Paying for broadband PLUS phone line

AbsPhone

I've been paying BT £32 a quarter for a phone line that I only use for the internet and £14.99 per month to Pipex for 8GB internet access. In addition I have Virgin Media at £11 per month which gives me a phone line that I never use plus cable TV. Finally, I have a phone line with Talk Talk which gives us the one landline that is used in the house-This costs £8.99 per month for TalkUKTalk and £10.49 for line rental. So I am paying £55 approx per month in total. Is there a way to reduce this bill? Can one get phone line rental plus broadband access in one package? Would I be able to use the one landline that I need and get broadfband access with it as well? Or is the cheaper option to keep the Virgin Media phone line and use it for Broadband?

mrJ_5

Why not ditch BT and TalkTalk and have all 3 services (landline, tv, broadband) from Virgin Media? This would probably be the cheapest option. Plus you can go much faster with Virgin Media in terms of broadband speed.

The alternative would be to ditch the talktalk or bt line (if BT line, you'd need to get broadband activated on the TalkTalk line instead - it is possible).

I can't understand why you are paying 3 times for landline rental! Surely you can just go TV only with Virgin Media, since a landline isn't required (99.99% sure of this) as well.

AbsPhone

Hi mrJ
Thanks for that
With Virgin Media, you can't use their cable TV service without having a phone line-They say it's part of the £11 a month :mad:
I am not a very technically competent person, so I have always assumed that if I have broadband on a phone line, I cannot use it to make calls. Now i am told that I can use it and STILL have the line 'clear'. What do I need to buy and is it easy to install? If that is correct, I will use the BT phone line for the broadband internet

mrJ_5

you can use the phone right now, you don't need to buy anything

the only problem that will occur, is if you have no filters (adsl filters or even microfilters) connected to each telephone socket (including fax machines, and anything else that uses the phone) - that will cause your connection to disconnect, but with these filters, you are ok.

if you still do not know what filters are... these are the small boxes that you connect your adsl/broadband modem to

but you should still try and get broadband with VM - you'll save even more

AbsPhone

Hi mrJ
You write more sense than anything else I 've been told so far :mad: My brain just can't cope with so many deals out there and my mother relies on me to sort it out just because I'm home most of the day :rolleyes:
So is a filter easy to fit and will I need lots of wires? Will it affect our TV picture quality and will it make the computer go more slowly when the TV is on?
Thanks again

mattbass

AbsPhone wrote: »

So is a filter easy to fit

yes

AbsPhone wrote: »

and will I need lots of wires?

no

AbsPhone wrote: »

Will it affect our TV picture quality

no

AbsPhone wrote: »

will it make the computer go more slowly when the TV is on?

no

Blue_Lou

What I'd do is end associations with BT and talk talk..

Virgin have an offer at the moment which lets you have:

* Digital TV
* Broadband
* Phone package
* Mobile phone service

The filters are really easy to put in, if you have a lot of sockets it can be complicated planning where to put them. It's exactly the same as putting a phone in a socket except that you plug the phone into the filter and the filter into the socket.

Digital TV is just one new digital coax cable that plugs into a box beneath the television.

The computer won't be afffected by the TV at all.

Please go to this website and put in your post code to see what is available to you in your area: http://www.virgin.net/allyours/broadband/availability/

If you go for the four for £40 offer you will save £15 a month (£180 a year).

AbsPhone

Thanks for all this
I think we need to keep the BT/Talk Talk (now it's changed!) line as the number has been with us for hundreds of years, so I'm told :rotfl:
But that's great advice about Virgin Media and I suppose I could get an extra mobile Though if you read my thread on the mobile Phone page, you'll see that all I really need it for is the internet and my 3 Network deal has spoiled me rotten since Aug '06-Totally free browsing and with Cashback, it made it the best deal ever ever :j