'Boutique' ISPs: Snub the Big 4 AND get great service

Re: Quick correction

Though I've noticed that sky LLU does this stupid lag thing too.

And the advantage of talktalk LLU is that they have *some* control at least over the line speed. BTW doesn't.

It's all due to trying to run a 21st century technology over a 19th century network.

Re: Quick correction

Supermoore - true enough, but another benefit of a small friendly and knowledgeable ISP is once you've changed out the faulty hardware, you can ask them to request a profile reset, which short-circuits that procedure!

Re: A&A ++++

While I'm sure A+A are a good ISP, for techno junkies especially, I have to say that despite 30+ years in IT, I've found a few of the 'niche' ISPs to have tetchy call handling staff, or I caught them at the end of a long shift perhaps. Additionally, several 'niche' ISPs work a 'business hours' line, so may be closed when a residential use might need them most, on the weekend or evening, and have more limited support. I'm not pointing at A+A but smaller ISPs in general.

As for fixed IP, I'm quite disgusted that some ISPs charge a monthly fee for this, or require a user to be on a significantly more expensive type of account before offering it. I'm using a couple of landlines, one is using TalkTalk wholesale (but has none of the filtering applied, I feel sure) and the other by Primus (now calling themselves Fuel Broadband {!}) for cheap (5.99 inc) line rental and Plusnet for BB (with fixed IP for which I had an 'opt in' some years ago, but is offered at a once-only fee for new customers).

Both ISPs have UK call centres, straightforward charges, and truly unlimited usage (I added a second line, as backup, <u>when my usage exceeded 350 GB a month</u>, mostly from downloading free video podcasts on iTunes from Twit.TV, viewing webcams, or "on demand" viewing of 4oD, Demand 5, etc, as I don't work the "9 to 5" and am often asleep from 1600 to 0000).

With 750K (I think) customers, and rising, they are not without the 1% with problems over billing, installation (sometimes down to Openreach, but then again it's usually the ISPs that get the blame), or other issues. Not perfect (is any ISP?) but pretty good, and in my view a "good value ISP" (my username!).

I know for business users Plusnet has a dedicated team, on different phone numbers, and while sometimes their residential call centre is deluged with calls, (and launched a second call centre in Leeds to cope with the growth,) they seem to live up to their "open and honest" approach when it comes to problems, and respond on a range of external discussion boards, to all sorts of enquiries, rather than only use their own ticketing / social media / website methods for contact.

No doubt there will be a few Plusnet haters along any minute but FWIW, I would not have recommended them to family if I felt they were not worthy of giving a mention.

Re: Xilo is hard to beat

+1 for Xilo

Went there for their O2 Wholesale connections after my Be connection was about to be migrated to Sky. Unfortunately O2 Wholesale were sold off so had to migrate to a TT wholesale connection. Not actually noticed any difference and Xilo handled the whole thing really well.

Re: Where is Zen Internet in this advertorial?

That's was I was thinking. I was with Zen for several years of extremely good service (both delivery and customer) before moving abroad. I just wish I could get them here ;)

Re: Where is Zen Internet in this advertorial?

Every attempt of mine to get through to Zen's press contact line while I was writing this piece was met with hold music. Had it not been for that, they would certainly have been mentioned.

Re: Where is Zen Internet in this advertorial?

Zen don't seem to know what IPv6 is. That's a pretty big failing.

Re: I've seen these kind of ISPs before.

Several down votes - these will be the people who STILL believe that £1.99 a month can get you fast, unlimited broadband.

My favourite ISP scam was the guy who figured out the flaw in a certain major ISPs "First three months Free" package a few years back - and earned himself a six figure sum before legging it out of the country.

Re: I've seen these kind of ISPs before.

Just wondering if you had a particular ISP in mind as the target of suspicion ?

It's perhaps true to say there are a lot of ISPs one may never have heard of, but I am sure I've heard of all of the ones mentioned in the article and comments. I know of none that are 'younger' than maybe 5 years but clearly you think that 'niche' = 'risky' ...

Re: I've seen these kind of ISPs before.

Jason7 - you may have mis-understood what Nigel was getting at. The names he mentioned have all been around for many years. Yes, there's always the risk of the fly-by-night cowboy brigade who've worked out they can get a quick profit out of setting up an operation, locking in a few customers, then legging it before the bills need paying. Some of us have been around for over 20 years however. (And yes, that's pre-broadband and pre-dial-up - not all of us started out as ISPs!)

Re: Jammy git

I'm the reverse - some ISP's go up like a Bond Baddie's hide-out after I've been with them for a while !

Re: Jammy git

When I first bought a car with "traction control" it was horrible. If the wheels started spinning, the TC just backed off the throttle and kept it off for half a second to a second. It felt like something was wrong with the engine. Nothing you could do could get it to start trying to turn the wheels again until it was good and ready. Now modern TC systems work by momentary dabs of brake to the spinning wheel and letting non-spinning wheels continue to dive, and it all happens so quickly you tend not to even notice it, until the TC system fails and you realised just how much loose gravel there is on that hill there or how slippery the carpark behind Marks is...

In similar vein the bandwidth management tools used by some ISPs are way more subtle these days. I think you'll find that any bit-torrent, emule, or other similar traffic that you may be using to fill up that 90TB store will run flat out much of the time. But at times when the core network is busy, your traffic will be "de-prioritised". That doesn't mean it WILL slow down, but it means it MIGHT slow down at moments when there's enough higher priority traffic to need all the available bandwidth. This really doesn't matter for the sort of process where you're not sitting waiting to launch an app or start reading a document as soon as it finishes downloading.

However, it MAY matter to some, and for them, totally unrestricted service can be arranged. Yes, it costs a little more, but it's their choice.

Sadly, there are still some systems where the newer subtleties have yet to be discovered, and they work on an older model of bulk traffic WILL be slowed down.

Re: Takeover time

There certainly has been a hell of a lot of consolidation - many of the names that featured in some of the early ISP roundups I did for PCW have long since vanished.

But a lot of the others do seem to manage to remain independent, either through being so small that they're probably not a likely takeover target, or through doing the sort of hybrid trick of being both an aggregator and a direct seller (Zen, Merula, ICUK, AAISP).

It's possible that, in time, some of those might be swallowed up by some of the big four, certainly. But by and large they seem to have enough scale to keep going on their own, and they've never really been chasing the low margin end of the market.

I think that in the case of a fair few of those that fell by the wayside, it was the chasing after volume and low price at the same time that tended to prove their undoing.

Re: Takeover time

The first ISP I was on were Technocom in Slough who invited me over for tea and biscuits, followed by a tour of their co-location areas. They got taken over by Easynet who were I think ok (I can't remember now TBH), but one of my clients wanted me to setup their system with a company called Frontier in Wales. The thing with Frontier was that you got a fixed IP, no blocking of ports and comprehensive technical support. I switched allegiance to them (as a reseller) until the bitter end when they got taken over by Mistral. Mistral started bombarding me with invoices for services I'd never ordered and they were a vile company to deal with, for that reason. Finally got over 50 credit notes from them, which was round about the time of their take-over by Kcom (draw your own conclusions if you will) As a result of that experience I've vowed never to be the middle-man for an ISP ever again.

My experience with take-overs then is that they can be very disruptive, and I worry that my current ISP (Zen) will sooner or later succumb to a similar fate.

Re: Columbia Internet for Canuks?

When I worked at Earthlight back in NZ, we loved this strip and used to wonder where Illiad had hidden the cameras - many of the conversations and support calls were so close to our daily reality!

Re: Columbia Internet for Canuks?

Userfriendly is on our daily reading list here. As is Dilbert.

Re: Demon

I remeber Demon in the old days swinging from great service to crap to good again as the servers and lines were improved. Was still with them until Thus just destroyed them.

Since then have both my phone and BB with ICUK, they aren't perfect, but they helped me resolve a problem in the BT (Tier 1) exhange that ended with the DSLAM being changed to something modern and, I think, speeded the change from 20 to 21CN. Just waiting for my "Superfast BB" now, programmed for March -- we shall see

Re: White mice running round a wheel

Yep; and around 10-15% of people may be connected to 20CN rather than 21CN.

However, while in a Market 1 exchange you may still have to rely on BT wholesale for the DSL link, that doesn't mean you can't go with some of these ISPs. You may be limited in terms of speed (especially on 20CN) and companies rely on the LLU offerings from C&W or TalkTalk are out, but you should still be able to find someone who can offer you a more customised service, even in Market 1, than if you simply take the BT option.

Re: White mice running round a wheel

Yes and no.

Yes, there are still many Market 1 exchanges, that means, as you say, you can only buy your internet service supplied via BT's core network.

But that does NOT mean you have to buy it from BT.

You still have the choice of which ISP you go to for your retail service.

You can't magically get CN21 or FTTC where the exchange only offers CN20 that way.

But you do choose how your bandwidth is managed, packaged, and supported that way. And you also get to move your phone line away from BT if you want to - that can save you a small fortune. :)

Buying a "resold" BT circuit cuts BT's *retail* operation out of the loop, sales, and support. Yes, your traffic still needs to run over BT's core network and yes, any fault in that network will still affect you as well as all your neighbours, but you can get better service in all other regards.