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Go on then - who offers a reliable, honest, cost-effective UK broadband service (preferably with a static IP)?

Andrews and Arnold - http://aa.nu/

Not by any stretch of the imagination the cheapest, but I'm afraid you get what you pay for. With A and A you can readily get to talk to someone who actually knows what he's talking about and isn't reading from a script.

They also give you full IPv6 connectivity. Until recently they allowed genuinely unlimited bandwidth usage between 10 p.m. and 6 a.m. It is now metered, but you get a ridiculously large allowance (in the terabytes/month).

I'm not aware of any in the UK

http://www.aa.nu/kb-broadband-ipv6.html

AAISP http://aa.nu/ offer a very fine ADSL service wherein you can get an IP address range if any size (provided you can justify it to RIPE of course) regardless of the service package ordered.

They offer static IP addresses as standard. If I understand correctly they don't even do dynamic IP addresses on ADSL.

AAISP provide the highest data rate your line that can be achieved on your line (currently 2Mbps with more coming this year), at no extra cost.

They also have no transparent web proxy, guaranteed, cannot be changed - it is an intrinsic part of their service that they just carry IP packets between you and the rest of the Internet.

With AAISP there is absolutely no filtering whatsoever. With AAISP you are considered to be part of the Internet, rather than a "client" or "user" of the Internet.

There are no mysterious or unstated bandwidth caps. Each service package has a clearly stated data allowance, which is more than any reasonable user might need. More data can be transferred at extra cost. Demand during the night time and at weekends is so low that data transferred during those times is not metered.

(Please no babbling about wanting uncapped services at no extra cost -- it is simply not economic to have people saturating a 2 megabit pipe 24/7 for £20 per month. So-called "uncapped" services will always be subject to increased service charges, unstated limits, highly variable performance, ... or a pack of lies.)

I have no connection with AAISP other than as a satisfied customer! They just happen to offer a service which I find to be most agreeable.

You are inevitably going to run into problems if you don't have the immediate cooperation of the person who owns the account. (You may have their cooperation, but if they are thousands of miles away then you don't have their immediate cooperation.)

If you own your own phone line, then ordering ADSL services is trivially simple, smooth, painless, and reasonably quick.

I have ordered something like a dozen different ADSL services for various people and it has always been pretty much painless.

I have always put the order through a web ordering system. I am usually advised that the ADSL service will be activated in about 5 working days, and it has always been on or before the quoted time.

Regarding migrating from one provider to another using a MAC (Migration Authorisation Code), I have done one of these as well. It was as smooth as smooth can be. I got a MAC from BT (which was relatively easy to get) and had the service pulled over to AAISP http://aa.nu/. The service was transferred on the specified date. On that day, I got a phone call from my boss saying that his ADSL access had gone down and I talked him through reconfiguring the router which involved changing the username and password. Job done.

As I see it the major problem we have in the UK is that there are a few shitty ISPs pushing bargain basement ADSL services with saturation advertising (mentioning no names Tiscali) which give a poor service to the end user who then gets cheesed off with ADSL and it ends up with ADSL getting a bad name.

Also it is unfortunate that these services have been sold under the name "Broadband", which is of couse a bunch of crap.

It seems that the average Brit is considered to be not very technical and not able to comprehend "jargon" abbreviations, so we are given nice friendly names instead:

DSL -> broadband
ATM -> cashpoint / cash machine
VCR -> video (recorder)

for some people this may have began already.. many large warez ftps have already moved to accepting ipv6 connections only, however for many people this will require over use (even abuse) of free ipv6 tunnel brokers and doesnt provide stong grounds to presure isp's to bring native support.

There is one dsl isp in the uk (commercialy orientated) called Andrews & Arnold which offer ipv6 an IPv4 gatewat with their adsl.

there is still a good few legitimate uses of ipv6 however it will definatly take a few years to become widespear. seamless roaming with native ipv6 support in a mobile phone would be nice.. and with pprovider support i belive it could be easily implineted on todays gsm/gprs phones such as sony/ericson p800.

. . .

OK, I use these guys. I'm happy with them but obviously biased.

Check their NG archive : here and see what you can find.

In summary, not only will AAISP happily set you up with a v6 alloc (being a RIR) but they and their users are getting quite clued up on IPv6. AAISP's bias is towards Linux, so you may be happy in their company.

Their v6 is tunneled to your site, because of limitations in the BT backhaul (a ATM cloud owned by our local monopoly) but this may change with SDSL + local exchange unbundling within the next 12 months.

Of course, one's often quite limited in delivering v6 direct to hosts on your own net' party due to IOS inconsistencies (and I'm not certain Cisco or anyone else has complete v6 across their products) - but these NEC v4+v6 router - switches look very attractive IMO.

Just some idle random thoughts, but I'd rate Andrews and Arnold as a "IPv6 Friendly" ISP. There are many other was to get yourself an allocation and tunnelling to peers or the 6bone however.

For Email to SMS and possibly the other way Locust are a good bet. £3 per month for Locust, Free for Faxtext.