Tiscali and TalkTalk vs BT combined offer - which is better?

patwa_2

Hi, mum got a letter in today asking her to return to BT. Their offer is £9.99 a month for 6 months, then £14.71 for another 12 months (18 month contract). On top of that there is the £10.75 line rental.

At the moment she has TalkTalk's standard pay as you go phone service, and Tiscali Broadband at £14.99 a month (which is out of contract).

It's probably just a mental block due to exams or whatever, but I'm finding it difficult to work out the differences in terms of price vs service. She doesn't make that many calls, the odd call to a mobile (02 and Orange mainly), uses 0844 for international calls (about 30 mins a week or less) and the rest are split national/local and 0845/0870. I'm waiting to hear back from her as to what the normal monthly bill is after line rental.

I'd appreciate any advice on this, my gut feeling is to stick with the current arrangement, maybe look for cheaper broadband, but I can't explain why.

Thanks.

utilitybroker

If she is happy with Tiscali this offer due for release shortly might suit her

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=347496

farmersboy

I'm with Talk Talk International 3 option for £19.99 per month including unlimited local, national and international calls, broadband and line rental. There's still charges for 08 & mobile numbers etc but a good deal.

Downside is Talk Talk customer services and the broadband is pretty unreliable & slow. I'm sticking with it in the hope they improve, but only because I don't use broadband much at home!

patwa_2

HI. The TalkTalk offer looks good apart from the fact that it's an 18 months contract to my knowledge. Due to the low number of calls, if something cheaper did come along after 12 months, she'd be locked in for another 6. On the other hand, TalkTalk are very good, good customer services and excellent online account management, and speed is well above that prescribed.

Looked at tiscali, and that looks good, apart from a lot of confusion amongst people about their price, and the issue of line rental.


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penrhyn

I use the free talk talk package, the main reason being that a number of my friends also have it and thus we can talk to each other for free.
I still pay line rental to BT and don't intend to change as Caller Display is an extra with TT, also i'm not convinced I would get good service with them if the line ever went faultly.
I also get the Sky Mid broadband package (up to 8mbps) for £5.00 a month, but its only available to Sky customers who are on a LLU exchange.