Be unlimited Gets so much good press ,because it is better than what most have experienced prior to it, and yes most are worse, so is why they are said to be the best
But there are some that the move to BE is somewhat of a come down, certain aspects could and should be improved,
BE Broadband Reviews
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Was a great company, quickly going downhill and becoming like a large corporation. Presently with bethere, but looking to get the hell out.
The below was a review by a bememeber
"As an aside: Speaking of comparisons, when I'm behind on my payments BE let me know they'll just take it out next month, whereas BT send me letters demanding payment and threatening service restriction virtually from the outset. Charming.
Back on topic: Overall a very pleasant indie company with a relaxed work ethic and a reputable service. I actually came here to see if there were any rival services which I was willing to risk signing up for, but since nothing stood out I'll be staying with BE for a little longer. Here's to being able to get on and worry about the important things in life, rather than if your internet is going to behave or not."
sadly the company no longer behaves like decent indie guys, every since O2 took it over, there service has deteriorated rapidly. The website has huge problems and as a result refused to accept my new credit card details. How did bethere react, they sent me a letter threatening to send bailiffs round my house. Disgusting, the problem was entirely due to their website being written incompetently to begin with, that it refused to remember updated payment details. They knew that was the case, yet they still threatened to send the bailiffs on me. After i paid the bill and demanded my MAc code, they said they sent it. Nothing, they actually hadn't sent it. Complained again, this time they sent it, but offered me 2 months free if i stayed on with them for another 12months as an apology.
So i thought maybe i should give them a second chance, so code gets cancelled. Now they tell me, if i accept the 2months free, my service charge will go up to the new rate of £20 per month, which means in effect i will actually be paying them £60 more a year, even after the 2months free.
Talk about being gobsmacked, a 2months free that actually costs you £60, maybe they have been smoking too much pot, or more likely ever since they were taken over by O2 the corporate suits and lawyers have started manipulating condescendingly their customer base.
When i first started i was paying a premium for bethere, but i was getting the service i was paying for, now i get 3rd world country trcikster style service for a premium price. Frankly if i am going to be treated like dirt, i might as well pay dirt cheap prices. So this unhappy cusomter is looking to move and take all of his friends and colleagues with him.
given that when bethere started i got them over 2 dozen customers (who probably then got them many more), maybe I'll be able to persuade a few dozen to leave with me, here's hoping i can, as an *-u to bethere.
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So I've been with BE for 3+ years and the service is entirely underrated. As a tenant in a shared house I've seen a lot of people sign up to various broadband plans with providers and it seems while many of them struggle with routers, customer service and temperamental connections, BE's service has been fine the whole time with zero drop-outs at a reliable lag-free 6MB/s. As a gamer I often get to watch other people complaining about supposed lag spikes, usually right before they get munched by whatever hostile polygons are in vogue for that month.
The customer support is always friendly/informative and in my experience has never 'cut out', additionally I used the ticketing system exclusively to set up my connection from a public library when I moved the service to a new house, so no trouble there, either. I've never come across a site BE has 'blocked' and would be interested to see one, along with an ISP who makes it clearer that the speeds it advertises are usually only estimated maximums.
It's a shame BE have increased their fee to £17/month (I still pay £14!) but they do offer a landline serive for £10/month with calls costing 4.5p/minute, compared to BT's £13.90/month and 7.6p/minute peaktime. (I understand BT are pushing their prices up yet again soon).
As an aside: Speaking of comparisons, when I'm behind on my payments BE let me know they'll just take it out next month, whereas BT send me letters demanding payment and threatening service restriction virtually from the outset. Charming.
Back on topic: Overall a very pleasant indie company with a relaxed work ethic and a reputable service. I actually came here to see if there were any rival services which I was willing to risk signing up for, but since nothing stood out I'll be staying with BE for a little longer. Here's to being able to get on and worry about the important things in life, rather than if your internet is going to behave or not. -
Overseas support, disconnections, regular faults with connection, phone support which cuts you off as its overseas and VOIP based, a web support ticket system that thinks your message is Java code, Live chat system that cuts off midway, Proxy system in place that regular blocks entire sites. DNS servers that are slow and known to have outages.
Yes there is no capping, or throttles, though with all the issues they have it would be preferable.
Ring 0808 101 34 30 and choose option 6 before you join ask a few questions just to get a rough idea how the rest of the product is.
A monkey and a bit of string would give you better broadband service and support.
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Been with BE for the last 3 1/2 years... love the service, excellent support and great help from the forum members. For £12 per month (Offered when i inquired about O2) I cannot complain at my 16meg speed. Minor DNS hiccups that can be resolved by using OpenDNS or Google. Keep up the great work BE....can't wait for the fibre option whenever that will be.. :)
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have been with bethere for about 3 years now and i am still not getting 12 meg although i pay for 24 and i am 2 kms from the exchange half would be nice . But customer service is fantastic
so if you dont mind the paying for something u dont get then this is for you -
I did use BE like 3 years now and for me that is the best ISP on the market, ofcourse I did not geting all my speed what I should But I dont have any problems with them and tech Support work quite well. My problem is that I need to change city and Be can't get conection there;/ damn . Now I'm looking for good ISP but that is kinda hard . Crap everyware;/
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The speed you get is not always 24Mb its slower and it will get even slower as the years go on. Why are these services called "Broadband" for its a joke. Unless BT upgrades their infrastructure almost all other providers will offer the same junk.
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thats probably because you live to far from the exchange when i decided to leave virgin and go with be unlimited bt told me i was 1.3 killom from the exchange i had such a bad speed bad ping unstable line they sent a b.t. engineer out he told me as the crow flies its 1.3 kill but when it goes round the houses its 2.5 kill they are all thikos ime so glad that i only had a 3month contract with be unlimited who are owned by bt the sad thing is be. customer service and the technical team are brilliant they know their stuff but now its back to virgin 50 meg the technical side is a joke they only know unplug your modem wait 30 secs jokers
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Been with BE for two years, Very good speeds and no problems so far. Had hell with Pipex and Bullgog and BT.
Very happy customer. Well done Bethere -
Brilliant - after years of suffering with Pipex and BT and finally Cable & Wireless's Bulldog I have had very good service and reliability from Bethere. Consistent speeds in excess of 14 meg downloads.
Well done Bethere... -
I have been with Be for about 2 and a half years - using a laptop via wireless router. I have never got more than about 4MB download speeds and in times of increased activity the connection often drops. I am not happy with it, but it is cheap and I haven't had the energy to deal with the hassle of changing provider.
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Joined Be broadband 2 years ago- has been really good. No problems. My router died as a result of a power surge, and i called them at 2am, they sent me a replacement the next day! and gave me a dialup number for the interim.
V happy with service so far. -
Been using Be Pro as a small business package for a couple of months now. All good so far. Averaging around 9-10Mb.
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I spent a year on BE before being seduced by BT's lower price and talk of fantastic connection. BT was utter rubbish – I'm a Mac user, and I had horrible problems with signal dropout when I moved more than 3 feet away from the modem. I also had problems with the IP address if I left my laptop idle for a little while – the connection dropped, although the wireless card said it was still connected to the internet.
So I went back to BE. It's quite a bit more money, but the connection is pretty much rock solid and I haven't - yet - had to reboot the router. I didn't have to reboot once in the year that I was on BE before, either. I just tested my download speed too - it was 12.5Mb, which isn't at all bad. Set up was a bit more confusing this time round - probably because I had to set up my static IP address. But the call centre help was very competent and got me up and running straight away. I'll certainly stick with BE if this keeps up... -
I've been with Be* for a couple of years now and in that time they've never been able to provide a stable DNS service. It's so bad that their customer forums are littered with their own support staff recommending that people switch to using OpenDNS rather than Be's DNS.
With droppouts and connection freezes now an hourly occurrence and tech support taking days to respond to my problem, I doubt I'll have to worry about their DNS service for long as I found this site whilst looking for a replacement provider.
Some people rave about their service from Be but that's certainly not my experience and I certainly do not recommend that you choose them as your provider.
(oh, and 24MB in your dreams - I've never had faster than 3MB) -
I've been with Be* unlimited since August 2005. Be* pioneered the rollout of ADSL2+ in the UK - ground breaking at the time - whereas other ISP's were advertising 2Mb as if it was the holy grail - one was synchronising with the exchange at 22Meg downstream, and 1.3Meg upstream....
So we have an ISP where speeds were through the roof (and trust me, it was a revelation!) - but what about the rest of the service.
Well I can say I was with a couple of ISP's before, namely, Plusnet, and Zen - and what I need to say to you is - and not naming any of the previous ISP's in particular - I have never had any downtime with Be*. It's just always been working. No unscheduled outages. No surprises. Quick response to tickets. Excellent customer service - I swear it's amazing. It just works, it is fast, there are no restrictions... (saying that I don't abuse the service anyway - just as you wouldn't leave the tap running) - it is fantastic.
Please give them a shot. You won't be dissapointed.
PS. I'm 1/2 a mile from the exchange which is why my speeds are so high - you may get less - but it could be more than the standard 8meg you get, and the upload speed is also higher. -
Alot of people slag Be of because they either don't know what they are talking about or they made a mistake not Be.
I have been with Be for some time now (currently have two locations on the provider) One of our locations gets the full whack of 24.5MB down and 2.4MB Up and the other (a bit further from the Exchange) gets 17-18MB down (depending on sync time of day) and about 1.8MB Up which is great.
Although the Be Technical Team are forgien which does bug me and hard to understand them sometimes they are always there and quick to answer, As a Be member we also have access to a Members Forum where certain Be Staff hang out which are very knowlegable and handy to help and just encase they can't get their quick enough their are lots of us 'clued up' Be members that are sad and hang out there also and are more than happy to help the other customers that need help.
Their service is up to 24MB and doesn't matter what 'BT equipment' is between you and them as suggested above its all to do with the quality of the line (in other words if its tatty and broken it will slow down alot) and the distance you are from your local exchange (the further away you are the slower the broadband - and it does matter quite a bit) although Be do give you what speed they reckon you will easily get before you buy so no un-expected happenings there)
If you do get slower then you expect make sure that your Router is plugged into the 'BT' master socket and not some other socket or extension lead and all phone equipment is filtered correctly (and that means everything including sky, alarms etc)
If this is the case unplug everything apart from the boardband and test again if so then it is 'most likley' to be poor wiring outside the house (which you will probally hear some sort of fuzz or echoing on your landline) and this is BT's job to fix 'FREE OF CHARGE' they only charge you if the fault is inside your house (your equipment = your fault)
Highly Recommend Be for those wanting the speed, I have never been capped and as far as I know to this date Be have never enforced their Fair Useage Policy on any of its members - although one does exist just probally to protect them encase they need to use it) -
Been great up to now, but lately experiencing dropouts,will monitor the situation,looking on the positive side it maybe BT upgrading the line.
Customer suppport excellent when my modem went topsy turvey.
Will stick arounf for awhile yet.;) -
No cable in my area, only telephone line broadband. I left Be after realising (they never made it at all clear before) that the 24MB claim is not what you get - only what you might have got if BT's technology which lies between theirs in the exchange and your house will allow. So in fact it is highly unlikely you could ever get that 24MB - or even anywhere near. A deeply misleading banner headline claim they hope no-one trawls through small print somewhere to find it's highly unlikely - maybe impossible for anyone on a telephone line connection. I only ever got 4MB they then said oh that's not our fault it's BT's. It seems to me it is only BT who can tell you what is the max speed you can possibly get - regardless of ISP - while it's their lines which carry to your house, no point in exceeding that possibility, it can't get faster than that.
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Be broadband is about the only serious choice left to you if you download a lot , Most other ISps claim to be "Unlimted" but will cap your speed if you download even small amounts peaktime, Streaming youtube for 1hour will invoke the cap on other ISPs, they hide that info when you signup, Be broadband dont cap/Throttle any protocol so you can download/tream to your hearts content, My Line Atenuation is 30db and My router syncs at 14995 which give me rougly 12mb download speed day or night! They also have a excellent forum manned by helpful people so if you do have probs you dont even need to use the FREE Support numbers, Go For it! On 2nd thoughts dont go for it! the more people signing up might slow down my speed LOL
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Initially I thought Be was good. I got on the 24mbit deal but unfortunately only recieved 8mbit, however I thought 8mbit was alright. Be was always very particular about sending out notices about any planned downtime which I saw as a good sign.
The problems started about a month ago when I started having frequend drop-outs. I contacted the support that promised to look at it but infact did nothing. After a few days of them doing nothing I got the typical first line support answear back, have you checked that it is plugged in, the phone line is working etc. I did all the tests they asked me to as I thought I should be a good boy and assist them as much as possible in finding the problem. I work in IT and had already identified that the problem wasn't with my equipment. After a few more days I get the reply that it was the DNS that wasn't working. (Also typical first line support answear just to get rid of people without actually trying to find the problem.) After clrealy stating that this couldn't be the problem because I couldn't reach IP addresses either I got another answear that I needed to contact BT and get them to have a look at my phoneline, although I had checked that the line was OK.
After pushing their billing for a rental free month the support guy eventually admitted that it wasn't anything wrong with my equipment but that it was Be's fault but that they were doing upgrades and that it should soon be fixed. I still, over a month later, haven't gotten my connection functioning.
I saw someone else mentioning their useless support and that they frequently try to play the blame game and always tells you how it is BTs fault.
I would recommend everyone to stay well away from Be despite their seemingly tempting offers because when something happens they won't Be there to help you.
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If you want the fastest service possible over phone lines then Be* is the best option, without question!
Unfortunately if you have line problems they are the most frustrating ISP i have experienced.
As mentioned their first line support, will test the line and then conclude that its not them and that its your internal wiring. They will then try to close the ticket. If you keep pushing they will ask for you to send them your Be* Box stats, so that they can have data to analysis, this procedure continues at second line support, in the hope that you will accept its your problem. It will eventually get to the top to the support procedure and they will tell you that YOU need to get bt to replace your wiring costing £140 + £98 per hour. Again do not accept this and they will have no choice but to send out an engineer, cos upto the test socket is not your responsibility.
You have to go through all this hassle as it is the procedure they follow, this will take about a month. "BE" warned! -
I have been with Be for sometime now and wouldnt even think of going to another isp,the speeds are good,the customer service is good,its stable as i have ever had,in fact its the best isp i have ever had and i have had a few lol.
Anyone thinking of changing isp's and wondering if Be is any good...YES it is join Be and you wont regret it.
I am quite a distance from my exchange but still get 6 and 7 meg download speeds for the 8meg line i pay.
I have not got a bad word to say about Be,i think they are the best in the uk,Not another can get close.
So dont worry just join Be and dont look back :) -
Hi everyone! Be sounds great, it seems to be getting positive reviews from everybody almost. Be is not available in my area yet although I'm sure it will be soon. I'm currently on BT 8meg broadband and I'm getting a respectful 6.5 megs on this connection. According to google maps i live 0.9 miles/1.5 kilometres away from my local phone exchange and I was just wondering how fast you think my connection would be if i was on Be's 24meg package?
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I had just started to get Be after finding AOL too ridiculously slow then stumbled across these reviews. Now i think ill cancel my order and go to virgin after hearing continuously about the loss of connection.
I watch a lot of movies online and dont want to have to keep restarting them everytime my connection drops.
Glad Be leave the bad reviews up too unlike some companys who screen them and only ever let you see the happy customers comments. -
Excellent ISP, really reliable & fast, had nothing but a positive experience with them since October '07. Highly recommended, well worth the money for the speed.
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hello Be friends,,,, am about to take Be after reading your reviews and online adverisments... please i need a very honest advise that is it right to choose Be in all aspects,,,,i mean no hidden hassles...got me. Previously i had bt and Aol(....oh god save me), am a mad net surfer and always thriving for highest speed though i know my line supports 8 mbps,, guys please just advise me if Be is the right place for my needs,,, am ready to shell out any amount of money for highest speed. i just need straight and frank opinion. am very thankful for all your reviews till now...please advise ASAP.
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GO FOR IT!!!
I was getting 4MB on 8MB nildram/gotadsl I'm a verified 1.8 km from the exchange - ripped out all the extension cables so the modem ( 3 Com) was straight into the old style single front plate BT master gave me 6MB with a good quality ADSL filter - Nildram had no interest in sorting my connection speed issues......
the move to BE delivered 14MB+++ ( they estimated 16MB and I now ger this ) you can experiment with "Fastpath" if you like to tweak as the modem (A thompson speedtouch 585) can communicate with "DMT for Windows" so you can decide whether to go for highest speed and the odd line drop or lower speed and consistent connection ( 13905kbps / 1308kbps currently and 8 days and 11 hours since my last loss of signal)
BT replaced the old wires from the local telegraph pole to the house and installed the new style wall socket after line damage during a storm resulted in line noise - not a big improvement
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I got Be at the end of December and so far have been very happy with the service. I'm on the 8MB £14.99 contract and paying the same as my previously ISP, UK Online, where I was on a 2MB scheme.
I now get a fairly stable at 4MB/s download and 1.3MB upload. Does anyone get close to 8MB/s over copper lines?
I was also considering Virgin which was also competitive but they also take your phone and I was wary that if they did not deliver I would lose my phone number and need to reconnect to BT with a new number.
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BE information
BE links
Home Broadband Awards 2011
BE Broadband
- Reliability
- 77%
- Technical support
- 70%
- Customer service
- 72%
- Speed satisfaction
- 73%
- Would recommend
- 80%
- Overall rating
4.5 stars
Jan 2011
Data sourced for Broadband Genie by OnePoll
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23 December 2011 In what some may see as a strange marketing move, good honest Yorkshire broadband provider Plusnet is set to sponsor the embarrassing desperate 'Z' lister squabble fest that is Celebrity Big Brother. Read more >
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Groupon: A half century to be ashamed of
07 December 2011 As reported over at The Guardian this morning, discount website Groupon has been found to be in breach of the Advertising Standards Authority's (ASA) advertising code an incredible 50 times in just one Read more >
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