Choosing an Internet Service Provider

[Frances]

Thank-you all so much for all your help and advice. It is much appreciated, I do not want to sign up and be tied to an ISP for a year or more that is not right for me. Using your advice I will investigate further before making the final decision.

Many thanks again.  Frances

[celia]

Can anyone tell me is it normal to have had  four I.P in four and a half years or i am i just unlucky with them I had at one time thought once you settled on a I.P you had it forever.How green was i 
 number one was Freeserve cant remember  why i came off that. 2 Whsmithnet i liked that,unfortunately they sold us down the river to Breath they couldn't cope. Customers were lucky to get on the net twice a week. They crashed within a couple of weeks.I myself lost over hundred pounds not knowing that 12 months after the cut off they were still taking my money. Even though i cancelled twice before they vanished. Others had to close accounts to stop them. Today i had an mail from Virgin to tell me that they are changing there phone number in February. I was one of the few that are outside that number. I have 2 choices.Change to Pay as you go or find another provider. The first is no good for me. So i now have to find another one .I am not a happy bunny because it means i have to have find all the websites i have my number on and change it I have been looking at some providers but there are to many. I found Waitrose.com One.tel and tiscali. Any comments on these sites anyone Or can anyone direct me to an I.P that isn't going to sack me ;)I have got till the 14th? of next month but as payment are taken before that i need to find a reliable I.P by the end of the month. Any advice appreciated.

Celia

[Hackstaple]

I had a horrid service provider - no names no pack drill - but I have been with clara.net for some years and they are as near perfect as makes no difference. I pay them as part of my web site hosting package but you can have your email hosted by them for nothing at all or at most a nominal price

[Biker]

Hello, I do sympathise.
Here is a good site.  Use the Service Providers, Rate, Compare etc.
I'm not sure if it is appropriate to mention names, but I would recommend my provider and know there are dodgy ones too.

http://www.adslguide.org.uk/

Best of luck
Jonathan

[Willow 4873]

Hiya Celia

I dont know what country your in but the UK IP providers seem to be pretty good from the ones I've used so far

You might be better signing up for the bigger names like AOL or BT (if you can get it) or even Blueyonder which I have been with for 3 years I know they might cost a bit more but at least you seem to have more come back and support than some of these 'fly by night ' companies that seem to surface alot

Hope you dont leave us again

Willow x

[Biker]

All respect to willow but my advice would be to steer well clear of AOL as I have numerous friends who have had problems with them - lack of connection, poor connection speeds etc.
I used to be with BT and it was 'ok' but stroppy after-sales service and poor connection speeds intermittently on adsl.

I know others may have different experiences, but ... just my tuppence worth.

Jonathan

[Keith Bateman]

 Today i had an mail from Virgin to tell me that they are changing there phone number in February. I was one of the few that are outside that number. I have 2 choices.Change to Pay as you go or find another provider.
Celia

Hi Celia

Not sure what difference having a new phone number to dial up makes? - I've been on Virgin for 7/8 years now and found them very good - now on broadband - but I have never been dropped off yet.

Cheers
Keith

[Willow 4873]

Always welcome anyones tuppence worth Jonathon but my point was that at least with the bigger names you have a bit of an advantage over the ones that seem to promise a lot and then dont deliver and vanish off the face of the earth

Maybe we should be more Americanised and sue anyone who doesn't deliver what they promise

and who has met yet anyone whos after delivery promise lived up to their pre-agenda spiel (not mentioning Tony Blair and every government that came before him) lol

Willow x

[trystan]

A friend  told me "AOL have their own proprietary software for accessing the internet that can cause some problems to some users, and their very effective anti-spam systems can cause problems for websites [like this]  who send links for activations or notifications." Allegedly.

We have a little discreet advert at the top of RootsChat for an Internet Service Provider..(it appears after a while) .. we have used them for about four years now, and are very pleased with them. But there again we're biased because we want to make our 50 pence commission to go towards running RootsChat.