help required about BB

joe134

Hi, My daughter, just returned from Spain wants to get online and phone. Arranged with BT, who came yesterday, but said line would cost £169 instead of £50 which they quoted online when ordered to activate her line.no reason why the increase, so obviously decided against it. She is now in a dillema, to go dongle and use mobile, or cable.As a general user, surfing, few music downloads now and then, light usage, would appreciate any advice, as to what download usage she would require, and if package would be better rather than dongle. The line is.the main problem.cheers

williamberry

I can understand your dilemma but actually a broadband which is enjoyed by a separate cable is much better than the phone .As there is big difference in speed and internet is just enjoy as per the speed.

penrhyn

Is your daughter in a Virgin Cable area?

Check what services there are at her local telephone exchnage using the exchange search facility on samknows website.

Why was the BT installation going to be so expensive, was she not willing to sign up for a 12 month minimum contract?

warehouse

Don't go down the dongle route. It's very slow and very expensive. Cable all the way.

joe134

penrhyn wrote: »

Is your daughter in a Virgin Cable area?

Check what services there are at her local telephone exchnage using the exchange search facility on samknows website.

Why was the BT installation going to be so expensive, was she not willing to sign up for a 12 month minimum contract?

Hi penrhyn again, thanks for reply. She signed contract online 2 weeks ago for BB+phone-anytime. Gave CC details, £50 one off for new line+ 18 months £24.99 pcm. limited Gb download, assumed to be ample. Engineer arranged for yesterday, but not nescessary at house, line already in, not activated.BT phoned to say, online contract not available unless £169 one off for line instead of £50.No logical reason.Daughter said no way. Virgin et al is all available at exchange.They quoted £50 one off+£29.99pcm for weekend andevening only, £39.99 anytime, so opted for BT.She,s using dongle at present, borrowed, rest of family have Mobile contracts, blackberry.She just wants BB+phone, basic, preferrably anytime calls.same as me, AOL. £6.99pcm+ BT line rental.We thought she would be switched on yesterday with free hub, not now.Looking at alternatives.

joe134

warehouse wrote: »

Don't go down the dongle route. It's very slow and very expensive. Cable all the way.

Hi, I have tried putting her off the dongle route, she is going to have to pay for line, but £169, nogo , .Talked her off TT because of LLU unbundled troubles, back to Bt if not happy, then same bother as now.

espresso

joe134 wrote: »

Hi, My daughter, just returned from Spain wants to get online and phone. Arranged with BT, who came yesterday, but said line would cost £169 instead of £50 which they quoted online when ordered to activate her line.no reason why the increase, so obviously decided against it. She is now in a dillema, to go dongle and use mobile, or cable.As a general user, surfing, few music downloads now and then, light usage, would appreciate any advice, as to what download usage she would require, and if package would be better rather than dongle. The line is.the main problem.cheers

It sounds like a security deposit has been added and other providers may do the same due to her lack of UK credit history. This would be returned after a period of time.

10.6 In some cases the Customer may need to pay a deposit or provide a guarantee as security for paying future charges.

joe134

espresso wrote: »

It sounds like a security deposit has been added and other providers may do the same due to her lack of UK credit history. This would be returned after a period of time.

Hi espresso, never heard of that before. While my daughter was away, her son used the line, sky, full whack, £46pcm, then moved into new flat, transferred his package, but daughter now has no line, Bt say the number has been migrated, grandson has new one, different exchange, it,s all a bit confusing.Although she has lived in spain, all her banks , mortgage, bills etc are in uk. They have 2 homes.Bt even set DD up, I don,t know if she has bad credit rating, could soon check.Do they refund if credit check proves ok?they can do that at the press of a button.

kwikbreaks

You said VM quoted £50 and £29.99 pcm. That is more expensive than signing up online plus doing that through Quidco should get some cashback too.

VM phone line is £11.99 which includes weekend calls. In the main the VM phone is expensive compared to BT and so are the call plans. I took the VOIP route by buying an ATA device and using VOIPCheap. An alternative would be to use the 1899 service but that costs 1p per minute on a VM phone (still cheaper than VM of course)

The current BB deals give a discount for the first 3 months but after that the cheapest (10Mbps) is £12.50 a month and offers a lot less restrictions on use than BT plus it will probably be faster.

If you prefer the ADSL route take a look at the Post Office for the line - you can use any ADSL service with that. You should certainly regard this as a narrow escape because BT broadband is one of the worst possible deals available.

joe134

kwikbreaks wrote: »

You said VM quoted £50 and £29.99 pcm. That is more expensive than signing up online plus doing that through Quidco should get some cashback too.

VM phone line is £11.99 which includes weekend calls. In the main the VM phone is expensive compared to BT and so are the call plans. I took the VOIP route by buying an ATA device and using VOIPCheap. An alternative would be to use the 1899 service but that costs 1p per minute on a VM phone (still cheaper than VM of course)

The current BB deals give a discount for the first 3 months but after that the cheapest (10Mbps) is £12.50 a month and offers a lot less restrictions on use than BT plus it will probably be faster.

If you prefer the ADSL route take a look at the Post Office for the line - you can use any ADSL service with that. You should certainly regard this as a narrow escape because BT broadband is one of the worst possible deals available.

Hi, I use 1899.18185, my daughter used voipcheap from spain, she was contracted with BT in spain.That vm deal was what we looked at when opting for BT, similar package. I think vm may be a option, sky are doing a similar, but, just checked online, BT line required.PO wanted £100 connection charge, are they tied to ISP ?Thanks.PS is 10 Gb enough for general surfing etc. no streaming, videos, occassional music download.?

kwikbreaks

The Post Office just resell BT lines so you can use any ISP including theirs although that has little going for it.

10GB is a pretty low cap and would pretty much exclude any use of iPlayer etc. Are you getting confused with the VM speed I mentioned which is 10Mbps but no download cap as such (AUP plus temporary throttling if published usage limits are breached).

The best ADSL deal is Be/O2 LLU or Sky LLU. All the other LLU deals are a bit iffy and non-LLU is resold BT which can be iffy too.

http://www.samknows.com/broadband/search.php should tell you the LLU options. If neither O2 nor Sky LLU are avaible then my advice would be to take cable and mitigate phone costs by using VOIP for outgoing - most convenient way is to buy an ATA device with a DECT phone. Alternately just use a contract mobile - Tesco £10 SIM only gives a lot of minutes - more than my wife manages to exceed anyway.