Good and bad ISPs ?

Quote: Griff @ April 28 2008, 11:16 PM BST

OK so my ISP, Demon, is a load of shit. My Internet connection goes up and down like a whore's drawers and every time I ring up to enquire why this might be happening I have to talk to unhelpful persons in India whose job seems to be to see how quickly they can fob me off or make me give up in despair.

Now I know that the UK broadband industry in general is not much loved by its customers. But does anyone have any positive stories, or - go on then - horror stories, which would help me make up my mind who to try next after I have dumped Demon ?

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I've commented on it many times before. Mine is Tiscali - it has its own thread - but I was just writing an email and it crashed - I had to start again.

And MSN messaging goes every couple of minutes on there.

I think they're all as bad as each other.

Steer as clear of Virgin Media as the Jews do of Nazis.

BT have been very reliable in my experience. If you do any significant amount of downloading though, you may wish to think twice, as they throttle speeds.

To be honest though, it's almost certainly a line problem rather than anything to do with Demon. And therefore the fault is at BT's infrastructure division.

I think I have Demon.

It's okay most of the time.

I'm with Tesco... never had any problems...

kjs

Quote: Griff @ April 28 2008, 11:27 PM BST

True, but unfortunately Demon are the people I have the contract with, so they are the ones who should be sorting it out when I ring up. WHICH THEY DON'T.

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Do you actually get through to a human being?

Ugh, don't even start me on those. Grrr.

Dump Demon now! I was with these clowns a few years back, cancelled my contract they tried to get another six months out of me when they refused to acknowledge that I had cancelled the contract correctly (I had). Later that year they took the money from my account in any case without permission! When you talk to some of the staff there they know that they work for a bunch of cowboys.

Aaaahhhhhh......rant over

I am with BT now, no problems, much better, although I take Aaron's point regarding heavy downloaders.

I hope you got that money back!

Quote: Aaron @ April 29 2008, 9:09 AM BST

I hope you got that money back!

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No! Bank (Barclays) made the payment. They said it was authorised (because I had previously given my permission for them to take payments)and if I had a dispute I should get the money back from Demon! I knew I had no chance of that so I closed my Barclays account there and then so Demon couldn't get anymore and told the bank to poke it too!

Quote: Sofa_Matt @ April 29 2008, 9:58 AM BST

No! Bank (Barclays) made the payment. They said it was authorised (because I had previously given my permission for them to take payments)and if I had a dispute I should get the money back from Demon! I knew I had no chance of that so I closed my Barclays account there and then so Demon couldn't get anymore and told the bank to poke it too!

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You should have made a complaint to Ofcom. They'd have slapped those bitches into line.

No, they do help. Well, some of them do. Ofcom do, at very least.

You're absolutely right Aaron of course, problem is I couldn't be bothered to waste my time and energy. Prefer to chalk it up to experience.

I instead spend my time slagging the company off on forums such as this one!

BT are ok, there is nothing particulary wrong with Virgin, Aaron must have read in a paper or heard it from a friend a while back that it's "Shit" and never to touch it again.

I worked in IT support, dealing with ISPs was about 90% of my day job. Tiscali, Demon, talktalk and blueyonder are very bad providers, tech support and how they're connected to the internet "backbone".

BT, Virgin Media and Sky are your best bet... in that order.

End off

Considering where I work this thread is very interesting. I have direct dealings with all the companies mentioned above but it's not something I can do anything about. All I can do is pass on comments when I meet representatives of the companies though I won't be able to get personally involved in individual cases.

Quote: Paul W @ April 30 2008, 1:49 PM BST

There is nothing particulary wrong with Virgin, Aaron must have read in a paper or heard it from a friend a while back that it's "Shit" and never to touch it again.

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No, there is EVERYTHING wrong with Virgin. I have first hand experience of their utter f**king incompetence, and hear the same from my friends who have been unfortunate enough to deal with them.

Quote: Paul W @ April 30 2008, 1:49 PM BST

I worked in IT support

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Yeah, and we all know how well you did there.

Quote: Griff @ April 30 2008, 2:17 PM BST

I'd go with Virgin Media except that... didn't they used to be NTL ?

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Yes. A company so bad, even Branson couldn't clear it up.