Thiking Of Post Office Broadband and Phone

Hello

I am thinking of getting the Home Phone with Broadband Extra from Post Office at � 24.95 ( http://www.postoffice.co.uk/portal/po/content1?catId=58000695&mediaId=68700706 )

I am i right in thinking this is a BT product just re branded as Post Office ? If so what is the equivalent BT broadband package to the P/O Broadband Extra?

I like the fact you get free calls to mobiles at the weekend.

Will 18185 still work with P/O telephone?

Is anybody on this package if so is it any good?

Thank you

Sorry I can't help with the questions except yes, it is a BT Wholesale "White Label" product, also sold, (at least the broadband part) by Vodaphone I believe. It isn't the same thing as normal ADSL Max as sold by most ISPs in the country which is a BT Wholesale "Managed" product.

The BT bundles you refer to are BT Retail, which are a bundle of Phone service with ADSL Max. So the Post Office one is not a re-badged BT Retail thing at all so there won't be a direct equivalent.

There are occasional posting about it in this forum, so if you look in there with the time period set to all posts you will see a few.

Other ISPs that sell phone broadband packages include Plusnet, Madasafish I think, Sky and IDnet at least. The chap across the road from us changed from BT phone and Virgin dialup to Tiscali phone and broadband and is perfectly happy, as is a friend of mine for the last twenty years who used to be on Tiscali dialup and moved to their broadband about 3 years ago.

Even the dreaded TalkTalk has several fans, including my brother aged 74.

Edited by RobertoS (Mon 03-Nov-08 18:39:33)

Thankyou.

So is there any difference to the end user from BT Wholesale "White Label" product, to a BT Wholesale "Managed" product?

Quite a big difference I expect, but have no knowledge at all of the Post Office and Vodaphone "White Label" product.

Guessing, from what I know of what "managed product" involves, I would think the white label allows the ISP more flexibility in how it works in relation to what the user experiences.

This could be either good or terrible. BT Wholesale in their managed product have produced something that works pretty well overall but is a bit irksome at times due to lack of flexibility, refusal to admit it could be improved, and sometimes sheer cussedness when problems arise.

Vodaphone I have no idea about at all.

Post Office - it depends on what quality and training of staff they put in - but I would imagine not an enormous amount. I know no more than you about the user experience, probably less as I have probably read fewer of the posts in that other forum than you have now.

Given excellent staff, (unlikely), it should be fair to good but also see later re the type of usage you expect to have.

Given getting a "Post Office Broadband and Phone" service up and running as cheaply as possible to make money out of people who don't know what broadband actually is and can do then it might just float for such people.

To be honest that's just my thoughts and cynicism talking, but it wouldn't be my cup of tea.

If you are someone on dialup or an out-of-date broadband service looking to move to "up to 8Mbps" broadband and also save money, intending to do emails, browsing, a bit of internet shopping and banking, the Post Office service I would guess would be fine.

If you want to start using a lot of YouTube, downloading videos and music, watching BBC iPlayer 3 hours a day, then No! And no probably to BT as well.

So what exactly do you have now, and what do you want to do, (as well as save money)? What do you spend on phone and internet and what do you want to get it down to, if that's your aim?

Given that then others as well as I may be able to make useful suggestions.

At the moment I am on a 20gb pack for �14 pound per month on a retention deal , there no fup if you go over the usage it � 2 part or per gig used.

I use it mainly for surfing the net
bbc I player , c4 on demand , prob around 1-2 hours a day
Xbox 360 online about 1 hour a day if that

over the last 6 month my usage is probably 18gig a month

But i want to be able to watch more things online and not need to worry about my usage

i have just looked at the post office's fup

The systems that are used to provide Post Office� Broadband can identify very high bandwidth users and we request that you manage your use of Post Office� Broadband during peak hours, to ensure fairness to all users. Peak hours are 6pm-11pm, Monday-Sunday

does that mean between 11pm to 6pm , they do not require you to manager your usage, so between them hours watching Iplayer and C4 on demand will be ok ?

Surely that �14 doesn't include the phone line rental?

Have a read of my post re my reasons for and costing of moving from Newnet to O2 LLU. If you don't know whether or not you can get O2 LLU ask samknows. If you can't, you can probably get O2 Home Access at �10pm more than the LLU. That is a normal ADSL Max "up to 8Mbps" product but currently true unlimited.

Currently there is a 30-day money-back guarantee and �25 cash-back possible if you sign up through Quidco.

Hi Sorry

Yes it does not include my line rental which is with bt standard price of � 10.50 per month

o2 is 22.50 just for the b/b in my area Iam not in a LLU area, it two expensive for what i use the net for

In reply to:

---

between them hours watching Iplayer and C4 on demand will be ok

---

Remember, due to the way those products operate, the programmes you've watched (or are downloading) are available for others to download from your PC (they won't be aware of this, of course), so there will be an amount of upload going on at all times; You may need to factor this into your usage allowances, or use one of the work-arounds (which aren't always that simple, in the case of C4's service) to disable uploads, or don't use the cruddy services in the first place.

That's less than you pay now, and did you get what I am doing to get the discount and save on my BT phone bill? My true mobile is Orange.

And you can get the �5 discount even if you give a friend's O2 mobile number if you can be sure they won't need it themselves.