I know nowt about broadband, who do you suggest?

pappa_golf

ok to elaborate


virgin will give you b/band only , however by doing this you loose the phone/bband discount and the cost for b/band only is within a £1 or so of have them both.


some normal companies that use BT will also offer this , but the majority will want you to pay THEM for your line , then add on b/band


they get charged approx. £8.50 by BT for your line , and double this cost to allow them to offer cheap or even free b/band

bluesnake

In central London Relish will give you an internet only connection using 4G and no phone. After checking the areas they cover, found that a significant number of their customers at the time had a questionable service. They charged £20p/m.

No, you can't use their sim as a country wide portable mifi device, think they tie it down

Another +1 for plusnet. Having watched some stuff at 1080p found that my bandwith which also downloaded the file to cache at the same time, used a brief peek of 6.2Mb but usual average peeks were between 4 and 5Mb.

psychic_teabag

I'm with plusnet - no complaints. I don't have enough bandwidth to stream catch-up TV, but AFAIK that's not down to plusnet.

I went for 12-month line-rental in advance, but doing so lost the free weekend calls. (Still cheaper for me overall, though.)

Well, one complaint, I guess - like all ISP's these days, the best deals are only for new customers. Best way to keep it cheap long-term is presumably to switch provider every year, as you have to with insurance, etc. But for that to work, you need to avoid getting yourself tied to your ISP's email service. (I intended to do that when I switched to plusnet, but Iike the configuration of their email service, so I ended up sticking with them.)

Robisere

I am on my third year with Plusnet and am quite content with the service. I have used their Customer Services by the website (called 'Member Centre') and via phone, several times due to FTTC setup in the village and line issues in the area. There is also the "online chat" service which is good. All questions are answered, sometimes a little slowly, but always comprehensively. For example:

I had an issue after moving from the horrible BT modem and a router, to a very good TP Link VDSL router/modem, the webpage of which stating that I could get higher speeds than I was receiving. Plusnet's member centre Support gave me a long list of checks they had carried out, to prove that I could only get a certain speed and no more. After checking this with an ex-BT engineer (very recently retired) I acknowledged this to be correct.

I have been with 4 other ISP's and they all have their faults and promises, but Plusnet appear to be honest and upfront with customers. They remind me when my DD payment will be taken every month, for example. The phone service is good: you get a clear English voice with a slight Yorkshire accent. If the respondent does not have an answer, they either pass you to someone who does, or give a callback.

VintageBelle

Looks like I'll probably go with Plusnet. Won't get a house phone as there is no point if I'm not going to use it (and won't get any of those !!!!!!! idiots calling about my non existent car accident).

bluesnake

VintageBelle wrote: »

... Won't get a house phone as there is no point if I'm not going to use it (and won't get any of those !!!!!!! idiots calling about my non existent car accident).

Yes you will

There will be the odd occasion where you line is faulty and the company want you to call them from your line. Also there are times when you may wish to pick up the receiver and listen to hear if there are any crackles and other unwanted noises.

If you do not have a phone they may refuse to fix your line - I can vouch for this personally, and had to buy the £6 from Argos, just to confirm my line was working and so that they could do line checks. Once adsl worked the phone was again unplugged.

VintageBelle

I know quite a few people that don't have one and have never required one so should I need to borrow one temporarily, I'll borrow my parents phone.

NectarCollector

VintageBelle wrote: »

Thanks everyone for your help. What I meant by not needing a landline is I won't need a house phone.

to get broad band you have to take out line rental, but with suppliers like PlusNet, you can simply choose a 'broadband only' package so your not charged any extras like included weekend calls.

I'm with PlusNet and have an unlimited broadband (highly recommended if you're to be streaming TV via NowTV/Netflix etc). £17.99/month Line rental + £2.50/month for the actual broadband.

Any phone calls I make are charged as normal and added to my bill, but these are very few and far between averaging about £4/month in calls from our landline

When being connected to broadband for the first 3-5 days the line will be very slow until it 'stabilises' and then it should reach full speed (speed determined by distance from telephone exchange/line quality) just be patient for that 1st week!

Bigphil1474

I have the anytime calls package with PlusNet - costs about £5 a month, but we do use the land line a lot. I've been with them about 5 years and they've been good - had a couple of issues that needed sorting and were sorted out well.
You can haggle with PlusNet as an existing customer. Last time I re-signed up for 2 years with half price broadband and a free replacement router as I was using an old one of my own - they even sent it P&P free. Could probably have got a bit cheaper elsewhere, but not by much, and their members website is user friendly. Plus 1 for PlusNet from me.

techno12

Another +1 for Plusnet. Had no issues at all with my fibre connection.

When my initial contract was up I phoned them to see what they could offer, and they halved the price for another 2 years. I'll call them again to extend that offer when the 2 years is up.

I pay up front for their line rental, which saves a small amount. I haven't made a call on that landline for about 3 years - it's purely there so that I can get the fibre broadband.

Disconnected the phone ages ago as all I used to get was silent 'spam' calls or PPI nonsense.