Finding new tv/broadband/phone package

zaksmum

I'm finally getting round to sorting out my tv/broadband/phone over expenditure...currently have BT phone bills of about £80 a quarter, AOL costs £15, and Sky is £40 a month. Total of about £80 a month which is way overpriced I think.

But how do I change it all? I heard you need a MAC code from your current provider...do I just ring AOL and ask for that?

Anyone have any tips on the best deal to go for at the moment?

I do need subtitles on the Tv as I'm deaf, but that's the only requirement!!

dylanuk

How about getting a bundle from Sky as you already have their TV?

Sky broadband is very good if you get the unlimited package ... http://www.chooseisp.co.uk/broadband-...is-sky-broadband-any-good.html

It's also very cheap if you've already got Sky TV. Sky Unlimited works out at just £10/mth if you also take a free call plan and have Sky TV.

It's up to 20Mbps and is totally unlimited - no fair use or throttling.

You'd also cut the cost of your calls too, as you could get the free evening & weekends plan or pay an extra £5 and get free anytime calls.

You can also move your line rental to Sky - but you don't have to and the saving isn't much, so staying with BT keeps things simple if you ever want to leave Sky and go with another broadband provider.

To switch you just need to phone AOL (assuming your out of contract) and ask for a MAC code - you then give this code to the new broadband provider and they'll sort out the switch for you.

zaksmum

Thanks for that dylanuk. I am out of contract with AOL, but really I want to get rid of Sky too, as it seems to be a load of rubbish most of the time.

I thought of maybe getting something with perhaps just a few more channels than the freeview stuff. The Sky full package - minus the sports since the last of our kids left home! - is a waste of money as there's quite often nothing worth watching, and you get all the teleshopping and channels being repeated every one and then two hours. I'm sure I can do much better!

[Deleted User]

How come you were getting BT bills of £80/quarter if you don't have internet with them? Line rental is only around £11-£12 per month, so you must have been making a lot of phone calls outside your package. You should look at getting an anytime phone calls package, as both BT and Sky only charge £5/month for that. I'm sure that most other providers have a similar or cheaper price.

If you want to get more than Freeview without Sky, then your options are really BT Vision, Talktalk TV (depending on where you live), or Virgin. You could also watch some Sky channels on a computer or XBox 360 over the internet without continuing with the full package (you don't need to get the internet from Sky in order to do that).

dylanuk

You could just get a "freesat" box and get the free-to-air Sky channels using your existing satellite.

It's completely free and works just like freeview, except it uses your satellite dish, so you get a few extra channels.

It's nothing amazing though, but does mean you'd have good picture quality and all of the free-to-air channels (on freeview it really depends how good your reception is to whether or not you get all of them).

Otherwise, maybe consider a cheap VM package as they have BBC iPlayer and Channel 4 on-demand services.

zaksmum

tentonine wrote: »

How come you were getting BT bills of £80/quarter if you don't have internet with them? Line rental is only around £11-£12 per month, so you must have been making a lot of phone calls outside your package. You should look at getting an anytime phone calls package, as both BT and Sky only charge £5/month for that. I'm sure that most other providers have a similar or cheaper price.

If you want to get more than Freeview without Sky, then your options are really BT Vision, Talktalk TV (depending on where you live), or Virgin. You could also watch some Sky channels on a computer or XBox 360 over the internet without continuing with the full package (you don't need to get the internet from Sky in order to do that).

No, I wasn't making a lot of calls with BT. If you take the line rental of £12 a month, that's £36, then £4.50 a quarter for paper bills, then VAT...the calls amounted to about £35 or so for the whole of the three month period...about £11 a month. The final bill bears no resemblance to the cost of the calls I actually made.

[Deleted User]

No, I wasn't making a lot of calls with BT. If you take the line rental of £12 a month, that's £36, then £4.50 a quarter for paper bills, then VAT...the calls amounted to about £35 or so for the whole of the three month period...about £11 a month. The final bill bears no resemblance to the cost of the calls I actually made.

By a lot of calls, I just meant more than £5/month of calls, as it is then cheaper to take out an anytime package (or an evenings/weekends package if you make most of the calls then).

MFWannabe

zaksmum wrote: »

No, I wasn't making a lot of calls with BT. If you take the line rental of £12 a month, that's £36, then £4.50 a quarter for paper bills, then VAT...the calls amounted to about £35 or so for the whole of the three month period...about £11 a month. The final bill bears no resemblance to the cost of the calls I actually made.

As previous post advised you'd probably be better off with anytime call package for £5.00 per month (depends what numbers you are calling). Also why pay £4.50 a quarter for paper bills; you can manage your account online and get rid of this charge