they\'re all liars rougues and thieves!!!!
on a huge soap box at the mo with isp\'s
yet to find a single one that offer\'s 8meg, and have clients that actually get 8meg
bulldog, tiscali, and telewest and a few others have all been given very expensive slaps by offtel in the last couple of months for telling little porkies
the 8 meg (and 2 and 4) is largely theoretical, they can sell you that, but yet to see anyones actually work at that speed.
2 issues... first is something called contention ratio, anyone remeber paty lines for phones in the 70\'s?? well broadband connections are largely just that, the contention ratio is how many people are sharing the node at the exchange that supposedly dishes out the 8meg
if ther\'s 100 people sharing it, which isn\'t unusal, unless they are all tucked up in bed, you\'ll not get anywhere near that
most contention ratios should be in the 20 to 50 range, so ask em that question,
the other one is distance from a digital exchange, unless you\'ve got one next to your house. The bt infrastructure, which everyone needs to use at some point regardless of isp, is made of cheese, and they don\'t want to spend any money to improve it (think water comapnies and leaky mains - reduce leaks by reducing pressure, not fixing the damn leak)
personally, I\'d always go for one of the bigger players rather than be tempted by some of the 8meg for 14.99 type claims, a couple of quid extra a month is worth it for reduced stress when stuff goes wrong
only my two pen\'th though, for what its worth!
