1yr broadband: virgin/origin or wait?

Yirara

I'm trying to find a cheap 1 year broadband deal for my new home at EH11. At this moment the best deals seem to be with
Virgin up to 50mb 18.00/month plus installation
Origin up to 17mb 17.99/month free installation
I think I'm not too fussed about speed as I only get just above 10mb in my old home. Do you think I should take one of those two or rather wait for a deal from a different provider pops up?

With regards to timing: I'm moving over on Friday but am undecided whether to take a furnished room/airB&B until my furniture arrives or take the microwave and a very comfy airbed along and move in right away. Haven't heard back from the moving company yet, but I will be out of the country btw. 27-31.12 anyway. If I need internet now I could still sign up to a 20GBP Three PAYG unlimited internet for a month deal and use my phone as internet access point until I get internet.

AndyPK

Go for virgin for £18. This is a good deal.
This is almost guaranteed at 50mbps (certainly during the day)

upto 17mbps could be anything.

Then look around in 1 year.

Yirara

How reliable is Virgin? I'm with Sky now and have a very mixed experience. They did manage to send an engineer when a storm ripped out the cable just before the 6 nations cup final, which I'm very glad about. But otherwise they are impossible to get hold of, especially when internet doesn't work.

And speed.. well, like I say I'm used to about 10mb (and even just 5) and will be on a very tight budget (PhD student). I just read that the origin deal would be only 14/month if paid in advance. But I guess there's no way of telling how fast the connection in my flat will really be, right?

Edit: Oh, I need to check whether the Virgin deal includes line rental. While I might not be using it for phoning I cannot expect my family to phone my mobile phone from abroad. Ok, so line rental is a must I'm afraid.

Edit2: chatting with virgin: it's indeed without line rental. I can't convince my old folks to use Skype I'm afraid, and one is nearly terminally sick.. so I guess it is important to have.

AndyPK

Yeah Virgin will be plus £19 for a phone.
Virgin is good except they like to increase their prices.

Looks like origin it is.

You should be able to get a speed range before signing up.

Yirara

Ok, Virgin is now offering 20/month including line rental and tv. Not that I need tv. It's 6/month that I won't have otherwise.

AndyPK

Sure that isn't just for the first 6 months?

Don't trust them when it's too good to be true

Yirara

Yeah, and I'm a bit worried that if I commit to this that I'll need to pay tv license fees. I don't have a tv anymore and don't watch tv (also not on iplayer), thus it would be a major annoyance. On the other hand, still no-one on the Origin webchat. If they are so difficult to get hold of even though waiting time (for more than 30 minutes now) is given as 0-1 minutes then that's not good.

AndyPK

Get a virgin deal without tv

Yirara

Well, that would be more expensive, even if it sounds ridiculous. They can only offer this deal with tv included. So would I need to pay license fees even if I didn't use it?

jb66

Id go with virgin, especially if you can get a quickstart, also you can get £50 credit if someone recommends you to virgin

Yirara

Right, this thread needs an update. I decided to go with Virgin as the sales rep told me that a line is available in the house and they could deliver quickly. There was a little hickup with signing up in that the post code did not return my flat number, house number. So I chose the manual enter option.

Just got a call from Virgin that they cannot create an account for me because 'my address doesn't exist' and that they'd need to send someone around to check whether the address I entered actually consists of more than a few squarefeet of thin air. Oh, but the engineer could not come immediately of course; it would take a few days. The lady on the phone sounded completely helpless when she realised: she could not enter a task for an address their database told her doesn't exists. :rotfl:I cancelled the order and signed up with Origin now. Lets hope they can deliver. At least they acknowledge the existence of my address.