Anything better than BT?

[Deleted User]

I currently pay £48 for telephone and broadband from BT. Reasonably happy with the service (speed is slow) and we need unlimited downloads as 2 sons into online gaming. Is there anything cheaper that would be OK? Or should i just tell my husband to negotiate a better rate?

dylanuk

£48 for telephone and broadband is expensive - does this include phone calls?

BT Option 3 broadband the unlimited one should cost £24.99, then plus £11.54 for your BT line rental. Totalling £36.53.

There are much better and cheaper broadband options, especially for online gaming, but it does depend on what's available in your area.

The best broadband providers for online gaming are BE, O2 and Plusnet. BE and O2 you will need to be on a special "LLU" exchange so they aren't available everywhere.

Plusnet resells BT wholesale however so is available everywhere - although the price goes up if you're not on an "LLU" exchange. Plusnet is owned by BT - but they prioritise gaming traffic on their network, so are especially well suited to online gaming.

If you can get any of those, then BE and O2 will be the best option (they operate on the same network so very similar service and not much between the two) - O2 will be the cheapest though, especially if you have an O2 pay monthly or payg mobile as you'll get a £5 monthly discount on your bill - on going.

There is a comparison and availability check on this page for the best gaming-suitable broadband packages http://www.chooseisp.co.uk/compare/broadband/gaming.asp

macman

Broadband is exchange specfic, so no meaningful advice can be offered without knowing your exchange:
http://www.samknows.com/broadband/search.php
Then advise which LLU providers are available, these will be your cheapest options.
You do appear to be on totally the wrong BT tariff, as the current Talk and Surf Plus package is only £39.53 (incl line rental, unltd broadband and Anytime calls).-so switching to that would give you an immediate saving of £8.47, even with BT's overpriced product.

[Deleted User]

Thanks for the help. I should have said that the £48 does include all my calls including some to New Zealand so perhaps it isn't too much after all.

macman

onewom wrote: »

Thanks for the help. I should have said that the £48 does include all my calls including some to New Zealand so perhaps it isn't too much after all.

Well that would possibly make quite a difference...
It's really what you're payng for your inclusive calls that matters for the purpose of comparison, for international calls all you would need to do is use an overide provider such as 18185.co.uk to reduce the cost.

dylanuk

onewom wrote: »

Thanks for the help. I should have said that the £48 does include all my calls including some to New Zealand so perhaps it isn't too much after all.

Might be of interest... but if you went for Plusnet and you move your line rental to them as well (its £11.25 - so a bit cheaper than BT) you can get the free evening & weekend call plan which includes free 300 minutes evening & weekend calls to 20 International destinations - including New Zealand (it says so here http://www.chooseisp.co.uk/broadband-.../plusnet-unlimited.asp and Plusnet's home phone tariff guide here http://www.plus.net/residential/tariffs/homephone.html).

If you phone during the day, the Plusnet anytime (including 300 anytime mins international calls inc. New Zealand calls) is an extra £5 a month.

So you could get Plusnet Premium (good for gaming) + free E&W calls to UK & New Zealand + line rental for £27.24 a month (if you're in an LLU area) or £31.24 a month if you're outside an 'LLU' area.

kate252

im with the same- let me tell you it sucks- if ou go over your usage they charge ou hundreds- ive a bill for £400 t pay off and they dont bat an eyelid about it- they think its normal to do this to somone- the amount of money they ask for is horrendous- the £48 a month does get hard to sustain- especially when there vare better deals

as for negotiatng a better deal- with whom?
the toadie on the other end of the line who doesnt have authority to negotiate what?