Who has the best broadband.

[denphone]

In my experience Virgins broadband is far superior to the others.

[craigj2k12]

you have missed be*

hopefully a mod will add it

[Mick Fisher]

It all depends where you live.

[craigj2k12]

i have voted for virgin media, due to the fact it doesnt matter how far away from the exchange you are, you get full speeds, but iv voted for any other because be* have a great package, no enforced stm and low pings

[Sirius]

The results of this will be off the mark i think simply because the majority of users here will be on cable :)

I voted VM btw :)

[craigj2k12]

The results of this will be off the mark i think simply because the majority of users here will be on cable :)

I voted VM btw :)

yes there does seem to be a positive correlation between people using cableforum being on cable ;)

[denphone]

Anybody is entitled to vote even if they do not use Virgins broadband.

---------- Post added at 12:47 ---------- Previous post was at 12:47 ----------

you have missed be*

hopefully a mod will add it

l knew l would forget one.

[craigj2k12]

Anybody is entitled to vote even if they do not use Virgins broadband.

yeah but on a forum called cable forum, most people will be on cable

[carlwaring]

Plus, personally, I don't have any experience of any other provider :)

[Ignitionnet]

This thread is weird.

Surely it depends on individual requirements, pricing, proximity to exchange, what's available, etc, etc, etc?

[denphone]

Why is that then.

[Ignitionnet]

One product doesn't fit all requirements, individual experiences vary. There is no 'best' else everyone who could have it would have it.

[Sirius]

Plus, personally, I don't have any experience of any other provider :)

I do and some are crap and some are good ;)

[denphone]

This thread is easy and simple to voice opinions and vote but you seem to want to make things complicated.

[craigj2k12]

This thread is easy and simple to voice opinions and vote but you seem to want to make things complicated.

explain how its simple, even within ISP's services can change. for example o2 up to 24mb can acheive 18mb close to the exchange, but 4mb further away, the same as 50mb virgin in one part of the country can acheice 50mb, while in a oversubscribed area it can only acheive 15mb

[denphone]

Thats not a question l can answer.

[craigj2k12]

Thats not a question l can answer.

is it too complicated for the simple question lol?

[Tech_Boy]

Virgin "Cable" Broadband, everything else is merely ADSL. I would never move off net.

[denphone]

Virgin "Cable" Broadband, everything else is merely ADSL. I would never move off net.

And l totally agree with you as ADSL providers promise speeds that they can never realistically deliver.

[craigj2k12]

And l totally agree with you as ADSL providers promise speeds that they can never realistically deliver.

i know someone on up to 24mb adsl who lives over the road from the exchange (literally the other side of the road) and he gets 18mb, so distance from the exchange is a bad way of saying it, they should say "depending on whether you live in the exchange or not

[denphone]

But these speeds can only be got by a little minority so the vast amount of people never get these speeds or nowhere near it.

[craigj2k12]

But these speeds can only be got by a little minority so the vast amount of people never get these speeds or nowhere near it.

thats what im saying, he is a matter of metres from the exchange and doesnt get the headline speeds

[nick2xuk]

I've had decent experiences with; Virgin, o2, and BT and a bad experience with Tiscali. However I know of plenty of people that have had pretty much the opposite.

[denphone]

thats what im saying, he is a matter of metres from the exchange and doesnt get the headline speeds

l am sorry that l did not read your post properly.

[craigj2k12]

I've had decent experiences with; Virgin, o2, and BT and a bad experience with Tiscali. However I know of plenty of people that have had pretty much the opposite.

i have had bad experience with tisacli, which multiplied by 100 when talktalk took over, i moved to virgin because of their ability to deliver high speeds which has held up incredibly well

[Hugh]

Be* option added

[denphone]

Be* option added

Thanks Hugh you are a very kind man and a god we all look up to.

[craigj2k12]

Thanks Hugh you are a very kind man and a god we all look up to.

lol :D

I think if there was no "distance from the exchange" garbage, be would win this vote

---------- Post added at 15:06 ---------- Previous post was at 15:05 ----------

the only thing is that iv already voted so i cant vote for be* :(

[denphone]

You can vote for more than one.

[Welshchris]

i think a lot of people will vote virgin based on speed thinking that the fastest is always best when evidently its not.

[Chrysalis]

on an overall basis even with its congestion problem areas VM are miles ahead. BT are catching up with infinity but infinity still has a much lower footprint than VM cable.

[Maggy]

I've only ever had VM so how the hell can I judge the other suppliers? :confused:

[craigj2k12]

You can vote for more than one.

not if youve already voted

[Peter_]

I voted for Virginmedia as a customer not a member of staff as I have been with them as a customer for a lot longer than I have worked with them and I have had very few issues and most have been resolved very quickly.

[Jimmy-J]

Voted VM, I've had the experience of ADSL and IMO Cable is far better.

[Wild Oscar]

Voted for Virgin .. very limited experience of anything else though.

[denphone]

Voted VM, I've had the experience of ADSL and IMO Cable is far better.

Yes l totally agree.

[richard1960]

Virgin Media has the best broadband without a doubt ADSL in my area would only give me 2mb max, vm broadband at least does not depend on exchange distances.

[Stuart]

One product doesn't fit all requirements, individual experiences vary. There is no 'best' else everyone who could have it would have it.

Indeed.

For instance, while Virgin may be the best for a lot of customers, you may live in a heavily subscribed area and get terrible speeds. You could also live in a lightly subscribed area and get excellent speeds.

Similarly, for any of the ADSL ISPs, you could live a long way from your exchange and get terrible speeds, but you could also live near the exchange and get excellent speeds.

[_wtf_]

Online gaming

Two words why Virgin will never be the best. Set up a BQM on your UBR(?) the latency is utter rubbish.

BT are not looking too good at the moment. An installer arrived Friday and after many hints during a discussion we had that I was not on the exchange he thought I was on he left without connecting me because I wasn't on the exchange he thought I was on! It really was a told you so moment.

Some one rang Saturday saying they will put in a new order!

BTW, haven't voted my feeling is none of them are doing a good job which is basically down to how it's all set up i.e. using old phone lines and cable TV lines.

Didn't see the none option :D

[tweetiepooh]

Guess which way I voted?

[richard1960]

Guess which way I voted?

Sky broadband at a guess.:D:D:D

[telfordcable]

Virgin Media is far the best by mile ahead, no matter if your live too far away in exchange as virgin media is rock solid speed closer to 10M, 30M, 50M and 100M depend where you live in a cable area.

[denphone]

Yes l agree with you but l don,t agree with your team winning yesterday as l support Liverpool.

[Brian Hertz]

Until any other UK ISP is able to provide without British Telecom in the mix, it'll always be Virgin Media for me, regardless of whether they're "the best" or not.
VM's customer service is far from perfect, but i'll never forget (or forgive) how BT treated me/my family.
Thank the stars that VM cable broadband has been extremely consistent (in a good way) for the last couple of years, at least in my area.

[denphone]

Yes its been excellent down here since l have had it.

[pip08456]

I've only ever had VM so how the hell can I judge the other suppliers? :confused:

Say's it all about the uselessness of this thread.

[denphone]

Say's it all about the uselessness of this thread.

Any suggestions then.

[pip08456]

Any suggestions then.

a) Decide what it is you really want to know.

b) Define the parameters for the poll.

The quickest is not always the best. VM are rated top by OFCOM for their headline speeds but a sizable number of users would rate them bottom for gamng purposes due to latentcy, jitter and bad pings.

Advertising (and VM are by no means the worst), Unlimited service but they don't explain what it actually means. VM tend to say you can download what you like when you like and then impose STM and traffic shaping (which I have no problem with) but then contact customers who they deem are using too much!

You are perfoming a poll on a cable forum, who do you expect to answer it- VM users!

FWIW I first started with the internet in 2001 (I think) with NTL's dial up service then progressed to Wanadoo, BT and ended up on NTL broadband.

I stayed with them until about 2007 and then went to BE. I stayed with them until moving in 2009 and because of the problem I would've had with an ADSL connection returned to VM.

I was very happy with VM until October last year, now I'm with BT Infinity which I am happy with due to the higher upload on their 40/10 package and their phone bundle.( I don't get that speed but more than advised).

I now await BE to start offering an FTTC product then I will go back to the immediately. Although they also use offshore support it is miles better than India (Iam not racist either).

[Stephen]

Well obviously I have voted for VM not because I work for them but because I have had them as my supplier for 8 years and have never used any of the other suppliers.

So for me and most other members of the forum it's a pretty pointless thread.

[pip08456]

Well obviously I have voted for VM not because I work for them but because I have had them as my supplier for 8 years and have never used any of the other suppliers.

So for me and most other members of the forum it's a pretty pointless thread.

What I said in the first place and didn't bother to vote.

[Tech_Boy]

I have used and tech'd many different ADSL connections for friends and family, and would not touch one with a 10 foot bargepole, especially VM's "National" service, which a cousin of mine has.

[Chrysalis]

I will be a bit more specific about my vote since people are starting to call the poll pointless.

Since 2000 I have used the following isps.

freeserve - adsl
nildram - adsl
ntl - cable
nildram - adsl
aaisp - adsl
entanet (via reseller) - adsl
ukonline (resold easynet) - adsl
virgin media - cable and xilo - adsl

adsl was fine with freeserve at the start, the half mbit product wasnt hindered by line length, good in comparison to cable and things like openreach didnt exist so BT were still a reasonable company. First nildram spell was good as well, and was with nildram's original owners. Spell with ntl was rough, although faster sync speed than previous adsl the congestion was consistent for the entire 4 years or so on the service and peering/transit quality was aweful with daily downtimes of transit links going down and lots of weird routing eg. going over cheap cogent to france, germany than to the states.
second spell with nildram was nothing like the first, at this time I was on adsl max (8meg product) and line length screwed me down to approx 6mbit but on top of this the line was extremely unstable, I had a nightmare year with lots of engineer callouts, 10+ line drops a day and low sync speeds going as low as 3mbit. Nildram support was lower due to new owners, aaisp were a good isp they came down on BT hard for my line issues but ultimately couldnt fix the ultimate issue of it bneen a crap long line but did get some issues fixed so it at least stabilised to maybe one drop every week or so. aaisp however expensive and I had a 6 gig prime time usage limit during office hours. after many aaisp side outages as they kept playing with their homebuilt linux routers I went to entanet which was a more favourable usage limit and much more stable however the service proved to be a tad oversold so I left fo rukonline my first LLU isp. Ukonline had a feature called SRA which made the line very stable, 6mbit or so sync speed lasted for months without dropout (the only uk isp to use this feature tho), no congestion and was as good as it gets for adsl but ultimately line length hindered my connection. I stayed with ukonline until the day sky cut its throat and am now with VM, I had a brief spell with xilo on adsl who compared to ukonline were poor especially with .us transit quality, speeds from .us were very slow affecting page loads on sites signficantly and the loss of SRA started giving me some line issues again although not major but did exist. Current spell with VM started rough but ultimately the 20mbit and now 30mbit service is almost quadruple what any adsl isp can give me and is fairly stable. If I sign up to 50mbit I will be 9 times as fast as what any adsl isp could give me, hence me saying VM are miles ahead.

[pip08456]

I have used and tech'd many different ADSL connections for friends and family, and would not touch one with a 10 foot bargepole, especially VM's "National" service, which a cousin of mine has.

What about VDSL or FTTP though?

Horses for courses, still a totally pointless thread.

VDSL connection with infinity

https://www.cableforum.co.uk/images/local/2011/05/123.png

BT's own speed test result

Results Image not loaded

Test1 comprises of two tests

1. Best Effort Test: -provides background information.

Download Speed
35345 Kbps

0 Kbps 38717 Kbps
Max Achievable Speed

> Download speedachieved during the test was - 35345 Kbps
For your connection, the acceptable range of speedsis 12000-38717 Kbps .
Additional Information:
IP Profile for your line is -38717 Kbps

2. Upstream Test: -provides background information.

Upload Speed
8067 Kbps

0 Kbps 10000 Kbps
Max Achievable Speed

>Upload speed achieved during the test was - 8067 Kbps
Additional Information:
Upstream Rate IP profile on your line is - 10000 Kbps

[denphone]

a) Decide what it is you really want to know.

b) Define the parameters for the poll.

The quickest is not always the best. VM are rated top by OFCOM for their headline speeds but a sizable number of users would rate them bottom for gamng purposes due to latentcy, jitter and bad pings.

Advertising (and VM are by no means the worst), Unlimited service but they don't explain what it actually means. VM tend to say you can download what you like when you like and then impose STM and traffic shaping (which I have no problem with) but then contact customers who they deem are using too much!

You are perfoming a poll on a cable forum, who do you expect to answer it- VM users!

FWIW I first started with the internet in 2001 (I think) with NTL's dial up service then progressed to Wanadoo, BT and ended up on NTL broadband.

I stayed with them until about 2007 and then went to BE. I stayed with them until moving in 2009 and because of the problem I would've had with an ADSL connection returned to VM.

I was very happy with VM until October last year, now I'm with BT Infinity which I am happy with due to the higher upload on their 40/10 package and their phone bundle.( I don't get that speed but more than advised).

I now await BE to start offering an FTTC product then I will go back to the immediately. Although they also use offshore support it is miles better than India (Iam not racist either).

My, My you deserve 5 stars.

---------- Post added at 17:57 ---------- Previous post was at 17:55 ----------

Well obviously I have voted for VM not because I work for them but because I have had them as my supplier for 8 years and have never used any of the other suppliers.

So for me and most other members of the forum it's a pretty pointless thread.

You speak for others do you, christ you have got a big influence.

---------- Post added at 17:58 ---------- Previous post was at 17:57 ----------

What about VDSL or FTTP though?

Horses for courses, still a totally pointless thread.

So is your pointless constant moaning.

[pip08456]

As most posters have likened their connection to ADSL it is not really moaning.

You posted the poll and you should have considered all parameters rather than just making VM look good.

To find out the best BB provider you are only polling VM customers so the result is bound to be rubbish.

[Stephen]

You speak for others do you, christ you have got a big influence.

Yes I think I do :p: Especially as an other person agrees with me lol.

[Mick Fisher]

a) Decide what it is you really want to know.

b) Define the parameters for the poll.

The quickest is not always the best. VM are rated top by OFCOM for their headline speeds but a sizable number of users would rate them bottom for gamng purposes due to latentcy, jitter and bad pings.

Advertising (and VM are by no means the worst), Unlimited service but they don't explain what it actually means. VM tend to say you can download what you like when you like and then impose STM and traffic shaping (which I have no problem with) but then contact customers who they deem are using too much!

You are perfoming a poll on a cable forum, who do you expect to answer it- VM users!

FWIW I first started with the internet in 2001 (I think) with NTL's dial up service then progressed to Wanadoo, BT and ended up on NTL broadband.

I stayed with them until about 2007 and then went to BE. I stayed with them until moving in 2009 and because of the problem I would've had with an ADSL connection returned to VM.

I was very happy with VM until October last year, now I'm with BT Infinity which I am happy with due to the higher upload on their 40/10 package and their phone bundle.( I don't get that speed but more than advised).

I now await BE to start offering an FTTC product then I will go back to the immediately. Although they also use offshore support it is miles better than India (Iam not racist either).
- ditto that -

I'll see you there. :)

I was advised today that Infinity has gone live in my area so just got to wait for Be to get their ass in gear and serve out the remainder of the 12 month contract I got conned into when VM took my £30 for the 20meg to 30meg upgrade.

Actually, :idea: , I still got my BePro adsl as a back up so it won't cost me any more to have both for a while.

[Ignitionnet]

I'll elaborate a bit.

So long as you don't need to download huge amounts 9am-9pm, use NNTP/P2P at peak periods much, and it works VM is better than any ADSL and only FTTx matches up, as expected given VM is FTTN.

In current and previous addresses VM has failed on the last point, each and every time apart from one of the 5 addresses I've had the service it has had major issues. For me DSL has always been slower, at least on downstream, yes, but reliability and consistency wise streets ahead.

[Hugh]

So is your pointless constant moaning.

http://a4.l3-images.myspacecdn.com/images02/137/85ce595ff2714187ac59989ecb759852/m.jpg

[MikeyB]

Voted for Virgin Media & Talk Talk.
Till yesterday, I was on VM 10Mb M.

I've only ever had ntl/VM broadband, and it's been very very good indeed, can only remember a couple of issues, and the speed has always been what I've paid for.
But the problem for me was the cost.

Just had Talk Talk installed yesterday, so it's very early days, but so far so good.
I'm saving £11 per month, and I'm getting 13-14Mb so better than I was on VM.

Shame to leave Vm really, but the cost for what I was getting was just ridiculous.
They did offer 3 months half price BB to start with, then 6 months, but that wasn't enough.
For me at the moment cost is everything, it wouldn't have mattered if Talk Talk was slower than VM, and before I ordered online checkers said 7Mb ADSL for me.

[craigj2k12]

Voted for Virgin Media & Talk Talk.
Till yesterday, I was on VM 10Mb M.

I've only ever had ntl/VM broadband, and it's been very very good indeed, can only remember a couple of issues, and the speed has always been what I've paid for.
But the problem for me was the cost.

Just had Talk Talk installed yesterday, so it's very early days, but so far so good.
I'm saving £11 per month, and I'm getting 13-14Mb so better than I was on VM.

Shame to leave Vm really, but the cost for what I was getting was just ridiculous.
They did offer 3 months half price BB to start with, then 6 months, but that wasn't enough.
For me at the moment cost is everything, it wouldn't have mattered if Talk Talk was slower than VM, and before I ordered online checkers said 7Mb ADSL for me.

let us know what speeds you get with stalkstalk im sure it might stay connected long enough to run a speedtest

[MikeyB]

Here you go:
https://www.cableforum.co.uk/images/local/2011/05/114.png
Ping is high, but have to say cable forum and everything else I've been on is loading just fine.

[sphx]

only ever had NTL/Virgin Media and BT. Voted for Virgin Media due to the fact my line from BT could only get a max of 1.6mb.

[pip08456]

Here you go:
https://www.cableforum.co.uk/images/local/2011/05/114.png
Ping is high, but have to say cable forum and everything else I've been on is loading just fine.

Try a different server in speedtest.net then, could be the server.