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SoCoder -> Blogs Home -> Blogs

 
JL235
Created : 10 May 2008
Edited : 12 May 2008
System : Windows

Don't Use Demon Broadband

Their service is all lies, utter lies...
For the last year I've been living in rented accoomodation who thought it would be a great idea to sort the broadband connection for us. Over the years I've used three ISPs in the UK and I've heard the experiences of other ISPs from lots of my friends. Sorting the broadband for us was great, except that our landlord decided to go with Demon Broadband.

In the beginning...

Back when I had a 56k modem I was with AOL and they were terrible. But looking back it was mainly because of the whole AOL Internet Browser that you were forced to use. It also had some nice ideas, that a browser was far more then just for rendering HTML. But it would cause my entire PC to freeze and AOL didn't let you play games online. I remember knowing people who had the same type of connection with BT but it would be a lot faster. Even for the time the speed was pretty bad, but at least it was very consistent.

The Glory Days

Then when I upgraded to broadband we decided to loose the AOL ball and chain and switch to BT. This was the start of a golden age between me and the internet. I could play games, I could surf the web, I could download content and best of all I had the spare time to do it all. At certain times my internet connection with BT was better then anyone else I knew. However BT had the worst deal on the market; £25 for a metered connection. The bandwidth limit was somewhere around 20gb to 25gb and we did often hit that limit. But the speed restriction would be brief (a few days) with a decent speed. At worst I might get a download rate at 20 - 50 rather then 200 - 500 kb/s.

All Downhill

Then I moved and was switched to Demon Broadband. At first all was happy. The speed was really fast with download speeds typically always well over 300kb/s. It was very consistent too. But after a month they soon became a severe pain in my life. On the surface their broadband deal is 'unmetered access', brilliant! However 'all users will be monitored on a continuous basis' where you will be restricted if you 'consistently download exceptionally large amounts of data over a rolling 30 day period'. By 'exceptionally large amounds of data' they mean 50gb, within 30 consecutive days. After that you get heavily restricted, where my connection is sometimes as little as 5kb/s. A 56k modem connection is better!

So we complained, again and again. First we were told that we would be sent a letter when we approached the limit, and then we would be put on to it at a later date. We've never received any mail or warning from Demon, ever. Then during another complaint it was told to us that it is a 30 day rolling period, but when they take you off it they will put you back on the restriction list within as little as a week if they still don't like your bandwidth usage. Regardless of if the last 30 days go over their 30 day limit or not.

To be fair I do use more bandwidth then the average user. VS Pro, Windows Vista, various Unix OSs, Channel 9 videos, Corrie and versions of Java all take up a lot of space. However at around January we had more restrictions placed on us so we totalled up our downloads over the last few weeks. This was really easy to do because there were only two of us and we had only been back for 3 weeks. Before that the house had been empty for christmas so the previous 30 days would all have no usage. The total came to about 15gb, over 14 days, not 50gb over 30. We even pointed this out, to which they didn't know our exact amount of usage and just insisted that we must have gone over it.

I don't mind having restrictions placed on my internet, but they don't have to restrict users in such a heavy handed way. BT's restrictions were usable and only in the short term. We've had Demon restrictions last for a whole month. And seriously, 5kb/s!

To further rub salt into the wounds, Demon only restrict their service 'between the hours of 9am to 11pm'. Except on the current restriction where after hours I recieve a lesser restiction allowing me to download at 15kb/s.

To Summerise

In short if your looking for a broadband provider don't bother looking at Demon. They are terrible.

 

Comments
Sunday, 11 May 2008, 13:20
spinal
 		Personally I'm happy with aol for my broadband, its un-metered and about £15 per month. You can set it up as a normal network connection after the modem is installed so you don't need to use their browser (in fact I haven't even installed it) the speed is ok, I don't really pay attention to the download speeds, but it's good enough for me.
Sunday, 11 May 2008, 15:27
Scherererer
 		That's rediculous, what a terrible service! I'm on Earthlink over BrightHouse Cable, and its been nice so far. I'd kinda like to get Verizon FiOS, but, can't get everything in life! and earthlink is just fine, anyway, that there's no sense in bothering
Sunday, 11 May 2008, 15:51
steve_ancell
 		5Kb/sec... It would be faster to walk to the download source, and save it onto a dongle .

I've had NTL/Virgin Media @ 4MB for the last 4 years. Okay, it's £25/month. But I very rarely have any probs with it. I'm also due for a speed increase in a couple of months, to 8MB.

There are also no download limits, although they do have a fair usage policy. But you have to be a really serious torrent junky before they say anything.
Sunday, 11 May 2008, 15:53
Jayenkai
 		Virgin have just moved their newsservers..
It's now at news.virginmedia.com

And there's lots of nice new happy newsgroups
Sunday, 11 May 2008, 15:55
steve_ancell
 		Cheers for that info jay, I overlooked that .
Sunday, 11 May 2008, 19:29
mike_g
 		Aparently the guy who owns demon got done for intercepting people emails. Just some random thing I found out the other day.
Sunday, 11 May 2008, 20:11
steve_ancell
 		Bloody hell...

That would be just like the postman opening your letters, and then reading them to you at your door.
Monday, 12 May 2008, 10:17
zebeste
 		I'd kill for a consistent 5kb/s. I'm on dial-up and my download speeds average 2.8kb/s, not to mention that it ties up my phone and it is extremely unreliable. But I can understand why you would be upset, paying for a lousy service like that.