The greatest advantage of i-choice is that they have very good coverage. So, if you, like me, live in a village, it's probably your only choice for broadband.
Cons:The i-choice network has one of the most weird designs I've ever seen. A tracert reveals that, in order to reach your ISP, your packets need to pass through a PPPoE tunnel, 4 routers, and 3 subnets. Obviously, this increases latency and makes the network prone to errors. And of course there's that unnecessary web site you have to visit every time you loose your connection.
Their equipment is also not of a very good standard. The modems are very inexpensive models and notorious for surrendering the spirit after a couple of years of operation (this seems to be changing a bit nowadays, with the new speedtouch models they're now installing). The "MiVision" IPTV device is even worse: Made by a company called aminet, it's definitely an entry level model that takes about 1 minute to boot and is so underpowered it needs a second or two to respond to simple remote control commands.
Connection speed is probably i-choice's biggest problem, as they only offer up to 1 Mbps (1024/256) for home users. Recently, they announced a 2 Mbps option, and I've been told that they've "secretly" began accepting applications for it. But this is still a far cry from the 8-10 Mbps offered by the competition.
Pros:Despite the weirdness of its design and its initial problems, the i-choice network seems to be very stable nowadays. I can't remember the last time they had a global outage, but I'm sure it was at least a couple of years ago. This is to be expected, as the network is almost 10 years old now and Cyta seems to be doing a pretty good job maintaining it.
Also, MiVision, their IPTV, is actually pretty good: The picture is crytal clear with no dropouts (for me at least). And the programming, with a bunch of premium channels, all of Cyprus' sports and football events, and movies on demand, is not bad at all.
The Bottom Line:If you live in a rural area and i-choice is the only way to go, go for it. The service is decent if a little slow. But if you're in a town, you'd probably do better with PrimeTel or Cablenet. They offer better speed and you'll have much less trouble with their equipment.
A Hint:Someone has complained about problems with i-choice and certain ISPs. This is usually not a problem with the ISP but with the configuration of the i-choice modem. If you're using i-choice with an ISP other than CytaNet, and you are connecting to the modem directly (i.e. you don't have a router), you need to manually set your DNS settings to those of your ISP. For example, if you're using Netway, your preferred DNS server must be 81.21.45.34, with 81.21.45.35 as your alternative.
I-choice Current Equipment:Modem:
http://www.thomson-broadband.co.uk/products/Details.asp?ProductID=511IPTV Device:
http://www.thomson-broadband.co.uk/products/Details.asp?ProductID=511
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