Great service when it works! (btopenworld.co.uk)

Member Name: jenx

Product:	btopenworld.co.uk
Date:	31/05/01 (89 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: high speed, always on

Disadvantages: BT config, Alcatel Modem, price

We have NTL digital cable television and a BT telephone line, why? Because I work for a company which provides a free connection for working at home as long as its BT. So when I finally decided to go to broadband I called NTL, NTL don't provide broadband internet in Portsmouth, because they bought C&W's business and have not bothered to upgrade! So it was BT or nothing.

I had heard that there were long delays so I was surprised when they confirmed 3 weeks delivery. Sure enough 3 weeks later the engineer turned up. It took a couple of hours because he had to re-configure the extension sockets in the house so we could have ADSL in the bedroom used as a study. But hey presto it worked.

So 2 months later how is the service? Well ignoring the frequent glitches which usually mean I have to disconnect the ADSL model,shutdown, reconnect the modem and reboot. Ignoring the seemingly bizzare loss of config that occassionaly occurs and the frequent alerts from zone alarm that my pc is being attacked, the service is excellent.

It connects in about half a second, shows consistent levels of 512K down stream and 270K upstream, multiple individual mailboxes, sms alerts when you receive mail and as a fellow gamer points out, excellent gaming with superb ping rates on Delta Force and Quake.

If you can afford the £150 connection fee and 39.99 a month I would recommend it.

Summary: