9 month contract/phone/broadband/tv

yabbadoo

For last "year" of Uni (late Sept - July '06) daughter is sharing a house in Hatfield, Herts.
Needs a 9 month contract for phone/broadband (TV optional)
All I can find are min. 12 month contracts
Anyone know of a provider in Hatfield area to cater for 9 months without penalty?

Dark_Forces

Unfortunately none that come to mind at the moment. You could try transferring the services after nine months to your home until it runs out or better yet, just call the supplier and see if they can do anything for you.

pavlovs_dog

i wouldnt worry so much about the extra tv channels so much as the phone/net. i bought a set top box from my room in halls, and i think i watched freeview all of one time during the 2 terms that i had it

lellie

WAIT!

freshers week ntl etc will be around and offering 9 month student contracts..

jenny_f

Bulldog offer contracts of anything from 1 month, although I've heard that their support isn't very good. There are a few others too. Just try ringing up. Ntl's website doesn't say anything but I've been told if you phone they will do a discount.

misskool

If it's a student area, ntl will do 9-month contracts.

NellyLock

but if you do look at the 9month contract make sure you actually work out whether it is economical... i have seen some people swayed into these 9 month deals only to realise that they could have got better service for 12 months from a differenct for the same price.

neil

catherinemohan

spent all morning trying to sort this out so i thought i'd share my findings!!

first thing you need to do is check what existing phoneline connections are present the best thing to do is call bt moving house dept. they checked for me and as there is a dormant connection reconnecting is free. They were also extremely helpful unlike ntl who when i called with the same query transferred me to a nonexistant dept. (they then hung up on me when i asked them to match a deal i'd seen on this site but thats another story!!)

Until you have a BT connection and thus number most cheap call/broadband packages seem to be closed to you so just connect to the cheapest, £10.50 line rental.

After connecting with BT you can then add the phone and internet packages. The best deal I found for phone calla was the talktalk option 3 package which is £7.99 for all landline calls and is free for the first 3 months. The best internet deal was £19.99 for 2mg unlimited download broadband with UKOnline but you need to check its available in your area.

I'm actually didn't check the contract lengths for these but i'm pretty sure most phone and internet companies have no or monthly contracts but please correct me if i'm wrong because i'm in the same situation and dont fancy being saddled with dd payments for services i'm not using next summer!!

As for TV packages I really dont think they're needed, to be honest, uni life isn't meant to be satellite TV dependent, after all neighbours is on BBC1 and what else do we really watch!!

hope that helped!!

catxx

jenny_f

I'm in a similar situation but as regards the internet I'm sharing a house with 4 other students and we will need wireless internet. As none of us are technically minded we need a company that will set it up for us or where it's easy to set up. We also don't want to pay loads for a router and things. I've seen wanadoo are advertising their wireless. Does anyone have this or any general experience with wanadoo, inparticular their technical/customer services.

brains

catherinemohan wrote:

spent all morning trying to sort this out so i thought i'd share my findings!!

first thing you need to do is check what existing phoneline connections are present the best thing to do is call bt moving house dept. they checked for me and as there is a dormant connection reconnecting is free. They were also extremely helpful unlike ntl who when i called with the same query transferred me to a nonexistant dept. (they then hung up on me when i asked them to match a deal i'd seen on this site but thats another story!!)

Until you have a BT connection and thus number most cheap call/broadband packages seem to be closed to you so just connect to the cheapest, £10.50 line rental.

After connecting with BT you can then add the phone and internet packages. The best deal I found for phone calla was the talktalk option 3 package which is £7.99 for all landline calls and is free for the first 3 months. The best internet deal was £19.99 for 2mg unlimited download broadband with UKOnline but you need to check its available in your area.

I'm actually didn't check the contract lengths for these but i'm pretty sure most phone and internet companies have no or monthly contracts but please correct me if i'm wrong because i'm in the same situation and dont fancy being saddled with dd payments for services i'm not using next summer!!

As for TV packages I really dont think they're needed, to be honest, uni life isn't meant to be satellite TV dependent, after all neighbours is on BBC1 and what else do we really watch!!

hope that helped!!

catxx

I've been researching a company called plusnet, and I've just called them regarding broadband. If you look around the internet, they usually get good reviews.

The cost is £21.99 per month on a rolling month by month contract. So accross the 9 months, you will pay -

9 x £21.99 = £197.91.

If your in a 1 bed flat, or say 2 of you sharing a house and you won't be networking or frequently downloading, then it might be worth getting the £14.99 package -

£14.99 x 9 = £134.91

Both are unlimited as well, which is good.

Gem_

Virgin charge £14.99 for 512 mb broadband with no minimum contract term and no connection fee. As a frequently moving student they always seem to be the best bet.

http://www.virgin.net/internetaccess/broadband/?buspart=256&LID=vbe

I have had good service so far.

Gem