Ludicrously Fast Broadband

Since we moved into our new home, we have managed to completely outfit the whole house, set up all the utilities and generally just relaxed knowing almost everything was accounted for. There was one glaring omission from a productive household, that being our internet connection.

Calling up the estate agents before we moved in, I was prohibited from getting the phone line activated and ready for our occupation. This meant when we moved in, we would have to wait for the physical line to be activated and then order our internet once that was taken care of.

I am a cashback fiend and am always looking for a good deal. I noticed that on Quidco, a broadband company named “BeThere” were offering free broadband connection during September and £40 cashback on a successful activation. That started me off looking into their package and weighing up the pros and cons of their package…the truth was there were no cons, it was exactly what I was looking for.

It had/has:

• No minium contract period, you cancel when you wish.
• Unlimited downloads and no bandwidth throttling.
• Fixed IP address.
• Free support.
• Free router.
• Upto 24MB download speeds.

Upon ordering, BeThere send you text messages alerting you as to the status of your order. They let you know when your activation date is, when you will receive your welcome pack and pretty much everything in between.

So, as I am driving home last night, I receive a message (I only read it once I had stopped!) and I am alerted to the fact my line is ready to be used! I get home, tinker with the settings and connect our laptops to the Wi-Fi. A quick speed check shows me the extent of my connection, a wopping 11,000kbps download and a 2,000kbps upload!

I will post a speed test up here when I am home for you all to marvel at

ISP Troubles with Pipex

I signed up with Pipex about three years ago now, their service was highly recommended by friends and they were relatively good value. In April I saw that we were being billed £24.99 a month for 2MB Broadband when they offered 8MB “Unlimited” Broadband for exactly the same price! Noticing that we could get increased speeds, I switched the service over (but was made to accept a 12 month contract) and everything ran super fast……..but not for long.

Within a month of having the service, the download speeds plummeted, both for HTTP and Bittorrent transfers. I went from having 800kb/s+ to 30kb/s for my torrents and my downloads (even from Microsoft) topped out at 500kb/s.

Whilst I agree that ISP’s should engage the “Power Users” and stop them from downloading massive files, I probably average 10GB of downloads via Bittorrent per month, that wouldn’t even register on their leader board of people who abuse the service.

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