Fast , hassle-free surfing (blueyonder.co.uk)

Member Name: chembleton

Product:	blueyonder.co.uk
Date:	25/06/02 (215 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Speed, Cost, Website space

Disadvantages: Engineer, Sometimes long queues on tech support line. Watch your bill if paying for call!

This opinion is in 3 parts:

Part 1 describes modem connection to internet.

Part 1:
When I first got my pc, I bought it primarily for internet browsing.
At the time we had cable TV through Telewest and already being a customer I had 'Surf Unlimited' package installed.
Telewest arranged a convenient time to come around and install the additional telephone line (£15 at the time in July 2000). I could have bought a modem from them but I had one already.
The surf unlimited deal meant I could go on the internet at anytime day or night, weekday or weekend and it cost £9.99 per month (now it's £12)
As I had the additional line rental of £10 it cost me £19.99 per month. If you are prepared to use your existing line it will be just the £12 you'll pay.
Customer services charge 50 per minute for technical support.

Software installtion is an easy step by step program. Choose either Internet Explorer or Netscape. EMail comes via Outlook Express.

The dial up connects straight to the internet and browsing speed is good.
I used to download music and typical download speed would be 4 or 5 kb/s, so songs would take about 10 minutes each.

Online gaming speeds weren't great though. Often I'd be playing first person shooters and I would get shot becasue of lag and low pings.
Pings being the time it takes for the information to be sent from one gamers pc to the others and back, a bit like the ping submarines send out using sonar. Higher pings cause lots of lag and the games appear jerky. You end up getting shot because someone has seen you but you haven't seen them.

There are other factors to take into consideration when measuring browsing speeds with modems. The most important factors being the quality of the phone line, the speed of your pc's processor, the time of day you are surfing and the site you're receiving the information from.

It can take a little
while for all of your email to come through if you have lots and receive many attachments. You get 15 email addresses and 30mb of space to create your own website.

Generally I would say Blueyonder provide an excellent service if you use Surf Unlimited, just don't expect high download speeds but browsing normal websites is good.

Part 2:
Broadband connection.
Telewest Broadband (Blueyonder) were offering recently half price connection to broadband of £25(normally £50) and half price network card £12.50 (normally £25). So to get broadband up and running I was looking at £37.50 and then the monthly charge of £25 as I was an customer using other services (like phoneline for calls). If you do not have other services it's £30 per month.

For those that don't know, Broadband work differently to the way a modem does. Firstly there is no modem as such. They give you a Motorola cable modem which sits outside the pc just next to it (only the size of a smallish book). This connects to the cable line outside and then to your pc's network card.
Normally with a modem when you click up the internet it dials up the server then displays your home page. With this it just brings up your home page straight away without delay.

Installation of software is done for you, the technician did mine, though it took him a wee while to get the pc to relase what's known as the IP address as he didn't seem to know what he was doing. Browsing comes by Internet Explorer or Netscape, email by Outlook Express. They give you 5 email addresses and 30 mb of space to create your own website.
Technical support is free phone.

Emails come through lightning quick.
Internet pages flash up without virtually any waiting.
I can now download music and other files at rates of 50-100kbs typically, and take usaully less than a minute to downlaod. I've even downloaded films from the internet. These huge files of 1.5Gb(!) tak
e just a few hours to download. A file of this size is totally unfeasible to download with a modem, even if you didn't lose the connection it'd take weeks of continuous downloading.
Pings are only a few milliseconds and online gaming is now enjoyable and life like.

So now it's installed I only pay an extra £5 to what I used to with a modem connection and it's SO worth it. For all Surf Unlimited is good, I'd never go back now. It's like having a family car, nice to have but no comparison to a sports car.

Part 3:
Summary of Blueyonder.
I've been with Blueyonder now for 2 years and can't think of any reason to leave them.
Prices are good, browsing speeds excellent and customer services friendly and knowledgable though one guy didn't seem to have a clue about anything. I hung up and rang back and got someone else. This was regarding a teething problem over speed which actually was my fault.
Installation takes less than an hour and they left the place tidy, as there's only a little box to put at the foot of the wall.

I would recommend and indeed have recommended this service to friends who all seem to like Blueyonder.

Summary: