PlusNet is a great ISP (UK)

[Feathers McGraw]

So, I've been with PlusNet for about 6 months now and I've been very impressed.

There are obvious things like good telephone support with polite and helpful staff, and very quick & consistent connection.

The things I wasn't necessarily expecting are these:

No fannying around blocking useful ports.

They know I'm running a website and mail server at home and seem to be OK with it.

They have a helpful forum, example below:
https://community.plus.net/forum/ind...,121500.0.html

When I asked them to change my PTR record, they made the changes almost immediately, with no fuss, and within 24h the changes had taken effect.

Now rDNS checks for my mail server will show my domain instead of my username @plusnet.

Would recommend them. For the record, they're owned by BT so if you can get BT FTTC fibre broadband you can also sign up with PlusNet.

Feathers

[Snowhog]

What speeds do you get?

[Feathers McGraw]

Bear in mind, too, that:
a) This is in the UK, where broadband speeds are generally pretty slow
b) It's peak time.

PlusNet provide FTTC (fibre to the cabinet) and luckily the cabinet is right outside my house so it's super speedy

At previous houses in the area I was with VirginMedia, who provide FTTH (fibre to the home). It was OK, when it was running well you'd generally get something like 30Mbps download speeds (pretty damn good for the UK), but sometimes it would just crawl for no reason. The speeds are really consistent with PlusNet.

Feathers

[Snowhog]

GCI (General Communications, Inc.) is getting ready to bring Gigabit Internet speed to Anchorage:

Gigabit Broadband Coming to Alaska In Anchorage by 2015

It won't be cheap (unfortunate but expected).

How fast is a gigabit?

Activity	At average U.S. speed	At fiber re: 1 Gbps speed
Download HD movie (2.2 GB)	30 minutes	18 seconds
Download console game (4 GB)	55 minutes	33 seconds
Download Ultra HD movie (50 GB)	11.5 hours	7 minutes

[richb]

Bear in mind, too, that:
a) This is in the UK, where broadband speeds are generally pretty slow
b) It's peak time.

PlusNet provide FTTC (fibre to the cabinet) and luckily the cabinet is right outside my house so it's super speedy

At previous houses in the area I was with VirginMedia, who provide FTTH (fibre to the home). It was OK, when it was running well you'd generally get something like 30Mbps download speeds (pretty damn good for the UK), but sometimes it would just crawl for no reason. The speeds are really consistent with PlusNet.

Feathers

You should live in the US if you think the UK is bad. I get 10 Mb/s for $35.00 a month.

[Feathers McGraw]

That's ridiculously fast! Aren't most ethernet ports on common computers 1Gbps?

Any faster and you'd have to upgrade the rest of your LAN network to get the benefits!

[Feathers McGraw]

You should live in the US if you think the UK is bad. I get 10 Mb/s for $35.00 a month.

I guess it depends where you live, as always. Are you in a relatively rural area?

I can't remember what the speed test says for my parents' house (more rural, not fibre), but large files torrent at about 300Kb/s, whereas I get about 3Mb/s here, more if it's well seeded.

As for the price, mine is £30 (about $50)/month including line rental. Discounted for the first few months to a bit less, as usual.

That's pretty typical for fibre in the UK, VirginMedia fibre is £30/month too.

[richb]

I guess it depends where you live, as always. Are you in a relatively rural area?

I can't remember what the speed test says for my parents' house (more rural, not fibre), but large files torrent at about 300Kb/s, whereas I get about 3Mb/s here, more if it's well seeded.

As for the price, mine is £30 (about $50)/month including line rental. Discounted for the first few months to a bit less, as usual.

That's pretty typical for fibre in the UK, VirginMedia fibre is £30/month too.

Not rural, suburbs, 750,000 people and the home of the once mighty Kodak and Xerox, Bausch and Lomb. It is a very highly technically educated area. But no competition for broadband services. You can get 50 50 Mb/s for $65.00, but that is the maximum.

[Feathers McGraw]

Friends from the UK are gushing about http://www.aa.net.uk/, Andrews & Arnold ltd.

You probably heard of them, how would this compare, do they also reject Cameron's attempts at censorship?

I haven't head of them actually, will do some research.

Initial research looks good...

The company's owner, Adrian Kennard (RevK), stated in a blog post that as of October 2010 the company is "XKCD/806" compliant, referring to XKCD comic number 806. This means that technical support callers who say the code word "shibboleet" will be transferred to a technical support representative who knows at least two programming languages, and presumably can offer more useful advice than a standard tech support script.[5][6]

Lol.

Not sure about the censorship thing, if an ISP signs up it basically means that the filter will be "default on" (you can remove it if you like). I'd remove it, of course, but that's not the point. It's hella creepy.

[Danum]

PlusNet, BT in drag, mind you they are better than their parent company.
I will stick with Virgin, my speed is constant day and night, always has been, plus it goes up again to 152 next year.

[Feathers McGraw]

That's very quick, which area of the country are you from? Nobody offers plans over 80Mbps around here (Guildford)

Feathers

[Feathers McGraw]

I see what you did there

[Danum]

That's very quick, which area of the country are you from? Nobody offers plans over 80Mbps around here (Guildford)

Feathers

Doncaster, South Yorks. Started out with Blueyonder then when Virgin bought them out switched to Virgin, rest is history, I have had only one problem when the modem went down, new modem next day, and 2 weeks discount, but that was a few years ago. and I am not capped which is just as well,
The fastest you can get out of BT/Sky around the area I live is 4.5, and that is on a good day.

John.C

[Feathers McGraw]

Doncaster, South Yorks. Started out with Blueyonder then when Virgin bought them out switched to Virgin, rest is history, I have had only one problem when the modem went down, new modem next day, and 2 weeks discount, but that was a few years ago. and I am not capped which is just as well,
The fastest you can get out of BT/Sky around the area I live is 4.5, and that is on a good day.

John.C

Do you have that VirginMedia SuperHub? Was with Virgin for a few years and I had no end of troubles with the thing.

[Danum]

Do you have that VirginMedia SuperHub? Was with Virgin for a few years and I had no end of troubles with the thing.

Yes the very one, and no problems so far, but it does run 24/7, last time it was off was about 10 weeks ago when we had a power cut.