>> Cheapest standalone broadband package
>> Unlimited Downloads. Eclipse £14.99/month

oh come on, BeThere.co.uk's 8Mbps ADSL2+ (faster), no traffic shaping (deffinately faster), very lax FuP (more unlimited), 0808 support (cheaper), at £14.00 a month (more cheaper), £55 quidco cashback (bigger bonus), wireless router (better) and multiple free connection codes available in these forums (cheaper if not migrating) easily beats the Eclipse deal on every point.

The only problem would be the 12 month contract for the first year (effectively 1 month thereafter) and the fact that, as it's an LLU connection, if you moved back to a BT based connection you'd be applicable for the £40ish adsl activation fee. That and it's not quite so available availability... But for those who can get it, it's deffinately better than eclipse price wise.

I switched to Plusnet in september.

For the past 4 years my usage has only exceeded 2GB on one occassion, ( my hard drive failed and I had to reinstall windows plus the service pack and all the updates, antivirus etc....)

Since being with Plusnet my usage has rocketed to 5GB and the month of October looks like it might hit 6GB.

Has anyone else had similar experiences with this company?

I dont think this thread should be called 'cheapest broadband'

Should be called 'Best value broadband'

Reasons being is that as most people know if a company offers a cheap service, then the cost of offering it that low is usually offset against something else (eg. Poor customer service/high rentention ratios).

>> Since being with Plusnet my usage has rocketed to 5GB and the month of
>> October looks like it might hit 6GB.

plusnet have always given me normal usage readings (checked from both ends with seperate tools). sounds like there may be another cause - you haven't started using youtube / myspace a lot recently have you? it could also be some kind of malware installed on your pc; have you run virus / spyware scanners recently?

if you ask over on the plusnet forums they're very helpful with advice on this kinda thing.

Am I right in thinking these people are offering the sort of technology that will be 2-4 years away for those of us who wait for BT to get a round tuit ?

Am I also right in thinking that they are "cherry picking" customers who live close to the exchange (ie people who can already get at least half of the mythical "up to 8 Mbps") because the rest of us dangling on the end of 2-10 Kms of copper wire cannot get a fast speed until light guide technology replaces copper ?

Ah well I guess a faster broadband is some compensation for nowhere to park your car

Harry

When I was a school boy in 1962; somehow I managed to muscle in on a minibus trip to the Science Museum for a lecture on modern glass technology. The revolution promised was telecomms over light guides, complete with demonstrations of the forerunner of the light guide table lamp etc.
Will I see it in my lifetime, without moving to Korea?

Not sure if anyone's mentioned this yet but if you call Virgin Media Customer Services, ask to speak to Customer Retentions, then say you're thinking of TalkTalk they should offer you their competitive package which is £20 a month for TV, 2Mbps broadband, phone line rental AND unlimited free phone calls to 01/02 numbers. Handy if you're in an area which TalkTalk don't serve ;-)

Tim

>> Am I right in thinking these people are offering the sort of technology that
>> will be 2-4 years away for those of us who wait for BT to get a round tuit?

yup. that would be BT's so called 21st century network (21CN) that'll probably be in place some time by the 22nd century... unless you're in Birmingham in which case they're running ADSL2+ trials there already...

>> Am I also right in thinking that they are "cherry picking" customers who live
>> close to the exchange (ie people who can already get at least half of the
>> mythical "up to 8 Mbps") because the rest of us dangling on the end of
>> 2-10 Kms of copper wire cannot get a fast speed until light guide
>> technology replaces copper ?

not exactly. They run an ADSL2+ system on LLU (non-BT hardware) as oposed to bt's ADSL (the usual "up-to" 8Mbps), which straight away means you're likely to get a faster connection. i'm not sure if they turn away people too far from exchanges, though BT are likely to do the same thing. i know for a fact i only get 2.5 Mbps off an up-to 8 Mbps and they're quite happy to sign me up. The problem is, because they have to install their own hardware in each exchange, they obviously haven't enough time or money to do it everywhere. here's a list of where is / isn't enabled: http://www.samknows.com/broadband/dsloperator.php?provider=be

they're also owned by O2 who have just started their own BB package, so they're likely to start enabling many more exchanges in the future.

Wow 16 gigabyte broadband!!! Thats the fastest home broadband in the world. lol

I think GB should be changed to mbps.

The GB's are the size of your monthly usage allowance.

No mention of Be Internet in the article, Be Value now 8 meg download, unlimited usage £14 monthly, Be unlimited, 24meg! download unlimited usage £18 a month.

Site is https://www.bethere.co.uk/

Good feedback on the forums if it's available in your area.

It does not work for everyone, but go away for a LONG weekend leaving your BB connection plugged directly into the master socket, that is behind the face plate. As soon as you get back try a speed test such as ADSLguide (aka "think broadband"; it displays a graph that is most useful in monitoring changes over time).

If you get an improvement in speed over those several days, then check out ALL of this thread, for a discussion in how to improve your home's wiring. It worked for me.

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=497478&page=3&highlight=harryhou nd

oh i'm way ahead of that... the whole street is getting around 3200 sync rates due to higher than average snr margins. but even with that be* would be faster due to bt's ip profiling. best i ever got was around 5500 sync from master with a 7db snr but it only lasted overnight. luckily be*'s free router can have it's snr mucked about with manually

Brethe's £9.99 broadband should get a mention somewhere.

It is only 512K - so not suitable for all - but it does NOT have a low GB download limit like other budget packages (it just has a fair use policy).

It is also not a LLU product so IS available to all BT Wholesale area addresses, unlike most of the other cheapest packages.

www.breatheinternet.com

I saw on Virgin's website a deal called "Unlimited Broadband & Talk (bundle One)" - at £19.99 per month. This includes 8MB broadband/free anytime calls to standard British numbers/PcGuard Total broadband security/free TV box.

As I am currently paying £25.95 per month for 2Mg broadband/free evening and weekend calls only/Pcguard Total (finally available to Vista users at last!) and free tv box - and having problems watching YouTube clips at evenings and weekends (which seems to be down to having too slow a broadband speed, as far as I can make out) - I am not happy with my present deal.

I have accordingly emailed Virgin and pointed out I know about this new deal and intend to swop to it immediately - and await their response with interest.

How very appropriate that you'd recommend PlusNet on Hallowe'en. They're truly terrifying in their ineptitude. Avoid at all costs if you value your data or privacy.

Beware, I'll need you to explain it to me, if and when I switch in the new year.

Harry.

I don't think Martin realises that Orange have withdrawn their free broadband offer for customers. Some of the links on their website are still active but when you try to order it a new set of options are offered - £5 is the cheapest and that is a bit dodgy cos Orange take over your call charges as well!

>> How very appropriate that you'd recommend PlusNet on Hallowe'en.
>> They're truly terrifying in their ineptitude. Avoid at all costs if you value
>> your data or privacy.

they had one email server hacked in to earlier this year, and only lost a few email addresses to spammers. at which point they gave free domain names away to everyone of their customers to avoid spam.
they also had one email server accidentaly ovwritten, losing emails for a number of customers without backups, that was a while back. they fully disclosed the events that led to this and what they did to stop it happening again
really could happen to anyone, even this site had problems but a few days ago... other isps have had much the same happen to them one time or another. the difference is what they do about it, and from what i've seen PN are extremely good at explaining and solving issues when and as they happen.

if you value help, really *do* choose plusnet. they have members of their support team all over the place; i was in the digitalspy forums the other day and noticed one of their team was helping a pn customer with cancellation charges through there. theres loads of them on thinkbroadband continualy chasing up stuff with BT, and letting you know the progress. and that's all outside of their own website and forums, where they've solved any of my problems within a few mintues.

still, there's alway bt / virgin / tiscalli / talktalk / orange you can go to for fun. good luck getting them to help...

This offers seems pretty appealing, but I am a little suspicious because nobody mentions it on here. Here is the link.
Switching to Virgin for 10GBP a month, with the following conditions (12 months contract)
Up to 8Mbps† Unlimited downloads‡ Evening and weekend calls to UK landlines PCguard protection for your PCdocument.write(''); Add Virgin Free TV or a Wireless Kit for £40 Free modem Am I missing something? is there a catch? Why is nobody talking about this?