Re: [Scottish] Broadband advice
On 05/01/2011 23:03, Colin McKinnon wrote: On Wednesday 05 January 2011 01:48:38 pm Jason Irwin wrote: Looking at Virign Media just now, any good? On the whole yes - the infrastructure is **very** good - fibre to the wall of your house means you get the bandwidth they advertise, and on the whole service is very reliable. They were never very good at services (NTP, email, and the bundled hosting package is rubbish) and since the Virgin takeover they seem to be trying to land grab by running transparent proxying for all port 80 stuff and adding value by pre-filtering email. There's only been about 2 or 3 significant outages I've noticed in the time I've been using them (12 yrs now) all due to problems with their DNS services (switching to a seperate server solved the problems for me). As for support? Well its a call centre in Asia somewhere who work from a set of about 4 scripts for diagnosing internet problems - they don't even acknowledge the existence of Apple Macs, let alone Linux. And you can expect to spend 30 minutes in a queue for the privilege - but I've been involved in some very serious and expensive support contracts with detailled SLAs which have been about as much use. Good luck, C. ___ Scottish mailing list Scottish@mailman.lug.org.uk https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/scottish Virgin media have their issues, but their support is not all offshore. I know this, as I work for them providing broadband support, and am based in Airdrie. We also have no scripts, at all, the only part that is scripted it the ofcom required notification of potential charges if a tech turns up and nobody is home. If you do a lot of filesharing or usenet, then you may want to look elsewhere, as they are traffic shaping p2p and usenet traffic quite heavily on all service tiers now. they also have a traffic management policy in place on all but the top tier of service (everything below 50 meg) at peak times but it is all detailed on the website. We provide the same level of support for mac and windows, but officially provide no support at all for linux, however if you know how to work the machine, then we should be able to support you. I have their 50 meg service, and in general am reasonably happy with it, although I was getting better speeds on usenet downloads on my previous ISP (3rd party provider) G ___ Scottish mailing list Scottish@mailman.lug.org.uk https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/scottish
Re: [Scottish] Broadband advice
On Friday 07 January 2011 03:14:48 pm Georgia Thomson wrote: On 05/01/2011 23:03, Colin McKinnon wrote: As for support? Well its a call centre in Asia somewhere who work from a set of about 4 scripts for diagnosing internet problems Virgin media have their issues, but their support is not all offshore. I know this, as I work for them providing broadband support, Now I know who to call ;) Thanks Georgia! ___ Scottish mailing list Scottish@mailman.lug.org.uk https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/scottish
Re: [Scottish] Broadband advice
Then it doesn't matter who, buy a business broadband package I hadn't really considered SLA's to be honest and I'm not sure the budget would stretch to a proper business account. (I had planned to grab some virtual images when I leave and work off-line if the worst happened). [0] Okay, I lied, get Virgin50mbit or BeThere24mbit :) Aye, at the moment it's a toss-up between VM and O2 (Be say I'm too far from the exchange, which is odd as it's only about half a mile away). Waiting to get some info from the landlord on tv aerial etc. [1] http://store-3.co.uk/3-unlimited-data-one-plan.html A smartphone would only be another toy for me to play with and get even less done! :) Thanks for all the info, hopefully I can get something sorted soon. J. ___ Scottish mailing list Scottish@mailman.lug.org.uk https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/scottish
Re: [Scottish] Broadband advice
I'm with O2 and so far I've had a great experience - very speedy, very stable and great customer service. Be are also worth a look - same network, owned by the same company, they just provide different packages. As far as I know opinions on Virgin Media are mixed - some love them, some hate them. On 5 Jan 2011, at 13:48, Jason Irwin wrote: I am in the process of moving (to Nottingham...) and need to get broadband set-up. I'll be telecommuting (which will be a new experience) and wondered if people had any advice on a decent ISP? I'm with TalkTalk just now and whilst they're OK, I am not sure I trust them with what will be an essential connection. I'll probably be hammering the heck out of any bandwidth limit with RDP connections too. Looking at Virign Media just now, any good? Hope you all had a Christmas and New Year's. J. ___ Scottish mailing list Scottish@mailman.lug.org.uk https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/scottish ___ Scottish mailing list Scottish@mailman.lug.org.uk https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/scottish
Re: [Scottish] Broadband advice
Hi Jason I'm with Virgin Media at present in the Merseyside area. The main issue I see with them at present is the traffic optimisations they are currently employing. I'm on the 50meg package so I shouldn't have experienced any of this as yet, but this may change. As Jack said, some love them some hate them. Personally I've had good experiences from them apart from the odd outage and I've just had my upload speed bumped up to 5Mbps. On the lower packages, basically they sap about 60% of your possible speed if you breach certain limits on daily use, but I've even heard nightmare stories of customers on the 50meg package being disconnected for using it too much (but not being told what their fair use limits are). Tech support are pretty poor. Mainly due to 99% of the time getting through to an offshore desk reading a script who panic when you start speaking technically to them. If you can get through to Knowlsley where the ex-telewest staff are, then they are much better, but there's no guarantees. Traffic management policy - http://shop.virginmedia.com/help/traffic-management/traffic-management-policy.html http://shop.virginmedia.com/help/traffic-management/traffic-management-faster-uploads.html Customer Forums which may give a view to how good/bad they are - http://community.virginmedia.com/ If you are telecommuting, is it worth looking at a business package with agreed SLAs if you're spending most of the time working remotely. HTH Darren This e-mail and any attachments may be confidential or legally privileged.If you received this message in error or are not the intended recipient, you should destroy the email message and any attachments or copies, and you are prohibited from retaining, distributing, disclosing or using any information contained herein. Please inform us of the erroneous delivery by return e-mail. Thank you for your co-operation. Mercer Limited is authorised and regulated by the Financial Services Authority. Registered in England No. 984275. Registered Office: 1 Tower Place West, Tower Place, London, EC3R 5BU. ___ Scottish mailing list Scottish@mailman.lug.org.uk https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/scottish
Re: [Scottish] Broadband advice
I'll be telecommuting (which will be a new experience) and wondered if people had any advice on a decent ISP? At home, my ISP is demon (home office package) and I am quite happy with them. My partner telecommutes a couple days a week and we have no problems with the connection. Luckily we are near the phone exchange, so we get an ADSL2+ with 20 MiB down / 1 MiB up for ~£24.99 a month. I know of at least one person at the Glasgow Perl Mongers which sings the praises of Andrews and Arnold (http://www.aaisp.net.uk/), and have been thinking of switching myself. Their service is reportedly great. http://www.aaisp.net.uk/broadband-prices.html Their plan for 3GiB/month daytime + 50 GiB/month evenings/weekend comes at £24.44 which is pretty much the same as demon. I have not switched yet as I have not been able to determine how much data is transferred when my partner works from home (our router is not collaborating). By the way, if anybody is interested to join the Glasgow Perl Mongers: we will have our next technical meeting on Thursda 2011-01-13, see http://glasgow.pm.org/ Hope this helps :) -marco- -- Marco Fontani ___ Scottish mailing list Scottish@mailman.lug.org.uk https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/scottish
Re: [Scottish] Broadband advice
On 05/01/2011 13:48, Jason Irwin wrote: I am not sure I trust them with what will be an essential connection. Then it doesn't matter who, buy a business broadband package.[0] SLA is what matters here, and I don't know any residential broadband provider that does an SLA as standard. Or, once you've moved, provide your own SLA with a MyFi or Android Phone (running FroYo/2.2) with decent data allowance.[1] -Dx [0] Okay, I lied, get Virgin50mbit or BeThere24mbit :) [1] http://store-3.co.uk/3-unlimited-data-one-plan.html ___ Scottish mailing list Scottish@mailman.lug.org.uk https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/scottish
Re: [Scottish] Broadband advice
I'll second AA. Fantastic service, good pricing. Support is amazing, just jump on IRC and theres normally staff or other users to help :) PS: If you want to sign up I can do it for you drop me a line Thomas On 5 January 2011 14:02, Marco Fontani mfont...@cpan.org wrote: I'll be telecommuting (which will be a new experience) and wondered if people had any advice on a decent ISP? At home, my ISP is demon (home office package) and I am quite happy with them. My partner telecommutes a couple days a week and we have no problems with the connection. Luckily we are near the phone exchange, so we get an ADSL2+ with 20 MiB down / 1 MiB up for ~£24.99 a month. I know of at least one person at the Glasgow Perl Mongers which sings the praises of Andrews and Arnold (http://www.aaisp.net.uk/), and have been thinking of switching myself. Their service is reportedly great. http://www.aaisp.net.uk/broadband-prices.html Their plan for 3GiB/month daytime + 50 GiB/month evenings/weekend comes at £24.44 which is pretty much the same as demon. I have not switched yet as I have not been able to determine how much data is transferred when my partner works from home (our router is not collaborating). By the way, if anybody is interested to join the Glasgow Perl Mongers: we will have our next technical meeting on Thursda 2011-01-13, see http://glasgow.pm.org/ Hope this helps :) -marco- -- Marco Fontani ___ Scottish mailing list Scottish@mailman.lug.org.uk https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/scottish ___ Scottish mailing list Scottish@mailman.lug.org.uk https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/scottish
Re: [Scottish] Broadband advice
On Wednesday 05 January 2011 01:48:38 pm Jason Irwin wrote: Looking at Virign Media just now, any good? On the whole yes - the infrastructure is **very** good - fibre to the wall of your house means you get the bandwidth they advertise, and on the whole service is very reliable. They were never very good at services (NTP, email, and the bundled hosting package is rubbish) and since the Virgin takeover they seem to be trying to land grab by running transparent proxying for all port 80 stuff and adding value by pre-filtering email. There's only been about 2 or 3 significant outages I've noticed in the time I've been using them (12 yrs now) all due to problems with their DNS services (switching to a seperate server solved the problems for me). As for support? Well its a call centre in Asia somewhere who work from a set of about 4 scripts for diagnosing internet problems - they don't even acknowledge the existence of Apple Macs, let alone Linux. And you can expect to spend 30 minutes in a queue for the privilege - but I've been involved in some very serious and expensive support contracts with detailled SLAs which have been about as much use. Good luck, C. ___ Scottish mailing list Scottish@mailman.lug.org.uk https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/scottish
