Re: Best of a bad bunch...
Because it's actually more cost-effective to buy all the cheap deals, and suffer failure.
Honestly, my Draytek router can load balance an ADSL/VDSL line, plus whatever I put into it Ethernet (e.g. Virgin Media), plus a 4G stick, without having to change a SINGLE THING on my home network. So if VM should ever go to the dogs, I just activate a VDSL line instead, using 4G in the meantime.
Like RAID stands for (at least always did before some people decided it sounded cheap) - an array of inexpensive stuff outperforms expensive stuff. Two cheap cars are better than one expensive car.
I'd rather have two cheap appliances, one out in the shed or even left in the shop for when I need it, than one expensive appliance. Nobody gets attached to a fridge or a washing machine or even an ISP. Buy cheap, buy multiple, chop and change as they perform differently.
It's only where performance matters (e.g. laptops, etc.) or other limitations come into place (space, budgets, etc.) that you don't want to buy cheap. Everything else is commodity - even servers nowadays. Buy cheap, buy multiple, and you'll have a lot less critical faults that can't be rode over than with one extraordinarily expensive server, and a backup should anything ever go drastically wrong.
You have only two choices. A BT-supplied line, or a Virgin-supplied line. Who the ISP is on the end of the BT line just determines how much they argue for you, they still can't do much if something goes wrong or OpenReach don't want to co-operate. Rather than pay-through-the-nose for someone to argue on your behalf, avoid the argument. Get the cheapest of them all, because the chances of your phone line, and your cable, and the local cell mast going down, without taking out your own power, are almost unimaginable.
And then you also have comparable stats after a few months and can ramp up the speed on the one that's most reliable and offers you the best deal / customer service as you see fit.
Rather than pay money for "premium" brands that are basically selling the EXACT same services, hedge your bets. And then "Oh, the ADSL's gone down" is something that you'll never say because likely you'll never even know, even when it does.
I don't buy brands because of this. Just look at the hard-drive wars that have been raging on forums for decades to see what a "good brand" means - it's too subjective and based on personal experience. And all the large users of hard drives hedge their bets deliberately.
And A&A is STUPENDOUSLY expensive, and has ridiculous traffic limits. Their only saving grace is they support proper IPv6. I'd rather buy a handful of much cheaper lines, for the same price, using different technologies and service providers, and invest one-off in a decent router than can balance them. Same as almost any workplace I've ever been in too - multiple lines, even when used leased lines, from varying providers.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
