UK broadband and telephone charges

Stellina

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27 Mar 2006
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How do you UK residents choose a broadband and telephone provider? I pay for Tiscali broadband for my folks in the UK who also have a BT land line. I'm trying to find a good deal for them, possibly combining the two. I'm astonished to find a search function for the BT charges page! It's impossible to decipher individual providers let alone make any comparison. Anyone give me some advice? (maybe this should be posted in The Lounge?)
 
pay basic BT line rental 10.50 a month
pay 20 a month to Tiscali for Broadband and free phone calls 24x7 to 01 and 02 numbers.
Pay Tiscali extra for calls to 07 and 08 numbers
 
Agree, Plus Net, now owned by BT, very good company with various packages,
I have Broadband (unlimited)Line rentel, free any time calls to 01/02 numbers and 300 minutes a month to 30 overseas countries for £29.99 a month.
 
Switched to the same package as MoodySabre a few months from Pipex and very pleased with TalkTalk so far. 40GB download limit which is high enough for almost anyone unless they're downloading movies all the time. Call quality is fine and the switch from Pipex was quick and painless.

Thinkbroadband is an excellent guide to Broadband providers and there's a good article about broadband/landline bundles on Motley Fool here

G
 
I switched to Orange on the package where you get Broadband and the phone line for £24 a month (saving the BT line rental) It looked a good deal at the time but they have put up the telephone call set up charge twice in the last few months from 3 pence, then to 5 pence and now 6 pence per call. So if you use the phone a lot it works out far too expensive, and I am locked in for 18 months. Fortunately they provide a second phone line which is free to call UK land lines and some overseas countries, and works like Skype, but given the way they have ramped up charges I would not recommend Orange. Another fault is that the Orange Livebox they supply is a pig to connect wirelessly with my laptop, so much so that I have given up trying, and hard wire it when I need to connect it.
 
Ive been with Plusnet almost 5 years, good packages and incredible service (no chimps or wot ever on the help desk). Also a good webspace.
 
I'm convinced that BT deliberately try to confuse with their price lists - after all, when the main basis of competition is price and you are the inevitable loser as the sitting tenant, then you try to hide what you are actually charging. Logical - if I were running BT thats what I would do.

As for broadband, at the bottom of the market (Tiscali, Orange, TalkTalk etc) they all charge much the same, the product is much the same, and the service if you want to talk to a human being is also much the same ie dire.

Whether the more expensive services actually give you any more, I do not know.

Personally I use Tiscali and as long as I dont want to talk to anyone at Tiscali, its perfectly acceptable. The last time I tired to get anything changed it took 4 months , numerous phone calls and 2 letters.

One final tip. Dont make the mistake I did of having broadband and phone calls from the same outfit. Its one thing to lose the broadband for a couplt of months whilst you change to another supplier - its altogether different to lose the phone as well. So for the moment I am stuck with Tiscali anyway
 
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