Ok Demon…
Wednesday 3rd March
I’ve been with Demon Internet for… um… 14 years but their declining standards have just annoyed me to the point of needing to look elsewhere. Firstly, since their upgrade to extra fast broadband I have a) not been able to connect to the extra fast broadband (despite buying a brand new router to do so), and b) the original speed broadband (G.dmt for the techies) has become incredibly unreliable.
The straw that broke the camel’s back is their new ‘e-bill’. I actually can’t get onto their “simple, easy to use system for our customers to store, manage and pay their invoices electronically and enjoy the simplicity and convenience of online billing.” The error messages aren’t very useful either.
I thought I’d check if there were any hints on the net, and came across this article:
Demon Internet has sent out a spreadsheet containing the personal details of thousands of customers with one of its new ebills.
The spreadsheet – which has been forwarded to PC Pro – contains email addresses, telephone numbers and what appears to be usernames and passwords for the ebilling system.
[...]
Demon is refusing to disclose how many customers have received the spreadsheet, although it says it’s less than a few thousand.
Just not acceptable.
BUT, since I do all my own hosting, I could do with finding an ISP who will give me a static IP address and unlimited access from the outside world. Anyone know of any decent companies that fit the bill? It doesn’t even have to be super-cheap – I’ve been paying quite a lot for my broadband for the last many years because the benefits outweighed all the problems I’d been hearing about on other ISPs.
I think hosting your own stuff is an evolutionary dead-end nowadays. ISPs don’t target you, but spam blockers do. I’d consider a shell account on a colocation provider or somesuch for anything serious.
sweavo
3 Mar 10 at 11:57 am
It would also make it less stressful when my connection is down
Stu
3 Mar 10 at 12:00 pm
I’m with Demon, been trying for about a year to setup the e-billing and have failed everytime.
I suppose the only plus point of not being able to sign up for it, is my details won’t be in the spreadsheet they sent out.
I will kick them into touch, when I move house. Not sure who to though.
rollasoc
3 Mar 10 at 1:12 pm
Claranet are pretty good and can do fixed IP. We use them at work.
I’d agree with the comments about hosting: it’s less bother and better for your power bills to externally host.
chrisb
3 Mar 10 at 1:21 pm
I have Bulldog at my home. They offer a static IP and reliability has been good – HOWEVER you need a Bulldog phone line which is a pain, and the customer support is not very good.
I hosted my stuff at home for a few years but since my blogs started getting more hits it was killing my browsing. My mate runs a hosting company and is extremely flexible about shared, dedicated, etc, etc. I have my own Linux box in his rack and now all my sites are there.
If you’re interested in moving your websites to “proper” hosting, I’d strongly recommend him. Just mention me!
http://www.ridgeon-network.co.uk/
Jonathan
3 Mar 10 at 1:37 pm
I only have my domain name with them, but UK2 do hosting, might be worth taking a look – uk2.net
Phil G
3 Mar 10 at 3:04 pm
Shell account it is. And remarkably easy to set up – even transferring my wordpress blog over to it. Woohoo!
Stu
3 Mar 10 at 5:51 pm
Maybe some of us who want flexibility in hosting for a reasonable price should join together and pay jointly for a dedicated server rental jobby.
Rich
3 Mar 10 at 7:02 pm
I’ll just quote our 2-year-old when he was standing on his high chair and told to sit down: I am a demon and demons don’t sit.
Divine
4 Mar 10 at 11:25 am
Eclipse will give you a static IP (in fact, they’ll give you a subnet of 8 IPs, which is what I have!). I’ve been with them since ADSL came to Ely, and I have no complaints.
(If you do decide to go with them, I have a referrer code we can share – let me know.)
It’s worth looking at “Sam Knows” broadband comparison (nothing to do with me), which has a few ‘techy’ ISPs that it rates highly. Given you know one end of a computer from the other, one of these might suit you better than a regular consumer product.
Sam
4 Mar 10 at 10:03 pm
I’m with ADSL4LESS (who actually cost more of course…)
I get a static IP and all ports open (no DPI based filtering either)
I’m on a slow rural 1 meg line though so no idea what they’re like on their higher grades.
Reliability at 1 meg has been fine
Alistair
6 Mar 10 at 2:20 am