Cheap broadband package for 6 months?

Hannah_Smith

Hi there,
I'm moving into a new flat for 6 months, but need to hook up broadband. Does anyone know of any good deals where I can get a contract for just 6 months (rather than 12)

Any advice would be great. Cheers!

Hannah

Gordon_Hose

http://www.broadbandgenie.co.uk/broadband/no-contract-broadband

Hannah_Smith

thanks so much for this link, looks promising. i would be looking to use skype, stream tv and download music from the internet - any idea how much GB i would need?

Mark_In_Hampshire

Skype doesn't use much (not much more than dial up bandwidth up and down)

A music file is probably 3 or 4 meg for a single

A film is about 1.2GB

Half an hour of TV is about 500 to 600MB.

Hannah_Smith

thanks for the advice mark. so do you think 10GB with a max speed of 20MB would be decent enough? is that quite a quick speed?

Mark_In_Hampshire

I watch about an hour or two of TV a month and work from home. Most traffic is web pages, email and FTP and I use between 5 and 10GB per month.

To stream in standard definition smoothly you really need 2Mbps + minimum

However you won't know how fast it is until you have it, although an estimate for your line/postcode can be had from www.samknows.com > Availability checker

20Mbps is quite a quick speed, basically only available on cable - ADSL (phone lines) can do 20meg, but only for the people living right next door to the phone exchange if they're lucky, so very few will get that.

If you can get cable then you can pick your speed. If you can't then you have to make do with what you're given down phone lines which will be anywhere betweek 150k and 20meg, the average depending on who you believe is between 4 and 6.5 meg. However cable is a 12 month contract; ADSL and line rental can be had for shorter periods.

Do take care with the Ts and Cs and read carefully - some Ts and Cs seem to imply a month to month contract but with a penalty charged should you leave before the 12 months is up (e.g. pay for the connection, pay for the "free" router, etc)

Hannah_Smith

ah thank you you've been so helpful, i'll pass all ur advice onto my housemates