Broadband. Who's the Cheapest? Article Discussion Area

redbob_2

I've almost subscribed to having the need to set up a phone line if I want, and paying some one line rental, but http://allyours.virginmedia.com/ seem to give it away free, the have two for £20 phone and bb package and a 2 for £20 bb and tv package.

Trouble is I don't want a landline or a TV Liscense, just BB, preferably, unlimited. Is this at all possible? I heard Tiscali were going to offer existing customers a line rental free service, but never heard a follow-up

BexTech

You don't need a phone line for VirginMedia broadband (or the TV) if you are in a cable area (xNTL or xTelewest).

If you live outside a cable area then for Virgin's ADSL broadband service you will need a BT landline, as ADSL works over a phoneline whereas cable broadband is down the same co-ax cable that is used for TV.

If you are only after the cable service's low end broadband (Size M) then for the 12 month offer price you will need the phone line. Though a little haggling you will get that at the offer price (sometimes even lower at £10 per month) without the need of their phone line.

rmg1

theloft wrote:

The best tack is to LEAVE THEM ! There are more complaints about Tiscali than most and there are certainly better deals out there.

I've had no problems with them to really speak of (touch wood! :shhh: ). Apart from a few problems when I first started which was down to a faulty modem, my BB has been running fine.

gertie

Talk Talk package sounds terrific and well it may be if it works for you. We have had problem after problem, which have never been resolved. Including a new modem, which never appeared and technical support call backs which again failed to materialise. On upgrading the exchange we ended up with someone elses phone line and had to act as a secretary for 4 days, whilst being without a service ourselves, was there an apology or recompense, not on your life. Currently we are being threatened with debt collectors for money which we do not owe - monthly dd after we cancelled and suprise suprise they can not trace that either.

Chunky73_2

To paulal1966, if I was you I would stay clear from Sky broadband at the moment as they seem to have some serious problems, my story so far with Sky broadband:
Signed up on the 27/12/06 but still by the end of January not connected, after countless hours on the phone and countless lies that it was BT's fault so in the end rung BT to find out the problem, they said there never has been a problem because Sky have never provisioned an order with them.So rung sky to tell them they said I would be connected by the 09/02/07 and low and behold I was connected, but then two days later it packed up, rung sky technical team they tried a few test and said it would have to be passed to level 3 support and that they would ring me in 3-5 days, 5 days later still no call so I rung them and they told me they would put me on a priority call-back list and that I would be contacted either that day or the following one ( not very priority).So the day after still no call so I rung them again and eventually got through to a supervisor who got someone from level 3 to ring me, after lots more tests he said it would need to go further and they would send out a new router just in case and it would take 3-5 days.

On the fifth day there was still no router so I again rung sky and was told that due to something being wrong with my account info a router had not been ordered and that they would order one that day and it arrived yesterday. But I now have a speed problem, I should be connected at 8 meg as my line will allow anything upto 16 meg as I am more or less sat on the telephone exchange but I am only connected at 105kb. After ringing sky yet again they have told me they will have to pass this problem onto level 3 support and it could take upto 5 working days for them to contact myself.

But I may add that I have friends (not many) that haven't had a problem.

dmxdave

Sorry if this has been covered B4 I had a quick scan and could not find any threads.

I have been with Pipex for 18 months or so with no problems, however £19.99 pm for a 2m connection is probably not the best value. I did request a change to Pipex mini plus anytime which meant up to 8meg (with a 2Gb allowance) and anytime local & national calls included for £19.99

EXCEPT the anytime bit is not available and never has! so I was going to be paying £14.99 pm with a new 12 month contract!

I researched Talk Talk as my phone is with them AT THE MOMENT! asked about their Total package (includes 50 international countries & 100minutes to mobiles with "Free" broadband only to be told £29.99 setup fee, 18 month contract, had to take line rental & the free broadband would cost me £10 pm!!(The old LLU)

SKY again the £5 broadband would be £17

Any suggestions welcome!

ormus

assuming you have a BT line, then try aol silver at 9.99 per month. ask for and get the 2mb speed and no limit on downloads.

and do you really need to include 50 countries? who are you? kofi annan?

dmxdave

ormus wrote:

assuming you have a BT line, then try aol silver at 9.99 per month. ask for and get the 2mb speed and no limit on downloads.

and do you really need to include 50 countries? who are you? kofi annan?

VG ormus thanks for that No just one would be enough USA! yes we could use skype but picking up the phone is easy! or maybe I should look at a voip phone.

cttofa

If BT can offer 8MB service to my village, aren't they obliged to offer such a bandwidth to other ISPs. The most I can be offered from others is 1MB when BT offers 8MB. Is this right or fair?

Madasafish_Customer_Care

Hi Cttofa,

I think that I may know what's going on here - is it that whenever you put your number into a speed checker you're told that you can only get speeds of 1Mb?

What's probably going on here is that speeds up to 8Mb are entirely contingent on the length and quality of your line - thus if you were estimated to get 1Mb, my guess would be that you're quite a distance away from your local exchange.

If you use the Samknows site and enter your postcode into the checker and click the 'check' button. When the screen refreshes click on the grey button that says "Locality" and you can see approximately how far away you are from the local exchange. Please keep in mind though that even if you are really close to the exchange it's the physical length of the line from your premises to the exchange that matters - so if your line zig-zags before it reaches your premises, that's extra distance the signal needs to travel.

Kind regards,
Samara