h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Seeing as everyone here spends time on the net I'm going to pick your brains. I'm currently using one of the 'free' ISP's where you pay local call rates. (Cable & Wireless) I'm only on off-peak but I'm averaging over 10 hours a week and that's getting expensive.

I'm thinking of switching to BT's surftime, but i've heard some pretty dreadful things about not being able to connect, when you do connection speed is dreadful etc.

My other option in paying CWCom another £13 or so per month for some 'free' time. This sound a bit pricey but at least I know their connection speed is pretty good (most of the time!)

Your opinions required here - are and of the free time ISP's worth bothering about?

The way I thought it worked is that the switch to surftime should enable you to stay with your ISP (if the offer it) all you get is a different number. Freeserve offer SurfTime and PAY YOU £1 a month - therefore the BT cost is £5. I plan to go as soon as my exchange is caperble, but if it's a bad move let me know.

CH

Hmmm. My experiences of Freeserve were great - until I switched to its £10 a month, no call charges, non-BT telco version. Even though they've allowed people to sign up only gradually, the service is still so badly overused that I've not been able to connect to their network at all for a week now. The normal local-call charge version is still a very good service and they promise to bring the other up to scratch by mid-September.

And don't talk to me about BT either. I'm also signed up to their £10 a month, free calls off-peak service and although I can normally get a connection, it's slow, it keeps disconnecting me and I've had problems with their payment system too.

Hmmmm, this isn't sounding too promising! The problem with me going onto Bt surftime is the real cost to me is likely to be about £15 a month. For that I expect the service to be GOOD. Because I have cable TV through cable & wireless I don't pay any line rental for the phone, so to get surftime I need to reconnect to bt at a cost of £9 something a month.
I'm currently on throught the IC24 free time offer - I'll be disconnected in an hour though but the connection speed is good.

Any more suggestions?

I did some checking out of UK ISPs in February, I use CIX, and I am really pleased with them, but I had some pretty specific requirements.
( http://www.cix.co.uk ).

Cix regularly received ISP of the Month awards from the Internet magazines. Their unlimited access service costs about 15gbp per month, and includes email and global roaming.

They are reliable. I don't dial directly into them much (see below), but Internet Magazine tests out all the ISPs every month, and they are always in the top 5 for availability, speed of service etc. The one time I noticed sluggish e-mails, turned out to be because of problems in the backbone, which they wrote about in their next monthly news letter.

They respond very quickly - and very well - to emails but phoning them is a complete pain. If you have problems DONT phone them, send them an email, or get a firend to send them an email.

Their user forums are aparently very good indeed, though I spend too much time hanging out here to hang out there as well. Their summer barbecue also has a great reputation. Their monthly news letter is actually interesting and informative - lots of gen and very little hype.

If they do what you want, then I would recommend them wholeheartedly. But they are not suitable for everyone.

My requirements were: I wanted a "respectable" ISP with a well known name, because I planned on using the email address for a long time. I also wanted one with a global roaming facility, I work on 3 and 6 month contracts outside the UK (Hamburg just now) so I wanted an ISP which would let me dial into the Internet locally, rather than having to set up with a new ISP in each country, or make calls into the UK. And finally I had a web site I wanted hosting. As you can imagine this shortened the list considerably, but I am really pleased with Cix.

Don't Cable and Wireless offer a monthly fixed price scheme? if they do, as your getting your TV and phone service from them it might be the best deal available.
I get cable TV and phones from Telewest, they offer unlimited use on Cable Internet for £10 per month.
Most of the time the service is ok but there are peaks for a couple of hours in the early evening when it sometimes gets difficult to connect and the connection speeds drop to abysmal (very annoying) so I keep a local call rate ISP account as a backup to save my (in)sanity.

Bald Bloke

I use NTL's NTLWorld. We get our TV and Internet line rental from them for about £10 a month. Its a reasonable service but it is prone to being a bit busy and the connection pretty slow.

I use NTL's NTLWorld. We get our TV and Internet line rental from them for about £10 a month. Its a reasonable service but it is prone to being a bit busy and the connection pretty slow.

I sent money to ezesurf and RedHotAnt but have yet to dial up to them once... ezesurf has now gone bust, apparently, and I don't know what RedHotAnt are up to.

I'm currently with BT - their free-off-peak thingy - and I've found it in general to be good value. It's not incredibly fast, but it's cheap... if you're into using the internet for four hours a day, like I am, anyway.

Personally I'm not at all impressed that, this being the year 2000 and all, there still isn't a decent service in the UK to connect you to the internet.

26199

C&W do offer some fixed price deals £5.99pm for 12 hours free, £14.99 pm for 35 hour free, can't remember how much 75 free hour was (too much!) I only really have 2 minor problems with these, firstly I'm sick of clockwatching all the time, (hence my interest in the unlimited free time offers), 2nd I'm clagging up my phone line all the time (I keep telling everyone to e-mail me instead but my mum seems to have a problem with that!) The only technical type problem I've had with C&W is that they cache this sites pages (annoying but not the end of the world) I'm also royally peeved at them - NTL bought them out recently but DON'T intend to introduce the free unlimited time that NTL customers get. So, to get NTL's free time I've got to reconnect the BT line and get the adapter - daft or what?!
Thanks for the feedback - I still don't know what to do but I've got a fair idea who NOT to go to!

I'll throw another one into the pot... I'm with The Free Internet ( http://www.thefreeinternet.net/ ) - they charge £50 for the first year and £20 a year after that, and they give you an 0800 number and an 0845 number you can use if the 0800 number is engaged and you're desperate... Connection speed isn't too bad, actually getting connected can be a bit of a lottery though - sometimes it takes 10 attempts, sometimes you get through straight away. Worth considering, I think.

The C&W deal is a bit odd - read the small print. It's not actually a number of hours you're buying, it's a money discount. What this basically means is that peak use uses up your 'free hours' three times more quickly than off-peak use.

'S a bit cheeky, if you ask me.

It also means that it's worth doing even if you don't use the internet at all, if you get particularly large phone bills...

26199

Metal Chicken, this is to you. After spending a lot of time in the Freeserve chatrooms, I have known lots of people(including myself)who have experienced the same problems as you with Freeserve Time (which I use at the moment.) Anyway, the point is, lots of people have been phoning Freeserve Technical Support, and Freeserve have admitted that Freeserve Unlimited time has had a sudden influx of people, which has slowed the service down a lot.
However, Freeserve are doing something about this - They are totally making new the connections, pages etc., meaning faster connections, and making it easier for more people to join Freeserve Unlimited Time.
I hope this has helped you, metal Chicken, and now for the first writer, this kind of applies to you. FreeserveUlimited time is a best bet, but wait until Mid-September which is when Freeserve will have finished fixing the problem.
Thanks for reading this posting, Steven

Thefreeinternet does look rather appealing - the only drawback I can see with them is they don't allow MP3 downloads and I think thats where a lot of my online time is going. Still if I gets me 50% of my bill out of the way for £50 a year thats rather a significant saving.

Thanks for all the help people!

Well, I'm not entirely sure about the MP3 thing. When I signed up they did say that downloading mp3s wasn't permitted, but the site now says:

"TFI members agree to limit their activities to POP3 email; Web mail, chat, and other Web based applications such as browsing and games; and transferring files."
...and...
"Streaming content of any kind is prohibited on the 0800 Service."

The faq also says:
"We... prohibit high- bandwidth activities such as streaming content and MP3 music files"

I would take that to mean that downloading mp3 files is permissible - after all, it's only a data file like any other - as long as you don't stream them.

One thing to remember though is that you can only connect for an hour at a time, so if you're downloading big files you'd be best to use a download manager (if you don't already) - this will let you stop downloading in the middle of a file, reconnect and carry on from where you left off.

Actually, I shouldn't be encouraging you to join TFI, should I... it'll make it all the more difficult for me to get connected!

I'm on Screaming.net and World Online. You have to change from BT to World Online (£20 charge I think for new users) and line rental is £15 month. Phone calls are guarrenteed 10% cheaper than BT (except mobiles) and internet access is free 24/7. The only time it might take a while to get online is just after 6, other times it is virtually instant. It's also very rare to get a slow connection, mine is always top speed. You get 3 hours before they disconnect you, which is great for downloading, and just general smugness when you see your mates get cut off and know you are safe.

Sunriser, thanks for the reassurance that Freeserve's promises of action are really happening. It's so frustrating when a previously reliable, efficient service snarls up like Freeserve has. Roll on mid-September - that's next week right?

Has anyone tried Telewest's Blue Yonder service? Apparently they just hook a cable up to your computer and you're permanently connected, at an unimaginably faster speed than the fastest phone modem, and you get unmetered access for a fixed monthly fee.

Haven't got cable where I live.

The telewest Blueyonder high speed service (Cable Modem) isn't available in a lot of areas yet.
They were supposed to be making it available around here in August but have now put the date back.
Aparently due to a shortage of chips for the new cable boxes

Does anyone live in an area where it is available?
Does it live up to its promises?