Updated Find the cheapest broadband discussion thread

philipitous

Andysen wrote: »

Hi,
Back in January, when the EE broadband offer of £100 Amazon voucher came out on MSE, I took the offer thinking that since it was through MSE, I will not end up being a loser. Unfortunately, even after 4 months of taking the offer, I have not received the amazon vouchers. Please somebody help. Has anybody received the £100 voucher from the Jan offer. If yes, which company sends the voucher?

A little worrying no has replied to this. I just signed up. An email I received shortly after said this: "The gift certificate will only be paid on successfully connecting contracts and will be sent once a genuine application is validated by EE Home Broadband. A successfully connected contract is one where the customer has had an EE staff member fit and install their broadband, or they have installed the device themself.

This offer is only available to new EE Broadband customers.

Your gift certificate will be sent by Amazon.co.uk to the email address provided, within 3 months from connection and valid for a period of 10 years.

If you have any questions, please email eevouchers@affiliatewindow.com"

Try that address.

Cottage_Economy

Does anyone know if it is possible to go from a 10gb broadband package to an unlimited package with BT WITHOUT having the phone in there?

I know Plusnet do it, but wondered if BT did.

I have the services separate at the moment with different providers and that's the way I want to keep them. Happy to have a new contract to sort out the broadband but just don't want my phone package dragged in with the broadband.

smipx013

Hi,

Just a heads-up MSE. I have signed up today for the EE broadband deal "for existing EE PAYG customers" and I have noticed a few errors in your details. The sim took 3 working days to arrive by the way.....

You only need to top-up £5 and not £10
You only need to make a call / send a txt message every 180 days not 90 (see their T&C's at http://ee.co.uk/content/dam/ee-help/e-gain.s3.amazonaws.com/external/content/Ts%20and%20Cs/EE_PAYG_131113.pdf).

Additionally - For the plusnet deal you are short selling the deal as if you use TopCashBack you can get an extra £35 cash back when signing up to them.

Here's hoping EE broadband is not the Bag of Poopidoo some of the reviews online suggest it is :-).


Anyway - Hope that helps someone.....
Paul

Lizling

Possible glitch here on fibre optic broadband.

I went through TopCashback (£116 cashback offer) and bought Sky Fibre Unlimited Broadband (£7.50/month for 6 months then £20, plus line rental). It's supposed to also include a £25 M&S voucher but mine is showing up on my confirmation screen as £75.

£75 voucher and £116 cashback make the broadband work out at about £5.20/month, plus £15.40 for the line rental.

Pippilongstocking

Interesting chat on here

I'm currently with BT and live rurally - just moving house. Current package 31.99/month BB unlimited. Can transfer for free or pay one off cancel charge of 132 - cheeky boogers.

Sky cheapest is £32.40 +56.95 installation.

Looking at Talk Talk 14.50 line rental and 3.49 BB for 6 months.

Heard mixed reviews about their customer service.

Only have limited options due to exchange/rural lack of cable.

Interesting to hear thoughts.

Cheers

John_Pierpoint

Have you asked
https://www.samknows.com/broadband/broadband_availability

I live in a field but my BT exchange is only about 2 miles away. I have also tracked down my nearest fibre enabled cabinet, unfortunately that is about a mile away (next to the bus shelter opposite the village school.)

So I have settled for Talk Talk on BT's copper wire from the exchange on which I am getting 4.99Mbps average.
Though I have had "the snip", which improved by speed by at least one step up on the computer controlled speed allocation at the exchange. Your master telephone socket breaks down the two phone wires coming into your home into 4 - you almost certainly don't need the central 2 wires and they are just collecting interference from your other appliances and reducing your broadband speed. But don't do anything rash until you understand how the phone system works. BT can also sell you an adapter that does the same thing, when added to your master phone socket.
My 5 Mbps is good enough for email, Skype, catch-up TV etc. so I am not prepared to pay twice as much for a not very good fibre to the cabinet service. If you regularly down load films or play games over the web or have multiple same time users in your home, then you probably need all the Mbps you can get.

I have had one problem in the 15 months since I switched from Plusnet to Talk Talk. The phone line went down and it took BT 5 days to trace the fault - they said the engineer could not find me [Funny that ? He asked for directions at the local garden centre, only 100 yards away, and did not have the gumption to follow his own overhead wires that feed only two customers beyond the garden centre].
After my chasing the engineer tried again and found the broken 50 year old wire in my loft. Job done? Not quite. Three months later a mysterious £50 appeared on my Talk Talk invoice - After an hour on the free phone to India I got that charge reversed.
[The call centre operative spoke immaculate English but did not really understand the intricacies of the UK phone system - so we had to get authorisation from someone higher up in the organisation after my tutorial in how it works]
As I am paying line rental up front to Talk Talk so they agree that was their responsibility.
I have a feeling that BT's liability now ends at the gutter board of the home ??

[Talk Talk are currently offering a 15% faster payment discount, but you have to be at home and reading your emails daily to take advantage of that]
.

buglawton

AFIK Openreach will charge for fixing any fault in the wiring after it crosses the threshold of your home. So it sounds as if you did well there. Unless TakTalk has a special contract with you that really covers the phone wiring inside you house?

John_Pierpoint

My argument was that the fault was on the telecom operator's side of the master socket, so out of bounds for me to tamper with it.

My late uncle lost his phone service. It turned out to be "old age" (or perhaps "blow lamp") where the connection had been stapled along the outside of the front door frame. BT did not charge for that repair either.

[The telephone wires for the last three properties along "my" track go through an overgrown Leylandii hedge - the property of a speculator who is hoping to get change of use and build on the plot - will BT do anything to cut down these trees ? What do you think?

The electricity company has had a go but I guess their wires coming down is more dangerous

My daughter had exactly the same problem and eventually half a dozen homes lost their phone connections one windy night. Have any of the local managers heard of preventative maintenance?]

Uxb

Preventative maintenance went out the window for all the utility companies years ago.
They found it cheaper overall to wait for the fault and repair it rather than spend £££££ cutting back trees say over some line that would never have faulted in decades.

Mind you most householder/car owners seem to have discovered this as well!

buglawton

2 weeks ago on TV I saw remote controlled helicopters inspecting power lines in Scandinavia and a connected computer building a 3D image of same, to build a maintenance plan to cope with tree and snow risks. The CFOs of the utility companies involved will know the return on investment on this and it's happening.

Ah, that's in Scandinavia. Similar things happening in the UK, not?
Maybe because the CFO in Scandinavia is paid a third as much as the speculators occupying the same roles in the UK?