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Best UK Broadband provider?
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Mac Elite
Join Date: May 2001
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My sister is off to live in the UK for two years (work related) and would like to have a broadband connection while over there. She will be staying somewhere around the London area if that makes a difference.
Just wondering who you UK guys use for broadband? Over here she is getting 512/128kbs ADSL with a 4GB limit before traffic is shaped, for $50AU per month (~�19). Would she be able to get something similar in the UK? Is it more or less expensive?
She has a 12" Powerbook, with an Airport Express. So I guess she'd just want a place that can give her an Ethernet modem (hopefully for free), and a decent service. Who do you recommend?
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Addicted to MacNN
Join Date: Feb 2003
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a friend of mine recently (last month) signed up with homechoice, which gives him a 512k line and on demand tv. he said he is paying around �25 per month. he is very happy with it. he said he gets about 100kps downloads. they set up everything for him and gave him a tv box that handles his internet, and that is plugged into his airport extreme basestation.
he mentioned that he has a daily bandwidth limit of 1 gig. i am not sure if this is download only or upload and download combined.
this gives him tv and internet. i am not sure if homechoice has separate services, only tv, only internet.
i have another friend who is using bt broadband. i will ask her tomorrow what she is paying per month for that. her downloads max out at around 50kps.
edit. both of my friends are in the london area
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Mac Elite
Join Date: Oct 2003
Location: London
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Originally posted by thePurpleGiant:
My sister is off to live in the UK for two years (work related) and would like to have a broadband connection while over there. She will be staying somewhere around the London area if that makes a difference.
Just wondering who you UK guys use for broadband? Over here she is getting 512/128kbs ADSL with a 4GB limit before traffic is shaped, for $50AU per month (~�19). Would she be able to get something similar in the UK? Is it more or less expensive?
She has a 12" Powerbook, with an Airport Express. So I guess she'd just want a place that can give her an Ethernet modem (hopefully for free), and a decent service. Who do you recommend?
i live in london. your sister's basic choices will be between using British Telecom's broadband offerings (or one of the hundreds of companies that use BT's exchanges to offer similar services) or using a cable broadband service from NTL, Telewest, Homechoice or Blue Yonder, which is what I have. There's not too much difference in price between them - for a 512k connection you will probably be looking at between �21 and �25. The BT option requires you to have a BT line connected to the property (if there isn't one there you would pay about �120 for a new connection). NTL (which I have) is 512/128kps and I've never hit a limit although I believe there is one. Their installation is �50 and you get a set-top box with an ethernet output.
One thing you may find is that UK ISPs are often useless when it comes to Mac. BT are known for trying to push USB modems on people, and NTL aren't much better. The most important thing is to speak to whoever's doing the installation and make it repeatedly clear that you only want an ethernet connection.
One ISP that are highly rated is Bulldog (a company that use BT's exchanges). They are definitely Mac friendly and have a system where bandwidth varies depending on the time of day. I will probably be switching to them soon.
http://www.bulldogbroadband.com/flash.asp
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Junior Member
Join Date: Aug 2001
Location: UK
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I've been using Plusnet for a while, and they are very good IMHO.
www.plus.net
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James
eMac 1.25, iBook 600, Airport Extreme, iPod G4 20gb
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Professional Poster
Join Date: Apr 2003
Location: Herzliya
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Professional Poster
Join Date: Oct 2001
Location: London
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BT is not good.
Go for BullDog.
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Mac Elite
Join Date: Sep 2003
Location: London
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I'm with a company called ndo
http://ndo.com/
they also tech support macs, although I've not have reason to find out - been with them for nearly a year, slowed down once or twice and disconnected (briefly), but 99% of the time its fine, good fast connection.
Pipex are also supposed to be good:
http://www.solo.pipex.net/
See here for more info on UK broadband
http://www.adslguide.org.uk/
Telewest look good but I'm not in a telewest area - also bulldog offer up to 8MB speed depending on area (only central London).
hope this helps
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Forum Regular
Join Date: Jul 2004
Location: York Uk
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Avoid wanadoo.....
period
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12" 1.33 G4 PB 80GB 768MB .....20GB iPod
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Grizzled Veteran
Join Date: Nov 2003
Location: Hebburn, UK
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I'm on Pipex, which have been very good over the past two years. It was 23 quid for a 512k line, I think - I've just upgraded to 1meg.
They support Macs quite well too, which is nice They did push a USB modem, unfortunately, but there's mac software that comes with it, so it wasn't too bad. I bought a cheap router though, since the connection needed to be shared. I think there is a limit for downloading, but there's 7 people in this house downloading constantly and we've never been stopped, so....
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Just who are Britain? What do they? Who is them? And why?
Formerly Black Book
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Senior User
Join Date: Sep 2003
Location: UK
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I've used Telewest for the past 4 years. I think they're probably more expensivefor broadband alone, but I get my phone line and digital TV through them as well which makes it a bit cheaper & generally less hassle.
http://www.telewest.co.uk/html/internet/internet.htm <-Shows pricing, a 750k connection is �27.99 alone. I don't think there's a download limit, connection is through a cable modem (ethernet) rather than USB and they have become increasingly mac-friendly lately.
As I said, probably not the best for price for the connection alone.
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Mac Enthusiast
Join Date: Jun 2003
Location: Kalifornia
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I'm in the UK just now for a few months and just been setting up a broadband connection for my parents. After doing a bit of research, and asking people, I went for Bulldog, very good service, and is about �22 a month.
I recommend them highly.
http://www.bulldogdsl.com
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PIXAR Animation Studios
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Mac Elite
Join Date: Oct 1999
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NTL have increased the speeds of their service in the UK but have kept the same prices.
So for the price of the old 512 you now get 750, and the 1MB has gone up to 1.5MB
Ian
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Computers - Au MacBook 2.4Ghz, iMac 24" 2.8Ghz Core 2 Duo
iPods - 5GB original iPod, 4GB nano - Red, 1GB 2G shuffle - Silver, 4GB 3G Shuffle - Black, 16GB touch, 16GB nano Red, 16GB iPhone 3G.
OSX User Since Public Beta, current OS 10.6.1, iTS UK purchases - 5377 songs.... and growing!
My website - www.idparkinson.co.uk
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Addicted to MacNN
Join Date: Sep 2001
Location: Toronto
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Bulldog is getting excellent reviews.
BT Internet is what we use for our business. No data limits, good support and we never had any downtime. They offer a package where they install a wireless router ready to go that was great value for money.
I personally had bad experiences with NTL, specifically with the customer service. Never again. Others on this board (philzilla) are happy with NTL.
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Mac Elite
Join Date: Jul 2003
Location: Body in London, mind elsewhere
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this site has a good list of various UK ISPs with readers reviews and comments.
http://ispreview.co.uk/
i'm thinking of going with this ISP V21 they got reported on El Reg as being the cheapest and no bandwidth limits.
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Mac Elite
Join Date: Jun 2001
Location: Dundee, Scotland
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http://www.aaisp.net.uk/aa/
Andrews & Arnold are the choice of the discerning british geek.. I just wish I'd discovered them before signing up to a year with demon.net
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Mac Elite
Join Date: May 2001
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Cheers guys, Bulldog seemed to get the highest praise in this thread, although I am checking them all out now. Maybe I'm not looking hard enough though - because I can't seem to find details of their plans including prices, speeds and downloads per month??
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Professional Poster
Join Date: Oct 2001
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Mac Enthusiast
Join Date: Jun 2003
Location: Kalifornia
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Originally posted by thePurpleGiant:
Cheers guys, Bulldog seemed to get the highest praise in this thread, although I am checking them all out now. Maybe I'm not looking hard enough though - because I can't seem to find details of their plans including prices, speeds and downloads per month??
I got my folks the 512k alltime 500 service from Bulldog. There's no monthly download limit, the connection seems to be constant so far (been a few months already) and they pay, I think, �22.
I was pretty surprised by their services, really been stellar and no probs with a Mac.
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PIXAR Animation Studios
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