Updated Find the cheapest broadband discussion thread

buglawton

DavidP24 wrote: »

it depends who you are currently with, clearly not Sky or you would not have been eligible for the offer.

I can give you advice for haggling with TalkTalk and Plusnet too

What works for me is ringing them to cancel, not seeking an offer, in fact I found asking for a MAC code (which is no longer a requirement) tells them your serious.

I tend to ring up in an annoyed state, say that I simply can't afford it and that I will manage on my mobile call and data allowance and use of library etc.

They will come up with an offer and whatever they say, you just come back "I am sorry, I can't afford that" on the first call you have to expect to go away empty handed and for them to think you are leaving.

Find the 0800 or local rate number for the supplier and get ready to be a mean sod.

So the call goes something like this



They may procrastinate more, may make other offers but they have to see you are serious before they come up with the best deal, even then it depends on who you are dealing with. Some simply do not make the offer, instead they call you back (on the pretext of a "why are you leaving" survey").

Sometimes, I shake them up a bit by getting annoyed with them when they make those derisory offers, I ask to speak to their manager as I am not happy with the way they are dealing with me.

I find with some companies (like TT) they seem to have an aversion to this and then may bring out all the stops, including those £24 per annum offers (I have previously had the £24 offer, including anytime calls, international call boost, a new router, network powerline adapters and some TV box - not the one with a hard disk).

If at anytime they suspect you are not serious about leaving they will not budge on the offer, so you need to be absolutely determined and actually prepared to leave.

I can do this because I can get by on my mobile allowance and I can use my neighbours wifi, in fact we are talking about sharing it on a more formal basis. Currently I have a powerful router that was a mode to extend their network, it works well enough. I offered them £50 a year or £5 a month.

Now the naysayers will bleat on about terms of service but I have done this on and off for years and never had a problem.

You can pick up decent AC cable routers on eBay for around £30 to £40 if you wait for the right one to come along, I am thinking of running an ethernet cable to my neighbour, we then plant to get the very low offer alternatively so we are always eligible.

Note that if you are with Plusnet they will play hard ball but call you back, BT seem to call you back only after you terminate. If you are on BT or Plusnet they will rip you off with a termination fee, but they will cancel it if you take them up on their revised offer.

Good Luck, remember be a bit angry on the phone, as if you are fed up with being ripped off.

I so wish you were on the UK's Brexit negotiation team.

Doc_N

DavidP24 wrote: »

You are definitely in the right place, but as you have realised the market is pretty much dysfunctional compared to a few years ago.

In my opinion OFCOM has completely screwed up the market, they either fail to police, do not make representation to the CMA (when mobile companies merged) or they create these stupid exchange types, that actually prevent investment.

The way I see the market is as follows:

TalkTalk seems to have just decided not to compete, they advertise crap prices through the letterbox and occasionally improve them online, but nothing to shout about.

Sky have two to three offers a year, one at approx £65 and the others at £100 for a years line rental and ADSL broadband.

BT hardly ever seem to do any decent offers on ADSL, they seem to be all about bundling a bit of TV, for fibre they have done a £30 a month fibre offer with £125 Mastercard. I think they leave ADSL to Plusnet and EE.

Plusnet also seem to hardly bother, I liken them to DFS in furniture biz, sell some of their products for 28 days at a high price then advertise a lower price for a while,some offers with cashback, but again nothing to get excited about. Then rinse and repeat for the other products.

There are deals out there, but you have actively to seek them out, they change frequently, and they often only last for a few days at a time.

TalkTalk, for example, certainly do still compete, but (like most of the other ISPs) the offers vary according to the way you access them. For example, going via Quidco and Topcashback often produces different pricing options - often better (despite the substantial cashback you also get) than going direct through the TalkTalk website.

For example, I'm on a fairly recent Quidco/TalkTalk deal that produced £110 cashback and gave me this on a genuine fixed price basis:

Faster Fibre - Your broadband package
£27.00 Fixed price for 18 months (Faster Fibre and line rental)
(includes FREE mobile SIM)

Your flexible boosts:
Caller Display FREE
SuperSafe FREE
Voicemail FREE
Call Divert FREE
Call Reminder FREE
Call Waiting FREE
Ringback FREE
Three Way Calling FREE
Withhold your number FREE
Unlimited UK Calls (landline and mobile) £5.00
Monthly total (faster fibre, line rental, unlimited calls) £32.00

I think that represents pretty good value - particularly if you factor in all those extras that most companies charge several pounds a month for.

Doc_N

DavidP24 wrote: »

It is of course easy to give you £110 when they take £486 from you, which results in £20.88 a month for 38mb compared with BT who recently offered £19.57 net of £125 cashback for 76mb and a need to only commit for 12 months.

Possibly. But:

1 BT are notorious for frequent mid-term price increases. This is fixed.

and

2 If you've just switched from BT because of one of their increases, the only way to get a decent deal is to move to another supplier, such as TalkTalk. Then, of course, once you're out of contract, you can go back to BT as a new customer.


The last contract I had with BT, a few weeks back, resulted in their paying me considerably more money than I paid them. I rather liked that.

Doc_N

DavidP24 wrote: »

I am not pro BT, just comparing to TalkTalk deal

Likewise. I'm not anti or pro any ISP - I just take whatever deals are on offer.

Having said that, however, I'm thoroughly fed up with the current marketing tactics that require you to change every few months just to get a reasonable price. It's a waste of everybody's time and simply serves to increase prices generally because of all the churn.

Exactly the same for the insurance industry, banking, and many others. 'Loyalty' is heavily penalised for anyone naive enough to believe in it.

loulou41

Talking about sharing with neighbours. I strongly object having to pay an extra £20 for bt bb when offers ends currently paying £2.50 on special offer. I have used my neighbours wifi with their permission. I am wondering whether I could do the same and offer to pay half of their wifi. Will that affect our relationship later on. Thanks

Doc_N

I get on well with my neighbours. I like them, and I trust them. But sharing an internet connection is one step too far.

There are security implications here which could rebound horribly on the person sharing the connection, and it's something I'd urge extreme caution over.

Personally, I'd not do it under any circumstances. Far too risky.

clivep

DavidP24 wrote: »

That demonstrated my point, offering stuff people do not need and then calling it value. Those call features are pretty much standard for VoIP.

£27 a month is a different league, compared to the £61 a YEAR, I paid Sky.

I would say it is fibre but although they call it faster fibre it is in fact inferior in every way

"TalkTalk’s Faster Fibre up to 38Mb v BT‘s Infinity 1 up to 52Mb*"

For other ISP's faster means 76mb and slower means 52mb while TT offers 38mb, calling something faster when it is in fact slower is as oxymoronic as it gets!

It is of course easy to give you £110 when they take £486 from you, which results in £20.88 a month for 38mb compared with BT who recently offered £19.57 net of £125 cashback for 76mb and a need to only commit for 12 months.

We live within the Leeds outer ring road but can only dream of getting above 5mb! The distance to the Seacroft exchange means we're lucky if we get 4mb. According to Openreach ours is an EO line meaning we are not connected to a local cabinet and there is a zero chance of getting fibre within the foreseeable future.

Our 12 month Sky deal came to an end yesterday. The £60 odd for the year was good value for line rental + broadband but their call charges weren't cheap and adding the Sky Talk Anytime extra would have been an additional £8 per month. I'm not that bothered about other extras but I was surprised that they charge an extra £1.25 per month for voicemail. Consequently we've been using a mobile for the few outgoing calls we make (with Asda PAYG for making calls at 8p/min).

I've just signed up for a new 12 month line rental/broadband Talk Talk contract at £20 per month. TopCashBack will be paying out £110 so it works out at £10.83 per month. Voicemail is free. You also get the free essential sim (200 mins/unlimited texts/500MB data per month). In my view this makes it the best deal around at the moment but never seems to feature on the MSE's best buys.

Lifes_Grand_Plan

Has anyone signed up to the PlusNet deal that is in the e-mail this week? As I went through the sign-up process the £75 cashback was never mentioned again beyond the initial banner showing it. I wondered if thats the case for everyone else?

stewartjrl

Read any independent review page and it's virtually impossible to find anything that people are satisfied with. This would appear to be the case especially with your suggested cheapest option of Origin who have generated some hideous customer comments. I've been with TalkTalk for some time, more through lack of choice than any other reason, but I have to say their broadband is more than good enough for a household of three users including two teenagers who can use the WiFi for hours a day. Line rental and extra call charges I despair of but of course one has to have the former but we don't use the landline phone often enough to warrant having a deal. We're going to see every company continuing to raise costs on everything in this country for some time so if one's relatively content with a service there are few good reasons to waste hours trying to hunt down another deal of unknown outcome.

loulou41

Having thought about it carefully I do not think it is worth the hassle of sharing. It is better to have a good relationships rather than falling out later on.