[YLUG] ADSL recommendations?

[Martin Rowe]

On 26/06/07, Robert Hulme <rob at robhulme.com> wrote:
> I'm moving to a new area ( CB22 3SZ )
> http://www.samknows.com/broadband/exchange.php?ecode=EASST
>
> Which means I'm leaving the lovely warm glow of Bulldog unlimited
> 8mbps to the horrors of only:
> BT Wholesale ADSL
> BT Wholesale ADSL Max
>
> In #ylug Ewan suggested UKFSN MAX 30
> (http://www.ukfsn.org/home/internet/adsl/maxallowance.html)
> Which is 30 GB on peak, 300 GB off peak for £19.99/month (+ BT line
> rental of course)
>
> Another option is Virgin Broadband (I think the house already has Virgin cable):
> http://allyours.virginmedia.com/websales/service.do?id=2
>
> Can anyone beat those? Recommend anything?
>
> I'm not really sure how much bw I use. I guess it varies a lot.
> Definitely < 100GB / month though.

Virgin Media are going through an 'interesting' time at the moment as
they are rolling out traffic throttling[1] between 4pm & midnight.
There's no overall download limit, but once you hit a preset limit
during that period your download/upload rates get reduced for four
hours. In the case of the top 20mb tier (which I'm on) the rate drops
to 5mb. After the limiting period things go back to normal until the
limit is reached again. Potentially you can get limited twice in the
same evening. The limits on the lower two tiers are very easy to reach
- only 350Mb on the 2mb service.

They're also dropping the free phone tech support line for a 25p/min
one as of July 1st which has caused a lot of outcry in the VM
newsgroups.

Aside from that the broadband service has been pretty good ;) I've had
broadband with them (was NTL) for six years or so with very few
outages or trouble. They provide a Windows CD for the install, but all
you need is a registration code to set up the account on-line from any
OS/browser.

Regards, Martin
[1] http://allyours.virginmedia.com/html/internet/traffic.html
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