please help me

[-WM-llyama]

It is probably the most frequent question on the forum but anyway. What should i do because my current service provider (NTL World) sucks major ass and is hell slow. I have tried other ISP's before with not much more success (i.e. BTi, Freeserve, breathe etc...). So i have come to the conclusion that i need broadband (well want broadband) and the options i have come up with are: cable, adsl, isdn, satelite.

now for me cable and adsl have high monthly charges as far as i know. Satelite looked a brilliant option untill i posted here and they said it was crap for gaming, which doesn't do me much good. So i am left with isdn which i don't know much about, i want a reliable connection which i can connect to at anytime of the day.

any help would be appreciated, (i haven't ruled out any option yet by the way)

[-shiva-]

If you can get adsl or cable, i would go for it. It is £40 a month but that is an "always on" connection...so for some of us that is significantly cheaper than at the mo with a dial up.

ISDN is more expensive...has slower download speeds...tho some people say ping is more stable...tho not lower..

Cable or ADSL is the way forward m8....

[deejaycee]

Hello peeps

sorry -shiva- , I SEEM to be always knocknig what u r saying :E

Just a quick point, If you already have a BT line and don't mind trading quality with cost, then ISDN will only cost u £15 p/m with no call charges 24/7 courtesy of various free "unmetered" ISPs that r popping up.

:)

[-WM-llyama]

yeah thanks guys

i don't have BT i am on NTL (hence NTL World) therefore i cannot get adsl can i? or does some stand alone company do it? i can get NTL cable modem service but like i say £40 is a bit much and i hear it's around £200 to set up so......

i have heard good things about isdn though, does anyone know the d/l speeds?

[-shiva-]

bout 10k a second? i think...

Your best bet m8 is to go for cable...do some investigation...

I believe it is worth the cost...

[Ch@meleon]

Get a cable modem or adsl if you can and you want your connection for downloading and all sorts of net use, but if it's for gaming and browsing and not a massive amount of 100mb+ downloads, go for isdn. It gives a far more consistent ping and contrary to popular belief, gives 90% of the time, a lower or equivelant ping. My isdn gives me as low as 25 and cable modemers and isdn'ers are practically impossible to tell apart on gaming servers, except when the cable modemers pings shoot to 400 cos their isps network gets busy and start saying "bloody NTL!!!!". ISDN allows you to switch isp's when u want to avoid busy isp times on certain providers and channel bonding at 128k/sec gives a reasonable enough d/l rate for most things. Any bigger downloads, you can get using a free isp and a download manager like gozilla and just leave it running while u sleep :D All the people I know on cable or adsl get some great pings out of it but 50% of the time they just complain about how the performance is **** atm and that NTL better sort this out, etc, etc.
ISDN is still the best option imo, until they get cable and adsl working consistantly. My Q3 clan is often having problems with broadband members who can't play cos cable or adsl is having a bad day. If you want consistant cable and adsl 'GOOD DAY' equivelant pings, ALL the time, get isdn.

Ch@m

[-shiva-]

He does have a point...

[-WM-llyama]

hehe

thanks for the reply m8

i suppose i want reliability a lot 'cos at the mo NTL World SUCKS!!

how much would it cost? who are good isp's? Do i need a BT line?

more information would be appreciated

[Ch@meleon]

BT will do you homehighway.
They will probably want to install their own new line rather than have you change the analog over to bt and then convert it to Homehighway.
Free isps to use on isdn are on a little bit of a downer atm since ezesurf went under, but BTi, for me personally is a good solid 60 ping on an 0800 number. This is 9.99 a month, but my line is isdn2e and its with cable & wireless, not bt. You should be able to get a 24/7 0800 for that price from BT using the surftime deal. I beleive demon and claranet are due to do them soon. If they do, these will be the outstanding ones to go for imo.
Personally atm, I use BT 0800 from 6pm-2am ish and all weekend and if its in business hours, I have a redhotant account (25 a year + 50 setup charge, or something like that, but its 24/7 free), which is sometimes good, sometimes bad.
Free, good isps are not easy to come by, but can be found and with surftime being done soon by clara and demon and other quality isps, your'll be laughing soon. Free isps on modem can be unbairable, but tbh, on isdn pings of 80-90 are bad free isps and thats not 'that' bad.
If you get some call allowance in the package or wanna get as low as 25 ping (but probably more likely to be 40), you can use a 'pay' isp like jolt, or a gaming server specific one (i.e. if you play on Barrysworld servers, use barrysworld isp).

My advice would be to phone bt and get the price for homehighway (remember to deduct what u already pay in line rental for analog, cos yourll get normal line included with HH). If you like the price, get it and sign up for a free BTi dialup package and keep ya eye out for the claranet and demon versions of the bt surftime thingy deal.

You have to pay an installation charge for HH and you must sign up for a minimum of one year, but if you can afford it, do it.

If you do get isdn, dont buy the bt speedway card from BT!!!
Get ya own Asuscom or Eicon Diva2 internal pci isdn adapter.

I hope this lengthy drivel helps in some way :)

Ch@m

[-shiva-]

ummmm....again, what he said.

[Ch@meleon]

Doh!
Sorry Shiva! Me and deejaycee seem to be ganging up to steal ya thunder now mate ;)

Ch@m

[-shiva-]

LOL...too true, too true....

/me sulks in the corner...

[deejaycee]

lolwfoms (wtf?)

:stare:
:E
:naughty:

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[Edited by deejaycee on 21-09-2000 at 02:12 PM]