Off Topic : internet connection, ISP

[Peter Corlett]

On 13 Sep 2006, at 22:44, dams wrote:
[...]
> One of the first thing I'll need in London is an internet  
> connection. What ISP do you have ? I'd like some kind of XDSL  
> connection, let's say 2MBits download minimum, and a fixed IP. And  
> no fuzzy usb modems, something that can work 24/7. Oh and I would  
> like to avoid ISPs with quotas, or similar evil things. How long  
> does it take to get connected ? I would like to confirm my geekness  
> level by being connected before buying a bed :) I don't know  
> nothing about ISPs in London, so feel free to consider me as a newbie.

Well, the vast majority of ISPs just sell BT, and AFAIAA, every BT  
exchange in London has had its cap removed, and so you can get an  
ADSL1 line that runs as fast as the copper can carry. My last few  
bits of wet string have been at about 3-4MB/s, although the  
theoretical maximum is around 8Mb/s. (The minimum is 256kb/s, and if  
you're in that boat, changing ISP will not help you.)

I'm currently with Webtapestry who are about the cheapest provider  
that is still clueful and doesn't have a silly bandwidth cap. If  
money's less of a concern, Zen's service is quite sound and the 50GB/ 
month deal for 35 quid isn't bad at all. AAISP are also quite Clued  
and their bandwidth is of excellent quality, but have priced  
themselves out of the domestic market.
AAISP and Webtapestry will happily dish out reasonably large chunks  
of IP space if required and delegate rDNS to your nameservers.

BTW, IKEA can almost certainly deliver a bed before BT pull their  
finger out of their arse and make the phone service and ADSL work.