Content of some sites sometime slow to load-why?

[Murphyv310]

Also, since you don't like Talktalk very much, consider another ISP if you're out of contract period. I've used Plusnet for years. They've had ups and downs but one of the better of the main suppliers. I think they have some good deals at the moment.

ALso worth trying to get hold of anothr computer. Not just for testing. If your only computer fails then you can be really stuffed. Plenty of decent machines for almost nothing these days. I saw some Core 2 machines for well under £200 in a local phone/computer etc shop. Also older laptops for under £200. Sometimes well under.

Refurbed Dell SX720 at CPC right now for £99 + VAT Highly recommended.

Don't blame Talk Talk per se. Here in Kilmarnock even my daughter couldn't get a deal due to speeds so she went with Virgin and even they dont come near the upload speed I get. It can be all down to old and badly maintained equipment, blame the BT years with openreach and openreach in general, all the suppliers have the same issues here. Even Virgins system doesn't cope well as their speeds massively drop when the school kids get home and in the evening.

[Nick]

After 15 years I've just left Plus.net.

[ppppenguin]

There have certainly been times when Plusnet has annoyed but most of the time they're fine. In other words I don't notice them, it all just works. On balance where else would I go? None of the big boys is realistically any better. If I wanted top notch service then Zen or AAISP would give me that but at a price. Also I have free webspace with PN (historical from when they included it as standard) and a lot of referral bonuses that make it a very good deal even if their prices aren't the lowest at the moment.

[Raditechman]

There is another growing company which offers packages up to 900Mbps. They are slowly building their own network. A person I know is having it in his area soon and will be changing to them. Not in my area yet.
https://www.gigaclear.com/gigaclear-story/

John

[Nick]

There have certainly been times when Plusnet has annoyed but most of the time they're fine. In other words I don't notice them, it all just works. On balance where else would I go? None of the big boys is realistically any better. If I wanted top notch service then Zen or AAISP would give me that but at a price. Also I have free webspace with PN (historical from when they included it as standard) and a lot of referral bonuses that make it a very good deal even if their prices aren't the lowest at the moment.

Having been there so long, all the desmith.* sites were there, but they really don't want to know about the legacy hosting stuff - they farmed out the CGI to another company years ago and now can't access it any more, so some legacy files I have on that they cannot retrieve.

They take anywhere from 15 to 20 minutes to answer the phone and recently have been taking over 2 days to answer support tickets. My CGI ticket has been open for 5 days - still not resolved (or indeed any updates on the ticket)

They may be part of BT (and have been for ages), but they are totally pants by modern standards.

I moved most of my sites to SiteGround this week - they support over 1,000,000 domains/customers, allow you to use LetsEncrypt for free certificates, respond to support calls via chat or phone within a minutes, the sites are all blisteringly fast (unlike the ones I have on GoDaddy). For very little money I also get 20GB of storage, SFTP, multiple account user logins, infinite subdomains and parked domains, LetsEncrypt automatic renewal support, Cpanel and a tonne of other stuff.

Basically, they are highly proactive and excellent at what they do. Breath of fresh air.

[ppppenguin]

I moved my email and domains to 1&1 years ago and could easily move my web hosting there too. But my requirements are only a simple static website so no need to bother at the moment. It works well enough at the moment.

Leaving aside historic extras like web hosting and email, Plusnet still gives me what I need as an ISP: reliable and fast access to the net. Of course things could be better - I had to raise a ticket about a billing/referrals problem and you can't do it online any more. Took a few minutes on the phone, the wait was less than 5 minutes though still annoying convincing the first line numpty to just open a ticket for me. From what I've heard the likes of BT, TT etc are no better and likely worse. So either I stick with PN or go to a smaller, high quality ISP and pay for the privilege. At the moment the balance stays with PN.

[Old Sparky]

Checking the Broadband speed a minute ago, the maximum download is no more than 2.3Mbps, whist the upload speed is, if anything, a fraction higher. This despite leaving my router on all the time.

[Murphyv310]

Hi.
TT are very poor over the phone, having foreign call centres doesn't help as the language barrier and delays due to poor comms are irritating. Online though is the opposite and their chat system works well. Admittedly they have had their troubles but for me TT have been better than BT were before I switched, I'll stick unless it all goes to pot.

[ppppenguin]

The adaptive line stuff can take up to a week to optimise speeds. Sometimes it gets it right within hours, sometimes it can take days.

Please try and find the sync speed. You can normally log into the router and it will tell you various statistics about the conenction.

[Mark Hennessy]

I left PlusNet (after nearly 20 years) for Zen earlier this year. Haven't looked back Everything is so much better, and it's not really costing much more (if it were, I'd still be happy to pay it). Wish I'd done it years ago - they've become a shadow of their former selves. I also took my phone line to them too.

Zen includes webspace - although I didn't really notice it until after I'd signed up. I haven't tried using it, as I pay for my own hosting (£3.99 a month) from someone else. They also include a high-end router that is so much better than the usual freebies. And a static IP, so I could host my website myself if I fancied...

I decided to leave some years back - after this thread: http://golbornevintageradio.co.uk/forum/...p?tid=4602 - after hearing about the sorts of deals you can get (some where detailed elsewhere - Jeffrey's deal was discussed on VRAT at the time, for example), I rang them to see what I could get, and they accused me of lying - apparently those deals would not have been available to anyone, ever. Sending them links to the various postings didn't help. I tried a second time a while after - knowing that there's an element of luck with who you speak to and what sort of mood they are in - but no joy. Not even the "customer retention" people would offer me anything close to what others were getting.

The hardest and most time consuming part of the exercise - which I admit that I did put off for quite a while - was untangling my Plusnet email addresses from my life, but once done - and that will never need to be done again - it was plain sailing. Apart from the fact that they didn't cease the service for me when they should, so I had to contact them to get them to do that. I did that before the direct debit date, and took screenshots of the on-line conversation, just in case, but luckily didn't need that. But had I not contacted them, I'm 100% confident that they would have kept on debiting my account.

Would never go near Talk Talk - they "slammed" me once, and I've never forgotten or forgiven. I know many unhappy but apathetic customers...

Anyway, as far as this thread goes, as has been suggested, leave the router on 24/7. If it doesn't improve significantly after a week, check your internal wiring and then raise the issue with your ISP. Before doing so, you need to be 100% confident that it's not your PC, and has been noted, this is the problem with only having one device. Not much we can do about that, but do be aware that if an engineer from Openreach turns up and determines that the fault is with any of your equipment, you'll be charged for that visit. That should be incentive enough to seek out a local friend with a reasonably modern laptop who can visit and double-check your speed.

Incidentally, there is a difference between cookies, history and cache, and you can clear your cache without clearing your history or cookies. That probably won't help in this instance, but there's a lot of information about all this sort of stuff out there. Google is your friend