Updated Find the cheapest broadband discussion thread

trojjer

Wow, it's nice to feel valued! I would be very grateful if you would consider mentioning me as your friend, and I don't think the MSE forums would have any problems at all with this as it's not outright spam... Please correct me if I'm wrong of course, a knowledgeable person! Our move-in is on the 3rd of July. The full terms seem quite reasonable (and they don't even sell 2Mb broadband anymore so that exclusion is irrelevant -- any Virgin Media broadband customer now gets at least 10Mb), and I've found the customer signup page. Anyone else who is grateful and would appreciate £30 for themselves and for us (done as a bill credit, mind you, like a discount) can also feel free to do the same!

Well I think I've settled on BB-L on its own like I said, as I now have a TV with built in Freeview and a hard drive that only works with that built-in hardware (I was disappointed, but not all that surprised, when I connected the V box and attempted to pause live TV, only to be presented with a "Not application" error message because it doesn't record external inputs). It sounds like you might be better off doing the same, especially when you have plenty of legal On Demand services like iPlayer, itvPlayer, 4oD, Demand Five... They keep coming up with more in an effort to divert people from unencumbered but illegal torrent downloads, hah.

As I said before, I think that 10Mb is adequate for most people, even those who download on occasion like myself... It's worth considering the BB-XL / TV-M / Phone-M bundle if you'll be downloading and/or streaming a lot of online video though, even if don't need the landline or TV-M service at all. You don't get charged for not using them, but you could save a lot of money just for having the bundle! It's weird like that...

It's your decision of course, but for me it basically comes down to TV-M being more like Virgin's branded Freeview with a 7-day catchup service where they choose what to record for you -- so series like Heroes aren't included because of licensing concerns, and a whole load of crap gets recorded over and over again without you having any say at all! It's rather frustrating seeing an entire screen listing a week's worth of Bargain Hunt, for instance. Actually, Freeview has a few more channels I think, and you still get your Top Gear channel--oops, I mean Dave... TV-L has things like Living, Bravo and Men & Motors thrown in that I rarely watch and that I don't think are worth paying extra for. Sometimes I watch the Discovery channels but they're largely redundant with the Internet these days, and it's usually only when dad's watching them anyway.

You've got nothing to lose with a site like topcashback.co.uk, and that one in particular comes highly recommended on this very site. I registered with it last year and I successfully received about £12 to my PayPal account for a £500+ PC kit that I bought. I haven't received anything yet for the first PC purchase my gf made using my topcashback account, and that was back in September 2008... But it doesn't matter as I went for the best deal that I could find at the time, and I treat any cashback that I do get as a bonus! That's how it should be done. Registering itself is completely free, and TCB seems honest and decent. There are no probing questions, and I'm not aware of any suspicious data mining. You have to be careful to actually login to the cashback site first, then find the retailer if it's listed with cashback details, and follow the link from the results page. Once you've done those simple steps, you can actually purchase the thing from virgin-media.co.uk or eBay or wherever, and your order will be tracked in order for you to be given the money later on. It can take a while, but as I said there are only potential gains here! The reviews on the Virgin Media page at TCB seem good, and I like the thought of potentially getting £65 back for something I was going to get anyway. If you prefer, though, you could always deduct the £65 from my totals listed in the first post, to get the cost for the first year without cashback.

lichung

trojjer wrote: »

Final final final final edit! Here's a summary of my annual cost calculations, for anyone interested:

In ascending order -- including £65 via topcashback, £50 Triple credit if applicable (another reminder about 22/June for that) and 1 Connect a Friend (read on)...

BB-L only: £ 145
BB-L / TV-M / Phone-M: £ 170
BB-XL / TV-M / Phone-M: £ 242
BB-L / TV-L / Phone-M: £ 275
BB-L / TV-L: £ 292
BB-XL only: £ 355
BB-XXL / TV-M / Phone-M: £ 457
BB-XXL only: £ 555

I've corrected the cost for BB-XXL -- I've only just noticed that the total installation charge for 50Mb is £50, consisting of a £30 standard installation (can't do it yourself because it must be "too technical") and a mysterious £20 extra "activation fee". I thought that's what the installation fee was for...

The cheapest offer I've found so far is straight up, standalone BB-L: "Upto"* 10Mb for £145 over a year after Connect a Friend and cashback (spread at £15/month for 3 months, then £20 -- I hate it when they do that! We're not stupid). Sounds like the best candidate, as it's the only standalone broadband plan that is cheaper than a bundle -- even without the £50 Triple discount. I've just bought an overpriced LCD TV** with Freeview, which is largely the same as Virgin TV-M as far as I can tell -- and I'd be able to use the TV's built-in PVR with it. For BB-XL it's cheaper to at least get a phone line though, even if it's unused.

* I've never measured at 10 Mb/s of course, but cable has always seemed more reliable than a typical ADSL line. I've read good things about the likes of B etc, but I'd have to pay the line activation and rental...

** 32 inch 720p JVC for £399 at Fenwicks clearance; I lost my head because it had a gimmicky, constantly humming hard disk that only works with the built-in Freeview and no other input, oh well... I was planning to get a 1080p for more than a week damnit! And I've seen them for the same price. At least the guarantee is for 5 years, so I can hope for a better replacement within that time.

Well this seems a little ridiculous so I hope someone can verify it all for me! I've put all the numbers from the twisty small print on the Virgin Media site and I've came up with this exciting little spreadsheet, from which I calculate that I could get the stupidly named broadband "L" (10Mb) with "M" TV and Phone for £170 over the course of the 12 months contract -- if I order online as a new customer before 22nd June (£50 Triple offer bill credit), say that a friend referred me for another £30 credit (I rang up about this and they said that my parents' house would qualify; failing that I could simply ask a flatmate to use their name), and finally there's a £65 carrot from topcashback...

With line rental added it's £25/month for 12 months (no annoying 3 months initial period at a lower rate, which I had to account for in other workings on the same sheet), with e-billing and direct debit (just the way I like it). And there's BB-XL (20Mb) with the same TV and Phone packs for a total of £31/month (£242 for a year). I'm currently rather happy with 10Mb, so I'm wondering if the extra £72 would be worth it... It's a flat shared with 3 other people; but my gf has lived with up to 6 other people for the past two years now, all sharing the same 10Mb without problems (besides the odd download hog -- but I'm quite a geek and it's fairly easy to install Quality of Service on a router to prioritise website traffic whilst still letting people download as much as they want on the network). Then again, with three people splitting the cost it would be easy if we wanted to do it... But they don't care for it much, they're happy with the 10Mb option (and so am I largely, even as a bit of a downloader).

For a laugh I've just added the BB-XXL (50Mb) / TV-M / Phone-M bundle for comparison... It's £180 more expensive than the 20Mb option over 12 months, at £422 with all the above deals applied. What's annoying is that it's still cheaper to get the bundle, because otherwise they'll charge £50/month for the 50Mb broadband on its own, or £46 with a phone line! Something tells me that the Virgin TV box would be a bit redundant with a connection like that though, and all the HD media you can download or stream with it.

The site says that the £50 credit for "building your own" triple deal is only valid until 22nd June, though, which leaves me with a bit of a dilemma as I know the house we're moving into at the start of July already has Virgin installed, and people often seem to forget to cancel their direct debits for a few months after they move house -- allowing the new tenants to freeload for a while without being fraudulent... This was the case for July until about November 2008 at my gf's current house. I might just leave it until we've actually moved in, because the £50 "loss" would be made up for by the 2nd month if we were as lucky this time, and the other offers together with the cashback will still be available it seems. Yeah, I'll wait after all -- or I may be downgrading without knowing it!

Oh and I included the cost for the cheapest installation, the DIY kit for £15. It's easy to install, and it's annoying that you can't escape this fee without ringing up or going to a Virgin shop -- but not too annoying, as I'd rather have £65 cashback for doing it online, plus the option of a £50 bill credit! I really don't want yet another bloody 11g wireless router though, as I've already built up a collection of about half a dozen and two of them are the Netgears that Virgin send out that are apparently worth £40... Yeah, and I'm devoutly religious, hah. I made sure to untick the "20 extra channels" box too, as I don't think it's worth it to spend an extra £5.50/month on what amounts to repeats of The Simpsons on Sky1. And I can download the rest if I'm inclined to (which isn't very often -- I'm talking about entirely legal access methods of course; I've took the time to bloody read the Virgin Media On Cable Acceptable Usage Policy... ). By the way, do Sky customers now need the "Variety" pack for Sky1 now?! That's stupid, as it was always a standard channel as far as I know...

The terms and conditions are sending me around in circles. For the £50 intro credit it says: "Offer is available to new customers only and may not be used in conjunction with certain other offers. Offer ends 22 June 2009. [...] To see if another offer allows the online credit, check that offer's Legal Stuff." Upon checking the "Legal Stuff" for the Connect a Friend offer (another £30 credit for both you and the referrer), it says that it isn't to be used in conjunction with anything. But I don't think this would cancel out the £50 though, as that wouldn't be fair to the new customers -- well, I say that, but they'd still be getting at least £30... Even so!

How do you calculate the £170 for BB-L+TV-M+Phone-M bundle?
By taking off extra TV channels the monthy rental would be £25 (11 for line rental plus 14 for broadband). Minus the £20 online credit, £65 cashback from TCB and £30 from friend referral the net amount should be:
25*12-20-65-30 = 185?

Is that the cheapest deal for bundle service atm?

noojam55

mije1983 wrote: »

I'm having trouble with the O2 cashback deal that was mentioned in the weekly email. When I have entered my details on the O2 website it just tells me there has been a problem with the system and to try again later.

Its been doing this for 4 days now, but works fine if I go direct to the O2 website and not via a cashback site.

Anyone else had this problem and managed to get around it?

Had the same problem using IE8.

Used IE7 and worked fine.

trojjer

Lichung, my calculations from that post included the £50 Triple Bundle bill credit offer that expired on 22nd June, like I said. They've reduced it to £20 now, which matches your calculations at £185 for the year; except you can't escape the £15 installation/activation fee online AFAIK, so for the true total cost it's now £200 for the BB-L/TV-M/Phone-M bundle, if you get one friend connected and receive the additional cashback. I'd post my spreadsheet here but you can't send attachments to posts it seems; I might import it into Google and put a link up.

Edit: The Google Docs link: http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=rcdKhsnxAD5CKqxZznmVNWA

lichung

trojjer wrote: »

Lichung, my calculations from that post included the £50 Triple Bundle bill credit offer that expired on 22nd June, like I said. They've reduced it to £20 now, which matches your calculations at £185 for the year; except you can't escape the £15 installation/activation fee online AFAIK, so for the true total cost it's now £200 for the BB-L/TV-M/Phone-M bundle, if you get one friend connected and receive the additional cashback. I'd post my spreadsheet here but you can't send attachments to posts it seems; I might import it into Google and put a link up.

Edit: The Google Docs link: http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=rcdKhsnxAD5CKqxZznmVNWA

I've completed the order with BB-L/TV-M/Phone-M through TCB. the total cost is 25*12-20-65=215. installation waived automatically.
I couldn't find any space on the application form to put down RAF reference. Should I give them a call to get the RAF bonus? What sort of inoformation I'll have to tell customer service?

dixie_dean_2

Hi

Have looked at the main article and think we'll switch to talktalk. Is this currently the best deal for landline and broadband?

Thanks

sgu06oms

I have been on plusnet's 5.99 deal for the last three months but they have now increased my bill to 11.99 a month. Can I get a cheaper deal than this from a different provider? I'm not really bothered about speed or limits on use, just the cheapest deal. Any suggestions?
Thanks

Paul_w_3

Recieved an ad through the post for virgin media, offering a free notebook when i switched to one of their packages. I had a look at the website and discovered a package of 10Mb Broadband, mobile broadband, Phone line and TV for only £40 a month (£29p/m services and £11p/m phone line) and thats with a free laptop. Thought this was too good to be true. It was. upon phoning up i was told that the mobile broadband was charged sepratley at an additional £15 a month! disgraceful.

ste_coxy

dixie_dean wrote: »

Hi

Have looked at the main article and think we'll switch to talktalk. Is this currently the best deal for landline and broadband?

Thanks

I'd defo have 2 say no. My mum had countless problems with them.

I'm getting a BT line and going with 02. Bt line is 11.50p/m and 02 Broadband will be 7.34 (u need to be either a 02 mobile monthly contract customer or a PAYG customer who tops up £10 once a quarter). You can get £50 cashback off one of the cashback sites too.

Miles better reviews and reputation then talktalk in my book.

Enemies.Closer

ste_coxy wrote: »

I'd defo have 2 say no. My mum had countless problems with them.

I'm getting a BT line and going with 02. Bt line is 11.50p/m and 02 Broadband will be 7.34 (u need to be either a 02 mobile monthly contract customer or a PAYG customer who tops up £10 once a quarter). You can get £50 cashback off one of the cashback sites too.

Miles better reviews and reputation then talktalk in my book.

I have a BT Line but when I go on the 02 site input my landline details it tells me they are not available in my area but can offer me the £17 approx pound a month broadband

What is this about as my wife is an o2 customer and the above offer is great!!:T