Netcall Share Discussion Threads

[vanilla] 27/2/2003 07:26

Just to repeat, Zen Internet is my provider and I'm very happy with it. It has good upload and download times and the support is excellent.
I would also like to stress that when going broadband you MUST get a firewall, its imperative. I personally resolved this by buying a Draytek Vigor 2600 which is a combined 4-port router and modem with a built in customisable firewall. This comes in fixed or wireless versions and is very good. I have the fixed version and have a small network of machines setup on it. On the machines with Windows XP I have also got the built in OS firewall activated.
cheers
Vanilla

[bj444] 26/2/2003 22:45

Anybody tried giointernet ?

[y cymro] 23/2/2003 08:54

Is this any good?

[cygnus] 22/2/2003 23:26

Nildram.

£22.99 per month.

2 outages in 3 months, lasting about 4 hours each. Took about half an hour each time to get through to support.

However, tech follow up was good.

Response times seem to increase 10 fold at about 3.40pm-ish.

[free spirit] 22/2/2003 23:25

Incidentally - I would never use the internet without a firewall.

[free spirit] 22/2/2003 22:58

Have been with BT since July. No outages (except for a few hours when all the local phone lines went down) and no reason to contact customer support. The difference between ADSL and 56k is more than enough to make it worthwhile. I would recommend it to anyone.

[febuary girl] 22/2/2003 22:55

labrat - 22 Feb'03 - 22:40 - 43 of 43 (filtered and reported)

[labrat] 22/2/2003 22:40

carver you slaaaaaag.

Brian cant

[grimbo] 22/2/2003 22:14

I use Demon. £25 per month. 24 hour support. Very happy

[bj444] 22/2/2003 19:40

Thanks, useful contributions...

Further opinions invited...

[velvetide] 22/2/2003 18:58

a year ago BT Openworld (broadband) was going down around once a week, suddenly this changed during summer last year, and to my recollection has not been down since, except for a scheduled one hour off air around November after midnight for maintenance purposes

i have no fears when turning on in the morning that it will not be working, which is more than i can say about many sites which i rely on, eg tdw

there are only two comments which i would make,

accessing sites can slow down slightly between 4pm and 7pm which i guess is due to school finishing

the btinternet email system can be slow at most times, however you're obviously not tied to this provider

(i live in balham)

[nav_mike] 22/2/2003 18:47

Ive only had three short service outages in 18 months - each time support has been friendly and knowledgeable

Friend with BT has said it is a waste of time even trying to contact support

[bj444] 22/2/2003 18:44

Or TISCALI ??

[bj444] 22/2/2003 18:43

Cheers Mike.

Any idea how Freeserve broadband compares to BT ?

[trumpet] 22/2/2003 18:40

Very pleased with Zen Internet. Good price and good support.

I used to share a 2MBit connection, for day-to-day usage there's really not much to be benefitted from the extra bandwidth imho - save the pennies ;-)

[nav_mike] 22/2/2003 18:31

Ive had freeserve broadband for eighteen months and its been a revelation

BUT - 2Mb broadband from Internet Central is now on its way to any exchange that is ADSL enabled. Monthly cost is gonna be circa £50 per month but remember thats for a service 4 times as fast as 'ordinary' ADSL

[bj444] 22/2/2003 18:03

This is a useful thread so Ive brought it up again.

Girlfriend is agitating for Broadband so that our phone works when I'm on-line.

Lets hear from people who reckon they have good value broadband :o)

[mi££ions] 16/1/2003 00:42

More info at ispreview.com and ispreview.co.uk if required.

bj444,
I missed the computer boat. When I was at university, a guy on the 1st Year Computer Science course had asked his bosses for 3-years at univ because his qualified Systems Analyst/Programmer colleagues were earning £105k basic and he was earning £15k basic, simply because he wasn't qualified! When we graduated in 1990, he (and his £105k colleagues) were made redundant. Now, most software is off-the-peg so companies don't need armies of computer staff.

Have you noticed the millions of computer 'doctors' advertising these days? However, if you need a plumber...forget it for at least 3 months!

[bj444] 04/1/2003 20:37

I was a physicist , then computer programmer.

Seems your tech questions are not finding an answer.... yet... !

[mi££ions] 02/1/2003 13:48

bj444,
Are you employed as a physicist? I am a physics graduate but now work in sales of 'old economy' products having been made redundant 3 times in 2 years from sales in the electronics industry!