Updated Find the cheapest broadband discussion thread

something_girl

something_girl wrote: »

Hmmm after reading this thread, perhaps my decision to move my line rental from BT to Tiscali (as I have calls and broadband with them), isn't such a great idea?

I just spoke to their customer services and they say their £14.99 all in with free line rental isn't available to me because my phone exchange is being upgraded and will be complete in 6-8 weeks, so until then, they would offer me 25% off their normal line rental of £11 a month (or was it £10.50), it would only last 2 months and they would also waive the £30 set up fee because of it. He read all this off so fast, he is obviously used to saying it, so I wonder if ANYONE has managed to get the £14.99 all in package, or are they just roping customers in with the expectation of not having to pay their reduced line rental after a couple of months.....

just a wee update....

today I got a letter from Tiscali saying 'WELCOME TO TISCALI LINE RENTAL' and giving me the date of 23rd May 2008 as the changeover date....

HELLO TISCALI!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I DID NOT order line rental, I only called your sales department for some advice :mad: :mad: :mad: I made it 100% clear that I was NOT placing an order of any kind.

Anyways..... tried to call their 0800 sales line to complain and promptly had my call hung up on me as soon as I said what it was about. Next time got through to a Scottish gentleman who, whilst completely adamant that he couldn't help me, nor could he pass me to anyone who could' was quite professional. I had no choice but to call the 0845 number, which annoyed me because I was having to then pay for the chance to complain about an order being process that I had not agreed to....

Spoke to a woman there, Thea who listened and agreed to cancel.... oooh thanks for that, since I didn't ask for it in the first place.

I remember the original sales guy asking more than once 'IF I took their line rental would my bank details stay the same', I asked why that was relevant as I wasn't placing an order etc....

Anyway, not too impressed with Tiscali at the moment. Have remained with line rental with BT, calls and broadband with Tiscali.

Thanks for listening to my ranting.

:mad: :rolleyes:

harryhound

My wife got "slammed" by some silver tongued spiv, to convert to a different service, which would actually have proved MORE expensive that our then arrangements with BT and an independent provider.

I simply phoned BT and they sent me a form. I filled it in saying I wanted to retain BT as provider of the line and pointing out that Mrs Hound did not hold any contract with BT and so had no authority to switch anything anywhere.

End of story.

Speedee

opportunity_cost wrote: »

That's a very common but irrational fear. ISP 'A' can perfectly cope with a big surge of say 50,000 new customers while ISP 'B' may struggle with the addition of just a few thousand new customers. It's all about capacity. Some ISPs invest in capacity as their customer base grows while others don't and think they can rewrite the record books for squeezing ridiculous amounts of users into their existing centrals *cough* Plusnet *cough* Pipex *cough*.

Zen, Entanet, IDNet, Newnet, Be/O2 have seen their customer base grow exponentially during the last few years through word of mouth and their systems haven't collapsed... 'cos they invested in new centrals!
No need for fancy ellacoyas and traffic shapping users to death then.

I'm not up with Plusnet's past. Are Plusnet any better now?

I was wondering as I saw them recommended somewhere on the forum, but can't find it at the moment!
Edit: it was post 152 (I had too many windows open )

Thanks. Speedee.

alanco15

hi everyone, i think i too have been tricked into the free line rental with tiscali, i am on the 25% reduced rate until the exchange is upgraded .
so i am thinking that it wont happen at all now, ( is anyone out there on the free line rental rate )
So is it right that it would now cost me £125 to go back to BT, why is this.
can i change to another provider ?

Very annoying the way everyone just seems to want to get our money at what ever expense.

DatabaseError

as i understand things, if your exchange hasnt been *cough* upgraded, tell tisc they CANNOT have your line rental, and send/get it in writing, then they cannot fully LLU your line when llu is available, and bt won't charge hundreds to take it back

something_girl

I got a letter from BT saying my line rental had been cancelled as I had asked (I hadn't), I phoned the freefone number on the letter and told them I had not wanted to move line rental to Tiscali at all, so they cancelled the cancellation?!

I wonder how many similar calls BT have had recently from customers who didn't ask to move to Tiscali....

the plot thickens

LoveLifeAgain

This is all quite scary stuff. :eek: I have been looking around to change from my £18 per month virginmedia to something cheaper. Cable has been quite OK for me apart from their overseas customer services which I often can not hear properly :embarasse It is like a minefield, but I have so far knocked Tiscali on the head, and have a BT phone and was thinking of them. I do not download music or videos, but my son does a bit of gaming when he comes for a visit. I have a webcam and unlooad the occasional photo from my camera. Do a lot of surfing though. Thought of the AOL with the free laptop, but think that has finished now :rolleyes2
Think I might ask for my MAC code (yippee, found out you have to do that on here) tomorrow. Has anyone done this with Virginmedia, and have you had a better offer or do they just say 'goodbye'? Anything helpful would be appreciated.

Saeed

charybdis1 wrote: »

This is all quite scary stuff. :eek: I have been looking around to change from my £18 per month virginmedia to something cheaper. Cable has been quite OK for me apart from their overseas customer services which I often can not hear properly :embarasse It is like a minefield, but I have so far knocked Tiscali on the head, and have a BT phone and was thinking of them. I do not download music or videos, but my son does a bit of gaming when he comes for a visit. I have a webcam and unlooad the occasional photo from my camera. Do a lot of surfing though. Thought of the AOL with the free laptop, but think that has finished now :rolleyes2
Think I might ask for my MAC code (yippee, found out you have to do that on here) tomorrow. Has anyone done this with Virginmedia, and have you had a better offer or do they just say 'goodbye'? Anything helpful would be appreciated.

Threaten to leave, Virgin will give you the BB for £10/month!

mrJ_5

charybdis1 wrote: »

... from my £18 per month virginmedia to something cheaper. Cable has been quite OK
...
Think I might ask for my MAC code ...

Since you're on cable, you cannot get or use the MAC process... you'll need a BT based landline, then you can get broadband activated on that.

stinky

Hi

Just reading the last 2 pages of posts - regarding Tiscali. The broadband article on this site is excellent - however it omits one glaring thing. If like myself and my father, you are not in an area where the phone has been unbundled and cannot get free broadband, then you are excluded from ALL of the recommendations made. Because they all want to charge you something.

So far, on paper the cheapest deal for those that can't get free broadband seems to be the Tiscali one. Either 14.99 or 19.99 depending if you want free calls. However, they do hide away the extra cost of the line rental - which is listed as 25% cheaper, but they don't tell you the original figure. So I phoned them and as is mentioned here in this thread, the line rental is 8.24 (including the 25% discount.).

Now by my simple maths, why are people saying that its a rip off? Surely it 25% cheaper than BT's line rental. So why is everyone complaining about changing to them? I'm confused by that point. I'm also confused by the mention of it costing £125 to return to BT? Why? Is there actually any proof of this. I would think BT would be just as keen to get you back as Tiscali are to grab your money. I can't imagine them charging you to come back, doesn't make any sense. Its not like the changeover requires anyone to actually do anything. Surely its all done remotely with a few key presses.

It does seem a sorry state of affairs that so many people are "outside the free area" of so many of the good deals out there.