davidrickard.net

After many years, I’ve finally done it. I’ve gone to Cable internet. And it’s great! (so far).

I’ve had ADSL for quite a while. When I first joined, which I think was around 2000/2001, the only option was BTOpenworld (or Openwoe as they were more often known), as the market hadn’t yet been opened up to competitors. At that time, you had to have an engineer install it for you, and there were a multitude of tests including the ‘woosh’ test, and line length tests. The whole thing was actually quite an ordeal, and your line HAD to meet strict specifications. All this for a 512Kb connection! You also had a modem provided (no routers) which was owned by BT, and you technically weren’t allowed to use anything else. When BTO started out, hardly anybody was using it, so it was amazingly fast and reliable.

Over time, that changed. More people piled into the service, and it got slower and slower. BT started allowing other ISPs to re-sell the service, and in such a way that you used their network, instead of BT’s, so the performance was often better. BTO became BT Yahoo, and the service declined sharply, although I was paying a lower price for being a good customer. In mid-2004, I moved to Zen. They were always getting a good press for their excellent service. A few months after moving to them, the restrictions on line types changed, and I was able to upgrade to 1Mb. Later, the option of ADSL max became available, which meant a much faster service (potentially) albeit with a download cap. I was soon able to get 3.5Mb, and all was well.

Then the ‘issues’ began. The line would drop out now and then, and not come back for extended periods. I tried all sorts of things, and Zen’s support were excellent. My line speed fell bit-by-bit I bought a new router, ADSL splitters, and tested all sorts of things, but nothing worked. The line would be fine for a while, then every few months throw a wobbler and fall over. Not a lot of use if you’re trying to use VPNs and other stateful apps like I do. BT tested the line countless times, and found nothing.

Be* were suddenly the new kids on the block, but also using the newer ADSL2 standard. I moved to them in February of 2008, and then had a slightly faster connection, and no download cap. It all went well for a while, and then the connection issues came back. I tried yet more to resolve it, but still no improvement. I found myself getting a maximum of around 2.5Mbs, so was going backwards in terms of speed. Not good.

Others had been telling me for ages how great Cable was, but I always maintained that the support was great with Zen or Be*, and the performance was good, so I didn’t want cable. I’d scoff at the caps, and stay put. A few weeks ago, after the latest connectivity issues with ADSL, I decided enough was enough, and signed up to Virgin’s 10Mbs service. I had it installed today, and it’s been wonderful! It downloads at the advertised speed, as opposed to an ‘up to’ speed. OK, the caps are a little annoying, and very easy to blast through, but it’s certainly liveable. All in all, it’s much fairer. It remains to be seen how customer service is as NTL/Telewest were awful way back when. I hear it’s improved, so that’s something.

So time will tell how it goes, but so far it’s very promising.