Broadband without BT line rental

GST

Greetings all, its about time i got a forum account here, after getting the email for more than a year.

I am moving into a student house imminently, and we need to set up some form of internet. To save cash, we want skip TV lisence or TV, and rely on iplayer, 4OD etc etc. Therefore we want a reasonable speed (10meg or more), without download limit. As I have an O2 phone I was considering the O2 broadband as a good option, but that requires a BT landline. The house we are moving into has a phone line, but does not have any phone number currently set up, and we'd rather avoid a line rental if possible.

As I understand it, virgin Media broadband is able to operate as a standalone without having a regular landline, is this correct? Are there any other competative providers that offer a good service without the requirement for a landline phone number to be set up, without relegating us to a contract till judgement day?:A

Thanks all :beer:


EDIT: If it makes any difference, the house is in Belfast, and is within 2500m of the nearest phone exchange.

oneandonlyboy

Hi,

You would need to see if Virgin Media can supply you with broadband but checking your postcode on their website. You will be tied into a 12 month contract tho.

About you not having a TV license you must make sure that no one in the house has a way or receiving a TV signal ie not TV's or TV cards.

GST

oneandonlyboy wrote: »

About you not having a TV license you must make sure that no one in the house has a way or receiving a TV signal ie not TV's or TV cards.

Yeah we're being very careful about that, but none of us has a TV, or anyhting like that, so we're good in that respect. Also, a 12 month contract is fine.


I was unaware of the Tiscali broadband + phone deal, but theyre only offering up to 8 meg, which isnt really ideal.

I've done a brief comparison of some unlimited packages, with line rental charges when nececary. Due to the online tv plan, all the packages examined are for unlimited downloads. At the moment it looks like O2 plus a basic landline is winning after all.

Service..................Annual cost.........Contract Length........... Max Speed................Cost per meg
O2 + BT landline ........£246 ..................12 month ..................16 meg ......................£15.75
Virgin Media ..............£246.....................12 month..................10 meg .....................£24.60
Virgin Media...............£348.....................12 month..................20 meg .....................£17.40
Virgin Media+Line Rental £276...............12 month..................10 meg .....................£27.60
Virgin Media+Line Rental £312..................12 month................20 meg .....................£15.60
Tiscali + Line...............£165....................12 month................8 meg .......................£20.63
BT + Line...................£408.......................18 month...............8 meg .....................£51.00

Are there any good ones i've not looked at? I'm still looking to save on line rental if its worth it.

oneandonlyboy

Dont forget that the max speed might not be what you get when in include factors like distances and contention ratios will affect your speed.

Donniedodo

You might have done already, but in case you haven't you should also check that you can get more than 8mb on your exchange. samknows.co.uk will tell you if providers such as O2/Be have LLU'ed your area allowing you to get faster speeds through ASDL2+.

x2o

You can get an idea of the speed you would get via adsl2+ here http://www.dslzoneuk.net/maxspeed2.php

Remember it's only an estimation though.

GST

Only now do I realise how little I know about broadband providers...

Okay, after checking Samknows I can cancel out O2 and Tiscali from the running as theyre not operational in the area.

It says "According to BT Wholesale, houses at your postcode should be able to support a 6Mbps or greater ADSL connection via ADSL Max.". Does that mean that I could get the 8 meg BT package, but it would certainly actually deliver under 6 meg performance, until the cables are next upgraded? Or would I have to get a lesser (2 meg) package if I went with BT?

There is also a green tick next to "Virgin Media (Cable)", but no info on speed, does that mean that VM packages will work to approaching the advertised 10meg and 20 meg speeds? If so I guess its a toss up between the virgin media 10 meg packages.