Be Excellent To Each Other

I've got the internet free as part of our rent, and as we should hopefully exchange in the next week or so I need to think about getting the internet switched.

But I've no idea at all who to choose. I'm not even certain who we are with at the moment (but I think BE, whoever they are?).

Who are you with? Are they decent?

Basically, we don't have a land line and have no intention of getting one because it's not 1997 any more, so all we want is the internet. I've just done a speed test, and we get 9.8 Meg download and unlimited bandwidth, so we would like to at least match that.

Interested in ones who don't mind mild torrenting/downloading (of Linux isos - Ed) etc and xbox and tons of iPlayer/4oD because we don't have decent tv reception. Also ones who don't shape and support open internet etc.

I shall put my findings here regardless to help people searching etc.

Go with whoever gives you that. Isn't that enough?

My home connection is with Zen. Not the cheapest but worth it.

Hang on, you want internet but you won't get a landline because it's passe? You may find your choices rather limited.

We don't want a landline. We just want internet access. If we had to have a landline we wouldn't connect it to a phone.

Do you have to buy a landline in addition usually? That just seems like a unnecessary parasite surviving by being bundled with something useful.

EDIT: Added a poll about landlines. Stupid land lines.



Yeah, but we don't know how much it costs and who it's with. I'm finding out the details, but maybe it's a bad deal for all I know!

I have to put my hands up and say that over the past two months o2 has been incredible.

I'm getting 8m and downloads go over 900k a second, with Steam roaring at 1.2mb a sec.

It's taken them a while to slap down all the little leeches but yes, I'm now in internet heaven.

I also realised that they are a bit sneaky with the router modem. They block everything in it by default and make it all as complicated as possible. Last week though I managed to work my way around that and get 990k out of newsgroups.

Aye, need to have a landline unless you're with Virgin IIRC.

I use the Cable & Wireless package from this lot. No complaints & the support folk are cheery Englanders

I am leeching the fuck out of my neighbour's wifi.

His network name is the model of the router, so I googled for the default username and password and I also have root access. I could ban him from his own router, or change the password or anything.

Instead I'm torrenting as much as I can at his expense.

To get broadband you need:

a) a landline
b) wireless internet access via a mobile network
c) wi-fi you can use.
d) a dish connection
e) cable TV that supports broadband

Take your pick. But chances are you'll need a landline. Mobile broadband certainly isn't much use for torrants etc due to bandwidth limitations (Zen give me 50gb a month, you'll be lucky to get 2gb on a mobile platform).

Sky. No material problems, smaller ones sorted quickly.

BT, not the cheapest, but never any problems at all, and once you add the line rent onto most packages, they pretty much even out.

I use O2 for my internet because it's only £7.50 a month as I'm already an O2 mobile customer, pretty reliable and reasonable speeds. Speeds around here are mediocre anyway. Usually around 4Mb.

Mobile internet is rubbish so don't get that.

Erm. Well, it's a wire. You'd rather struggle to deliver broadband without the wire being there. Unless you mean the telephone service is a parasite, which is sort of true - but then as it uses the same wire, it's largely irrelevant.

Quite. Lave is being rather baffling.

You pay the monthly charge for the line. Not the telephone service. You pay nothing else extra unless you use the telephone service for making calls.

I couldn't survive without a land line, as to not have a phone in the house is an alien idea to me. I can understand it if I were a student or sharing a house, but not now.

I have landline and internet via o2
used to have o2 on a BT landline, but switched to 02, Linerental was cheaper.
As a mobile customer (via work BB) I get £5 off a month, but thats irrelevant as work pay for it (win)
but if It wasnt, id happily pay the £10 a month internet, it gets over 8mb downloads up to 1mb/sec
which is plenty. The router seems cool and works easily for me.