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ISP in UK - Broadband

M

mac2thefuture

macrumors 65816
Original poster
May 15, 2007
1,106
30
Lancashire, North West, UK
Ok, i'm really happy being a new mac user/owner but just now starting to feel a little unwanted. 3 substantial ISP's in the UK (there may be more - only just started to enquire) offer little or no support for macs. I'm after a package where the phone line, phone bill and b/band is all taken care of. Just wondered what good packages UK users can recommend because I don't want to commit to 12 months of hell.

If posted i wrong section sorry and please move to relevant area.:confused:
 
Personally I wouldn't go for a package,I was with Pipex for years,when they went to phonecalls included they went to hell.Adsl24 for monthly contract,Be* are great but 3 month contract.

Sorry didn't address the Mac thing,it shouldn't have any effect on you choosing a ISP,I've never had a problem that was OS specific.
 
Which specific ISP's are you talking about? They may in reality be fine (and probably are). Though most of the major ones are rubbish anyhow.
 
As an ex Pipex customer I would certainly agree that their customer support for Mac is terrible. However, their customer support for everything is actually really poor! Many years ago in the pre-broadband era I was also a AOL customer - never again! Initially they had quite decent Mac support, but with the release of Mac OS X this all fell away and they almost dropped support completely.

I've been with UKOnline for a few years now on a LLU service and although I had a few problems at first (old building, old wiring just wouldn't run at 22Mbit :( ) they were really helpful when I called and seemed to understand what a Mac was other than the usual response of 'we don't support that'. Unfortunately I don't think they do the full phone and broadband package, but I'm happy with BT doing my phone and being LLU'd for my very quick and cheap broadband.

So long as you're using an ISP that lets you use a router and not one of those horrid USB ADSL modems then you should be fine.
 
I'm not sure what you mean by mac support exactly. I asked BT to activate my line for broadband, plugged in a netgear wireless router and in two minutes I was on the internet. There's no BT software on my macs and although I guess that could mean I'm missing features, it does what I want it to do.
 
BT and Tiscali support Mac's fine (my experience with Tiscali though is pretty bad).

As long as the ISP allows you to use your own modem, there shouldn't be ay problems.
 
Reginald Perrin said:
I'm not sure what you mean by mac support exactly. I asked BT to activate my line for broadband, plugged in a netgear wireless router and in two minutes I was on the internet. There's no BT software on my macs and although I guess that could mean I'm missing features, it does what I want it to do.
Click to expand...

yeah but he might need modem software
 
Virgin Media

If you've got access to cable then Virgin Media is actually OK and although setting up was not great the phone tech support had no trouble with helping me with my Mac. Also they let you initialise through a web interface and Network Preferences whereas PC chums have to install a program and go through ~10 pages of rubbish.

My 20 Mb connection only gets around 14 Mb though and webhosting is all still NTL stuff but easy to use
 
Didn't really want to mention any names but as i was asked then here we.....if i'm wrong please correct me.
Tiscali - £19.99/month up to 8meg, unlimited usage, free local and national call and line rental - a bloody good deal - no tech support for Mac:mad:
Orange have tech assistance but costs 50p/min. Windows users are charged 7p/min:mad:
There was another who only offered a service for older macs?? I'm sure some of the sales people don't know exactly what to offer:(
Any good ones out there then;)

edit, seen posts above and looking at those recommended - thanks
 
Dark Dragoon said:
BT and Tiscali support Mac's fine (my experience with Tiscali though is pretty bad).

As long as the ISP allows you to use your own modem, there shouldn't be ay problems.
Click to expand...

Do not go for Tiscali, have known at least 4 people who have used them and every one had sever problems with both windows and mac computers, it is just their service is so bad and unreliable.

When my parents first joined BT a couple of years back they said no mac support, but i found deep on their site a little program that enabled macs to connect to their service. So not everything they say is true.
 
Although it may sound like I'm proletysing for Be* if your exchange supports it they're a good option,they have a Mac forum (I've never understood why a problem with your ISP would have any relation to your OS but it may be important to some) and they e-mail a couple of days before they are to take the money out of my account, a ISP that understands my lifestyle is worth more than gold to me.:)
 
Hi there,

I stumbled on this thread, and am now slightly worried!

As a switcher to an iMac as soon as this ruddy update comes round, I had expected to just connect to my existing line (Wireless Netgear 834N router), get an IP address on DHCP and away I go.

What's this about OS/Mac specific ISPs? Is is purely from support? using thier modems? or have I missed something rather more fundamental I wasn't aware of?

Thanks..
 
No need to worry, you're reading this so you're working fine. I too have an iMac 24" and currently use BT. My slant comes from support now that my 12 months is up. I've not had any issues with bt but their best price is £19.99 / month for b/band only. Others, as i've mentioned, offer savings of up to £360 /yr but the support / expertise seems limited for mac users and that's actually daunting for me as changing/syncing pop accounts or whatever is all above my head.
Those providers who i could save money with just don't seem a geared up for mac users, and also as stated in previous thread, a mac user who would call a tech line with one example is charged 50p/min compared to 7p/min.
 
I have been using Virgin for years and have never had a problem. I have a Virgin dial up account and also a Virgin media cable broadband setup.

When I set up the broadband I was very impressed with the service. He had access to a Mac his end and was able to go through it with me step by step. I was asked which version of X I use and the browser/mail package. I typed it in as he described what I was seeing on the screen.

There is also a good webmail service and you get the equipment for free!
 
Virgin Media 2mb Broadband.

I'm always getting the stated 2mb Download speed, and there is unlimited monthly download usage.

Mac is plug and play with Virgin Media, setup is online.

Rich.
 
Just want to add my vote for ZEN...fantastic service, real people who understand mac's on the end of the line when you need them, which frankly is hardly ever but its a comfort to know they are there.
Vanilla
 
I was with Pipex. Bad move. Won't bore you why. Moved to Be. Brilliant! If you can get Be, consider it. I get download speeds of 13Mb constantly. And they send you a wireless router that's ADsL2± and it's great for Azureus because you don't have to do any port forwarding. It's already set up inside. And you can see how much you upload and download as it keeps a running total for you. And you can see what computers are on your network, in case the next door neighbour is trying to nick your net. Although they won't because the router comes with an individual password pre-installed. You just have to plug the lot in and off you go. Running Macbook on it. No problems. And PPC iMac. No problems. And there's a Mac section in their forums. I don't work for them by the way.
 
What you really need to understand is that as long as you have an ethernet (network) port on the computer you are trying to connect to the internet, then the standards of TCP/IP take over and you need no specific OS-based software to install to get it all working.

I use BT, and have done for years both as a network administrator and personally, and although sometimes it has not been the cheapest connection available, you get a reliability which (in my experience) has not been matched by anyone apart from Pipex, who do not offer the full package you are looking for.

Once you have chosen a supplier, do not use the 'free' USB-connected 'modem', but instead spend £30-£40 on a (wireless if required) ethernet-based broadband router, which will allow ANY connected computers to access the internet, not just the one with the USB-connected modem attached!

You will find this a much better solution, and it should be completely hassle-free!

Good luck.

Nig.
 
I'd go with BT every time. We have hundreds of BT broadband lines with work. I manage them all and they are never a problem.

Most other providers are backhauling off BT's infrastructure anyway so ultimately you are using BT. Unless you are in an exchange that has LLU. A good site to check stuff out on your exchange is www.samknows.com

The company BT Openreach was created as a seperate company so that BT equipment / customers were not favoured over competitors customers / equipment (i.e. Openreach operate independantly of BT) in practice things are not quite so black and white usually ! (But don't tell Ofcom!). Think about it, say you worked for BT twenty years then all of a sudden you work for BT Openreach, you have 2 faulty lines to fix one LLU maybe easynet's and another one belonging to BT....which one do you fix first ? :)

As for the actual support of the Mac don't bother just buy a wires only service and a wireless netgear router (whatever the latest DG834 is called). They are rock solid.
 
If you happen to have Sky television I would recommend looking at their broadband packages. They offer 16 meg unlimited for £10/month providing you are within a certain area of service. I've had mine for about 10 months now and couldn't be happier. Their no limits promise seems to be holding up, although I don't get the full 16 meg, normally manage to get around 11 but I believe this is down to line quality and distance to the exchange. Only downside is that you have to use the router they give you, but its a decent one, basically a re-branded Netgear. I believe they also off a phone package although I don't use this. You will still require a BT landline however.
 
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