What is the best braodband / router

[SteveR750]

Given how much i use Spotify and all that....

 

[Crocodile]

One of the best rated ADSL for home/SOHO is the Billion BiPac 7800N but it's not cheap. I seem to have a compatability problem between mine & my ISP that neither seem able/willing to resolve that requires regular reboots. I can find no one else in the world with the same isue though & when it's working, it works very well.

Having said all that, given that Spotify is only 320kbs at best, I'm not sure it has any bearing on the choice of router as long as it has decent wifi range/performance (which the Billion excels at).

 

[John Duncan]

Yeah forget the router bit. Any 'N' router will do the job, generally speaking. And that includes my Airport Extreme, which I think is no better than any other but is a nice shape and colour.

As for quality of service, Virgin are ooookkkkaaaayyyyy, but I think BT probably provide the most reliable and plusnet the best value.

 

[busb]

If you are with BeUnlimited, they recommend routers with a particular chipset to get the maximum speed. If you want to use Windows 7 & HomeGroup sharing, you'll need a router with IPv6 which almost every current router has.

If you want wireless:

http://www.pcpro.co.uk/reviews/wifi-routers

They also come in cable or modem variations, depending if you use a phoneline or not. Good hunting

 

[Crocodile]

I didn't realise you were after an ISP recommendation as well. Zen are good but like the router, pricey. Although they've just doubled the monthly quota on their base account to 20GB.

Beware magazine reviews of routers as real-world user experience often differs from the magazine wildly. Take the linksys WAG160N for example. According to the PC Pro review it's the second best you can buy. Compare that to Amazon user reviews & it has more 1* reviews than 5*!

 

[The_Lhc]

I didn't realise you were after an ISP recommendation as well. Zen are good but like the router, pricey. Although they've just doubled the monthly quota on their base account to 20GB.

Are they really that pricey? I pay £17/month for the 20Gb package and it's very reliable and the support (on the one occasion I had to use it, which was actually my fault not theirs) is excellent. They regularly win ISP of the year, although their twitter feed gets a bit twee on occasion...

 

[Crocodile]

Are they really that pricey? I pay £17/month for the 20Gb package and it's very reliable and the support (on the one occasion I had to use it, which was actually my fault not theirs) is excellent. They regularly win ISP of the year, although their twitter feed gets a bit twee on occasion...

It's certainly become more attractive with this month's doubling of quota.

 

[the record spot]

I pay £15 a month on an unlimited 30-day rolling contract with O2. The unlimited bit is generous as I can get through a good number of streamed films in HD before I'm charged and even then it's less than a fiver and has only happened a couple of times in two years. Recommended.

 

[Lee H]

I pay £15 a month on an unlimited 30-day rolling contract with O2. The unlimited bit is generous as I can get through a good number of streamed films in HD before I'm charged and even then it's less than a fiver and has only happened a couple of times in two years. Recommended.

Although their traffic shaping is quite harsh. Having said that, when I was with them, it was a good quality service.

With Plusnet now and they've been fine

 

[Crocodile]

This comparison site gives an idea of how users rate their ISP:

http://www.thinkbroadband.com/isp/compare.html

As the LHC said, Zen have been pretty much at the top for many years.

 

[SteveR750]

Sorry, I wasn't being serious with this thread! I doubt I could hear any difference between ISPs and wi fi systems using spotify, if it even exists....🙂

 

[Lee H]

So you trolled?

You could have been asking about reliability of connection, router capacity for wireless devices, interleaving, traffic shaping etc. Everyone gave you a genuine answer to what you intended to be a non-thread.

Edit: rather than admit that, it would have been more polite to just thank everyone for responding

 

[The_Lhc]

Yeah, that's quite annoying, I was interested in this thread as my router has an annoying "feature" whereby it doesn't route traffic between the wired clients and the wireless, so my laptop can't see my NAS (which is wired), unless I connect an ethernet cable to the laptop (although, oddly, I CAN use my phone wirelessly to control my Sonos players which are, technically, all wired to the router even though only one of them physically is, that's the only thing that works though).

So I was hoping to get some recommendations, I'll steer clear of the Billion as there's reports of incompatibility with Sonos.

If it was a troll the OPs missed the point of trolling...

 

[professorhat]

So I was hoping to get some recommendations, I'll steer clear of the Billion as there's reports of incompatibility with Sonos.

I use that Billion - has been great, I used to get a few issues with my wireless network, but not since I swapped over to it. I also stream music from my Mac to the Sonos over the network (as well as Spotify) just fine.