wires, ‘tip and ring’, which run from BT's
> cabinet to the master socket to implement a phone line.  They don't
> call it a phone line because there may not be a phone on it.

My girlfriend who has an ADSL router from BT tells me that they appear
to have stopped using her copper phone line for voice and sent out a
couple of adapters to somehow connect her previously landline phone via
the router. This might be what you refer to above. I will be interested
to see it next time I visit. Zen say that they can also do this, which
I might take up so that I have a backup phone, just in case...


> [AAISP]'s 'helpfulness' may be worth the extra money to you,
> > customer
> > can access monitoring and test graphs themselves, contact *real*
> > staff
> > in IRC or Email, etc....
> 
> They sound like the BitFolk of ISPs.  :-)
> 
> I do think they suffer from not having a typical ‘bundle’ page for a
> customer who's currently with Virgin ADSL, say, with a single
> copper-pair wire providing phone and Internet who wants to switch to
> AA's VDSL and port the landline phone number to VoIP so there's no
> voice
> going over the copper pair any more.  (I'm aware there is some audio
> signal for a quiet-line test, etc.)  It means there are many pages to
> keep clicking through for overviews on topics and then detail pages,
> with the projected cost having to be totted up by hand.

Openreach are supposed to be coming on Thursday to pull fibre through
the conduit under the road so this time next week I might be using Zen.

Dave