Frequently Arse Question: UK Internet Service Providers

Pretty reliable and they don't seem to bombard me with "Upgrade To Broadband If You Wish To Remain Human" emails any more. They did offer me some slightly dodgy software recently (we met in a skip behind Marylebone station at dawn) which was supposed to ensure a 100% connection rate, but I think my part of the bargain was yielding up more personal info than they currently have on file (and, anyway, my dial-up works 95% of time), so I didn't bother.

Oh, and Freeserve AnyTime boots you off after 2 hours, but you can reconnect immediately. Just knackers big downloads that can't be resumed.

no, i just use an automatic redialling program :-)

For dial up I have www.fast4.net who do four months unmetered for £19.99. They boot you off sfter two hours though.

omfg i am so sick of cunting BT ruining my life on a daily basis - fucker keeps going down for no reason today, literally 5 times so far, and I AM TRYING TO DOWNLOAD SOMETHING I NEED FOR WORK FOR FUCK'S SAKE.

people of london, recommend me an internet service provider that doesn't constantly do this. i've endured O2 and virgin as too, both were bad but BT is easily the worst. how fucking hard can it be to find a provider that doesn't CONSTANTLY GO DOWN? ie that does WHAT WE PAY IT TO DO IN A RELIABLE FASHION?

swear to god i am going to commit homicide on a member of BT staff one of these days.

I've been with O2 for a year and it hasn't gone down once, but before that I was with Be and they were pretty great.

It might be a problem with your exchange or phone line itself...

I used to have REALLY bad service from BT until I phoned them and actually spoke to a human. He promised someone would investigate and monitor our connection. That was 2 years ago and no problems AT ALL since. I work a lot from home so use it at least 3-4 hours everyday. I take it you've spoken to them though?

O2 broadband has been pretty shit for me but to be fair I think we have chronic problems with our line and their customer support has been tremendous, like far and away better than anyone else I've ever dealt with (including Be)

we've spoken to them several times - it's a problem that predates me moving in - their suggestions have always been really basic ones that don't solve anything much, and then we have a stretch of a couple of weeks where everything seems fine and we forget about it.

it's really easy to solve in that pressing reset always solves it, but at its worst it's just incredibly annoying. anyway my housemate just spoke to someone again, they said we were on the wrong channel o_0 o_0 but given that it's jut fucking gone down AGAIN i don't think that was a solution.

my bt broadband got a lot worse over the last while - I was working around it by connecting via an ethernet cable rather than wireless when I needed a more reliable and slightly faster connection, but that was obvs stupidly inconvenient. I've just replaced the router (had one of the old, white homehubs till now) and things are a lot better.

But yeah, abandon wireless and buy your own router aren't really attractive solutions.

remember that hilarious ad in which the bt couple decide to buy a house solely because it comes with a homehub.

It probably is a problem with the channel - it's not your line, it's other wireless networks in the area interfering with yours. You need to be on a channel that's a long away from the others to stop that happening.

Someone in customer service can probably talk you through making that happen but it might be better to get someone, ahem, more tech-literate to have a go at that.

POSTING HERE IN ALL CAPS BECAUSE IT'S THAT OR HURL THE FUCKING ROUTER OUT OF THE WINDOW OR TRACK DOWN A BT EMPLOYEE AND KICK THE SHIT OUT OF THEM

BT outsource all their shit-kicking target needs now.

Also, fuck Orange. I am precisely 1.00001 miles away from the telephone exchange. That is not a justification for you to give me crap d/l speeds that yo-yo like a cab driver with a pogo stick for a right leg.