I think we pay too much for phone/broadband

TomsMom

At the moment we have BT line rental with free weekend calls costing £12 per month, Virgin broadband (non cable) with free evening/weekend calls costing £15 per month and we route our daytime calls through 18185 and they work out approx £10 every 2-3 months. So it totals approx £30ish per month for phone and broadband. The contracts were taken out at different times as we moved house and Virgin cancelled and started a new contract by mistake instead of just transferring the old contract (but we got the first 3 months really cheap so not complaining!)

I think this is probably more than we need to pay and we could probably do better when the contracts with BT and Virgin end.

Any recommendations? We've had no real problems with Virgin that make us want to leave so don't want to go to another ISP that is fraught with problems.

Have not looked at Sky yet so not sure what they are offering, but we have an old Sky box, a dish and a Freesat from Sky card although we're not bothered about having Sky TV on a contract as we're quite happy with just free to air channels.

Would welcome any suggestions so I can start planning for when the contracts end.

macman

Check your exchange's LLU options for broadband, these ISP''s will give the best deals.
https://www.samknows.com

TomsMom

Thanks for the link macman, I'll check it out. Can I ask what is an LLU though (sorry, bit of a dummy )?

macman

TomsMom wrote: »

Thanks for the link macman, I'll check it out. Can I ask what is an LLU though (sorry, bit of a dummy )?

Local Loop Unbundled. Do an exchange search, then look at the right hand column 'LLU Operator Presence'. These are ISP's which rent space from BT for their own equipment in these exchanges, so they can offer better prices. Non -LLU providers are just reselling the BT Wholesale service.

helenpj

Hi,
We dont have any LLU options (rural!), so all just got more expensive, with Orange as many are and increased monthly cost greatly. Looking for new provider (Shame as been very very happy with orange) need phone line, rental and broadband, any good offers out there.
Many thanks.

tongey

hi,
im looking for a new bundle provider(phone tv broadband) and have checked the samknows site . thanks.x,it tells me that my exchange area has llu...what does this mean!!

helenpj

Hi.
It should tell you on samknows who the ISP providers are in your area, they should be cheapest for you. None in my area, but wondering about the post office - anyone signed up with them?

apples1

nothing in my area either - also rural!

I was looking at Tiscali. Have offered me £30.98 for BB, line rental, anytime calls. Have started another thread on this to see if this is good deal (for my rural situation!)

cheghead

<Have not looked at Sky yet so not sure what they are offering, but we have an old Sky box, a dish and a Freesat from Sky card although we're not bothered about having Sky TV on a contract as we're quite happy with just free to air channels.>

You cannot get Sky BB unless you take at least one of their tv packages @ £17.50/mth.:eek:

Botch

apples1 wrote: »

nothing in my area either - also rural!

I was looking at Tiscali. Have offered me £30.98 for BB, line rental, anytime calls. Have started another thread on this to see if this is good deal (for my rural situation!)

Don't totally ignore mobile broadband especially if you are very rural, far from the exchange with a very low speed and do not heavily download. In addition to my telephone line broad band I have mobile broadband with 3 which was a special offer at £5 per month gives me 3.8mps but has a low download limit for this price and check your mobile signal carefully.
You might also try plusnet anytime which comes in at about £3 cheaper than the Tiscali price above.

apples1

Botch wrote: »

Don't totally ignore mobile broadband especially if you are very rural, far from the exchange with a very low speed and do not heavily download. In addition to my telephone line broad band I have mobile broadband with 3 which was a special offer at £5 per month gives me 3.8mps but has a low download limit for this price and check your mobile signal carefully.
You might also try plusnet anytime which comes in at about £3 cheaper than the Tiscali price above.

Thanks for this - sadly my mobile signal is not good. We can only get just enough signal to hold a call on Virgin and T Mobile. Other networks have no reception or sometimes just enough to send/receive the odd text. But it's lovely living here otherwise!!