i was wondering if anyone out there had any strong views? this company appears to be delivering and has just turned EBITA positive after a great trading statement last week. seems like upside to +200p once results are out.

any comments or thoughts would be appreciated.

Nice article, cheers. So BT are testing 18mb and we have done 24mb, ahead of them which is nice.

Last week's volatility worked out well for me, especially on Friday, rapid moves late in the day. Great long and short trades on the Dow.

it just makes life more interesting when there is movement = opportunity!

Indeed it does sir! Fridays sharp fall then rapid bounce was an excellent end to the week. 2 profit opportunities within minutes, short then long. I wonder if any brokers will put out a new note after this mornings AGM? Surely Deutsches increased buying will not have gone unnoticed.

ok, here is a funny one.

with all the offers for ukonline i called to check to see what BT are charging me...wait for it, 24.99 for 512 speed!!!!!!!!!!

the chap said well we can ungrade you to 2Mbp for the same price for free with no 12 month contract. BT are a bunch of comedians. Of course i have upgraded but they are having a laugh. how many millions of customers are in the same boat. do you know anyone who is a reporter for a national newspaper? i think we have a great story.

this guy couldn't believe the other prices out there and i said i could get 8mbp for only a fiver more a month. when i told him about 24mbp he almost fell off his chair.

BT MUST lose customers to ESY and when i have upgraded next week i am binning BT.

24.99 for 512 must be one of the most expensive prices for the slowest speeds. They are definitely having a laugh, but its not very funny considering what you can get elsewhere, more for less! Im 24.99 a month for 1mb on Blueyonder, got the whole Telewest package, TV phone and broadband. They charge 34.99 for 2mb and 50.00 for 4 mb. Considering what else is out there they are pretty pricey. But I dont have the access to some of the other smaller cheaper faster players up here in Scotland. Might give them a call and see if I can get 2mb fro 24.99. One thing I do have to consider is reliability. Trading from home, I need a very reliable package so dont mind paying a bit more for a reliable service, and Blueyonder is very good.

Wish I did know a reporter, would be a good story. Working Lunch had a good feature yesterday about how hard it is to migrate from one ISP for another. Tiscali got hammered in it. BT should lose business with that pricing strategy. I bet that BT software is pre-loaded on some new pc's, as AOL was. It was when I bought mine a about 4 years ago. Makes it easy for lazy consumers just to take that package.

I wouldnt be happy paying 24.99 for 512 so sounds like you did the right thing. Which ISP will you look at after BT? We dont get Uk 0nline up here and I would never go back to AOL, garbage service all round. Go ESY!!!

As an aside, keep an eye on SIA, results out Friday.Posted on the thread.

saw SIA creeping up, will check it out...

i have emailed ESY with my little story and who knows maybe they can play around with it. i even gave them an advertising strategy -

"call up you ISP, ask them 2 things - speed and tariff. Cancel them and subscribe to UKonline. one call, save money and speed up your life. simple"

anyway, not that i am in advertising (or ever will be after that effort) but i am SOLD!

Good call emailing ESY, "one call does it all!" Pity they don't cover up here. Gonna email Blueyonder tonight and see if they will do anything considering the reduction in the retail market.

Whilst searching the web tonight, this sprung up:

"The Lane is a sophisticated, light and modern restaurant whose list of corporate members includes Skanska, Habitat, Easynet, Kangol, RBS and Natwest. They come back time and again, safe in the knowledge that they can treat their guests to the highest quality European cuisine in calm but ambient surroundings."

It always comes back to food....

http://www.londonlaunch.com/newsArticle.asp?retid=36&newsID=609

great spot...i wonder if shareholders can take advantage!

Another interesting little snippet:

"It looks likely that we will now see a gaggle of providers announcing partnerships with Easynet, in the coming weeks and months. These partnerships may well be the boost that LLU in the UK needs, and provide a fast route to services that will match those offered in France for example."


http://www.adslguide.org.uk/newsarchive.asp?item=2216

another great spot. cheers gavdfc.

Interesting to read the comments about UK Online.

I've been with Pipex for a few years on 512Mb for 23.44 incl VAT a month. A while ago they announced that they would be upgrading all customers to 1Gb free of charge in line with BT upgrading their exchanges. Although BT intend to have all exchanges upgraded by August, they do not yet have a date set for my local exchange and I am left waiting still.

I also get my TV through Telewest and had been contemplating switching my broadband to them too. I would, therefore, be interested to learn of gavdfc's experiences with them. I am, however, also thinking about scrapping Telewest altogether in favour of Sky.

Unfortunately, UK Online's offer of 512Mb for 9.99 a month is also a red herring, as they are not yet inside my local exchange and would therefore route through BT and actually want 19.95. I've got to say that the ESY rollout does seem a bit slow considering that they've been inside the BT exchanges for about 5 years now. Does anybody here use UK Online? What is the quality of their service like?

Even thou your paying a lil over for the price.. I would stick with PIPEX!
They are reliable and hardly lose connection! Good customer service aswell

P.S I've got shares in them aswell ;)

So no switching OVER... Thankyou

Hello Hilary,

Apologies for taking this long to answer your question re Telewest. A friend of mine was taken seriously ill this week so I've not been around here much this week.

As to Telewest, I have to say that I've been impressed with their service. However, having only used Telewest for my Broadband, I could not compare it to any other ISP except on price. Considering how much I use it, I don't really mind the 25 a month for 1mb. It was originally 25 a month for 512mb, then uprgaded to 750 and now to 1mb, free of charge. I havent had time to get in touch with them so far to see if they will upgrade it for free to the 2mb service. I do plan to do so and see if they will compete against other providers.

Had a few teething problems at first, but they were down to faulty modems that they provided. After calling the helpline each time, an engineer was sent out the next day with a new modem. I'm now on my 3rd modem, a Motorala one and this has had no problems so far. (touch wood) Another time I was unable to connect to the net but the modem seemed as if it was working fine. After another call to the helpline, they established it was a fault with the box in the street. An engineer was sent out as a priority and it was fixed within a couple of hours. Of the top of my head, I can only recall once or twice where the service has been down for an hour or so. A call to their status line told me of a fault in this area, which seemded to be fixed relatively quickly. I occasionaly have a problem accessing emails via Outlook, their email servers don't seem to be the best in the world but problems don't seem to last too long.

I was recommended Telewest to me about 18 months ago from friends who had the service, they were also quite happy with it. Our BT exchange wasn't broadband enabled at the time so Telewest was the only option. Our exchange is now BB enabled but I can't see me changing to another ISP. I'm happy with the service I get. The status line is a free number and the BB helpline is charged at local rate. I also get my phone and digital TV from Telewest so it's convenient to get the lot from one provider. 25ish a month for all the Sky sports channels and all the film channels. The tv service has only had one problem in the 18 months and it was a national problem.

Anything else you want to know then just ask.

Cheers

Gav

BT just switched over my broadband from 512 to 2.2 Mb and i am very happy with the speed. 24.99 per month is now more palatable at that speed...

Am hoping Telewest will do the same for me, will play BT off against them.

what the crap is going on in ESY????

Seems they have signed up another customer and Deutsche upped their stake again yesterday.

Easynet, has named innovative DSL provider EFHBroadband.com as its latest LLUStreamTM customer. LLUStream will enable EFHBroadband.com to extend its product portfolio and benefit from immediate cost-savings.

http://www.net4nowt.com/isp_news/news_article.asp?News_ID=2880

excellent spot, cheers. i had only seen the stake news.
rgds
PT

dog with fleas???

this is SUCH a quality company but SO misunderstood!