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[Welsh_Italian]

£200

My isp, Virgin don't do lower contention rates than 50:1, but looking around, Demon have a 20:1 Home office package for £26.99. Only problem is I gotta give 50 notes to Virgin to "please release me, let me go"

You might not have to pay transfer costs Rob. One ISP I've heard good things about (read about it yourself to make sure) is freedom2surf. They offer quite a nice package: 50GB transfer allowance, free transfer from existing provider (remember to get your MAC code from your current ISP so you can switch over with no downtime), you can run your own server, static IP address, and up to 8MB bandwidth. The contention ratio is still 50:1, but I've read from customers who are very happy with the quality compared to other ISP's.

Read around and see what you think.

[walesrob]

You might not have to pay transfer costs Rob. One ISP I've heard good things about (read about it yourself to make sure) is freedom2surf. They offer quite a nice package: 50GB transfer allowance, free transfer from existing provider (remember to get your MAC code from your current ISP so you can switch over with no downtime), you can run your own server, static IP address, and up to 8MB bandwidth. The contention ratio is still 50:1, but I've read from customers who are very happy with the quality compared to other ISP's.

Read around and see what you think.

Reading the boards over at ADSLGuide, it seems that Virgin have messed up big time by grossly underestimating the whole ADSL Max situation. They are getting more capacity, but not for a while, in a meantime, we have to suffer. To give you an idea how bad things are, I can sync at 8192 / 448 as I'm very close to the exchange, daytime speeds are fine - sometimes 7.5mb with pings of 40ms, but weekends and evenings are no go, with download speeds of 0.2mb and pings of 300ms+, I would do better with dial up.

Anyway I've called for the MAC, should be emailed to me anytime now, and I've been researching. Fast.co.uk look like a good bet, also Aquiss. I was considering Demon, but they are on the verge of being sold to Talk Talk, hmm no thanks.