Cheapest Broadband Provider Discussion Area

peteraj

I am curently investigating Broadband as the children are desperate to have it, they have even agreed to go without sweets & ice cream to cover the cost - now there's a thought . So Martins alert on this was very timely. I have looked at Wanadoo and the drawback there seems to be that they charge for filters, which I understand are required for each phone socket, Wanadoo want £19.98 for 2 filters (I can buy them on Ebay much cheaper though) However I also have the option of using OneTel on their "bundle offer" because we already use their TotalUKCalls @£10.99 we can have broadband for £19.00 a month with no download limit and it includes 2 filters. Have any Moneysavers out there got experience of OneTels Broadband service? Is it worth entering into a 12 monh contract for?
Thanks
Peteraj

the_foodster

peteraj

dont pay for filters,you dont need to.there are plenty of suppliers out there and each one has several different packages.i paid £15 qiud for my equipment which included a modem abd two filters.i then pay £22.50 a month with no download limit but that was feb and since then prices have come down again.i was unsure which supplier to use so i looked at [ftp][/ftp]www.adslguide.org to compare.it lists all the adsl suppliers with comparison tables,so its worth checking out.i paid for my equipment but there are quite a few where u dont have,probably more now.the reason was because i use mine for gaming i wanted the fastest i could get for my money.also be aware that if they say 30 day contract,a lot of them have a clause.if you do cancel before your 12 months is up you have to pay a fee.sometimes a fixed amount,sometimes the remainder of the line rental.do some research first.ias for contracts,i have a 12 month contract with pipex and the only problems i've had are with bt messing around with my phone line without asking or informing me.oh,check their customer service out,because some have premium rate numbers.avoid bt and wannado becuse they're not competative,with bt being one of the worse ones.

hope this helps.

Tug_3

I'm currently with Wanadoo (Original Freeserve with no monthly fee, just call costs @1p.p.m). My telephony is via cable (Telewest). How do I get a good deal on broadband without neccessarily using Telewest's BB facility but still using their cable? We're moderate net users and up to this point have not felt that the outlay/monthly fees for BB outway what we currently pay for our current connection

Clive

Marigold123

peteraj,

I have been using OneTel's broadband package for somewhere around 2 years. The service itself has been pretty OK, though it can get a bit slow at peak times - Slow compared with normal broadband speed, that is, not compared with dial-up!

However, I did have quite a lot of problems with both my Internet service and phone line for about the first 6-9 months.

This was partly due to BT messing around upgrading the local exchange, at the time when BT were still being really crappy about other broadband providers using their lines, and were putting a lot of obstacles in their way. Onetel and BT kept passing the buck back and forth between them and refusing to take responsibility.

After exhausting all other possibilities, (and BT finally fixing their end of things), I became convinced the modem had been faulty from the begining, and, despite their continual denials that it was anything to do with them, insisted that Onetel provided a replacement.

This they eventually did, with a different model, and instantly all the problems disappeared. It turns out that the model of modem they originally supplied as part of the start up package had never been compatible with my operating system, (Windows XP), despite their original insistance that it was. (It's interesting to note that by the time they replaced mine, they were no longer supplying the original model of modem anymore - I wonder why?)

What was so annoying about this, is that it was obvious in retrospect that they had become aware early-on that they had supplied modems which weren't suitable, (they were pushing their sales very heavily at the time, and the salespeople were saying yes to anything, just to get you to take the service.) But instead of apologising and just replacing the damned thing, it looks as though they had instructed their customer service team to lie and keep putting people off until they went away and stopped complaining. I can't believe they were really that incompetent.

Over a 9 month period I spent about £30 on phone calls to them over issues which turned out to be their fault. They told me they would re-imburse the cost of my phone calls, but when I sent in copies of my phone bills with the relevant parts highlighted and totalled up, communication with them suddenly went dead. I wrote and called them about four or five times over the next 9 months, and got absolutely no reply from them. In the end I just decided they were a bunch of ignorant b****ds who weren't worth losing sleep over.

I've stayed with Onetel after my 12 months were up out of inertia, and because after the initial hassle, it turned out to be a reasonably good service at a reasonably good price, and also through reluctance to go through the whole hassle again. Now Martin's article, and these subsequent posts have cut through my apathy, and I intend to switch to Metronet as soon as possible.

I wouldn't recommend Onetel to new users. There are much better deals out there now, and I frankly don't trust Onetel's competence or their honesty.

t_i_g_e_rr

I split my telephone line into two, one for ADSL and one for telephone. This way I only needed one filter at the main socket (or actually two due to the way the line came into my house :-/). This was more for neatness than for moneysaving; I didn't want filters on every phone socket (although I do have about 7 phone sockets around the house ::))

T_i_g_e_rr

boybeck

Can I recommend freedom 2 surf.

I have just switch to them from Pipex.

I pay 19.99 a month for a 5 gig capped 1 mbit service and I am very impressed with their customer service.

I download lots of stuff and do lots of surfing but still get no where near the 5 gig cap.

t_i_g_e_rr

I thought this post was interesting. Seems to apply here. Does anyone else know anything about this?
http://forum.moneysavingexpert.com/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.cgi?board=Telephone;action=display;num=1092742919

gt94sss2

I have actually found a better deal than Martin's Wanadoo deal! (same price but no capping at all - so no need to jump through any loopholes etc)

Have a look at http://www.dialstart.net/

They offer 512k broadband, no capping, no port blocking, free connection and free modem at £17.99pm if signed up before 30/09/2004. (12 month contract)

No connection to me and they are a http://www.brightview.com/ company - so reliable and not a "fly by night company"

Regards
Sunil

gt94sss2

I thought this post was interesting. Seems to apply here. Does anyone else know anything about this?
http://forum.moneysavingexpert.com/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.cgi?board=Telephone;action=display;num=1092742919

Ues, my reply there applies to Wanadoo as well - thats why Wandoo can't do anything until later this year.

No ISP can - not even BT Broadband.

However, all these ISP's will have this ability later this year after BT Wholesale release it

Regards
Sunil

peter_the_piper

I've just, this morning, migrated from Pipex to Metronet. I originally looked at them because of the prices, however I might well have stayed with Pipex had they bothered to reply to any of my e-mails, apart from automated responses. (I'm still waiting for answers from 22/7.) Metronet, on the other hand, kept me informed all along the way-even sending an attachment e-mail giving help, if needed, to set up modems/routers. I hope their service continues in the same way.