Has anyone tried new and improved Bulldog broadband? (UK)

[AlBDamned]

Ok, so a fairly dead train of thought was reawakened earlier this week when in a supermarket, I was offered a leaflet for Bulldog's 8MB broadband service.

I had a bad experience with this company that culminated in never getting connected and canceling the order. They were also due to be investigated by OFCOM who were due to slap them very hard for taking on new subscribers when they couldn't meet demands of their then current user base.

Now however, they're advertising left, right and centre (again) and touting their service by saying "the gate is open".

So, is the gate open and has anyone been through or, is it half open, a quarter of the time and does it still have a bloody great chasm in front of it that's very very difficult to get across?

 

[TMA]

My advice would be to use a decent, unrestricted, uncrippled ISP with a monthly contract. I use Zen Internet (http://www.zen.co.uk) although they are a bit pricey at £29.99 a month for 1mbit ADSL, their service has always been fantastic and they guarantee no contention on their side of the network. They also have a policy of never throttling P2P or capping connections.

More and more ISP's are going the LLU way and allowing faster connections on enabled exchanges and some are beginning to offer trials of faster services. There is a company in Leicester offering up to 24mbit! Zen are offering 8mbit download with 768kbps (a first?) on the Rochdale phone exchange. I'm hoping once they've trialed this they will offer it on more exhcanges.

I think it's best to get a plain ADSL service and stick with it for 6/12 months while all these trials and LLU's happen, then consider upgrading.

 

[AlBDamned]

My advice would be to use a decent, unrestricted, uncrippled ISP with a monthly contract. I use Zen Internet (http://www.zen.co.uk) although they are a bit pricey at £29.99 a month for 1mbit ADSL, their service has always been fantastic and they guarantee no contention on their side of the network. They also have a policy of never throttling P2P or capping connections.

Thanks TMA but you've kind of missed the question.

I'm not looking to try Bulldog again (very happy with our Freedom2surf set up), but I would like to know if anyone has ordered and been connected to Bulldog in the last couple of months...

 

[dcv]

No. I am still with Bulldog though. I am on the pre-C&W takeover Bulldog service (i.e. from the good ole days when they were a great small ISP) so I still have a BT phone line and only 2MB broadband. They've been offering me the 8MB service for ages but I just don't want to switch.

There have been two or three DNS server outages over the past couple of months, probably lasting up to about 4 hours each. Apart from that and the 'incident' back in June that left me without a service for a whole day and a bit, I haven't experienced any other problems. I've been a Bulldog customer for over two years now.

I can't vouch for the 'new' Bulldog broadband. The customer service was pretty sucky a few months ago, though the last couple of times I've called them I have managed to get through straight away, so I think it has improved slightly. To be honest you only ever hear the bad press and I do think that Bulldog have been a little over-slated in recent months.

 

[AlBDamned]

No. I am still with Bulldog though. I am on the pre-C&W takeover Bulldog service (i.e. from the good ole days when they were a great small ISP) so I still have a BT phone line and only 2MB broadband. They've been offering me the 8MB service for ages but I just don't want to switch.

There have been two or three DNS server outages over the past couple of months, probably lasting up to about 4 hours each. Apart from that and the 'incident' back in June that left me without a service for a whole day and a bit, I haven't experienced any other problems. I've been a Bulldog customer for over two years now.

I can't vouch for the 'new' Bulldog broadband. The customer service was pretty sucky a few months ago, though the last couple of times I've called them I have managed to get through straight away, so I think it has improved slightly. To be honest you only ever hear the bad press and I do think that Bulldog have been a little over-slated in recent months.

It seems most people who were with them prior to the C&W takeover and still use their service on a BT line have few problems. It's the combo dsl and phone line that seems to stuff it up.

They did have massive, massive problems earlier this year and took on a heap of staff, but I still wouldn't try them again.

A quick compare on adslguide shows they still sucked amongst some competitors back in September.