Cheapest Broadband Provider Discussion Area

JAZalso

What about freeuk.com they're offering unlimited download 24/7 ADSL for about £22 pm?

Nobody seems to have mentioned it! Has anybody tried it?

mike_paterson

I have to agree with CabritoJoven that e7even are great.
I signed up a couple of weeks ago and was connected last Monday. When I contacted customer support with a question, I was expecting to have to wait a few days as you usually do with telcos (BT, Vodafone etc. all seem to take days and days if they bother). I was so impressed when they responded within 2 minutes that I emailed them to congratulate them.
I had cause to email them again another day and they responded nearly as fast (about 5 minutes or so that time).
So far the service has been faultless and they are so cheap.

Definately recommended !

greenbase

i saw a banner supposedly offering free broadband today and wondered if anyone had any experience with it, or was aware of any catches? broadbandear.co.uk

gt94sss2

i saw a banner supposedly offering free broadband today and wondered if anyone had any experience with it, or was aware of any catches?  broadbandear.co.uk

Yes, its a scheme called Juice (http://www.juiceboosted.com/) and is a scam/clever attempt at getting people to sign up to something that doesn't exist and then encouraging them to sign up others with promised of loads of money in referral payments

I feel sorry for the people who have been fooled by it - however, thankfully none of them will have lost any money.. (unless they spend their own money trying to promote others to sign up)

Regards
Sunil

hinx

i am getting obsessed with saving money i have just signed up for the 1899 phone thing and now i am looking into getting broadband. i have had a look at the "dial up" sunil suggested but think i would have to change my email address which would be inconvenient and i have to buy filters for my phone line and i have to do the inastallation myself. Wanadoo as martin has suggested seems a bit unreliable and not very customer friendly according to others in chat. i really don't know what to expect from a provider i am currently paying £15.99 per month for unlimited use with aol 9.0. i seem to be just as confused as ever.
lisa

gt94sss2

Whichever ISP you choose...

1. The installation is very simple.
2. USB modems normally come with 2 free filters
3. Its not always necessary to change your email address when changing ISP...

The best ISP for you will depend on your usage (how much you download each month) and if you want a fast/slow speed - and/or if you want free/cheap equipment


Regards
Sunil

hinx

I tried changing to broadband a couple of years ago and got a modem through the post and because i have a phone extention from downstairs to upstairs where the computer is kept, i couldn't get connected properly and the provider said i would have to purchase some other equipment for i think about twenty quid. so after spending a good few hours trying to get sorted i was put off.
i hardly download anything i don't even know how but i am starting uni in sept and expect i will be needing to use the internet more for research. i would like a cheap provider with a monthly payment and no supprise bills. i would prefer to keep my current email address but i don't know how that would work.
should i still go with the one you suggested earlier (forgot what it is called) or do you have any other suggestions?
cheers Lisa

koru

I respectfully suggest that Martin's article is a bit more categoric than is justified.

Metronet may have the cheapest headline price, £11.75 pm, but this is largely because they have a ridiculously low cap (200MB) on how much down and uploading you can do. Even fairly light users are going to want more like 1GB. Plus, a lot of the competition are offering 1Gb speed lines, for which Metronet charge £16.75 pm, again with a 200MB cap. And with Metronet you need to pay extra for an e-mail box and webspace.

If you are happy with 512Kb speed, only want to use EXCEPTIONALLY low amounts of down and uploads, already have a free e-mail box somewhere else, and don't want to have a website of your own, then maybe Metronet are going to be the cheapest. Comparing on a like-for-like basis, Metronet are better than most, but probably not the best.

For instance, if you want 1 Gbit speed, then freedom2surf (who, like Metronet, and unlike Wanadoo, are very highly rated for quality of service) charge £14.99 (including VAT) for 1 GByte of traffic per month. That is nearly £2 cheaper than Metronet for the same speed line, 5 times as much traffic, with free email and webspace. Plus, f2s don't count any downloads in the middle of the night against the cap, so you can set timers to download big stuff like software updates then.

Even if you took the 512Kb speed service from Metronet, and assume realistic usage for a light user of, say, 1GB per month, they charge £11.75 for the first 200MB, plus £2.11 for the extra 800MB, totalling £13.86. For only £1.14 extra, f2s would give you twice the speed, plus e-mail and webspace.

An advantage of Metronet is that if you want more than 1 GByte of traffic, f2s make you buy a whole extra 1 GByte, whereas Metronet make you buy only what you use. But because f2s start off cheaper, this is not a real advantage for Metronet. Let's assume you need 1.1GBytes of traffic one month. With f2s you have to buy an extra 1 GByte at £2.99, so you pay a total of £17.98 for that month. In comparison, with Metronet's 1Gb speed service, you pay 16.75 for the first 200MBytes plus £2.37 for the extra 900MBytes = £19.12. You are still £1.14 better off with f2s. Plus, free e-mail and webspace.

Another advantage of Metronet is that they only charge you for extra MB up to 4.7MB. After that, it is free. If you think your usage might fluctuate like crazy, this might be a plus point. (But note that the diallers don't work with ADSL - they work by switching your number for dial up access, but you don't dial up with ADSL.)

The Plusnet deal looks competitive with f2s, too.

Allexie

I tried changing to broadband a couple of years ago and got a modem through the post and because i have a phone extention from downstairs to upstairs where the computer is kept, i couldn't get connected properly and the provider said i would have to purchase some other equipment for i think about twenty quid. so after spending a good few hours trying to get sorted i was put off.

Allexie

I tried changing to broadband a couple of years ago and got a modem through the post and because i have a phone extention from downstairs to upstairs where the computer is kept, i couldn't get connected properly and the provider said i would have to purchase some other equipment for i think about twenty quid. so after spending a good few hours trying to get sorted i was put off.

Sorry bout the above...keep hitting the wrong key!

Might only have been a filter you needed on your phone extension...no where near £20!!