Off Topic Alternative Internet providers

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PLT said:
When you say far better interweb connection, that's not really true. Changing from BT to Sky at the same address would make no difference whatsoever to the reliability or speed of your connection, unless you also change to a better technology at the same time.
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Believe me, it makes a world of difference.
 
Titan Tiger said:
I am with Connexin ,been with them since September ,
I switched from karoo purely because of the continued increase in price related to the decrease in data ,and tying in to 24 month plans .I bought a huge smart tv and equipment to stream movies /Football so needed a large data allowance .
I do not agree to the forced phone rental or inclusion of phone line calls on bundles when wanting to upgrade to get more data ,we do not use a house phone

I had a 15 Mpbs connection with karoo but only 20 odd gig
I have 6-25Mpbs with Connexin

Both buffer live tv at peak times Karoo blamed me or the equipment ,Connexin have been very good at trying to sort issues out .

I am not on the top package with Connexin that is £25 a month for 250 gb data
the cheaper package is £18 for 100 gig
both packages can be upgraded to include unlimited data for a one off yearly payment of £60
I would not say that its faultless but on the whole I am happy with what I get
I will say alongside the price per gig that karoo charge I am highly delighted ,
Speeds and performance do depend on where you are ,line of sight to a node and just how many are connected to that node ,
You also get a free hull number to set up a voip connection and with that you can have a pay as you go home phone ,at around 1p per min with cheap international calls.

For me it was a no brainer
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I assume that there's a speed difference at the £25 price, otherwise you're paying an extra £7 per month for 150GB as opposed to an extra £5 per month for unlimited?

I'll be onto my parent's Karoo fibre in a few weeks. Currently with Talk Talk for £8pm line rental (paid up front) and an extra £3.50pm for unlimited usage. Not the best reliability but not bad for £11.50pm
 
I live in one of the bigger Hull villages where there is no fibre connection despite villages in all other directions having it, I speak to Sky engineers regularly and would be delighted for them to to fit me up with their internet only they can't do it. The data allowance I get with KC is a joke compared to the cost of the package, and I also object to having to pay for a landline which I rarely use. I used Lightstream in 2012 in Beverley so four years on I can safely say the service I get from KC is a joke. KC would only be worthwhile for me if Lightstream was available and it isn't with no sign of it coming, I check regularly.
 
ImperialTiger said:
I assume that there's a speed difference at the £25 price, otherwise you're paying an extra £7 per month for 150GB as opposed to an extra £5 per month for unlimited?

I'll be onto my parent's Karoo fibre in a few weeks. Currently with Talk Talk for £8pm line rental (paid up front) and an extra £3.50pm for unlimited usage. Not the best reliability but not bad for £11.50pm
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I get around 18 meg on my BT connection & so far it has never let me down....I also have totally unlimited data (useful for streaming TV & BT Sport)
 
I think I'm only person who has never had any problems with Karoo.
 
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NorthFerribyTiger said:
I get around 18 meg on my BT connection & so far it has never let me down....I also have totally unlimited data (useful for streaming TV & BT Sport)
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Yes there is a speed difference cheaper package gives around 6-11 dearer gives over 10 to 60 but realistically contention plays a part
still I am happy and saving cash
 
NorthFerribyTiger said:
Mine is not an expensive package, the cost listed is for line rental, unlimited 24/7 calls, caller ID, Unlimited Broadband (& free BT sport) in a non cable area
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Erm. Caller ID is a free service everywhere isn't it? Bit desperate including that.
 
TheCasual said:
I think I'm only person who has never had any problems with Karoo.
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Makes 2 of us then Casual, if anyone cares to got on the various ISP forums you will find that many people, no matter who they are with, will have some gripe about poor service, dropped connections, poor after sales service and all the other stuff people complain about with Karoo. I'm glad they are still here in the city employing local people and contributing to the local economy unlike Comet and others who have decamped eslewhere under some flimsy excuse about Hull's isolation.
 
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I wouldn't get BT even if I could just coz of those ****ing dire adverts they have of life in a student flat, with that ginger dork who can't play computer games, but loves his router.

What is it with BT and their soap opera recurring ads? No one cares. They're not even meerkats.
 
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All the ISP choice outside of Hull is an illusion unless you have a good connection to the local BT exchange or access to Virgin. I have a free Sky broadband Internet (crap) as backup for Virgin which is over £40 a month, and great when it's working. When it failed last year along with all their customers where I live, it was off for days. They knew nothing about it when I called, despite an underground explosion that was all over twitter. It loses service randomly and is nowhere near the advertised maximum speed.
 
GlassHalfHull said:
All the ISP choice outside of Hull is an illusion unless you have a good connection to the local BT exchange or access to Virgin. I have a free Sky broadband Internet (crap) as backup for Virgin which is over £40 a month, and great when it's working. When it failed last year along with all their customers where I live, it was off for days. They knew nothing about it when I called, despite an underground explosion that was all over twitter. It loses service randomly and is nowhere near the advertised maximum speed.
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Thats interesting. I thought Virgin's speeds were almost guaranteed. The technology they use is the next best thing to KC Lightstream. If I lived away from Hull I'd want to be on their network.
 
Further to my previous post: I was experiencing over 20 drop-outs per day but after a couple of technicians reviewed the system I was told there was nothing wrong. Also, they were only registering 1 or 2 drop-outs at their main base. My personal local 'Geek' thoroughly overhauled my system and found nothing wrong. Telstra then placed me on what the call a 'profile' system telling me that this should reduce the drop-outs. It did, I am experiencing about 5 per day now BUT just about every time I switch sites browsing the internet I get messages such as 'connecting' followed by 'trouble loading the page' and 'try again and (if unsuccessful) 'Broadband Link Error'. After half a dozen attempts I finally get on to the site. My own feeling is that something is interfering with my service (smart meter grid or local airport transmissions or the nearby power station). Most frustrating. My wife's mobile phone internet has no problems whatsoever.
 
Access speed is fine but their core network is congested and the effect is that it throttles back the capability of Virgin's network.
 
PLT said:
There's a few wireless providers which are alright, but can't offer the reliability of a fixed line service.

As we all know you can't get other fixed line providers in 01482 areas, but it's not true that KC are the cause of that. They're strictly regulated like all ISPs are for competition, the reason is simple that big ISPs don't want to be involved in Hull.

Ofcom regularly audit ISPs performance and KC is pretty much always significantly faster than the likes of BT, Sky, TalkTalk, etc. People don't realise how good the service actually is round here.

KC's fibre service, Lightstream, is absolutely streets ahead of what other providers call a fibre service, and that plays a big part in why the big ones don't bother with Hull. The technology is entirely different. In Hull its fibre from KC to your door, which means they can guarantee pretty much any speed they fancy selling. Elsewhere, fibre services are just a little bit more fibre and a little bit less copper than standard broadband services.

I'm a proper bore on this subject, I did my dissertation on it. But it irritates me seeing some of the stuff people claim about broadband and I spend most of my life explaining it to them.
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Lightstream is great IF you can get it. If you can't (like me) and you are stuck on 3Mbps (like me) then it's not a lot of use is it.
 
Are any of the mobile broadband packages worth having yet?
 
I live in a semi-rural area where BT have no plans to upgrade the infrastructure to support high-speed broadband. After canvassing the area and getting enough commitment (which was only about 30 houses) a company called Gigaclear laid fibre to all the houses. This fibre is connected directly to the national backbone. Speeds offered are upto 100mbps depending on what you pay. So, if anyone is in the same boat it would be worth contacting them, they are keen for business.
 
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