Thought I'd give you a quick update on the bad service I got from Pipex Opal. As a recap, Opal took over Pipex - who I've never had any trouble with - and then disconnected me with no warning. That's not something I'm going to take lightly. My business relies completely on my internet connection. Without it I'm nothing and so I'm not going to leave it in the hands of a company I can't trust.

The dilemma I had was how could I move from them. This involves the co-operation of your current provider in giving you a special code to pass to the new provider. Opal aren't even answering the phone and my attempt to get the code failed on more than one occasion.

Worst case scenario was that I had to cancel one before starting the other - meaning a potential time with no connection at all. Not something I could consider.

My eureka moment came when I realised the house has two phone lines (and numbers) - one for the house and one for the office. Perhaps I could have two ADSL connections? A quick call to Zen and the salesman (who actually knew his stuff) confirmed I could and I signed up there and then. Within a week I had two broadband connections and I simply switched the router between them before calling Opal to cancel. Ha, nothing you can do about that is there Opal!

Thanks for your recommendations to use Zen. So far, so good. I just hope they don't end up under the Talk Talk umbrella, where it seems all other independent broadband providers are finding themselves...