Advice from the board please!

hebangsthedrums

Hi there

I am a student just moved my stuff up to the house im livin gin this year with my five flatmates. Whilst im here i though tid travel onto campus and browse the tome of knowledge that mse is to sort out utilities.

I think i have decided on elec/gas - npower dd 52 a month
what im after now is phone/internet. I have browsed martins article and some of the posts on here but want to check a few things. Firstly for phone line i have to pay bt 10.50 line rental - then just register with 1899 or the other one and once the phone is in use i just dial the prefix and im up & running. Is that correct? Would using the prefix everytime just bypass the bt acct and basically mean we pay solely 10.50 to bt + 2p a call (obv more per mobile call) to 1899?

Secondly broadband access - Ideally we would like limit free as we play games and there will be 4 pcs and a lot of live browsing - if thats the term - things like online radio & video (was advised this may use more bandwith? how do i calculate bandwith?!). but a limit would not be too much of a problem if the cost is drastically cheaper. ideally we would like a 2mb connection but again if its vastly cheaper to halve that then thats not a problem. what were ideally looking for is reliable access.

Techy question - how do we share the connection between the 4 pcs? i have heard you can get a wirlesss huB? how does think work and how much does this cost? we coould do a wired one but 1 pc is downstairs so may be a bit messy.

Final thing - we are looking to set up a joint acct for all of us to pay into which will the npay the bills - would this be ok with most companies or doe they need an 'individual billpayer'? the npower i was going to dd to myself then sort that out with my housemates later - would they mind if we switched the dd acct? would thia affect the £50 rebate for joint supply (as the terms states that it is only refunded after a year would this includ ethe 1st couple of months where i pay or not?)

I appreciate im asking a lot but i feel a bit swamped and the advice ive read on here i nresponse to others queries on other topics is always 1st class.

Thanks very much

ps apologies to mods i know this kind of is a rambling multi topic message but i thought here was the best place as im not sure if the utilities experts venture onto the student board and it is mostly utility based and phoneline is the thing im nmost uncertain about

Edinburghlass_2

Welcome to the Phone Boards and well done you for taking responsibility for sorting this out first.

As regards the phone calls. Yes you would pay BT £10.50 per month, provided it is paid by dd so one person does need to take on that bill. This would give you basic line rental.

Provided you sign with BT you are cheaper to sign with https://www.call18866.co.uk
for 0p minute geographical calls with 2p connection charge. https://www.call1899.co.uk is 3p connection charge so slightly dearer for those calls but a bit cheaper for calling mobiles. New kid on the block is https://www.call18185.co.uk which is good for mobiles and if you need to call 0845/0870 numbers.

All those companies you sign up online and if you print off the bill they are number itemised bills so you should have no problem with who made what calls. And yes if you use the predial number it bypasses BT and puts the call on the relevant companies bill.

I would think that most companies will want just one bill payer on the account rather than a few who might well change, so I guess you have to decide between yourselves who signs up for which bills and pays the dd's.

I will let someone else come in and answer you regarding the techie aspects of your broadband.

Good luck

barjam_2

edingburghlass its the 1st i have heard of the 18185 site and it will suit me fine is it just like 18866 and 1899 as i use them , but as i am a lazy mare do you know how much the connection charge is for that one cheers

Edinburghlass_2

barjam wrote:

edingburghlass its the 1st i have heard of the 18185 site and it will suit me fine is it just like 18866 and 1899 as i use them , but as i am a lazy mare do you know how much the connection charge is for that one cheers

4p connection charge, 3p per minute for 0845, 4p per minute for 0870 and 10p for mobiles through the week and 1p, 2p , 2p respectively at the w/ends

hebangsthedrums

looks like i will be using them then!

barjam_2

definetly me too even if its only for the 0870 no.s i was on one this morning who isisted on keeping me hangin on grrrrr, cheers for this edingburghlass :j :beer:

hebangsthedrums

i think we have that sorted now, cheers. one question can we have one pc wired and the rest wireless?

April2

hebangsthedrums wrote:

i think we have that sorted now, cheers. one question can we have one pc wired and the rest wireless?

Yes.

My old tower is wired and my new laptop is wireless using a Belkin router (slots for 4 wired PCs if you want).

The system is now a 'network' so file sharing (as long a both PCs are up and running) is easy to configure even though the tower is on Win98SE and the laptop on WinXPHome.

hebangsthedrums

ok cheers. one of my housemates dads is popping round and he is a pc buff so should be abkle to explain all this.

well checked the inventory today now to see how to use the boiler!

Edinburghlass_2

At the request of the OP I am moving this across to the Student Board and bumping up at the same time

coolsteel

If you intend to use Justdial obviously your phone line just might be used somewhat with the free evenings and weekend calls so ive seen on here somewhere that your PC can take incoming calls via Sipgate, you can choose a number apparently, but im not clued up on this, do a search on here for sipgate and you will get all the info you need.
Coolsteel :cool: