Broadband provider for low user with free connection

My parents want to join the broadband revolution. They're unlikely to be
heavy bandwidth hogs so a capped contract would do. I'm looking for one of
the cheaper ISPs that will provide free connection with a maximum tie in of
one year. Finding one in the £14.99 range that doesn't either have a
whopping connection charge or a very long tie-in time is harder than I
thought it was going to be.

Any suggestions?

Tim

"Tim Downie" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed)...
> My parents want to join the broadband revolution. They're unlikely to be
> heavy bandwidth hogs so a capped contract would do. I'm looking for one
> of the cheaper ISPs that will provide free connection with a maximum tie
> in of one year. Finding one in the £14.99 range that doesn't either have
> a whopping connection charge or a very long tie-in time is harder than I
> thought it was going to be.
>
> Any suggestions?
>
> Tim

Troble is.. the ISPs all have to pay a connection fee to BT.. so they either
have to pass it on up front, or make sure they're gonna get it back in
monthly rental. If they're among the lower monthly rentals, their margins
aren't big enough to do that unless you sign up for a year. So I'd be
surprised if there are that many offering what you want.

"Tim Downie" (E-Mail Removed) wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed)
> My parents want to join the broadband revolution. They're unlikely
> to be heavy bandwidth hogs so a capped contract would do. I'm
> looking for one of the cheaper ISPs that will provide free connection
> with a maximum tie in of one year. Finding one in the £14.99 range
> that doesn't either have a whopping connection charge or a very long
> tie-in time is harder than I thought it was going to be.
>
> Any suggestions?

Pipex?

14.99/month
1GB cap, PAYG thereafter
free connection
£7.50 p&p for 'free' modem & filters
12 month contract

"Tim Downie" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed)...
: My parents want to join the broadband revolution. They're unlikely to be
: heavy bandwidth hogs so a capped contract would do. I'm looking for one
of
: the cheaper ISPs that will provide free connection with a maximum tie in
of
: one year. Finding one in the £14.99 range that doesn't either have a
: whopping connection charge or a very long tie-in time is harder than I
: thought it was going to be.
:
: Any suggestions?
:
: Tim
:
:
I'm personal with plusnet and found then to be great, have been with freeuk
,tiscali ,freeserver and ntl with problem's but with plusnet none!

Chris

--
Cheap As Chips Broadband http://yeah.kick-butt.co.uk

On Thu, 2 Feb 2006 20:05:01 -0000, "Joker7" <(E-Mail Removed)>
wrote:

>
>"Tim Downie" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
>news:(E-Mail Removed)...
>: My parents want to join the broadband revolution. They're unlikely to be
>: heavy bandwidth hogs so a capped contract would do. I'm looking for one
>of
>: the cheaper ISPs that will provide free connection with a maximum tie in
>of
>: one year. Finding one in the £14.99 range that doesn't either have a
>: whopping connection charge or a very long tie-in time is harder than I
>: thought it was going to be.
>:
>: Any suggestions?
>:
>: Tim
>:
>:
>I'm personal with plusnet and found then to be great, have been with freeuk
>,tiscali ,freeserver and ntl with problem's but with plusnet none!
>

PlusNet has a whopping connection charge (57 pounds or thereabouts) to
be paid either at connection or leaving and if you don't want a 12
months contract, a 12 pounds fee.

AOL seems an interesting choice.

14.99 for the first 6 months and 17.99 for the remaining 6 months and
so on. No connection charge. Perhaps even one month free, depending on
the current offer.

You are _not_ bound to a 12 months contract if you have your own
AOL-supported modem, such as the Alcatel SpeedTouch, available for a
few pounds on ebay.


[L.]

Tim Downie wrote:

> I'm looking for one of the cheaper ISPs that will provide free connection
> with a maximum tie in of one year. Finding one in the £14.99 range that
> doesn't either have a whopping connection charge or a very long tie-in
> time is harder than I thought it was going to be.

You did check the ISP list/search on www.ADSLguide.org didn't you ?

http://makeashorterlink.com/?L2E91429C (page 1)
http://makeashorterlink.com/?L2F91529C (page 2)

You'll find "the usual suspects" (some with negative feedback about them
of late), including Supanet, Plus.Net, Tiscali, E7even, Euro1Net none of
which I'd suggest at present (Euro1Net is a bit of unknown, E7even has a
number of people leaving to other ISPs) and even some of the others like
DataComms Europe have people with billing issues months after leaving...

NDO/NamesCo www.ndo.com have a 250 kbps (10.95) and 500 kbps (15.95) and
no setup fee (but 50+VAT if leaving within 12 months, a bit over the BTW
fee, but much the same as others would charge and good monthly fees.

NewNet.co.uk is 11.95/month but has 40+VAT activation, which is what BTW
charges, rather than one which is pushed up higher by the ISP... Peter

Joker7 wrote:

> "Tim Downie" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
> : Finding one in the £14.99 range that doesn't either have a
> : whopping connection charge or a very long tie-in time

> I'm personal with plusnet and found then to be great, have been with freeuk

What was the problem with FreeUK ?

> ,tiscali ,freeserver and ntl with problem's but with plusnet none!

Plus.Net has a 60 month 'tie-in' to get the free setup, something Tim
had probably noticed and doesn't want.

[L.] wrote:

> PlusNet has a whopping connection charge (57 pounds or thereabouts)

No, it's the standard BT Wholesale (40 +VAT) charge and has been since
September. Most ISPs want some way to cover that charge if a customer
leaves within the first 12 months. On PN it goes down over not 12 but
over 60 months to zero.

"Grant" (E-Mail Removed) wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed)
>
> Pipex?
>
> 14.99/month
> 1GB cap, PAYG thereafter
> free connection
> £7.50 p&p for 'free' modem & filters
> 12 month contract

Looking at Peter's link, NDO looks pretty good:

15.95/month
10GB cap
free connection
free modem
12 month contract

Pipex is up to 2Mb, NDO is 512k.

> My parents want to join the broadband revolution. They're unlikely to be
> heavy bandwidth hogs so a capped contract would do. I'm looking for one
> of the cheaper ISPs that will provide free connection with a maximum tie
> in of one year. Finding one in the £14.99 range that doesn't either have
> a whopping connection charge or a very long tie-in time is harder than I
> thought it was going to be.


Every ISP that uses BT lines has to pay an up front charge of £50 plus VAT.
That has to be paid for in one way or another as does the cost of the so
called "free" modem. Remember to factor that into your comparisons. As for a
twelve month contract the benefit of that may be illusorily. You also need
to look at reputation rather than just price. http://www.adslguide.org.uk/
is a good place to start to see which ISP's have a long term pattern of
stability and service. Personally I use Plusnet and am largely happy with
them. There are some wrinkles from time to time but there are with any ISP.

Peter Crosland