provider advice

Being sick of Tiscali's abysmal customer service I am looking to
change Internet provider and am considering BT, Virgin and AOL. Would
welcome any opinions - good or bad - on these. Also, any experiences
of switching provider - does this normally go smoothly with seamless
transition from one to other?

ignore all of them. i have experience of all 3, plus pipex, and would never
return!

i am with vivacity, an entanet reseller, and a very happy bunny. with 1
month contract, great support (phone answered by a knowledegable british
human in about 5 secs, emails within 10 minutes!) and a degree of openness i
never knew was possible (i can check my central (pipe) and, if its clogging
up, change to another, often faster one! i can also check, daily, how much
of my 330Gb/month (£20) i've used)
check them out, http://dslzoneuk.net/isp_ratings.php for independant reviews
of uk isps, vivacity @ 4, bt @ 33, aol @ 23 and virgin @ 28.
dslzone suggests no newsgroup access with vivacity, not true!


<(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed) oups.com...
> Being sick of Tiscali's abysmal customer service I am looking to
> change Internet provider and am considering BT, Virgin and AOL. Would
> welcome any opinions - good or bad - on these. Also, any experiences
> of switching provider - does this normally go smoothly with seamless
> transition from one to other?
>

<(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed) oups.com...
> Being sick of Tiscali's abysmal customer service I am looking to
> change Internet provider and am considering BT, Virgin and AOL. Would
> welcome any opinions - good or bad - on these. Also, any experiences
> of switching provider - does this normally go smoothly with seamless
> transition from one to other?

Don't go with Virgin.
The company is goin south really fast

In article <(E-Mail Removed) .com>,
(E-Mail Removed) says...
> Being sick of Tiscali's abysmal customer service I am looking to
> change Internet provider and am considering BT, Virgin and AOL. Would
> welcome any opinions - good or bad - on these.

I'm surprised nobody's already screamed "not AOL!" at you, so I'll do
it. Not AOL! ;-)

Those you mentioned aren't known for having good customer service.
You'll get recommendations for and against a variety of providers here,
so I'll just add my experience. We moved to Newnet a few months ago; we
had some problems initially - due to BT, not Newnet - and that Newnet's
customer service was amazing. I don't think I've ever dealt with a
company whose customer service was better; I wouldn't hesitate to
recommend them.

--
KVL

On Sun, 15 Jul 2007 15:22:58 -0700, (E-Mail Removed) put
finger to keyboard and typed:

>Being sick of Tiscali's abysmal customer service I am looking to
>change Internet provider and am considering BT, Virgin and AOL. Would
>welcome any opinions - good or bad - on these.

Assuming you want ADSL, then the best advice is to steer clear of any
"big name" provider, particularly any that advertise on TV.

Start by taking a look at http://www.thinkbroadband.com and doing some
comparisons there. And then ask other people for their recommendations
in the light of their own experience.

FWIW, I'm with NewNet, and have had no problems at all with their
service. I'd happily recommend them to anyone else.

> Also, any experiences
>of switching provider - does this normally go smoothly with seamless
>transition from one to other?

Sometimes it goes smoothly, sometimes it doesn't. The problems are
usually caused by the ISP you're leaving, rather than moving too, but
it does help a lot of the ISP you're moving too is good at helping you
resolve such problems if/when they arise. Again, this is an area where
the smaller players usually excel.

Mark
--
Blog: http://Mark.Goodge.co.uk Photos: http://www.goodge.co.uk
"All this talk of getting old, it's getting me down my love"

On Sun, 15 Jul 2007 15:22:58 -0700, (E-Mail Removed)
wrote:

>Being sick of Tiscali's abysmal customer service I am looking to
>change Internet provider and am considering BT, Virgin and AOL. Would
>welcome any opinions - good or bad - on these. Also, any experiences
>of switching provider - does this normally go smoothly with seamless
>transition from one to other?

Don't go anywhere near BT or Virgin if you value your sanity.

<(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed) oups.com...
> Being sick of Tiscali's abysmal customer service I am looking to
> change Internet provider and am considering BT, Virgin and AOL. Would
> welcome any opinions - good or bad - on these. Also, any experiences
> of switching provider - does this normally go smoothly with seamless
> transition from one to other?

TalkTalk? Just kidding... ;o)

On Mon, 16 Jul 2007 07:22:41 +0100, K <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

>In article <(E-Mail Removed) .com>,
>(E-Mail Removed) says...
>> Being sick of Tiscali's abysmal customer service I am looking to
>> change Internet provider and am considering BT, Virgin and AOL. Would
>> welcome any opinions - good or bad - on these.
>
>I'm surprised nobody's already screamed "not AOL!" at you, so I'll do
>it. Not AOL! ;-)

AOL = Carphone Warehouse (AKA Talk Talk) now does it not?

In which case the choice above is simply BT as :

1) Virgin are going to get bought (again) by a private equity (asset
stripping) company and I wouldn't wish to bet anything on services
getting better - got to pay the debt somehow;

2) Surely only the truly insane would consider Talk Talk for anything.

http://www.samknows.com/broadband/checker2.php - put in BOTH the phone
number and postcode for a reasonably accurate summary of the services
available to you.

"Mr Adams" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed)...
> On Mon, 16 Jul 2007 07:22:41 +0100, K <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
>
>>In article <(E-Mail Removed) .com>,
>>(E-Mail Removed) says...
>>> Being sick of Tiscali's abysmal customer service I am looking to
>>> change Internet provider and am considering BT, Virgin and AOL. Would
>>> welcome any opinions - good or bad - on these.
>>
>>I'm surprised nobody's already screamed "not AOL!" at you, so I'll do
>>it. Not AOL! ;-)
>
> AOL = Carphone Warehouse (AKA Talk Talk) now does it not?

No it doesn't. AOL is still paid-for rather than free and its monthly
download limit is some sixty times higher than BT. I've always had good
customer service from AOL and would still recommend it to anyone who doesn't
need more than about 30GB per month or Usenet accesss.

(kim)

"kim" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:-sCdnYNchYO9-(E-Mail Removed)...
> "Mr Adams" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
> news:(E-Mail Removed)...
>> On Mon, 16 Jul 2007 07:22:41 +0100, K <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
>>
>>>In article <(E-Mail Removed) .com>,
>>>(E-Mail Removed) says...
>>>> Being sick of Tiscali's abysmal customer service I am looking to
>>>> change Internet provider and am considering BT, Virgin and AOL. Would
>>>> welcome any opinions - good or bad - on these.
>>>
>>>I'm surprised nobody's already screamed "not AOL!" at you, so I'll do
>>>it. Not AOL! ;-)
>>
>> AOL = Carphone Warehouse (AKA Talk Talk) now does it not?
>
> No it doesn't. AOL is still paid-for rather than free and its monthly
> download limit is some sixty times higher than BT. I've always had good
> customer service from AOL and would still recommend it to anyone who
> doesn't need more than about 30GB per month or Usenet accesss.

Maybe but they *are* now owned in the UK by Carphone Warehouse.

George