Current best broadband deals?

Virgin offers a 512kbps (3gb monthly limit) with a wireless router for
£70 set-up and £14.99. Seems like a good deal to me.

Just a quick sanity check - is that a good deal?

It is for a relative who will not be in the least bit demanding (very
light user) and is on a limited budget.



--

jeremy

Virgin offers a 512kbps (3gb monthly limit) with a wireless router for
£70 set-up and £14.99. Seems like a good deal to me.

Just a quick sanity check - is that a good deal?

It is for a relative who will not be in the least bit demanding (very
light user) and is on a limited budget.


Better deals are available with no setup cost. Why do they need a wireless
router? Are they going to need phone tech support? Virgin have a poor
reputation and their network is actually NTL.

Peter Crosland

>"Jeremy" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
>news:(E-Mail Removed) et...
>Virgin offers a 512kbps (3gb monthly limit) with a wireless router for
>£70 set-up and £14.99. Seems like a good deal to me.

>Just a quick sanity check - is that a good deal?

>It is for a relative who will not be in the least bit demanding (very
> light user) and is on a limited budget.

See www.cpwpic.com

To Quote:

"Carphone Warehouse today announces its pricing strategy for broadband and
residential telephony in the first 1,000 exchanges it has committed to unbundle,
and the financial impact of this strategy.

Customer offer
For a monthly fee of £9.99, TalkTalk customers will receive:

Unlimited local and national landline calls, 24 hours a day

Unlimited international landline calls to 28 countries, 24 hours a day

Up to 8 Mbps broadband access


This offer is available from today to all customers in all 1,000 exchange areas,
covering nearly 70% of the UK population. If the local exchange has not yet been
unbundled, the customer will initially be connected via BT’s wholesale IP Stream
service, and then migrated at a later date at no extra cost to them. The first
customers will go live from the beginning of July 2006.

In addition to the monthly fee, all customers will pay the standard monthly line
rental charge of £11.00."

I presume that you have to provide your own modem/router.


--

Michael Chare

>>Virgin offers a 512kbps (3gb monthly limit) with a wireless router for
>>£70 set-up and £14.99. Seems like a good deal to me.
>
>>Just a quick sanity check - is that a good deal?
>
>>It is for a relative who will not be in the least bit demanding (very
>> light user) and is on a limited budget.
>
> See www.cpwpic.com
>
> To Quote:
>
> "Carphone Warehouse today announces its pricing strategy for broadband and
> residential telephony in the first 1,000 exchanges it has committed to
> unbundle,
> and the financial impact of this strategy.
>
> Customer offer
> For a monthly fee of £9.99, TalkTalk customers will receive:
>
> Unlimited local and national landline calls, 24 hours a day
>
> Unlimited international landline calls to 28 countries, 24 hours a day
>
> Up to 8 Mbps broadband access
>
>
> This offer is available from today to all customers in all 1,000 exchange
> areas,
> covering nearly 70% of the UK population. If the local exchange has not
> yet been
> unbundled, the customer will initially be connected via BT's wholesale IP
> Stream
> service, and then migrated at a later date at no extra cost to them. The
> first
> customers will go live from the beginning of July 2006.
>
> In addition to the monthly fee, all customers will pay the standard
> monthly line
> rental charge of £11.00."
>
> I presume that you have to provide your own modem/router.


It is not quite as good as it may seem! There are approximately 4800
exchanges it does not cover and the BB is not free on those. Also you have
to choose the most expensive talk plan to get "free" BB. There are better
deals out there with other ISPs. The other thing to be very wary of is that
if you switch your line to TT you have to go through them for any repairs
and they don't provide a 24 hour fault reporting. They don't provide an FOC
expedited repair service if you are elderly or disabled. If you want caller
display it costs another £1.50 per month.

Peter Crosland

In article <443b841b$0$9235$(E-Mail Removed)>, Peter
Crosland says...
> Virgin offers a 512kbps (3gb monthly limit) with a wireless router for
> £70 set-up and £14.99. Seems like a good deal to me.
>
> Just a quick sanity check - is that a good deal?
>
> It is for a relative who will not be in the least bit demanding (very
> light user) and is on a limited budget.
>
>
> Better deals are available with no setup cost. Why do they need a wireless
> router? Are they going to need phone tech support? Virgin have a poor
> reputation and their network is actually NTL.
>

Wireless because they don't' want to set-up a "permanent" workstation
(no computer kit in the house at present) and wireless then means they
have the flexibility to work where they want.

Are you able to give me any indication of who is offering the better
deals?


--

jeremy

"Peter Crosland" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:443b8ad9$0$9251$(E-Mail Removed)...
> >>Virgin offers a 512kbps (3gb monthly limit) with a wireless router for
> >>£70 set-up and £14.99. Seems like a good deal to me.
> >
> >>Just a quick sanity check - is that a good deal?
> >
> >>It is for a relative who will not be in the least bit demanding (very
> >> light user) and is on a limited budget.
> >
> > See www.cpwpic.com
> >
> > To Quote:
> >
> > "Carphone Warehouse today announces its pricing strategy for broadband and
> > residential telephony in the first 1,000 exchanges it has committed to
> > unbundle,
> > and the financial impact of this strategy.
> >
> > Customer offer
> > For a monthly fee of £9.99, TalkTalk customers will receive:
> >
> > Unlimited local and national landline calls, 24 hours a day
> >
> > Unlimited international landline calls to 28 countries, 24 hours a day
> >
> > Up to 8 Mbps broadband access
> >
> >
> > This offer is available from today to all customers in all 1,000 exchange
> > areas,
> > covering nearly 70% of the UK population. If the local exchange has not
> > yet been
> > unbundled, the customer will initially be connected via BT's wholesale IP
> > Stream
> > service, and then migrated at a later date at no extra cost to them. The
> > first
> > customers will go live from the beginning of July 2006.
> >
> > In addition to the monthly fee, all customers will pay the standard
> > monthly line
> > rental charge of £11.00."
> >
> > I presume that you have to provide your own modem/router.
>
>
> It is not quite as good as it may seem!

No doubt - I am looking for the catches!

> There are approximately 4800
> exchanges it does not cover and the BB is not free on those.

I of course am connected to one ot those!

> Also you have
> to choose the most expensive talk plan to get "free" BB. There are better
> deals out there with other ISPs.

Can you quote an example! A 40GB/month limit for £9.99 including many phone
calls looks quite good. Much less than I am paying now. (About 1/3rd price)

> The other thing to be very wary of is that
> if you switch your line to TT you have to go through them for any repairs
> and they don't provide a 24 hour fault reporting.

That could be an issue

They don't provide an FOC
> expedited repair service if you are elderly or disabled. If you want caller
> display it costs another £1.50 per month.

Yes, I use that and it is now free on BT


--

Michael Chare

> Virgin offers a 512kbps (3gb monthly limit) with a wireless router for
> £70 set-up and £14.99. Seems like a good deal to me.
>
> Just a quick sanity check - is that a good deal?
>
> It is for a relative who will not be in the least bit demanding (very
> light user) and is on a limited budget.
>
>
> Better deals are available with no setup cost. Why do they need a wireless
> router? Are they going to need phone tech support? Virgin have a poor
> reputation and their network is actually NTL.
>

>Wireless because they don't' want to set-up a "permanent" workstation
>(no computer kit in the house at present) and wireless then means they
>have the flexibility to work where they want.

>Are you able to give me any indication of who is offering the better
>deals?


Buying on price alone is seldom the best policy. You need to take other
factors into account. Take a look at

www.adslguide.org.uk/guide/summary.asp

for some guidance. Personally I am quite happy with my Plusnet connection
that runs 24/7 and has only experienced some ten hours downtime in over two
years. That equates to 99.5% uptime which in practical terms is very good
despite the bitching from a few malcontents who seem to expect 100% that not
even systems like banks ATM networks never achieve. Although it may sound
attractive to have the flexibility of wireless connection in practice it may
be illusory. The range of wireless equipment varies considerably so you need
to make sure that whatever router you choose will communicate with the
computer(s) satisfactorily. Without doing some tests you will not be sure
the equipment will work in the particular environment until you actually try
it. There is also the question of having adequate security. Are the users
really going to want to use the machine anywhere and everywhere in the
house? Even if they are considering a laptop in my experience people seldom
use it in more than two locations in a house particularly if they are light
users. Ask yourself if a wired network with a couple of sockets might not be
more realistic.

Peter Crosland

In article <443b9e5f$0$9238$(E-Mail Removed)>, Peter
Crosland says...
> Although it may sound
> attractive to have the flexibility of wireless connection in practice it may
> be illusory. The range of wireless equipment varies considerably so you need
> to make sure that whatever router you choose will communicate with the
> computer(s) satisfactorily.

That's a problem as neither the wireless router nor the pc has yet been
purchased...

> Without doing some tests you will not be sure
> the equipment will work in the particular environment until you actually try
> it.

That is a potential issue - it is an old house with substantial walls
BUT the radius from the pouint where the telephone line comes into the
house and where the router would be placed is probably < 15 feet.

> There is also the question of having adequate security.

Will enable the encryption and also limit access by MAC address
(assuming this is supported on the devices).

> Are the users
> really going to want to use the machine anywhere and everywhere in the
> house? Even if they are considering a laptop in my experience people seldom
> use it in more than two locations in a house particularly if they are light
> users. Ask yourself if a wired network with a couple of sockets might not be
> more realistic.
>
Well to make it wired involves drilling and routing cables. Wireless is
so much cleaner (so long as it is reliable...).

I have been using a netgear wireless hub in my home (part wired/part
wireless network) so know a few of the pitfalls.

So ultimately I think the wireless is the way to go....now it's a
question of which ISPs are offering what deals with decent hardware (or
I guess go for the free set-up and buy own wireless router).


--

jeremy

In article <(E-Mail Removed)> , Jeremy
says...
> That is a potential issue - it is an old house with substantial walls
> BUT the radius from the pouint where the telephone line comes into the
> house and where the router would be placed is probably < 15 feet.
>
That's not clear - what I meant was the max distance between the router
and where the PC mght be used is probably < 15' (not the distance
between the telephone point and the router)

--

jeremy

"Jeremy" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message news:(E-Mail Removed) t...
Virgin offers a 512kbps (3gb monthly limit) with a wireless router for
£70 set-up and £14.99. Seems like a good deal to me.

Just a quick sanity check - is that a good deal?

It is for a relative who will not be in the least bit demanding (very
light user) and is on a limited budget.


Eclipse option 1 looks like a good deal to me:-
http://www.eclipse.net.uk/index.cfm?...comparison_res


Free activation, ADSLMax 20GB peak usage limit @ £14.99 per month.

Tell them to keep their free modem and get a router from
ebuyer or amazon.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/...189489-5835841