Question about BT residential infinity connection

[n_K]

So I'm moving from VM business and have still to decide on where to move to...

BT business infinity sounded great for the price, but I phoned up recently and was informed that the old price I was quoted didn't include VAT or line rental, which pushes it to something like ?65 a month, WAY too high..

So I've been checking out BT residential infinity, seems much better priced at ?20(/?26)/month and ?135/year line rental than their business equilivent, obviously it'll be a pain in the arse to go from 5 fixed IPs to 1 dynamic IP...

So my questions are;

-> On VM I get a forwarding SMTP server for my emails so that any custom domains I have will forward outgoing emails to their server and be delivered without 'dynamic IP -> refused' errors. Does BT residential offer the same service or am I totally screwed?

-> What's BTs dynamic IP like? Say I've got the internet on all the time, how long are their leases? (I remember virgin residentials kept the same for 2 years or so even if power to the cable modem failed for some time)

-> Other than BT/Virgin, are there any other good but CHEAP internet providers (obviously in the UK) that allow static IPs (2 or 3 would be fine), don't have a monthly cap or traffic restrictions that anyone knows about?

Thanks!

[hjf288]

https://www.bethere.co.uk/web/beportal/homepage

They won't offer you as fast as Infinity or VM but they will happily offer you muttiple static ips..

[jakem1]

I'm just about to switch from Be to BT Infinity and would recommend avoiding Be unfortunately. They used to be absolutely fantastic but their network has been extremely unstable for a while now and they're losing customers by the day. Also, they haven't been able to give any commitment to either resolving their current network problems or moving to fibre in the near future. Their customer service is excellent and I'll happily switch back if they offer a competitive product once my contract with BT runs out but for now I'll be glad to leave them.

[hjf288]

That's a shame.. I was with them from 2007 -> 2011 and they were very good.. I only left because I needed MOAR Speed and they don't have Fibre planned until 2013...

[AStaUK]

How about using Zen (http://www.zen.co.uk...-broadband.aspx), they offer you the choice or 1-8 static IP's, at an extra cost (couldn't find the figure). I've been using their fibre option for around a year now and it's consitantly fast and stable, worth the extra money over BT in my view. Customer support is great, although I've not had to use it much (a good thing). The only possible drawback is their cap on download limits, Ive never hit them even with heavy use but it's something to keep in mind.

AStaley

[n_K]

Need a BT line with Zen, and for ?30/month excluding VAT and line rental for a 15Mbps minimum speed, it's actually more expensive than BT.

I'm going to be hosting a server --> need unlimited data.

[garethevans1986]

Zen Internet, expensive but good.

[Kami-]

Zen Internet, expensive but good.

They were already rejected earlier in the thread...

[Sn00pY]

The "dynamicness" of the Infinity connection is through the roof. If your line disconnects you will (obviously) get a new IP but it would be from one of the BT 86.x ranges or the 106.x ranges. It's crazy!

[garethevans1986]

What kind of server are you running?

GE

[jakem1]

Well the BT engineer was supposed to come and set me up on Infinity on Wednesday and apparently he turned up in my street, couldn't work out whether I had a BT line (it's the same one I've had for the last three years) and promptly left without even knocking on my door to let me know that he was there and having trouble. He called another engineer to check my line and all he could do was confirm that everything was OK. By the end of the day I'd taken a whole day off work and didn't have a new internet connection. I called BT to find out what was going on and they said that the engineers at the exchange hadn't connected my line to Infinity and that I'd have to wait another week to have an engineer come around. I obviously wasn't happy and told them so.

They got back to me yesterday and said that they'd arrange to have a specialist engineer sort out the exchange today and then come to my house and sort everything out there. The engineer arrived this morning but couldn't find a fibre connection on the cabinet that my line runs from. That's despite the fact that BT's systems say that my cabinet is fibre-enabled. The latest I've heard is that BT can't sort my cabinet out until the 13th.

I'm really regretting getting involved with BT again. They've messed me around countless times in the past so I was nervous about switching back to them. It looks like I should have gone with my gut feeling because they're just as useless as they've ever been :(