Cheapest Broadband Provider Discussion

terriermama · 23 March 2005 at 8:19PM

Hi, newbie here. I took up Bulldog's offer of 4MB Internet, 'free' local and national calls anytime, at start of this month for £39.99 plus £1 connection. They haven't connected me yet but will re-post when all goes through on whether good or not.

Paul_Varjak wrote:

Bulldog have a special offer at the moment. 4MB unlimited broadband at £19.50p/month for 12 months with £1 connection fee. You have to supply own modem. The catch is it goes up to £29.50p/month after 12 months and you have to take up phone service with them at £10.50p/month (same price as BT Option 1).

sandyl_2 · 23 March 2005 at 8:26PM

I agree with Fraser. The article does not tell the whole story. Sorry, Martin but I believe that you may have confused people especially when stating like for like. For example, I am with Pipex, have a 1mb connection with unlimited download all for £23.99 per month. Their after sales and support service is excellent as well. I was considering moving to a cheaper provider but couldn't find another which compares so stayed put and haven't regretted it.

Big_Wig · 23 March 2005 at 8:57PM

TALK TALK are doing a deal till the end of march offering a 1 Meg unmetered service for just £14.99/Month. You do however have to take their telephone service as well and the contract is for a minimum of twelve months but you can still use 18866 and 1899 as call over-riders.
This is my first post so be gentle with me!

stinky · 23 March 2005 at 9:12PM

sandyl wrote:

I agree with Fraser. The article does not tell the whole story. Sorry, Martin but I believe that you may have confused people especially when stating like for like. For example, I am with Pipex, have a 1mb connection with unlimited download all for £23.99 per month. Their after sales and support service is excellent as well. I was considering moving to a cheaper provider but couldn't find another which compares so stayed put and haven't regretted it.

Unfortunately all too often I find the same problem with this site. I do love it in principle, but far too often things are listed as being the "cheapest" with absolutely no regard as to the "quality". For me personally I want a balance of both not just one or the other. I want the best quality I can get for a price that is not too much more expensive than the rest. Often this does not cost much more than the "cheapest" but is far, far better value for money. That's vastly different than shopping around for things. I always search out the best price I can get for a certain object, online and on the high street, I never just buy a cheaper version - because its cheaper.

Perhaps I'm not a true "money saver" - well so be it. But from my studying of Broadband pricing, I always advise all my friends to go for an uncapped service. Many of them want to play online games for example (I have no idea how much download/upload this actually amounts to. So for the difference between a Tiscali £15.99 and many other providers at £19.99 who have no limits, I'd rather pay the extra (no doubt a sin on this forum :-). At least then I have no worries about going over my limit and having extra charges. I'm not going to die over the extra £48 a year for peace of mind.

Personally, I'm in London and was able to take advantage of Bulldogs offer of £39/month for 4Mb/400Kb with phone and free local/national calls. Its on a one month contract (so I can cancel anytime) and yes it goes up after one year - however after 1 year, I'll re-assess the situation, like any money saver would. So far, I am very happy with the service. 4Mb makes for very fast software downloads. Not everyone needs 4Mb, but if its the same price as a 1Mb service, I'll take the 4Mb.

I can also highly recommend Blueyonder, who I was with for 2 years on a 512Kb service which they upgraded to 1Mb for free (for all their customers). Never any problems. Would still be with them if the Bulldog offer had not come along.

Separate note - Apple Macs - They work fine with all the providers I have come across. As someone else mentioned, they may say they do not offer support, however "what support"? You should not really need any specific Mac support. Just buy an Ethernet Modem/Router connect it to the phone line and connect the Mac. It just works. You should not need a "NIC" card, since this is an Ethernet Card, which just about every mac ever built has built in. Your ISP may not be able to supply you with an "Install Wizard" but I think we can all live without one of those. As with most things Mac, its plug and play - simple.

Traveller_2 · 23 March 2005 at 9:13PM

Pipex have provided a pretty reliable service for the last year, but their customer support has been useless. One automated reply then silence - still waiting for two filters and even worse when I asked for the MAC required to migrate.

Anyway I'm off to Eclipse at £14.99/month for whatever the line can stand up to 2MB/sec, 1GB download (I don't go for videos or music) and no migration fee.

Eclipse has been getting good reports from existing users at http://www.adslguide.org.uk/ and the Sales side has got their act together.

Only the next year will tell.......

Traveller

bombardier · 23 March 2005 at 9:33PM

stinky wrote:

Separate note - Apple Macs - They work fine with all the providers I have come across. As someone else mentioned, they may say they do not offer support, however "what support"? You should not really need any specific Mac support. Just buy an Ethernet Modem/Router connect it to the phone line and connect the Mac. It just works. You should not need a "NIC" card, since this is an Ethernet Card, which just about every mac ever built has built in.

I was specifically referring to PC users needing a NIC.

localshop · 23 March 2005 at 9:43PM

Big_Wig wrote:

TALK TALK are doing a deal till the end of march offering a 1 Meg unmetered service for just £14.99/Month. You do however have to take their telephone service as well and the contract is for a minimum of twelve months but you can still use 18866 and 1899 as call over-riders.
This is my first post so be gentle with me!

I thought that was good enough too.

Juvi_2 · 23 March 2005 at 10:52PM

Hi new to the forum,

About broadband..
at the moment am using Telewest BlueYonder.. an have so for the past 3yrs
The speeds have been great, and service has been excellant, would reccomend cable an Blueyonder those who can get it in their area.

Use the net a lot for downloading, and for gaming, so I've been pretty interested in Bulldog and their 4Mb connection with a phone package.
Looking through some reviews, they seem to have had some problems with changing over, this taking up to 3 weeks in some cases, but the ones who have got it seem to be very happy with it, all reviews seem to indicate a very helpful customer service and good speeds.
Definiely one to look into for those gamers and any heavy downloaders.

The discussions on the other providers show there are a lot of variety with varying levels of customer satisfaction out there. I'd reccomend that you think carefully on what you will use it for, and how this fits in with what they provide. Faster speeds for gamer etc... better customer service for new users.. also try using someone else's broadband connection at home an see what they use it for. You might find you use it for lot of new things, i.e streaming music/video, internet phone, video conferencing , online gaming. Try it out an see. Enjoy
an hi to all on the forum

barebumundermakilt · 23 March 2005 at 11:34PM

Ok Ok Ok...I have a question....and a dilemma (though the dilemma is NEARLY fixed)... if some of the techies can help!

Back ground info...

I work away from home about 2 nights per week...I use AOL dial up when I am in hotels on my laptop (£15.99 a month). My parents and inlaws use my account too as I have given them screen names. (great value I think!) and I can stay in touch with home when I am away.

Now that said I also have Virgin broadband at home (£24.99 a month for 512kb) pretty good ...though forwarding on emails from my aol account when I am away seems to exceed my mailbox size????

So you got the picture? yeah I pay £40.98 a month (Martin cringes LOL) to stay in touch with my family and friends.

I have emailed AOL regarding upgrading to their broadband packages and still using my dial up when I am away...they say it is not a problem (and have an email to prove it!)

So how can I tell if my line is capable of 1mb or above?

Thanks in advance to the techies!

Scott

layces · 23 March 2005 at 11:43PM

The article is far too simplistic. A 'good buy' for ADSL depends on many more factors than simply cost, download limits and (maximum advertised) speed. A 1Mbit ADSL connection with a 50:1 contention ratio where all the other 49 users are perpetually on-line downloading binaries will probably be slower than dial-up! An elderly couple I know have recently spent over 3 weeks trying to get their ADSL feed from O**-T** to work without success and finally had to give up after even a local expert failed. Customer services were worse than useless.
I would recommend looking at https://www.adslguide.org.uk before signing up for any service. There is a host of impartial advice and feedback from users with a full cost and service breakdown for most if not all UK ISPs, along with customer satisfaction comparisons for speed, reliablity and customer service.

Cheapest Broadband Provider Discussion

Comments

Categories

Get our FREE Weekly email full of deals & guides - and it’s spam-free