Best Small Business ADSL ISP and Router?

Hi All,

I was wondering whether anyone could give me some advice on the
best/cheapest ISP for a small business. My company are with BT at the
moment (not my choice) which, are an absolute joke and very expensive.
They seem to have DNS problems lasting several hours every week.

I'm looking for a 512K 20:1 or 1Mb connection with 5 static IP
addresses, running on 10 user network. Are there any providers with no
12 month contract? Nildram or Applica seem to have a few good deals
going, but are they reliable?

Also, I was wondering whether anyone had any experience switching
ISP's in a business scenario. How did you ensure there was no
down-time? The only way I can think how to avoid this would be to
purchase a new telephone line and get the new ADSL provider installed
on that.

Also because I'm stuck in a 12 month contract with BT I'll be paying
for a connection which is not going to be used. Is there anyway I can
connect both ADSL routers together and "share" both service providers
on my network?

Finally, what is a reliable/good ADSL router? There seems to be a huge
difference in price between the cheapest and most expensive. Why is
this? I'm looking at purchasing a Netgear DM602UK.

Sorry for asking so many questions, but if someone's been through this
scenario before I would love to hear from you...


Thanks and regards,

Brandon.

"Brandon" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed) m...
> Hi All,
>
> I was wondering whether anyone could give me some advice on the
> best/cheapest ISP for a small business. My company are with BT at the
> moment (not my choice) which, are an absolute joke and very expensive.
> They seem to have DNS problems lasting several hours every week.
>
> I'm looking for a 512K 20:1 or 1Mb connection with 5 static IP
> addresses, running on 10 user network. Are there any providers with no
> 12 month contract? Nildram or Applica seem to have a few good deals
> going, but are they reliable?
>
> Also, I was wondering whether anyone had any experience switching
> ISP's in a business scenario. How did you ensure there was no
> down-time? The only way I can think how to avoid this would be to
> purchase a new telephone line and get the new ADSL provider installed
> on that.
>
> Also because I'm stuck in a 12 month contract with BT I'll be paying
> for a connection which is not going to be used. Is there anyway I can
> connect both ADSL routers together and "share" both service providers
> on my network?
>
> Finally, what is a reliable/good ADSL router? There seems to be a huge
> difference in price between the cheapest and most expensive. Why is
> this? I'm looking at purchasing a Netgear DM602UK.
>
> Sorry for asking so many questions, but if someone's been through this
> scenario before I would love to hear from you...

I reckon AAISP www.aaisp.net are best for a small business, though
Nildram and Zen also seem to have good reputations.

I don't know of any way to migrate with no down time except by
getting a second line and then discontinuing the first.

While you have both services you could just set the default gateway
for some PCs to one router and the default gateway for other PCs
to the second router and so share the load. Of course each PC
would still only have a 512K (or whatever) connection, it just
wouldn't share it with as many lines. For a more effective line-
sharing scheme you could install a Firebrick or similar and do
some load-balancing.

Alastair wrote:

> "Brandon" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
> news:(E-Mail Removed) m...
>> Hi All,
>>
>> I was wondering whether anyone could give me some advice on the
>> best/cheapest ISP for a small business. My company are with BT at the
>> moment (not my choice) which, are an absolute joke and very expensive.
>> They seem to have DNS problems lasting several hours every week.
>>
>> I'm looking for a 512K 20:1 or 1Mb connection with 5 static IP
>> addresses, running on 10 user network. Are there any providers with no
>> 12 month contract? Nildram or Applica seem to have a few good deals
>> going, but are they reliable?


There are (or will shortly be) 50:1 1Mbps trials. This may or may not
interest you but it does make things a bit cheaper...


>>
>> Also, I was wondering whether anyone had any experience switching
>> ISP's in a business scenario. How did you ensure there was no
>> down-time? The only way I can think how to avoid this would be to
>> purchase a new telephone line and get the new ADSL provider installed
>> on that.
>>
>> Also because I'm stuck in a 12 month contract with BT I'll be paying
>> for a connection which is not going to be used. Is there anyway I can
>> connect both ADSL routers together and "share" both service providers
>> on my network?
>>
>> Finally, what is a reliable/good ADSL router? There seems to be a huge
>> difference in price between the cheapest and most expensive. Why is
>> this? I'm looking at purchasing a Netgear DM602UK.
>>
>> Sorry for asking so many questions, but if someone's been through this
>> scenario before I would love to hear from you...
>
> I reckon AAISP www.aaisp.net are best for a small business, though
> Nildram and Zen also seem to have good reputations.
>
> I don't know of any way to migrate with no down time except by
> getting a second line and then discontinuing the first.
>
> While you have both services you could just set the default gateway
> for some PCs to one router and the default gateway for other PCs
> to the second router and so share the load. Of course each PC
> would still only have a 512K (or whatever) connection, it just
> wouldn't share it with as many lines. For a more effective line-
> sharing scheme you could install a Firebrick or similar and do
> some load-balancing.
>
>
>

I'll second that :-)

Pricey - but you get what you pay for.

--
Alex

"Alastair" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

<snip>
>
> I reckon AAISP www.aaisp.net are best for a small business, though
> Nildram and Zen also seem to have good reputations.
>
> I don't know of any way to migrate with no down time except by
> getting a second line and then discontinuing the first.
>
> While you have both services you could just set the default gateway
> for some PCs to one router and the default gateway for other PCs
> to the second router and so share the load. Of course each PC
> would still only have a 512K (or whatever) connection, it just
> wouldn't share it with as many lines. For a more effective line-
> sharing scheme you could install a Firebrick or similar and do
> some load-balancing.
>

Hi,
I'd also highly recommend AAISP. Not the cheapest, but IIRC, BT charge
10/IP, whereas A&A will provision as many IP's as you can justify under
RIPE rules at no extra charge. You could consider a migration, which would
involve very little downtime. I migrated from BTO to A&A in January, and
the total downtime was less than 3 hours (I'm not sure exactly how long, as
I didn't notice the line had gone down for an hour or so). However, there
is the risk that BT may screw things up causing more downtime.

--

Martin