Recommend me....An ISP for my business

[phil24_7]

Well as you all helped so much with my printer dilemma, I will now seek your help in selecting an ISP for my company.

We do not use a massive amount of bandwidth but we do surf the web a bit as well as run a couple of programs that we need to link to another site sometimes along, along with having a couple of company's that need to dial in to sort our technical problems out.

I have a short list but can't really decide between them and have little knowledge of them as I have only used Orange (will never use again!), Be or Virgin at home.

We do not have Cable available to us on the estate and I already have a BT line installed for this purpose so can't switch phone lines to another supplier.

Reliability is probably the most important factor, followed by usage allowance, data management and then price.

The short list is:

Eclipse Business Bronze.£19.95 with 50GB usage
BT Business..................£14 for unlimited usage.
PlusNet........................£11.49 with 60GB usage.

Our internet here is very slow and usually sits at about 1.5Mbps and I don't even think the local exchange has been upgraded to ADSL2 yet! I have witnessed it as high as 2Mbps but then I have also seen it as low as 0.2Mbps. Our current supplier is Daisy (Terrible support and customer service) and this line will be as well as the current daisy supplier with a view to switching the daisy line as well once our contract has run out.

Who would you recommend from the short list and who would you recommend when I switch from Daisy. I want to keep 2 different ISP's so that if I have a fault with one ISP then I will still have internet provided by the second ISP.

Regards

[Spank86]

I'd say plusnet but to be honest I doubt you'll see any difference in speed between them. At 2meg you wouldnt see much (if any) improvement even on ADSL2.

As for running two ISP's, chances are they both rent BT wholesale equipment anyway so it may not make a difference if the backhaul has issues.

[phil24_7]

Eclipse has also been added to the short list as these came recommended from our IT guys!

[Amadeus]

Well Plusnet have the benefit that they support 24x7, will use email or phone.
On the downside, they don't offer much in terms of data allowance (which is why I'm moving away from them) and that won't change - they're only interested in the low hanging fruit - Grannies who send one email a week and look at the home page of the WI.
I'd consider very carefully how much data you use, and if someone was to do something that used a lot of data (even unknowingly), what would happen to your service and hence your business.

If you do decide to use PlusNet, PM me for my PlusNet user details and I'll take the referral fee! :-)

[phil24_7]

Surely 50 or 60GB should be sufficient. We use a program to contact Renault for parts searches or warranty stuff and there's a little bit of surfing goes on (mainly by me and my brother) and a tiny amount of eBay selling and that to some remote access and emailing and that's about it.

[Amadeus]

Yes, if you just do that and don't both watch Youtube vids, stream high quality music etc, I'd have thought it would be enough.
But if someone does do something accidentally - maybe leaving a browser open (or just headless) on Youtube overnight, you might find you're in a pickle. Having said that, I'd hope that if it was seen to be accidental and not a frequent occurrence a decent ISP would be fine about it.

[phil24_7]

The occasional youtube vid gets watched but it takes so long to buffer we dont usually bother! For this reason streaming anything is a no-no. ;) I will keep it in mind though.

Regards

[joshwalker094]

I'd say bt,well known company, cheap and unlimited

[phil24_7]

I've not heard too much good said about BT to be honest, especially their bog standard broadband.

[SoulKiss]

Be, its who I use at home and used it at the last job.

Decent Price and while their support is done out of Eastern Europe, any time I had to use them they were great (talking as someone who has been on the network support team of an ISP)

[JamesMio]

PlusNet user here since 2004, can't fault them even after they got bought out by BT

[phil24_7]

You guy's are meant to be making it easier!!!

Tell ya what, which of the ones from above would you avoid? :)

Regards

[Amadeus]

Well the low hanging fruit is talk talk - I seem to remember reading that they were the ISP most complained about in a recent year.

[phil24_7]

Sweet, now we're getting somewhere!

[Amadeus]

Eclipse block midget porn so if that's of concern to you, you can knock them off the list*.






* actually, I don't know that for a fact, just trying to help whittle down the list. If it is of concern to you, you might want to give them a call first just to check that they don't block it.

[phil24_7]

Not bothered if thy block porn. I do my porn watching at home as should all of my employees! :)

[andrewsmith]

I'm sure we're on a BT commercial deal at work (2MBs minimum only 2 PC's and 3 Ip phones on the system) as the phones abuse the bandwidth. Word of warning all the BT based companies do tell a stack of porkies (Talk talk and sky are two of the worst) on bandwidth.

Virgin ADSL (think this is still just a commercial product) is relatively consistant.

I've found equipment set-up also screws with the bandwidth (Network wiring mainly).
Whats your system set-up?

[phil24_7]

2 offices with 10 pc's, 5 in each. Each office is connected via cat5e cable to a Netgear switch and there is a cat6 cable running between the 2 switches. 1 office also contains a server. Each office will have an ADSL line ic though in future both will be installed in the server cupboard.

Regards

[flymo]

I use BT broadband at home, I cannot fault their service. It does depend who you get on the phone mind.

I replaced my BT HomeHub router as was having reliability issues, particularly as I have a large changing collection of wifi devices due to my job. I popped a Buffalo dual band wifi router on it and get a constant 12Mb connection, 750Kb upload.

[andrewsmith]

Shouldn't have any issues with that.
One thing I've just remembered some companies want you to use their routers (and they're crap mainly). Try and get a ISP where you can get the details to input onto the router of your choice

[phil24_7]

My IT guys will be able to sort all of that out. We use Draytek firewall routers and I'm just eying one up that will accept both of my ADSL connections in one router.

[andrewsmith]

My IT guys will be able to sort all of that out. We use Draytek firewall routers and I'm just eying one up that will accept both of my ADSL connections in one router.

No need to tell you how to suck eggs, Draytek are better than cisco as you don't need a degree in SQL and VBS to program it

[phil24_7]

Didn't have to duck that comment as it went well over my head! LOL

[Spank86]

No need to tell you how to suck eggs, Draytek are better than cisco as you don't need a degree in SQL and VBS to program it

Plus Cisco routers can play up with some exchange equipment.

I've seen ones that won't synch new out of the box where others will but they work on another line.

[andrewsmith]

Plus Cisco routers can play up with some exchange equipment.

I've seen ones that won't synch new out of the box where others will but they work on another line.

My place uses them and I hate them. I've got the only working one in the area and we've had more reliability out £25 TP-link modems

[SoulKiss]

No need to tell you how to suck eggs, Draytek are better than cisco as you don't need a degree in SQL and VBS to program it

Draytek also don't do PPPoE properly when you try to connect them to a Sonicwall Firewall.

Always thougnt Draytek was supposed to be good, but have had bad experiences it the 2820 and 2830 models.

Cisco isn't that hard, I used to look after a LOT of very big Cisco routers...

[andrewsmith]

Theres a difference SK between a 200 terminal system and one being used to control 2 terminals and 3 phones (I think we had this discussion a while ago)

[phil24_7]

No whittled down to 3. Talk Talk don't impress me much, BT want to charge me more if I only want a 12 not a 24 month contract and BE is not available from my exchange!

[phil24_7]

Incidentally I am looking at the 2830n-plus or Vn-plus router to handle both of the ADSL lines.

Regards

[Scythe92]

Have you specifically asked for a Business contract? They're very different from commercial connections, and much more reliable. You will have to pay more, but not too much more for a small business package I'd imagine. You'll also have much more freedom for your IT guys to work with.

[Spank86]

They're no more reliable, they just have a faster response time on repair... At least in theory.

They also should have slightly better contention ratios, although that's seldom an actual problem.

[markc123]

2830n is a very good router - we have about 6 in the field.

To handle dual ADSL you will need to purchase a ADSL modem as well - suggest you get the appropriate draytek one. The dual wan feature is easy to setup - can be used either load balanced or in failover, plus it also supports USB 3G modems for emergencies.

ISP wise, pick two that get good reviews for service, ideally one of which who uses LLU - this means you will have maximum redundancy of kit in your local exchange. Unless you can get virgin cable - then use that + one ADSL.

[phil24_7]

I chose eclipse for the new line and will probably go with plus when the daisy line is up for renewal. We already have a draytek modem/router for our current line but i thought the 2830 had dual adsl inputs?

[phil24_7]

Quick question Mark...2830n, vn, n plus or vn plus? I doubt I'll be using VOIP anytime soon but it "could" come in handy in the future and as for the dual band, is there any real benefit from it?

Regards
Phil

P.S. If I could get Virgin cable then I wouldn't have asked the original question!

[Rokerman]

I'd say bt,well known company, cheap and unlimited

...and utterly utterly ****. I can feel my blood boiling with the mention of them.
I would rather use a carrier pigeon. Complete ****e.

I speak from personal home and in particular business. They have let me down on numerous occasions (including a multi site move), the backup support is the worst I have encountered, the SLA's mean **** all, and the billing department couldn't even add a couple of penny chews together - God help you if they owe you money. Of course if you owe them then its a different story. :compcrash:

Right now that's out the way :)
I've had no bother with a product called Surestream from a company called Easynet. Probably a bit more than you want to pay but I'd never had any bother and they deal with any support queries which means I don't have to deal with the mongs at BT.

[phil24_7]

I was told £14 for unlimited business, when I do a quote, it was £20. They wont be getting any of my business now!

[markc123]

Personally, I'd not bother with the VOIP - you are much more likely to use a VOIP client on your PC or a VOIP phone on your desk than try to cable phones back to the router.

The Dual WAN drayteks have a single ADSL, a 10/100 ethernet and a USB port which you can use in any combination. So you need the extra modem / spare router that can be configured to be no NAT.

Dual band WiFi is good if you are in an area with bad signal congestion problems, and if you actually have kit that supports the 5Ghz spectrum. The dratek seems to only support one band at once - so not much use to you.

[phil24_7]

I shall just plumb for the bottom of the range n then. Thanks for your help.

Regards
Phil