Bt Contention Is A Joke

[Steve]

I am really starting to get fed up with BT ADSL

There contention rations are poor... as soon as the kids come out of school it is more or less impossible to surf.

I pay 29.99 for a bag of frustration.

So i go to NTL and try and sign up for cable and they have put that if I sign up with them I will have to have a contract for 12 months (fair enough) but also states that my other services will be put onto a new contract.. so that goes for phone and telly... now i am getting pretty wound up.

Why cant there be a more wider choice and get me away from bloomin BT network!

[UltraViolet]

BT are annoying - but NTL????? Known in all circles as the most frustrating, incompetant, bags of pooo ever in the world of telecommunications????? Don't do it Steve!!!

[wildrnes]

i sorted us out at work with f9

£20 a month

no frills

no e mail

not bad really :D

customer service are good tho

[GCHQAgent]

I wouldn't touch f9 / plustnet with a barge pole now, the used to be good until things went wrong for me. Almost overnight they changed their T&Cs to include a charge for my free domain if I ever left. So I disagreed with the new T&Cs and said I wanted to terminate our contract... so they tried to enforce their £50 charge for a .co.uk domain on me. It also didn't help that none of the managers were customer facing... I guess if they weren't customer facing then must have been facing each others arses or something.

Anyway, try demon.net - £24.99/mo and they have a good reputation. I'm with Pipex (£23/mo)... I will recommend them again when service levels return to something decent.

[Dobbin]

Folks

In my opinion you should steer clear of Ntl: or Telewest. They are both complete nightmare companies to do business with.

Demon still seem ok as do Zen. Worth checking them out

[TonyGoose]

i sorted us out at work with f9

£20 a month

no frills

no e mail

not bad really  :D

customer service are good tho

But at the end of the day, you're still using the same BT infrastructure with its 50:1 contention at the exchange (20:1 on business tariffs) - unless you move to cable, satellite, wireless etc.

So, unless slow response is due to bottlenecks at your ISP, switching from one reseller to another will make little difference.

There's potentially some improvement to be had by changing mtu size (that's the maximum number of data bytes you send at once).

BT have a network wide problem of packet fragmentation and by reducing your packet size (ahem ) you can prevent your packets being fragmented

[dazzab69]

50:1, 20:1 contention, you lucky b****rds ! I have currently a 50:0 contention rate because BT cut off my Business ADSL connection because their accounts managers couldn't cope with the idea that my employer had transferred the account onto their 1 Bill. THEN they have the temerity to say it will take up to six weeks to schedule an engineer to reconnect !

BT are without doubt the most incompetent, glacial organisation on the face of the planet. They belong in a communist country where customer service means that you queue for ever and you might get what you want one day if your are lucky, and if you don't like it, meet Boris (Customer Relations Manager) with his large kalashnikov !

[Matthew_McNally]

In my opinion you should steer clear of Ntl: or Telewest. They are both complete nightmare companies to do business with.

I have a 1meg connection from NTL - £34.99 a month.

pretty happy chappy at the moment.

usenet feed can be crap - but other than that its OK

[ricky_is200]

I've had an ntl cable modem for almost 2 years now and I've always been completely happy with it. Only on two occasions has it been down for more than a couple of hours and I'd say it works perfectly 99% of the time, if not more.

[Steve]

isnt business ADSL 25:1

I agree with tony that it will all be the same infrastructure.

Now if I could somehow stop the kids being on it then we'll be fine <_<

its fine here this morning.. wait till 3.30 and I am going nuts!

[Dobbin]

I have a 1meg connection from NTL - £34.99 a month.

pretty happy chappy at the moment.

usenet feed can be crap - but other than that its OK

There will always be exceptions to the rules - I'm glad you are happy with their service, long may it last.

I wasn't really indicating that the provided service was crap, just that they are awful companies to deal with in my experience.

Business ADSL is usually 20:1 contention

[djanderso]

I wish I could get broadband of any kind, BT, NTL or whoever. I want it, I want it.

Until then, I am stuck with a slow and expensive ISDN Line.

[Steve]

NTL are bad from experience.. until you mention SKY.. suddenly they are the best company in the world.

Who has NTL with those stupid Digital Boxes that keep crashing... every day I have to reset the cable box becasue the software keeps crashing.

[javadude]

Known in all circles as the most frustrating, incompetant, bags of pooo ever in the world of telecommunications?????

S'funny I thought that was O2. That reminds me it's about time I tried to get through to their imaginatively named customer services dept again to see why they still want to bill me even though I moved to T-Mobile last month (a process that took 2 months and soooo many calls/emails to O2).

[dazzab69]

For anyone thinking of getting BT Broadband ADSL, my advice is don't.

My ADSL connection was terminated two weeks ago because BT made a mistake in the account management.

I have just had a phone call to say that they are sorry but they do not know when the connection will be re-established !!!!

They are without doubt the most useless incompetant organisation on the face of this planet. They do not give a damm about the customer and seem to think that we should be gratefull for the sh1te service they do provide.

SO KIDS IF BT COME KNOCKING, JUST SAY NO.

[andybriggs]

I have a 2Mb business connection, (contention for business tarriffs is 20:1), with GX Networks, (used to be XO Communications).

The line has been down twice in two years and both times it was a BT problem, so it doesnt matter which ISP you use, you will still have to put up with crappy BT.

:(

Andy

[Wallace]

Thanks for all your kind thoughts on BT, I'll let my boss know about them in the morning! :P

[Matthew_McNally]

I have a 2Mb business connection

/pouts

you've got a faster connection than me

:( :( :(

:P

[Grangey]

Not singing their praises, but I have a mate that lives in the wilds of Scotland. Saw this for him - affordable satellite?. May be worth a look if you have nothing else, or are dissatisfied?

[javadude]

Mines almost carrier pigeon speed in comparison - I get unmetered 56k dialup from NTL for £5 pm (soon to be £10). :(

But in case you really do want carrier pigeon speed here's how... rfc1149

[Matthew_McNally]

But in case you really do want carrier pigeon speed here's how... rfc1149

thats just....

[drwong]

In comparison, Telewest and Pipex ADSL are not too bad, although anythign that has to rely on a BT network can get FUBAR (f**ked up beyond redemption) oft times.

Also, since broad band networks have an exclusivity licesne, eg. IN North london, you may only get Telewest, and not NTL, whereas in Swindon you only get NTL...so your choice is always limited between either cable company NTL/Telewest vs a BT pipeline (BT broandband, Freeserve, F9, Pipex, blah blah)

Alternatively...there is the great fish eye in the sky connection, i.e Sattelite Broadband connection. As I'm with telewest for past 3 years..havent had the guts to go changing things...