ADSL 4 Less.com www.adsl4less.com Review

Overall Rating

Connection reliability is astonishingly rock-solid.

Prices not as competitive as they were.

I have been with ADSL4LESS aka HOTCHILLI INTERNET for over 2 years.

CONNECTION
It may sound unbelievable, but I have never, ever experienced a single line-drop whilst using their service. And I surf for 3-4 hours every day. When I was on the 2Mbit service I was always getting 2 Mbps. On the (up-to) 8Mbit service I'm getting 5 to 6Mbps. I live within 1Km of the exchange. BT linetest thing I can do with my BT modem says the line can take 6.8mbps. Reasonable limits, I'd say. In use, downloads seem speedy enough.

On my 'Unlimited' connection, I frequently exceed 10Gb/month download and have not experienced any noticeable 'shaping' or attracted any unwanted attention.

PACKAGES/TERMS
I started-off with a 2Mbit connection with a 2Gb/Month download limit at £11-99 per month. I was attracted by the price which was very competitive at the time, and also the fact that there was no long-term contract*. I had been paying £27- per month to Virgin for the luxury of being able to cancel at any time so in comparison, ADSL4LESS seemed ace. The only reservation I had was that I had to pay annually in advance. I did this, happy to gamble on their not going bust. And they haven't (fingers crossed). *There is now a minimum contract -see below...

CUSTOMER SERVICES
Original setup/transfer from Virgin had some hiccups but I reckon this is fairly commonplace.

I didn't even know phone support existed, I contact them using the 'tickets' system in the customer account area of their website.

When I enquired a few month ago about cancelling and getting my MAC code, they tried to tell me that I was conracted for a year or something. Because I'm a trusting type(!) I had saved their T&C's to pdf when I first joined so I emailed it to them, reminding them that I could cancel at any time as stated in the T&C's which were in place when the contract was agreed.

The reply followed, "Yes, you can cancel at any time.".

For some reason (probably the unsurpassed reliability and full 2Mbps bandwidth previously attained) I decided to stay with them and upgrade to (up-to) 8mps unlimited download for £20-/month.

I haven't found the support quite as bad as other users here, but it is frustrating when they get the wrong end of the stick which seems to be partly down to poor command of English. It's a bit like one of those call-centres only in type; they seem over-polite and at the same time not overly helpful in my opinion.

But when I've re-worded my requests, the replies have been OK and reasonably swift (same-day anyway).

One benefit of this system is that you have written evidence of what they've told you before.

OVERALL
Well-impressed with the service. I haven't found customer services THAT bad, but then I've never had any complex (technical) problems.

I suspect the service reliability may have something to do with the fact that this is an offshoot of commercial provider Hotchilli rather than being setup for the masses of home-users. As such, I hope they resist signing-up to any snooping agreements, unlike the big home-providers which have already succumbed to pressure from the film/music companies.