BB FANS

I'm looking to upgrade to broadband asap and I wondered if anybody had a good idea regarding which provider or package was the best.

I'm with BT Yahoo! at the mo and it looks like they have quite good deals on just now, but I have no idea whether that's a good idea or not.

Any advice gratefully received!

Have a look at the Broadband User price guide at Web User. That should help.

tf

hold on. did you say you want to UPGRADE. To broadband? Does that mean...er.. that you're still on... dial-up?

Main things to think about: how fast do you want to go and how much do you use. Some packages offer high speeds but cap how much you surf. The limits are quite high, but if you download lots of music or view streaming media or are into online gaming having a capped download is prob not a good idea.

Actually, I'm not sure how accurate those Web Usre pages are - I have an unlimited 4MB connection with Telewest and it's £25 not £50/month.

Try one of the comparison sites such as uswitch

im on AOL silver which is about £15 P/M but recently seems to be loosing the connection alot and slowing down , im not sure if its a fault with AOL themselves or just my computer!

I used to have wanadoo but i advise you to steer well clear of them, after a vist to the bank i realised they had set up 6 accounts under my name and tried to take 6 amounts each month. Even after i cancelled they were still setting up accounts so my bank had to put a block on my account to stop them trying.

I'm on the same and suffered the same problems for the last couple of weeks but it turned out to be down to a windows update. My modem would go into "training" mode and not load pages up. Would also cut me off every hour or so but got rid of this update and been sorted since.

I'm with Plus Net they are about £15 a month and they are in the process of upgrading me to 8 MB so hope my system can cope with it.

But I find them really helpful, plus they are a local company for me so like to support them in that way.

Hi Cameron, thought it as well to leave this in the public area as it may help others.

Obviously you don't live in a cable area, as that's what I'd suggest for the best connection.

ADSL is pretty much the same thing, no matter who you get it from. You need a BT line and the equipment supplied is fairly standard from all the operators out there.

Check out the costs and what you get, an unlimited package is better as you don't have to worry about going over your limit. Also check what review boards say - tech support from some smaller companies is pretty poor for example.

I recently had my cable package upgraded from 2mb to 10mb, at no extra cost, so promptly downgraded it to 4mb and saved a tenner a month through doing that!

At 'work' we went with BT and a 2mb ADSL link, the filters on the line are essential for being able to use the phone while the computer is connected and they supplied 2 of these in the package. We already had a couple more kicking about so I simply put phones where I wanted them and hooked the computer in for Internet.

OG

The easiest thing for you to do Cameron is just upgrade with your current provider, it'll certainly be the quickest way.

Providers are much of a muchness really and none are perfect, you may save money with a cheapie but for that you'll inevitably be restricted in some way or suffer lower performance or poor customer support.

BT the monolith that they are are not actually too bad as an ISP.

ADSL@8mb would be nice

I'd agree with Westy, usually it's just easier to upgrade your package with whoever you're with - it also means they do most of the legwork for you.

I'm with Wanadoo, but I've never had any problems with them regarding extra accounts etc

It's not a dopey question Cameron - in fact I'm quite pleased you asked it as I wanted to ask exactly the same thing!

I've still got dial up as I do some work at home and I am worried about security with broadband. I am even running dial up with two firewalls!

I've got a BT phone line but my dial up has always been with an additional Telewest line. To make matters worse my kids want me to go Wifi so they can link their laptops

I'm with Pipex and although maybe not one of the cheaper providers I've never had a problem with them and have had a reliable service from them.

I'm with Pipex too and have been with them for 3 years now, they're very reliable and I've only had 2 or 3 days with no connection.

8mb is £28 a month so I'm sticking with 2mb for now at £20.

One suggestion from a friend was to cut the Telewest line and go with BT broadband and Pipex - they too said they had found it really good.

Broadbrand has lots of security with it, and some may think that dial up is less secure than boradband.