Please help

Dls_3

I need to review my home phone provider and also want to go from dial up internet to Broadband. I would be grateful, I am a working single parent with 2 teenagers who always seem to be one step ahead of me, and do not have the time to research Martin's excellent site.
I at present have my home phone with telewest and pay £25 per month which covers all national calls except those nightmare one with the chargeable codes and mobiles, consequently I do still seem to have very high bills.
My internet dial up is with AOL and I pay approx £15 per month. I do however find that AOL have excellent parental controls which I have the hang off. I have been advised that I need the following:-
. Firewall
. Parental control
. Anti virus on email
. Email 7
. Technical support (I get this free with AOL)
. No set up costs
. Free modem and line set up

I would really appreciate some help and advice from any clever person who understands all this better than I do. Thanks

sergeant121

Personally, I'd consider 2 separate issues here, internet and telephony.

I've not done the broadband change yet so do not feel able to offer advice on that.

Telephony, however, is a little easier.

I assume you are paying £25.50 per month for Telewest’s Talk Unlimited package and all calls to UK 01 and 02 numbers are included.

I assume also that Telewest’s Talk Weekends package @ £10.50 is their minimum service. If so, it’s not bad value because £10.50 is what BT customers have to pay just for line rental – and Telewest’s Talk Weekends package appears to be for line rental and unlimited weekend calls to UK 01 and 02 numbers. You therefore need to consider whether to downgrade to the Talk Weekends package.

In effect you are, at the moment, paying £15 per month for your weekday daytime and evening calls. Only you can judge whether the number of calls you make means that is worthwhile. Because I am a BT customer but use call18866 for my calls (each costing 1p connection and 0p per minute), is would not be worthwhile for me because £15 would pay for 1500 calls (50 calls each day, every day) and I don’t make that many.

In your case, using call18866.co.uk would require you to call via their 08081701701 (or it might be 08081707788) number and UK calls (to 01 and 02 numbers) would cost you 1p connection and ½p per minute - much cheaper than Telewest’s 6p connection and 4p per minute charges weekdays and 2p per minute weekday evenings.

[font=&quot]HOWEVER, using call1899.co.uk would be cheaper than that because, although they charge 3p connection, 1899’s per minute rate for calls to UK 01 and 02 numbers via their 08081708708 (or it might be 08081707474) number is 0p per minute.
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