Internet at home advice

Message Bookmarked

Bookmark Removed

ok, i have decided that i am going to get internet at home. i'm kind of daunted by all the different packages and stuff. which isp are you with, what package, what is good?
br> i'll be heavy usage on evenings and weekends (mps downloads, duh!) - permanent offpeak audiogalaxy connection for me i think, no real use in daytime, because i'll be on it, like, here at work.

― gareth, Thursday, 17 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I use BTConnect's flat-rate business package. I don't recommend it at all - if I was an actual small business I'd be really fucked off (I chose business because I thought if they decided to kick heavy users off theyd kick off the private individuals not get business- unfriendly wrist-slaps). It's too slow for much downloading and the connections fail too often, and my email goes wrong about once a week too.

― Tom, Thursday, 17 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Claranet are very good for customer service etc. but not the most competitive on price. If it's unlimited off-peak access you want, there are loads of isp's charging around 9.99 GBP per month (modem dial-up). Take a look at net4nowt

― David Inglesfield, Thursday, 17 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

somone just said to me ADSL is the way to go... any opinions?

― mark s, Thursday, 17 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Mark if money is no object - it will cost £39.99 a month, plus installation of around £150.00, sometimes there are special connection deals.

It is up to ten times faster, ideal if you are downloading mp3s.

[I believe that Greg "Popeye" Scarth went ADSL broadband - but what happend to him? ]

I am still with dial up access - I would consider a switch if ADSL came down to say about £20 per month.

― DJ Martian, Thursday, 17 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

A better bet than ADSL would be cable, if you want an always on connection. It's cheaper and you get season six Buffy into the bargain.

― RickyT, Thursday, 17 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

ok, cable, someone explain a bit more. providers? logistics? cost? etc

― gareth, Thursday, 17 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

i'm not in cable territory unfortunately: as to costs, i was told A LOT LESS than installation and monthly costs, hmmm. Still I might go with it anyway if i can get my work to share costs (it's possibly part of a working-from-home package)

― mark s, Thursday, 17 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

If you have cable down your street cable is the way to go as it is cheaper, (25 a month with phone, 33 without, phone costs 9, call cost are competitive). Its the same speed as ADSL, more or less, (I think upload is a bit less but I'm not sure) and on past experience of me a friends, its a lot more reliable, and telewest's customer support is pretty good. Its always on and can quite easily be routed throughout the house using 50 quids worth of ageing PC and hub technology.

― suzy, Thursday, 17 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

[Mark those costs were BTOpenworld's - maybe there are cheaper deals?]

― DJ Martian, Thursday, 17 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

i already get Telewest cable for tv and phone, and am getting the broadband line fitted next week (fingers crossed), which is 25 pounds a month, and a 25 pound installation fee. i was spending about that on phone bills anyway, so thought i might as well pay the same and get a decent service rather than go to the free calls dial-up accounts (which are 10-15 pounds a month).

Telewest cable are pretty poor in terms of customer service etc (it used to be Cable London who were good, until Telewest bought them), but the cost of the normal connection (basic tv channels, phone line and voicemail-type answering machine) is not much more (maybe even the same?) than the BT phone line charge, and phone calls are cheaper

― michael, Thursday, 17 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

There's some stuff here about broadband. Cable is NTL or Telewest with DSL being offered by an assortment of different folks.

― RickyT, Thursday, 17 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

i think you mean here

― michael, Thursday, 17 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Sorry, that was me, Ed, giving the internet advice above.

― suzy, Thursday, 17 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

telewests cable looks alright. what about system requirements though. do you need some big hyperspeed computer or what. ram, pentium (i don't know much about these kind of things)

― gareth, Thursday, 17 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

hey what is this steven martin/lily tomlin ed-suzy bodyswap thing going on at the moment?

― mark s, Thursday, 17 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

The cable stuff works with an external cable modem which you then plug into an ethernet card in the back of your computer. Ethernet cards cost about £20 quid and will fit any PC. So you don't have to worry if your PCs a bit past it, it should be fine.

― RickyT, Thursday, 17 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Er, I can see this thread has galloped into territory where I am a know-nothing fool, but, Gareth, if you're still vaguely interested in an ordinary 56k modem connection, Freeserve's Anytime service has proved pretty good over the last few months.

£13/month, no call charges at all, and (I'd guess) 95% availability. Nothing like the horror stories I've been hearing from BT customers.

― Michael Jones, Thursday, 17 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

The benefit of cable versus ADSL, is that the cable box connects via ethernet, (to a network card), and only requires any computer that can support a TCP/IP network connection, which as you probably well know, gareth, is practically any computer. ADSL require USB which requires Win98 and a fairly modern set up. Our set up in sheffield consists of a P90 running linux acting as a router connected to a switch which shares the network connection with the rest of the house. Even a Win 3.11 with TCP/IP should be able to do cable.

― Ed, Thursday, 17 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

With Mike on Freeserve AnyTime. I've been on it since July (had Unlimited Freeserve Time before that) and can't find serious fault with it: certainly I'm thankful when I read what some BT customers have to go through. And don't get me started on bloody Lineone! (anecdotal evidence)

If Gareth's going to have a 56K connection, as I do, I'd recommend it. With faster connections I'm less qualified on which is best.

― Robin Carmody, Thursday, 17 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I'm stuck on horrible student "Campuslink" phone system where if you use anyone but them as an ISP you get charged even more. They've since been taken over, but it's now 2p a minute anytime (vs 4p and 1.5p) so it'll probbaly cost me MORE. And there's Ethernet in every room, not connected to anything. No flat rate for me.

― Graham, Thursday, 17 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

If I ever get my hands on those that run BT's internet service there's some Hellraiser-style shit in store for them, let me tell you. Their offer of free access anytime only seems to apply if you don't actually use the service - at various times of the day I'm unofficially barred from their 0800 access number. They deny this, but I say in that case a) why does the remote computer verify my name and password before claiming the line is busy (Watchdog claimed that BT have a blacklist of heavy users), and b) why does the Greenfield household get letters and CD-ROMs encouraging us to sign up for their (bloody expensive) ADSL service? What's wrong with these morons? If they can't actually deliver an 'anytime' service, they shouldn't claim they can then charge £14.99 a month for bad service. I would change to something better but my dad pays and he can't be bothered.

― DG, Thursday, 17 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Blimey. I'm currently using Sarah's BT connection during the day and it's been totally glitch free so far. Odd.

― RickyT, Thursday, 17 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

i've gone with Telwest Blueyonder cable modem 512k broadband. coming in 11 days!

― gareth, Tuesday, 29 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Telewest Blue Younder - are doing a massive marketing campaign at the mo, did you see that 2 in thepage advert in the NME last week.

― DJ Martian, Tuesday, 29 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

DG, the number is an 0808 number as I recall - didyou mean that? If yr still using the 0800 # you will get booted off as they discontinued that one.

― Sarah, Tuesday, 29 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

If I ever get my hands on those that run BT's internet service

= Annoying tosspot in my class' dad.

Sarah is right, though we at home it's something like 0870 6451111.

― Graham, Tuesday, 29 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

one month passes...

Don't under any circumstances go for Home Highway.

Before broadband became available I went for Home Highway with BT, and have actually been very pleased with the level of service; rock steady connection, freedom to choose ISP (although I use the £14.99 BT 'all-you-can-eat' service) prices have just been lowered, and I was able to build it in to the numerous discount plans.

BT are offering a 'self install' broadband option for about £50 - I asked if I could have this 'no sir' they replied, 'you have Home Highway, and we need to send an engineer to disconnect you from that, it'll be £185 quid'.

Instead I spoke to Telewest, and for £25 install, and basically the same I pay BT for the ISDN connection I get broadband, 18 'free' digital TV stations and I get to keep my old voice telephone number.

I felt a little bit guilty about 'breaking it off' with BT - I've been a customer for 17 years and never had any real complaints, so I felt I owed them a moral duty to equal the offer - 'sorry sir - we don't do price matching, and there's no discount for existing Home Highway subscribers'

Now saying that - I've not actually signed up yet, so I can't say how the service actually is, but on paper it looks streets ahead (except now I'll have to pay the full cost of telephone calls, but then again I only used about £15 a quarter's worth anyway)

If you live somewhere that it won't be economical for the cable companies to lay wire, then Home Highway is far better than analogue modem, but if you 'aint got it yet, then my advice is go straight for the big pipe.

― GD, Friday, 15 March 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

been using Blueyonder cable for nearly two months now, and it's been fine - no problems at all. however, the manuals and website are pretty useless and hard to find stuff on. the manuals make it look like you have to use their software etc to connect/use the internet, but you don't at all (i was dreading some AOL-style hell) - the disk just has Telewest-branded IE and Outlook Express files.

― michael, Saturday, 16 March 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

seven years pass...

I finally got internet at my home! On my own computer!

Just today!

― dont blaze me dro (roxymuzak), Friday, 24 July 2009 22:16 (sixteen years ago)

Lol at Gareth!

― dont blaze me dro (roxymuzak), Friday, 24 July 2009 22:16 (sixteen years ago)

Hey 2002 dudes, get this... one day, you won't even need wires!

― Desmond Decca Aitkenhead (Matt DC), Friday, 24 July 2009 22:22 (sixteen years ago)

lol i forgot about audiogalaxy!

― blobfish russian (harbl), Friday, 24 July 2009 22:40 (sixteen years ago)

hellooooooo roxy!

― tehresa, Friday, 24 July 2009 22:40 (sixteen years ago)

man audiogalaxy was the sickest....too bad i was on 56k at that time.

― call all destroyer, Friday, 24 July 2009 22:54 (sixteen years ago)

Funny to think of ADSL modems being usb-only, thats rare now innit? Heck ours is only plugged into the phoneline - wifi all round, here.

― seagulls are assholes (Trayce), Friday, 24 July 2009 22:58 (sixteen years ago)

HELLO WORLD

O_O

― dont blaze me dro (roxymuzak), Friday, 24 July 2009 23:53 (sixteen years ago)

the cable guy today:

"do you know how to use the internet?"
"...yes."
"there aint much on it"

― dont blaze me dro (roxymuzak), Friday, 24 July 2009 23:54 (sixteen years ago)

u shld have invited him to 1p3 geez

― blobfish russian (harbl), Saturday, 25 July 2009 00:06 (sixteen years ago)

You must be logged in to post. Please either login here, or if you are not registered, you may register here.