Broadband for student house in september

teamvillage

Virgin offer 2 ways of getting broadband.

1. Via Cable. They will install the line if available in your area. Landlord might not let you do this!

2. ADSL. Just as most of the other companies do. Requires BT Line, and BT Line Rental (£11/month), plus the 14.99 a month for their unlimited 8mb package.

continentalgal

Oh, didn't know about Virgin's double affair, in fact I only know about the cable service because I'm with the former ntl broadband and have to pay Virgin for the service now.

Yup, officially, you'll need permission from your landlord to have cable installed!

MercilessKiller

as a student splitting between others i had virgin media

Why? Well a more reliable and faster internet connection due to dedicated cabling, free customer service, and it was all very easy without problems.

Now i'm on my own with my girlfriend I moved to sky. Why? Well the main reason I couldnt get VM when i moved :P, but, its cheaper, though customer service poorer and broadband speeds poorer, which isnt so bad for just me, but split between many it would be a nightmare.

Virgin Media all the way. Get in a 12 month contract, then take it with you to the next place and if they dont provide, they cancel the contract for you!

MercilessKiller

continentalgal wrote: »

Oh, didn't know about Virgin's double affair, in fact I only know about the cable service because I'm with the former ntl broadband and have to pay Virgin for the service now.

Yup, officially, you'll need permission from your landlord to have cable installed!

Most student places already have it installed and if not the landlord would have no problems as there are no dishes or external modification to the building, unlike with sky.

MercilessKiller

princesslizzie wrote: »

Oooh thanks. Everyone keeps telling me we need BT to put a line in! So VM will put a line in instead of BT?

If its a student place it will prob already have a BT Line, but you have to pay BT for line usage on top of paying an ISP for the broadband. Once again with a VM line, line rental is FREE, you just pay for the broadband (and you get the free calls too)...

continentalgal

MercilessKiller wrote: »

Why? Well a more reliable and faster internet connection due to dedicated cabling, free customer service, and it was all very easy without problems.

FREE customer service? I don't know how old your knowledge with VM is but here's a quote from an email I got from them in June:

[FONT=Helvetica, Geneva, Arial, SunSans-Regular, sans-serif]From 1st July, our broadband helpline number is changing and from then on it’ll cost 25p per minute to call from a Virgin home phone, plus 10p to connect. Mobiles and other networks may vary. The new number is 0906 212 1111.[/FONT]

I agree in all other cases, the bb service is really reliable (knock wood) - even during the heavy rainfall, I had maybe one short disruption of an hour or so.

MercilessKiller

Oh wow i really apologise! :x forgot that they are starting to charge for that...

I do reckon that if you call 150 they'd still put you through ..

But their broadband is VERY reliable.. its their tv service you'd need customer service for, which is still free ^-^

Sorry again!

Double1

Thanks to all of u for ur advice! Its just typical that i havent had internet at home this week!
VM sounds a good deal for £10 a month and my house in coventry has cable (i checked!). There was an offer about a free tv altho i havent read the small print yet! Also, how would i be able to make it wireless .. would i need a wireless router thingy? If so, does anyone have any they recommend?

continentalgal

uh, I dunno if the 2meg package is enough when you share the line with your mates, ok, I may be spoiled with my 20meg plan but I just imagine if someone is downloading something, it's gonna be a long tea break for anyone else in the house!

About the wireless stuff, no idea, I couldn't find anything on their website why don't you have a look yourself or give them a ring on 0845 840 7777 and if you use Martin's UK Callchecker, the lowest call rate today on the weekend is only 0.5p

Helix

Double1 wrote: »

Thanks to all of u for ur advice! Its just typical that i havent had internet at home this week!
VM sounds a good deal for £10 a month and my house in coventry has cable (i checked!). There was an offer about a free tv altho i havent read the small print yet! Also, how would i be able to make it wireless .. would i need a wireless router thingy? If so, does anyone have any they recommend?

You will need a wireless router to make it wireless. This is the one I have at the moment: http://www.ebuyer.com/UK/product/48546. It works very well and I think it is one that virgin recommend because its what they are using to trial wireless broadband (I think in the future they want to provide wireless routers as standard). Any wireless router would do though as long as its designed for cable and not ADSL. I would avoid Belkin though as I have had nothing but problems with there routers.