Looking for first broadband provider

Macgirl_3

Dear people,

I hope you will be able to give me some advice. I find myself in a position where I need to get the internet at home for the first time. I'm not sure what my usage will be but I'll be using Skype, youtube, BBC iPlayer and downloading the odd movie here and there. I'm also willing to get a new phone line (currently with BT) as I would like a provider offering free international calls.

As I have an Orange mobile and I'm about to upgrade, I thought I would throw in their broadband with phone line, but after reading their really bad reviews I am looking at something else.

Following your advice I looked in Samknows and these are the LLUs results:
AOL: Not available
O2 / Be: Not available
C&W / Bulldog: Enabled as of 20/05/2005
Edge Telecom: Not available
Entanet: Not available
Lumison: Not available
NewNet: Not available
Node4: Not available
Orange: Not available
Pipex: Not available
Sky / Easynet: Enabled as of 11/02/2002
Smallworld: Not available
TalkTalk (CPW): Enabled
Tiscali: Enabled
Tiscali TV: Enabled
WB Internet: Not available
Zen Internet: Not available

Talk Talk is only offering me 7 meg at best, and I don't really like their reputation.
Sky is offering 10 to 20 meg but there is the problem of needing to sign to sky tv and, living in a block of flats, I don't know if there is a communal disc or if I can install one outside my flat (neither do I need sky tv but I would be willing to get it if broadband was good).

BT seems really expensive and I have also looked into PlusNet, that while not perfect seems the most reasonable so far.

Which one would you recommend? Would you recommend any other? I just would like to get a good-ish provider that is reasonably priced without having to sign my life away.

Thank you for your help!

dylanuk

Out of TalkTalk, BT Wholesale and Sky I'd probably go with Sky, although I guess it will depend on whether you can have a dish or not.

Sky broadband is by far the best out of that lot, Sky Unlimited costs £10/mth (which is very cheap) if you take a free evening & weekend call plan (you can leave your line rental with BT) and obviously have Sky TV.

Sky Unlimited has no fair use policy either, and is 'up to' 20Mbps, so it would be perfect for your Internet usage. Here is a review of their broadband http://www.chooseisp.co.uk/broadband-g.../is-sky-broadband-any-good.html

If you can't get a Sky dish, then I'd agree with your choice of Plusnet, you have some LLU operators at your exchange so you may get the cheaper price for Plusnet too (you need to be on a Market 3 exchange - Samknows also lists this information on the same page you got the availability data on).

I'd suggest Plusnet Premium though, which is 80GB limit, but totally unlimited between midnight and 8am. Their connection and customer service is pretty good too. They're also quite good how they deal with P2P and downloading, if you download a lot - they won't restrict your email / browsing speed but they may restrict your downloading speed, so download won't affect priority activities - it's a good way of handling it compared to just throttling everything to a crawl.

bryanb

Another vote for Plusnet. You can have say 10gb and pay for any extra you use in a month. Or upgrade easily if you use more regularly.

Macgirl_3

Thanks very much for your help, you've definitely made my choice clear. I'll find out from the caretaker about the dish, otherwise I'm off to PlusNet (I'm in Market Exchange 3 so it should be a good price).

Btw, any idea about PlusNet home phone service, is that any good? I'm tempted since they offer 300 free international minutes.