Author Topic: Starting from scratch - ISP recommendations (Read 21820 times)

Kim · « **Reply #50 on:** 02 March, 2011, 01:47:11 pm »

Quote from: Charlotte on 02 March, 2011, 10:37:29 am

They can do us proper VOIP with a proper phone number, too. Although I am thinking that with mobiles as main phones, maybe all we need is Skype.

Androids speak SIP (as does my crusty Nokia, in a buggy sort of way). Open standards good. Skype bad. Phones evil. Asterisk excellent way to give yourself a headache and torment telemarketers. YMMV, etc.

There's something deeply cool about answering the 'landline' with your mobile, though.

pcolbeck · « **Reply #51 on:** 02 March, 2011, 01:50:50 pm »

Skype do have a very cool adaptive codec though.

Charlotte · « **Reply #52 on:** 02 March, 2011, 02:15:53 pm »

Quote from: Kim on 02 March, 2011, 01:47:11 pm

There's something deeply cool about answering the 'landline' with your mobile, though.

So, given suitable amounts of VoIP-fu and a suitable Android device, the home phone can ring and I can answer it on my mobile?

Way cool

Valiant · « **Reply #53 on:** 02 March, 2011, 04:17:47 pm »

Don't AAISP use BE as their infrastructure? Does that mean they are just a very good project management team?

MattH · « **Reply #54 on:** 02 March, 2011, 05:05:34 pm »

They use BE for the LLU stuff, IIRC.

Greenbank · « **Reply #55 on:** 02 March, 2011, 07:21:45 pm »

Quote from: Valiant on 02 March, 2011, 04:17:47 pm

Don't AAISP use BE as their infrastructure? Does that mean they are just a very good project management team?

Not just project management, the packets from AAISP's customers come in through BT's or BE's equipment but then go across BT/BE's back-haul to AA. From there it joins the Internet via whoever AA peers with.

Thanks to LLU AA will have access to the DSLAM/MSAN and their extra quality is because they've probably got a better understanding of how customer related problems translate to actual problems at the exchange.

more here

Kim · « **Reply #56 on:** 02 March, 2011, 07:46:51 pm »

Quote from: Valiant on 02 March, 2011, 04:17:47 pm

Don't AAISP use BE as their infrastructure? Does that mean they are just a very good project management team?

They're mainly in the business of developing high-end routers (which is why they're able to offer unique levels of monitoring and control), the ISP is a kind of spin-off - so far from a project management team. Be wholesale lines are a recent addition, along with Three data SIMs; they've been using the BT wholesale stuff for years (broadband and fibre). Their customer base is such that running a BT and a Be line (or indeed fibre and ADSL, or ADSL and 3G, or ADSL and L2TP over a Virgin cable line) in parallel for redundancy isn't uncommon. They do outsource their dial-up service, though

More importantly, there used to be a really cute cat on their website.

pcolbeck · « **Reply #57 on:** 02 March, 2011, 08:35:28 pm »

That's not a high end router. It's a fairy good firewall VPN device but I would like to see more stats for it than they provide. They quote gigabit performance but for high end these days you are looking at 500Gb/s upwards for L3 devices.

Kim · « **Reply #58 on:** 02 March, 2011, 10:01:03 pm »

The SOHO stuff is unambiguously high end, though.

I don't know, I just watch them breaking them on IRC.

Charlotte · « **Reply #59 on:** 07 March, 2011, 02:32:53 pm »

Thanks for all the help chaps - A&A ought to be switching on our new broadband in a week or so. Sadly, since it's been left inoperative for a few months, BT turned the line off. They would have come and switched it all back on again for bobbins, but we don't want BT, so we're going to stump up three figures for A&A to pay Openreach to do it.

We don't want voice telephony, so we're going to pay for the basic service now and maybe get a proper VoIP phone later.

It's true that A&A are marginally more expensive than the popular ISPs, but the more I read of their site, the more I really like these guys. I'm not much of a geek and I'm no tinfoil-hatter, but even I get a little tinge of happy when I read things like this on their site:

Quote

We do not log which websites you visit (though the website administrator may). We don't run any sort of transparent proxies or other systems to covertly log what you do on the internet, and do not sell data to anyone. We specifically monitor traffic levels and make this available to you. If we are helping you debug a problem we can monitor traffic for you in real time, but we don't record that. We also take occasional random traffic snapshots periodically which we hold for 24 hours - this is only to help identify causes of network load problems after the event. All of our servers which you use (e.g. email, web servers, etc.) have logs which are kept for a few months, but you do not have to use our servers if you do not want to. We have not yet been required to retain communications data for 12 months under the new legislation. We do not run anything like Phorm and never will.

Quote

We have no so called black boxes to covertly monitor traffic and/or pass traffic monitoring to the authorities or anyone else. Obviously the law is such that we may have to add such black boxes, but we would resist as far as possible. We may even find we are not allowed to change this web page if ever that happens. However, I, as director, am happy to answer direct questions on this matter on irc (user RevK) or on usenet and you can get paranoid if I refuse to.

When you sign up to the user agreement, they make you tick a load of boxes, one of which is:

Quote

I understand that by ordering from AAISP I have chosen to opt out of any government mandated filtering, and have asked for a proper, unfiltered internet connection.

Yeah, I'll have a bit of that, please

Charlotte · « **Reply #60 on:** 07 March, 2011, 02:35:42 pm »

...and they send me PGP signed emails

Kim · « **Reply #61 on:** 07 March, 2011, 02:43:46 pm »

It's even better than that...

www.me.uk RevK's rants: Company bike

We had a random conversation about audax on the #a&a IRC channel the other day.

Charlotte · « **Reply #62 on:** 07 March, 2011, 03:53:58 pm »

I knew we'd made the right choice

RevK · « **Reply #63 on:** 07 March, 2011, 08:05:46 pm »

Well, I only cycle to and from work mostly, and the station, off licence and tesco... not really serious cycling.

Kim · « **Reply #64 on:** 07 March, 2011, 08:20:13 pm »

Yeahbut, you do it on a Pashley, Pashleys are cool. (Though I note they're missing from the cool wall. I'll have to rectify that.)

Charlotte · « **Reply #65 on:** 08 March, 2011, 09:12:37 am »

Oh, this is marvellous! Although there are bits that I'm not understanding (hey, it's fun Googling them and learning new stuff) the A&A Knowledge Base is just awesome. Better than that, they're clearly a bunch of deliciously libertarian geeks who take paranoia to a whole new level. IMO this is a quality that you very definitely want to find in an ISP, whatever you're planning to do on the internet:

AAISP Knowledge Base: Data Retention Directive

Quote

However, even if we are required to comply with the directive, it seems to us to be full of holes. Serious ones. The following is a summary of the holes we think exist. We're not lawyers, so we may have some of these wrong, but we intend to ask the questions if and when we get a notice.

Compared to having "the internet" provided by Virgin or whoever, this makes me want to learn all about what gets data from the rest of the world to my computer at home.

It also makes me want to make much more use of PGP, TOR and Truecrypt. And quite possibly to run my own email server, too...

Valiant · « **Reply #66 on:** 09 March, 2011, 03:39:32 pm »

Now that's RevK's joined the dark side I feel an ISP change lol. But I'll take until TalkTalk pee me off and stop paying me to use their service lol.

Biggsy · « **Reply #67 on:** 09 March, 2011, 06:31:04 pm »

PlusNet are threatening to make engineering charges if I don't do exactly what they demand* after I complained of low speed. Ha ha ha, they think that's the way to get my custom continuing? I'll be switching to AA some time soon.

* Including trying my router with the test socket - regardless of the fact it doesn't have a test socket. Arseholes.

inc · « **Reply #68 on:** 09 March, 2011, 09:59:15 pm »

Quote from: Biggsy on 09 March, 2011, 06:31:04 pm

PlusNet are threatening to make engineering charges if I don't do exactly what they demand* after I complained of low speed. Ha ha ha, they think that's the way to get my custom continuing? I'll be switching to AA some time soon.

* Including trying my router with the test socket - regardless of the fact it doesn't have a test socket. Arseholes.

They are arseholes but a cause of poor DSL performance can be the house wiring and running direct from the BT test socket eliminates this plus the bell wire. It would be worth trying to get one fitted "somehow" . I have looked at AA a few times but they are too expensive, in fact well overpriced, Idnet offer similar performance and service at more reasonable prices

Biggsy · « **Reply #69 on:** 09 March, 2011, 11:37:56 pm »

But nothing has changed since I had a faster service from Virgin. It was never as fast from PlusNet, even to begin with, then got slower still.

Kim · « **Reply #70 on:** 10 March, 2011, 12:19:51 am »

Quote from: Biggsy on 09 March, 2011, 11:37:56 pm

But nothing has changed

You can't know that without testing. There may be a line fault. Or your hardware may have gone a bit senile. Or that dodgy connection in the phone socket in the spare room might finally have started picking up french radio at night.

Biggsy · « **Reply #71 on:** 10 March, 2011, 01:39:53 am »

Too much of a coincidence for it to change at the same time as switching providers. There's nothing more I can do to test it anyway without a lot of inconvenience. PlusNet aren't even trying to provide a faster service, or responding to my messages properly. They're shit. Shit. And what's more, shit.

Kim · « **Reply #72 on:** 10 March, 2011, 01:43:23 am »

Quote from: Biggsy on 10 March, 2011, 01:39:53 am

Too much of a coincidence for it to change at the same time as switching providers.

I dunno, that's exactly the sort of thing that tends to cause BT to meddle...

nmcgann · « **Reply #73 on:** 10 March, 2011, 06:40:47 am »

Quote from: inc on 09 March, 2011, 09:59:15 pm

......I have looked at AA a few times but they are too expensive, in fact well overpriced, Idnet offer similar performance and service at more reasonable prices

The downside I have found with IdNet (we use them for one of our business ADSLs) is that their mail servers keep getting onto automated spam blacklists so our email was periodically bouncing from some recipients that check these blacklists.

They didn't seem able to stop it, so I wouldn't recommend them as a sole provider. We still use them though as their general service is good, but we route our mail a different way.

ian · « **Reply #74 on:** 10 March, 2011, 10:08:28 am »

Quote from: Biggsy on 10 March, 2011, 01:39:53 am

Too much of a coincidence for it to change at the same time as switching providers. There's nothing more I can do to test it anyway without a lot of inconvenience. PlusNet aren't even trying to provide a faster service, or responding to my messages properly. They're shit. Shit. And what's more, shit.

Well PlusNet have been advertising cheap deals hard, cue boatloads of new customers, and the subsequent listing of the now overloaded boat as they try to bail out and keep up. Sometimes with ADSL you do actually get what you paid for, just not quite how you intended.

It makes sense for them however to confirm that poor performance is not a local issue, that's SOP, otherwise they have to invoke BT as they're probably just reselling their service anyway (unless they're LLU and even then it's a BT line between the exchange and you). I imagine even the average ISP shivers at the thought of dealing with BT as much as us normal mortals.

I thought BT connections had to terminate with a test socket anyway. That's the end of their domain.

Anyway, I don't think particularly evil.