Cheap Unlimited - Connection and Rental needed

Quartermass

I'm buying a flat which currently has a BT line. The occupant will cancel it and take the number with them to their new house.

I suspect that means I'll need to pay for reconnection.

I'm not especially bothered about a phone line, I have a good mobile phone contract and there's plenty of room on that for calls I'd make. However I think I'd need one in order to get broadband at a decent price.

Virgin is out as they don't do unlimited unless you take their 50Meg service, which is 35 without a phone line, or 38 with.

I've tried looking around but it's very difficult to compare prices for unlimited broadband, the required phone line, line rental and whatever connection charge.

I'm guessing I'm not the only person to have been in this position, so hopefully someone else has found the right answer.

So far I think Sky would be the cheapest, at £21.25 a month, all in, after a £39 connection fee (I think it would be required?)

I'm not sure if some of the less well known providers would be able to do it cheaper.

I'm not too bothered about getting a free router, as I'm happy to buy one myself if it meant a cheaper monthly contract, but I think most of them come with free routers anyway.

KillerWatt

Quartermass wrote: »

Virgin is out as they don't do unlimited unless you take their 50Meg service, which is 35 without a phone line, or 38 with.

Employ a negotiator.

I have just had a deal with VM to add 100Mbit internet and free phone calls to landlines 24/7 to our existing package (XL TV) and the total monthly bill is £42.50 for 6 months, rising to £67.50 afterwards.

The only bit of that offer I couldn't quite work out was that I had to take the phone to get that deal. If I didn't want the phone (and I don't because there isn't even a socket in the house for it) then it would have cost more :huh:

Mark_In_Hampshire

Quartermass wrote: »

I'm buying a flat which currently has a BT line. The occupant will cancel it and take the number with them to their new house.

I suspect that means I'll need to pay for reconnection.

I'm not especially bothered about a phone line, I have a good mobile phone contract and there's plenty of room on that for calls I'd make. However I think I'd need one in order to get broadband at a decent price.

Virgin is out as they don't do unlimited unless you take their 50Meg service, which is 35 without a phone line, or 38 with.

I've tried looking around but it's very difficult to compare prices for unlimited broadband, the required phone line, line rental and whatever connection charge.

I'm guessing I'm not the only person to have been in this position, so hopefully someone else has found the right answer.

So far I think Sky would be the cheapest, at £21.25 a month, all in, after a £39 connection fee (I think it would be required?)

I'm not sure if some of the less well known providers would be able to do it cheaper.

I'm not too bothered about getting a free router, as I'm happy to buy one myself if it meant a cheaper monthly contract, but I think most of them come with free routers anyway.

"Unlimited access" will probably die a death within the next year or so partly in response to changes in regulation. There aren't that many providers to choose from on normal consumer tariffs. Off the top of my head, Sky and BE are the only ones I can think of.

You can get unlimited usage on some business tariffs with various ISPs, but all of them will work out significantly more expensive than the above options.

Do you really need "unlimited" access?

If you use P2P software (I only bring this up because of your "unlimited" request), be aware of traffic shaping and throttling policies and check very carefully; many ISPs do indeed throttle P2P applications down to extremely slow speeds, so even if you have "unlimited" usage, it's not much use if everything you want to download comes down at a crawl.

HappyMJ

You don't have to pay a connection charge. The phone number is allocated by a computer. The line will still have a dialtone.

Mark_In_Hampshire

Not necessarily. Some suppliers levy the connection charge regardless of the status of the line, which is normally from £0 to £150.

Quartermass

Mark_In_Hampshire wrote: »

"Unlimited access" will probably die a death within the next year or so partly in response to changes in regulation. There aren't that many providers to choose from on normal consumer tariffs. Off the top of my head, Sky and BE are the only ones I can think of.

You can get unlimited usage on some business tariffs with various ISPs, but all of them will work out significantly more expensive than the above options.

Do you really need "unlimited" access?

If you use P2P software (I only bring this up because of your "unlimited" request), be aware of traffic shaping and throttling policies and check very carefully; many ISPs do indeed throttle P2P applications down to extremely slow speeds, so even if you have "unlimited" usage, it's not much use if everything you want to download comes down at a crawl.

I do need unlimited, I do not use p2p software though, just a SFTP connection to a single server. However I don't mind if it's throttled, or if I have to use it only on certain times, it can happen overnight for example.

Quartermass

HappyMJ wrote: »

You don't have to pay a connection charge. The phone number is allocated by a computer. The line will still have a dialtone.

Mark_In_Hampshire wrote: »

Not necessarily. Some suppliers levy the connection charge regardless of the status of the line, which is normally from £0 to £150.

The line works just great at the moment, it's still in use and it's clear when I phone the house owner. So hopefully that means it'll not need anything done.

I am now thinking the 50MB Virgin service might be the best one. It's a bit more expensive than ASDL, but it't what I have now in my parents house, and what I'm used to. I don't want to tie into an 18 month contract and end up stuck with an awful line or traffic management woes.

I hope that Virgin will do some kind of sweetener though, because they're miles above Sky's unlimited prices.

Mark_In_Hampshire

Have you checked the speed that Sky might be able to offer? It's not like cable, where generally it should and does hit near the advertised speeds. It depends on the quality (guage, metal) in the phone line and how long it is.

The speed will be anywhere between 135kbps and 24Mbps, and is more likely to be nearer to the bottom end of that range than the top. Average is about 6.5Mbps I think. If you're used to and getting a genuine 45Mbps+, you won't want to go back to 1Mbps....

You can verify ADSL connection speeds with estimates from www.samknows.com > Availability Checker > put in the phone number

Quartermass

Yeah, 17MB is what's expected - I was very surprised to be honest. Most places quote 10-20MB, but one of them (BT maybe?) went a bit more precise on it.

Edit :

up to 2Mbps via ADSL
7.5Mbps or greater ADSL connection via ADSL Max
17Mbps or greater via ADSL2+

Sam Knows had the same figures I guess

johnnyblount

Although not unlimited Plusnet have extended their 3 months free if you get a user to refer you , its 60gb on 11.49 package peak if in area but free use after midnight until 7am so I use p2p then

I cant say Ive noticed any bad traffic shaping but I paid for the router rather than have it free so am on a 1 month contract if it gets bad I can move on , but obviously the free makes it worth stopping at moment at 11.99 phone and 11.49 after the free months it seems like a good deal , without a long contract : )

I signed a few friends up too and they seem happy might be worth checking out real unlimited deals are getting too expensive imo .