British ISP's

Ty

Instead of relying on a BT-provided line, try Cable. Virgin (ex Telewest/NTL) is one of the fastest around. I've had no problems with them for years and get up 20 mbps. They're talking of 100 mbps soon!!

 

If you have cable TV in your area then look at that for internet. It is often faster and/or cheaper than ADSL.

Assuming we are talking about ADSL though, if the lines are old (or worse, aluminium) or you are some way from the exchange the speed will never be that good. For websites and email etc a 512k or 1Mb connection is fine though. It's only when downloading files or when several people are sharing the connection that you really notice the difference with a faster one.

One of the offices at work is about 6 miles from the exchange and gets a connection speed of about 1.3Mb. Not that fast, but fine for the three of us who are using it. Our other office is half a mile form the exchange and connects at the full 8Mb. Home is about 3 miles away and connects at about 6.5Mb. Hereford has a lot of older cables.

Compare the speed the router or modem is connected at with the speed you get with some speedtest websites - www.speedtest.net is good. If you try several, use the fastest result. You should be getting a download speed of at least two thirds of the link speed most of the time. If the speed test result is a lot lower than the modem/router connection speed then you have a problem. It could be with your ISP or it could be at the exchange. Try at different times as the ADSL system is "contended" which means there is not enough bandwidth for everyone to have full speed at the same time. You cannot do anything about contention at the local exchange, but beyond that the choice of ISP can make a real difference.

I have been through a few ADSL ISPs in my time and helped people who are struggling with others, and by far the best in my opinion is Zen - www.zen.co.uk. They are an independent UK based company with their support and customer services people in the UK. The systems are reliable, and the service from support and customer services is excellent.

The "Zen 8000 Active" package costs £25 per month and gives a connection of up to 8Mb (obviously depending on line conditions etc) and allows up to 20GB per month of downloads. If you want more downloads (which would only be the case if you download lots of big files such as movies or Linux distros) the "Zen 8000 Pro" is the same as above but allows you 50GB per month of downloads and costs £35 per month. If you already have an ADSL connection with another provider they will "migrate" you for free (so you don't pay a setup fee).

I am using Zen, as you might have guessed!

Note that changing your ISP will NOT change the speed your modem or router links to the exchange at (unless you have one of the older fixed speed packages, such as 512k, 1Mb or 2Mb). That is determined by the line quality. Changing your ISP can improve your download speed if it is below average (ie below about 2/3rds of the link speed) and can improve reliability if yours has regular outages or long pauses).

If you have an older fixed speed package and your modem or router is more than 2 or 3 years old it may not do the newer "up to 8MB" speeds (it won't connect at all). The Netgear DG634 and DG834 routers are fine.