Any reviews for Lixxus PAYG broadband?

sophiedb

My dad's thinking of signing up to their LixxStart500 package, mainly because he's getting impatient with dial-up. It's supposedly a 'true' PAYG package - they charge £0.05 per Mb download, rather than a monthly subscription for a set maximum download. On the face of it this would be great for him, since he mainly checks email and does a little surfing now and then, but I'm wary - their activation costs are pretty high for starters.

Has anyone here used them? I've already looked on ISPReview and ADSLGuide, but they're not very informative.

Soph

gavinp

I haven't used them but this paragraph would concern me:

"Please Note: This service comes with a limited number of days of non use, aggregated to 60 days in any one year (from install date). Please read our FUP (fair use policy) for details, see below."

So in effect, your dad would need to use his Internet connection at least six days a week allowing for one weeks holidays a year (approximately)...

Having said that, I can understand why Lixxus have this clause in place because they have to pay BT a fixed amount each month so a very light user would result in them losing money.

I would suggest that Metronet would be a better bet (who I do use) even though it has a monthly cost as it doesn't have this sort of restriction.

http://www.metronet.co.uk/

Thanks

Gavin

Donnie

Doesn't look great.

£82.25 'Install + setup' charge.

Wouldn't that pay for up to 8 months of Broadband access with another provider?

Plus another £15 for 300MB use.

It's not good.

Even if he used a mere 100MB on a monthly basis, that would be £5 per month. £60 annually.
Add that to the original £82.25. That makes £142.25.

Nearly £12 per month.

Haven't finished .... You'll need a modem. If you choose to buy from lixxus, that will be another £35.99.

So, in total £178.24. £14.85 for 100MB of monthly use.

Poor value considering that all in packages with 1GB to 5GB limits(unlimited in some cases) are priced between £10 and £15.

MetroNet has good reviews, but.... is still not the cheapest option

Minimum of £11.75 per month = £141. Plus activation charge of £69.95. £210.95. Add in the cost of a modem and two microfilters, shall we say £30?
Total cost annually; £240.95. Monthly cost = £20.08p

I suggest if you haven't much experience in these matters, to buy a complete package.

Example packages coming in at £180 annually:

madasafish: http://www.madasafish.com/

Virgin: http://www.virgin.net/internetaccess/

I mention those two because I've actually used them.

Support for Virgin and madasafish is on 0845 and 0870 numbers respectively.

If your father has an Orange mobile telephone contract, he can get 2MB speed internet access for £9.99 monthly.

I'm sure you can find other options by perusing earlier threads.

sophiedb

Thanks guys, with the extra information and calculations it looks like he'll be researching normal packages instead