Phone, Internet, Tv - NTL or who else?

greyster

oh yes .... I done 5 years of student living and its only the last year I got nailed by a flatmate who disappeared off the face of planet without paying for his international calling. He was actually a pleasant guy but you never know until the end i guess.

Fortunately a) I trained him to use 1899 every single time as opposed to when he could remember to reduce the call charges - so the bill isnt overly massive and b) he has a *(!"^!*(" large gas bill in his name which I won't pay.

nalibz

Hey MK,

I have exactly the same problem as you.. I'm moving into a house next year but only have a 10 month contract..

I was walking through my local shopping centre today and there was a woman from sky there, apparently she said that if you can think of a good excuse, then you can cancel the contract after 10 months, although obviously im not sure how reliable that is or if she just wanted to sell me the contract and get commission..

nalibz

MercilessKiller

*gets tape recorder*

If thats caught on tape she can be fired and you we can get the 10 month contract!!!! A verbal contract is a legal one

NTL's prob best anyway due to phone broadband and tv all in one.. we'll all be raping the bandwidth so best goin with an unlimited one like NTL anyway!

Suppose will have to comoe up with a good excuse. Possibility if i find a problem with NTL blame it on them!

DrFluffy

MercilessKiller wrote:

My sister had problems with the elec being in her name..

So I'm going to try and get everyone else to sign for things.. Pete for NTL, Chris for Elec etc etc...

Hopefully if I arrange it all they'll happily let me use their name....

Everywhere I've lived as a student we've always taken a bill each in name and then split it when it comes in. Has always worked well, especially as the amounts due each bill peroid are usually similar. If someone didn't pay their bit of your bill, you could not pay your bit of their bill (not that that ever happened).

I've ben a uni student for a long, long time and have never had any problems. I've always lived with close friends though - no randoms...

MercilessKiller

Well the people i'm living with are friends from the first year. I know I'm going to have problems with oen person as their very lazy like that, so i'll try and get the electricity put in his name!!!

Problem is, I dont want it all in my name because I know I'll pay everyone, but I don't know that everyone will pay me type thing.. ah well will have to see what happens!

lavenderblue_3

Have not read the whole thread but you can have an NTL student account and suspend it for 3 months over the summer and re-start it again in September. It's what I am doing - you just have to ask them when you leave your property.

MercilessKiller

lavenderblue wrote:

Have not read the whole thread but you can have an NTL student account and suspend it for 3 months over the summer and re-start it again in September. It's what I am doing - you just have to ask them when you leave your property.

Can you suspend it and resume it at a different location?

Reason being i'll be doing a 1 year work placement thus in a different part of the UK

nige

Seriously I would avoid NTL, their deals are crap, 1MB broadband, weekend calls and only basic channels for £30. My main argument with them is the crap 1MB broadband and the TV package isn't good value for money, if your house has up to 3 people 1MB might be enough, but I would recommend 2MB anyway just to be safe.

If you really want the TV go for the new Sky deals, free broadband (2MB with 2GB limit plus £40 activation) with any subscription to Sky TV (£15-£21 depending what you want) or 8MB with 40GB limit (enough for anyone really) for £5 (plus £20 activation), then line rental on the phone line of £10.99 with Tiscali for the free weekend calls. Plus this way you get free Sky Sports or Sky Movies for 6 months if you apply before the end of the month.

Basically if you get basic Sky TV for £15, you can have up to 8MB broadband and get the same benefits as the NTL deal and a total cost of 99p more per month (plus £20 activation so £31.88 over the year), you then have a 40GB limit, but that is enough for anyone and NTL have a fair usage agreement anyway, plus free Sports or Movies for 6 months. If you apply after the end of this month you actually save £3.50 per month (less the £20 activation so saving £22) as well as the NTL deal goes up if you don't apply before the end of the month. Assuming you want the complete standard Sky package for £21 a month then you still save over NTL.

Anyway, it is basically down to personal preference, we have Freeview since we would have only watched Sky One, UKTV Gold and E4 anyway on Sky so we get E4 with freeview. Also you can watch some of your favourite shows online through sites such as Peekvid anyway. Then for broadband we have Tiscali unlimited 8MB for £17.99 with free weekend calls (plus line rental) but we get £15 back per month for the broadband cost as one of my housemates is dyslexic so he gets extra benefits.

Basically as I said earlier, everyone has different requirements so NTL might actually work out best for you, but you HAVE GOT to look around, uSwitch.com is very helpful. But make sure you also add the cost of a router for the internet (you will likely need a wireless one) to the overall cost if it isn't included as this could also change who offer the best value for you.

As for the names on bills, we have all our names (3 of us) on our water and fuel bills and just one on phone/broadband.

wrexhamandy

Don't know if this would help but what I did for when I was a student in a house that wanted broadband but just for 9 months was to get Virgin Broadband - there was no minimum contract, so just pay per month until you dont want it anymore and give a month's notice to quit. Can't remember if there was a connection fee (guess there would be) or if you need to buy their modem but it was very reliable and quick and the people were helpful, and fairly cheap from what I can remember (even more so when split between you). Took !!!!!!! ages to connect us though that could be because we were in the out-hebrides of Aberystwyth. Might be worth checking out if they still do it, saves on the extra 3 months of a 12 month contract which you don't need.

Andy

greyster

i just read the T&Cs and it seems tiscali allow contracts to be terminated if you can prove your new address can't have broadband :P

Could be handy for those who have family out in the sticks :P