Arrrgh:-( ADSL

[karen2205]

BCN are going to stop providing ADSL by the end of the month:-(

I therefore need to find a new provider. BCN are recommending Nitrex. I'm not convinced, having never heard of them. The comments about 'all their support staff speaking English' don't fill me with confidence.

Someone has set up a Wiki for discussion. Eclipse is looking good, but ISTR some people here saying the service was unreliable.

Zen are also looking promising.

Can you recommend other good ADSL providers to me?

My requirements:
Stand alone service - I don't want inclusive telephone calls or inclusive anything else
'wires only' - ie. I have my own router, I don't want another freebie one
A 512MB service has been quite sufficient for me - I don't do downloading of lots of telly/films/music and I don't see that changing
Outgoing smtp server
Preferably access to a nntp server
I don't want web space, I've already got all that I need
I don't particularly want another email account, but I think I'm going to get one anyway.
I don't want a minimum contract period. Definitely don't want a 12 month minimum contract as if I pick somewhere awful I want to be able to move away.
I absolutely refuse to do business with NTL.
It must be reliable. A connection that falls over more than occasionally is not good enough.
Price isn't a particular problem. I'd rather pay more for a reliable service, than less for a dodgy one.
I'm not sure I understand my usage stats - (quite big images behind cut)







...so not sure if a bandwidth usage limit would be a problem for me or not.
Need the ability to upload things.

Comments

[mstevens.livejournal.com]

I've been fairly happy with zen.

[timeplease.livejournal.com]

Zen have been fine for me. It is particularly useful at the pubs to have 8 static IP addresses allocated - I can use one for the DSL modem (so I can get to it remotely if everything else stops working), one for the internal network router, and one for the public access wireless network.

They are not the cheapest, but they have been completely reliable.

[arkady.livejournal.com]

Another vote here for Zen; I was with Eclipse for over 2 years, but Zen are far more reliable. We're on Zen here and have no intentions of switching!

[emma]

I would recommend Freedom2Surf, but they've just been bought by Tiscali so I'd be wary of recommending them until I know what happens with that. They're fast and reliable though and give good service when I need it, which is not very often.

[syllopsium.livejournal.com]

Zen aren't cheap, but they are reliable. Just make sure you're not going to exceed the bandwidth allowance.

Usefully, uploads are not counted in the allowance. Which is good, as for instance so far I've downloaded 4GB and uploaded 15GB...

[weatherpixie.livejournal.com]

Zen!

[david jones (from livejournal.com)]

I've been using Eclipse for 4 years with no problems. In my initial (not very thorough) survey Zen were my #2 choice and I probably will use them when I move (Eclipse have been fine, but I should switch just to be a good capitalist consumer).