Ok, I realise this is one of those old questions that has been asked a million times before but times change

Been with Sky ADSL for a while now, not had a single problem no throttling ect that i've noticed, always able to hammer torrents to almost all of my connections line speed but recently in evenings things are getting slow to the point where youtube and iPlayer just wont buffer at any useful rate... obvious answer is of course over stretched networks not being able to handle it when everyone starts hammering farm town on facebook....

Cant really be bothered arguing with some low paid douche on the end of the phone that only cares when their next break is, rather than the issue at hand, not that he has any power to get things sorted anyway he's just the hired face of the company who failed in life. And as I'm just one of millions of customers my business doesn't really matter anyway.

I've already spoken with Plusnet about their Pro package although its brilliant with no throttling but there's a 15GB a month limit 8am to 12pm which is just ridiculous, my partner I could use that just watching IPlayer in a day and they are unable to increase it even for more money so that's out of the window.

My question is simply....who are you with at the moment and do you have any recommendations?

PS... If anyone suggests BT I think you should do the world a favour and find the nearest wood chipper.... I had fun silently mocking the people I work with who I advised under no circumstances use them, and of course they did any way and now suffer dial up speed pretty much 24/7 only to phone tech support to be told its their flux capacitor needs replacing and it'll cost them £200 for an engineer to be sent and do this for them....

http://usertools.plus.net/exchanges/

Just found this little gem I forgot seeing yonkies ago, provides info on your local exchange and sheds light on my problem firstly the exchange if heavily overloaded, has multiple faults recently but the light at the end of the tunnel is due to get 21CN (Aka ADSL2+) between now and march so I may hold out and switch to a company that will provide the new ADSL service....

Currently on O2, and have never had a problem with it. Torrents go like the wind and iPlayer/Youtube buffer at excellent rates.

BT?! I'm with BT and I get from 6.5Mb off peak. During peak times, I get 3.5Mb up to the
6.5Mb. I'm on the premium service, and get unlimited DL's. Obviously I'm on the
100Gb p/m but if I go over it - although I'd be capped - I still get 700kb/s+ DL's.

If I were to be capped, then that's when my BBC iPlayer becomes useless.
FTR i am connected from router to desktop via Ethernet. I used to do it all wireless,
but my bandwidth was always capped from 3Mb to dial up speed (router's like 12ft away)
hence why I prefer the ethernet. Are you on wireless? I can't recall if quoted this, but I did
speed read thru your post. Maybe I need to take more time when reading these posts!

On the subject, I've learned in the past (using wireless) that uploads/downloads/streaming are a complete waste of time and my patience. Until wireless is as solid
as cables I am not budging.

Overall, what ISP is better than the next? I just need to monitor my DL's and my speed's
up to scratch. All the ISP's are useless when it comes to over the phone. It's always
your system/connection or your fridge is in the wrong place. The usual s**te. Not all
of us are n00bs!! As for streaming (iPlayer) I've only experienced problems when I've
been capped aaaand FTR streaming should be excluded from bandwidth meters since
it's not an illegal activity. If corporations are planing to stream more and more, and
electronic DL's such as movies/games are more common place, the ISP's REALLY need
to get their funkcing fingers out and sort out the national networks. It's not the
minority that use computers/internet these days - EVERYONE IS!

One more note of positiveness... in my area (North East Scotland) BT should have
the Fibre Optic cables ready by March 2010 and giving us the 20Mb speeds for
FREE! I've noticed that other companies such as Virgin are CHARGING EXTRA to get
the 20MB+ from the users normal 8Mb Broadband. Who's got the last laugh now??

You must be the only person i've ever come across who doesn't hate BT with a vengeance.... every time i've come into contact with them its caused nothing but headaches that includes landline as well..... infact i'm in awe and shocked they must be slipping you happy juice somehow lol

I'm using full cat5 around the house so wi-fi isn't causing me problems ive also used three different modems/routers for a few days each same result, and your right all DSL ISP's suck here, they advertise and push their networks beyond what its capable off so everyone suffers except their profits....

As for actual ISPs i've heard one or two good things about O2 now so ill take a look but I seem to have a mental stigma against it, also going to take a look at Be Broadband later.

Also I'm sure I read somewhere they wanted to impose a 50p tax on anyone with a land line to help fund ADSL/BB development.... now that's out of line companies should do this themselves with their profits to keep their customers.... not customers funding their research while paying for a service so they can reap the rewards.....

But yes I think I'm going to hold out see when they upgrade the exchange over the next few months what I can get then I dont want to be held into a contract at 8MB when I could be in a new one with 24MBs

Did i not say? I do actually hate BT. But the service I have at this time, is keeping me
happy enough. 50p Tax?! Ffs. Let's take a walk down memory lane....


...In the late 80's, BT was making a staggering £100 per second profit! I'd like to know
what they are making now. As every company, they will milk and milk and milk until
what ever is they are providing, will start to crumble, and then will they upgrade.
The fibre Optic network, imho is about 10 years too late! This should've been completed
before the naughties. By the end of 1999 the average internet internet user was
growing rapidly. Look at the rewards the telecommunication companies would be reaping now
if they'd done the FO networks 10 years ago! We'd also probably be at GB bandwidth
speeds - possibly TB's speeds (Ok I dream a lot)....