Broadband with no land line- PlusNet Vs Talk Talk?

Dawn248

I'm moving into a privately rented flat short time with my two daughters and need to set up broadband ASAP.
The flat doesn't have a land line and isn't covered by Virgin. The cheapest offers I can find are Talk Talk and PlusNet. TalkTalk will let me commit to a longer contract with a cheaper monthly payment and take it with me when we move on so I'm leaning towards them- except for their reputation, which isn't great..But then neither is PlusNet depending what you read.
Any advice would be really appreciated. We're short on cash and need something that will support my girls' live streaming/gaming/youtube habits. We'll also need a mobile wifi set up while we wait for the land line and any advice on this as well would be great! I know this could be a money pit with the heavy usage we're prone to!
I know nothing about anything technical so help me please!:o

AndyPK

For talktalk if you want the 18month advanced line rental payment you have to pay £270 by card when you place the order :eek:

kwikbreaks

Dawn248 wrote: »

We'll also need a mobile wifi set up while we wait for the land line and any advice on this as well would be great! I know this could be a money pit with the heavy usage we're prone to!

My grandaughter can easily chew through about 1GB per evening (which maybe stretches to the small hours). That sort of usage doesn't sit well with mobile BB tariffs. Figure on an extended mortgage if you take that route. Earplugs to block the complaints are significantly cheaper. Depending on what type of gaming you are talking about the experience on 3G/4G won't be great as ping and jitter are high. Candy Crush and the like would be fine but any live action game probably won't.

jas88

Also beware of TT's definition of "unlimited"; my old office had the "business unlimited" broadband package, and when we complained about very poor performance (couldn't even make Skype/VoIP calls!), we were told it was because we were "using it too much" and should upgrade to a leased line instead...

Definition of "too much" on their planet? 40 Gb/month! (We switched ISP shortly afterwards - to one with a usage limit of 200 Gb per month, and the infrastructure to deliver it. No more problems.)

A.Penny.Saved

The trouble I found with PlusNet is that they really limit upload bandwidth to only 400Kb/s which is ridiculously low IMO. To put that into perspective I was getting 1300+kbps consistently when I was with BeBroadband.

That might not be a big problem for the OP as streaming is mainly a download process but be aware of your location and line length as that could dramatically affect your line speed!

Have a look at the following site. Check the location of the local telephone exchange serving the address you intend renting to see if you can find out what to expect. You can see what providers serve the area and what type of connection speed you can expect. Cross your fingers and pray that the line is not too long.
https://www.samknows.com/broadband/

onomatopoeia99

A.Penny.Saved wrote: »

The trouble I found with PlusNet is that they really limit upload bandwidth to only 400Kb/s which is ridiculously low IMO. To put that into perspective I was getting 1300+kbps consistently when I was with BeBroadband.

Are you talking about ADSL here? Upload on normal ADSL is around 400Kbps (optionally 800Kbps on some services). Be offered Annex M where they were in the exchange and that took some away from the download to give around the upload throughput you are quoting, so you aren't comparing like with like.