Some advice please for potential new customer

[w7it]

This is a nervous time especialy for me , i am looking to change ISP`s , it makes me nervous as i have a very internet active modern family and loosing what my kids see as a basic utility but what there parents see as a luxury would mean certain and instant death for my overworked and under paid carcass
the Wifes crops would die ( ffs   ) the kids would loose Xbox and steam and whatever else they fill there laptops with ( junk ) i would loose twitter  and access to the web sites i run and maintain

So after that odd intro i am after advice on which package i should be looking at here on IDNet, presently we pay around £30 a month, we have ADSL2+ at the exchange and it is enabled for WBC on 21CN Market3 

some advice on which package is best suited to our needs would be apprecitated and also is there free web space with the packages ? this is not hugely essential but always helps if there is

Thanks
W7it 

[Glenn]

 

£24.99/month will get buy 180Gb of download bandwidth (uploads aren't counted), 40Gb for peak hours and 140Gb available between midnight - 9am, also 2Gb of webspace

£34.99 will buy 360Gb, 60Gb in peak time, the rest off peak, plus 3Gb of webspace.

http://www.idnet.net/solutions/home/broadband/

IDNet do not block any ports or throttle the connection.

[Ray]

  and what Glenn said. 

[Rik]

Hi and welcome to Netters.

What Glenn said and I'll raise him a blog and a photo album, if you want them, plus as many idnet.com addresses as you need.

[Glenn]

Home SuperPro, also has traffic priority through the exchange

[adamr8965]

  Here what the others have said, no throttling or port blocking. £34.99 will give  you priority given at the exchange over standard ADSL traffic, so you'll see even faster speeds at peak times, Plus it only a 1month contract, Support is very good. Plus if you have broadband already then can change it over in 3 working days normally

[Rik]

Oh, and there's 0800 support which is answered by real people in a few seconds. I think that's the end of the sales pitch.

[adamr8965]

I beat rik, i told him about support first, plus theres a 01 number if you have free landline calls from your mobile 

[Rik]

We didn't yet mention the referral system, get an existing customer to refer you and you get a £10 credit to your account, as do they.

[adamr8965]

Rite then im going to refer this customer, as im hard up.

[w7it]

Rite then im going to refer this customer, as im hard up.

consider me refered  

MAC code requested from present supplier, weekend means nothing happens now for 2 days, when the wife drags herself out the pit i will sell IDNet to her, once she has looked at the fine print, hasstled me for a cup of Tea, moaned about the state of the lounge, checked her crops and opened the windows i cant see it being an issue to move here

i may have missed it above but is there any free web space ??
dont answer , i did miss it , the answer was a yes ...that is very helpful to me 

[Rik]

Yes, 1-3GB depending on package, it can be used as 'straight' web space, photo albums or blog space, or divided between all three. There's nothing fancy attached though, eg PHP.

[adamr8965]

consider me refered 

MAC code requested from present supplier, weekend means nothing happens now for 2 days, when the wife drags herself out the pit i will sell IDNet to her, once she has looked at the fine print, hasstled me for a cup of Tea, moaned about the state of the lounge, checked her crops and opened the windows i cant see it being an issue to move here

i may have missed it above but is there any free web space ??


Ah the sell to the wife, sound familiar
dont answer , i did miss it , the answer was a yes ...that is very helpful to me 

[w7it]

Yes, 1-3GB depending on package, it can be used as 'straight' web space, photo albums or blog space, or divided between all three. There's nothing fancy attached though, eg PHP.

Doh !! you posted before i had a chance to edit Rik

i dont need anything fancy, just somewhere to host my web site
W7it

[w7it]

sell the wife would sound better Rik 

[Rik]

Doh !! you posted before i had a chance to edit Rik

I'm like that.

i dont need anything fancy, just somewhere to host my web site
W7it

If you're just using straight html you'll be fine.

[Baz]

dont forget the vast array of knowledge,info,tips,humour,DR food facts,joviality,witty comments,friendly sarcastic comments,verbal fisty cuffs etc etc that goes on in here


its all good fun though 

[Rik]

You left out how good we are at spending other people's money, Baz.

[Baz]

who do you think you are Rik....my wife 

[Rik]

I'm probably better at it than she is, Baz. 

[Baz]

well yes you have a point there she is pretty good on the financial side of things, UNLIKE YOU WHO GETS US TO SPEND SPEND SPEND

[Rik]

Actually, I've earned that reputation falsely you know. It was Glenn who introduced me to DR and to the various pasty suppliers, we should blame him. 

[Baz]

YEAH GLENN  ITS YOUR FAULT 

[Baz]

I hope we're not putting you off w7it 

[Glenn]

And pasties when Rik could eat them 

[Rik]

 

[Simon]

Can't add to the above - but  

[w7it]

Thanks guys for your comments and welcomes much appreciated

I have one other question , how are the weekends viewed with regard to off peak on peak ??

[Rik]

Same as weekdays, so off-peak remains midnight - 9am.

[w7it]

yikes .. ok Rik thanks for the reply

[Rik]

IDNet have a large business customer base, so the off-peak hours reflect that.

[w7it]

hmm , i am just checking my stats on my current ISP but unfortunately the details only go back 2 months , they changed supplier recently and the old stats are gone

but not having weekends as off peak could well be a sticking point for us

more thinking to do

[adamr8965]

Try adsl24 then, they have off peak all weekend, and are similar to idnet, no port blocking or throttling

[w7it]

Try adsl24 then, they have off peak all weekend, and are similar to idnet, no port blocking or throttling

That would mean staying with what was my favorite ISP until the Murphx change, ADSL24 have for me been excellent but alas we use who we use simply to get on the net ... presently we are struggling here big time

[pdu]

You could go all out and get the business premium package which is uncapped, I'll let you know how it is as soon as i'm migrated to it from pipex, it's not cheap, but, it's a pretty reasonable price considering it also includes BT's 20 hour fix deal.

[quandam]

I am probably way out of my depth here but with Sky announcing some attractive new offers and the PROMISE of zero throttling and unlimited downloading is that something you should be looking at? Many appear to be very happy with the Sky LLU package and the new deals really do attract if you are able to avail yourself of them

Apologies if I am way off beam here but it does seem to me that Sky, on the LLU package are virtually unbeatable

[w7it]

the business package is more than we want to pay pdu
and i am very very very sceptical about Sky and there promises quandam
oh i dont no , i need to do some thinking and maybe wait a month or 2 more so that i can collect more info from my present connection and our useage

[quandam]

Agreed, Sky's promises must be linked to actual use. However, if they do turn out to be bona fide then they are a very serious contender in the field.

Time for reflection I would think

[Gary]

Agreed, Sky's promises must be linked to actual use. However, if they do turn out to be bona fide then they are a very serious contender in the field.

Time for reflection I would think

Sky.....bona fide.....good value......long contract......hmmmm! There are better alternatives, Be is one of them.

[w7it]

LLU seems to be a way forward but if you ever need to move back to a BT line it will cost around £120 for the hasstle and much internet downtime during the process

TBH i blame BT for there continued price hold on copper and for not releasing dark fiber, they could do so much more for suppliers and ISP`s alike , unfortunately us plebs have to shuflle around doing our best to find a reliable ISP that provides a service that fits our needs which is wrong, in Germany this would not be tolerated, i think i am right in saying they have no restrictions on useage

however that does not help my current situation

actually here is a question to you guys using IDnet, do you have the ability in your account control panels to watch your bandwidth useage ?? 

[Rik]

You do, and you can also sign up to a daily RSS feed. In addition, IDNetwill email you in advance if you look like going over in any month. If that does happen, there's no slowdown or restriction, just the £1/GB charge.

[quandam]

Sky.....bona fide.....good value......long contract......hmmmm! There are better alternatives, Be is one of them.

Time for reflection is the correct advice here. Long contracts are most definitely not a problem if the deal is the correct one. There may well be other alternatives but they don't have to be better.

Reflection is the way to go here Don't dismiss something because they do not appeal to you i.e Google etc. There are a lot of great internet opportunities available if you dispense with the 'health and safety' frame of mind that hold many many people back from enjoying the internet to the full.

As we all know 'Elf & Safety' can spoil our everyday lives considerably and basically common sense should be applied, this also applies to our use of the internet. If Sky do the business then let's go for it.

[w7it]

i just had a look at PC Pals   " i Liiiike "  

[Rik]

We have a few things in common.

[w7it]

we sure do Rik and because of Pc pals i now want deperately FTTH  ( Fiber to the home )

[Rik]

Well, FTTH isn't likely, but FTTC may be on the cards for you.

[MisterW]

If Sky do the business then let's go for it

In my, albeit second hand, experience then Sky's ok when it works, but when something goes wrong and you need customer support , forget it!!   

[w7it]

well we almost joined up , but found an issue with the payment setup, selected direct debit did not add any info but the wife changed her mind wanted to set it up as credit card payment, so i went back selected credi card hit the order button and the system says duplicate order and it wont proceed ?? so i guess we will have to wait until the tomorow when they open to resolve the issue ...hey ho we nearly joined lol

[Rik]

The online system is not that bright.

[Glenn]

It is safer to pay via DD rather than a credit card, with DD you are in control of the payment, using the card, the company taking the payment is in control.

[w7it]

its sorted now, been contacted by a nice lady from IDNet , who informs me once we recieve a confirmation e-mail we can access our control panel and change/edit our payment plan from there , so all is well that ends well hopefully

i guess that means we are now officially IDNetters

[Rik]

Netters, yes, Nets, not for a few days.

[Simon]

Good news.  Welcome!

[quandam]

W7it

Do take on board the earlier advice re paying by DD, it is good advice and really has no drawbacks whatsoever.

[adamr8965]

w7it, another nice lady with ring and ask what you'd like for tea!!!! 

[w7it]

just wanting to check something because the control panel makes it slighty ambiguous

i can move my .com web site to the free space provided with my package and i can use my .com email address from here as well as part of the package ??

just looking around the control panel all i see is email that has the .idnet.com extension which is not what i need, i need to continue using my .com mail addy

[Rik]

Just checking...

[w7it]

thanks Rik

i wont lie i`m feeling slightly uneasy at this point

[Rik]

OK, it can be done. Setup charge for email & domain would be £25, then £36pa, ie £61 in the first year.

The free space doesn't support scripts, PHP etc, so if you need that facility, you'd need to look at a full hosting package.

[Rik]

i wont lie i`m feeling slightly uneasy at this point

About what?

[w7it]

they charge ?? my present package offers 200 mb web space and email facilitys to use with the web space, so if you have a .com you can use your .com mail addy. IDNet dont allow this

That is not what i expected to be honest Rik , i dont need scripts and php and the like but i do need to be able to use my mail addy 

now i gota do some quick grovelling elsewhere 

Thanks for the reply Rik

[Rik]

They allow it, they just charge to redirect your domain address. Many of us host email with companies like 1&1 or Purple Cloud. This gives us two systems, it being unlikely that they would both fail at the same time.

[w7it]

i`m not to fussed about having a backup system Rik , i have mail from gmail but also .com and it is my .com which is my main mail addy, that is my most important one

so ok i am sure i can get around that another way

but i am ok to host my web site here ( ie my domain )  , in the control panel i have attemted to add my website name but it only allows for 13 characters ?? will this change when we are live , is it a temporary restriction ?? i just wanted to examine the procedure for moving my domain over

[Rik]

You'd need to talk to support to get it done.

[w7it]

Thanks again Rik

will do