hosted services
Plus.net is what we're using now on a no-contract residential broadband subscription.
Their services do appear to be reliable and free from contention.
If you require an IPv6 address why not take a look at one of the teredo clients out there, on a Linux based system you might find miredo is adequate, that will be enough to get you going. However, I do suggest that you consider using something like aiccu from sixxs, at least this way you have a reliable IPv6 block that you can reuse dynamically. aiccu will require installing a heartbeat daemon.
Failing that, swing over to one of the below providers and try something else:
20100517
After signing up we were told that a recent offer of four months free broadband was not applicable to us, due to the offer being introduced after we began the sign-up (as reported by their customer service personnel). After putting my thoughts about them into an email they later decided that the offer was applicable and have agreed this. For this reason plusnet will be added to the good service category.
20101018
Turns out, after watching something rsync over
ssh that the connection is throttled at about 1/4 of what I'm paying for (~64kbps vs 2mbps). Well, after speaking with the customer services representative on their news.plus.net server, it turns out this is due to:
It helps prevent people circumventing the traffic management. It
also offers an upsell path to the higher priced products.
Just as well there are other ports out there. I'm sure they thought about that before putting such a ridiculous restriction in place. I don't personally think this is very fair of them. I'll have to check the terms of service, but I'm sure they're not meant to '''reduce''' the bandwidth that I'm granted, provided that I remain within the limits that I've subscribed to.
20101103
After a lengthy thread on the plus.net news server I've got an answer from one of their staff:
> I'm curious and want to know where this limit was derived from, why
> 60kbps and not 70?
The rate limit is 512kbps/64kBps.
The decision to rate limit down to this speed lies with our product
development folks.
So, for anyone else thinking about plus.net, you might also want to think about what they're doing with tcp/22, as they may not want you to get your full user experience with this particular port.
20110607
After asking on their news group nntp://plusnet.service.customer-feedback I was pointed to an article http://community.plus.net/blog/2011/05/01/ipv6-day/ where plusnet have been very proactive and very helpful to their customers and have grabbed the bull by the horns.
Not very many ISPs out there have been making movements to get IPv6 deployed, in this case Plusnet have excelled.
I put my request in to be part of the test today, not long after I had a message from Plusnet staff informing me of my new connection details and everything appeared to be working. Sadly Netgear are at fault, but that's not Plusnet's fault. What Plusnet have organised has been perfect here.
