Sky £5 broadband package

jam111

Hi, Sky are offering a £5 mid range broadband package but seemingly it is not available in my area - only £17 per month. I am with AOL at £17.99 per month. Can you recommend the cheapest available in the Bushmills area for surfing and only occasionally downloading. I did phone sky but they wouldn't budge from the £17 - I did try very hard for over 1 hour!

PaulK_3

If they are only offering the £17 per month service then you do not have Sky equipment in your exchange yet and are not likely to get it for a while. Do you know who has equipment in your local exchange for LLU?
http://www.kitz.co.uk/adsl/adslchecker.php

penrhyn

http://www.samknows.com/broadband/exchange/NIBH

.says that there are no LLU operators in your exchange so everything would have to go via BT.
According to Samknows only 24 exchanges have been unbundled so far, mostly Belfast.
http://www.samknows.com/broadband/llu-league.php?filter_field=region_name&type=easynet&status=2&filter_value=Northern+Ireland

Note to self: Buy bottle of the Black Bush.

jam111

Sorry I don't know what LLU is! Would all the broadband providers be more expensive in our area as there are no LLU operators in our exchange?

penrhyn

Sorry, got into the bad habit of quoting TLAs (Three letter acronyms!).

LLU means local loop unbundling, if you look at the Samknows page for your exchange you will see a bunch of them listed on the left hand side.

What it means is that Internet Service Providers (being good now) install their own Internet equipment (known as DSLAMs Digital Subscriber Line Access Multiplexes) in BT exchanges, therefore they can offer their own services independent of BT and often offer cheaper rates.

I noticed that Carphone Warehouse and O2/BE have kit in some NI exchanges you could try them to see if they have any plans for the Bushmills exchange.

On the mainland if Sky plan to install their equipment in around 6 months they offer the Connect service at £5.00.

mackidee

Jam, it might be worth having another crack at sky - I phoned them for a call out three weeks ago and a very pleasant man in the Indian call centre offered me,without prompting,broadband connect for £5 a month, he was also going through his script re line rental and anytime phone calls (I have the evening and weekend deal atm) but as at the time I was more concerned with getting my sky+ fixed I told him not today but I would think about it. Last week I called again to take up the offer and a very arrogant young man with an English accent told me there has never been such an offer,I must have been mistaken,and there was no way I could have connect for less than £17, even if I did bundle it in with line rental etc. After a short discussion(!)I told him very politely where to shove it and have since been searching all the deals available-and wishing I'd accepted the offer at the time! I intend to try again via cancellations for my whole sky package and see if that makes them reconsider. Meanwhile I've been offered by Orange (I have a mobile contract) broadband,line rental and anytime calls via their livebox all for £15 a month.Great price,but everthing I've read about Orange broadband on here and elsewhere is negative to say the least! Can anyone advise please, are Orange still to be avoided however cheap they are?

jam111

Thanks everyone - I'm already with AOL broadband and I phoned them today and they have reduced the prce by £5.00 per month. Every little helps!

meinni

I have just come off the phone from madasafish broadband providor who I have been with for 12 years. I have been paying a whopping £25 per month for the last 3 years, 20 gig download and 20 meg (suposedly) speed, which was in reality 3.5 meg speed. I found plusnet offered 10 gig for under a tenner a month for 18 month contract and was going to change. I phoned the nimber to get my MAC address which is need to migrate to plusnet. They offered me my package i was on for 14.95 and I said too dear, im moving. They then offered me a 12 month contract for £7.49!!! per month with 5 gig download and same speed as before. They checked my downloads and its never over 4 gig a month anyway.

So the advice here is when your contract is up call for a mac address to migrate and see what you are offered. Their website cheapest is £14.95 after the 3 months of reduced rate, so what a bargain I have.