In reply to a post by jon_m:

I'm likely to be without a phoneline for a period, within a few months (moving house, etc.) I had actually signed up to the O2 deal you mentioned - but I will be cancelling this (I'm in the first 30 days) because, if I'm without a phoneline for a period, O2 have told me that they will cancel my contract and come after me for the full 12 months of payments (I suspect this may impact on any quidco payments, too...) I tried to negotiate, but no joy

Obviously you know why there should be a significant gap in phone provision, but surely a few weeks would be quite normal under the home move clause?

What happens if you move?

If your new address is in an area that's covered by the Services, the Services can be moved to your new address, provided you give us written notice, to be received by us at least 7 days before the expected moving date. There will be some downtime between disconnection from your old address and reconnection at your new address and you will not be refunded any Charges for that period of downtime unless you terminate your the Services pursuant to clause 7.6(b).
We will only move the Services to another address for free once in any 12 month period. Additional moves will incur a charge of £50 per move.
If your broadband package is not available at the new address you will be automatically moved to another available package which is provided at the nearest available price.
If we are unable to provide Services to your new address, then the cancellation terms in clause 7 will apply.

Thanks. I might be in a b&b or similar for a few weeks, while looking for something longer-term. I spoke to O2 on the phone, and they were quite clear that - if I was without a phone line for more than a couple of weeks - they would cancel the contract and charge me the full 12months worth of fees. I might call them to triple-check: I think what O2 told me when I phoned them is a daft position for them to take (if I choose not to have the service connected for a few weeks, don't see how that hurts them) but they seemed quite insistent

You could offer to keep paying even when not connected. That could avoid "New connection" charges from any fresh ISP at the new address and therefore be self-financing.

I did offer to pay, even while not connected. I was still told that, after a couple of weeks or so, they would cancel the connection and bill me for the full contract term. I don't know why - sounded like a 'computer says no' type of thing.

Right, I e-mailed O2 about this, and they confirmed: "there is nothing we can do about the cancellation process, as it is an automatic process that starts when your phone line is cancelled at your address".

In terms of which to switch to - apparently NewNet have started charging £30 to cancel your broadband. As I'll likely be doing this w/in a few months, think I may as well go for IDNet - won't cost significantly more all in (they have no exit charge)

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

For what you ask for in your opening post I suggest you go for Newnet Home M (12GB allowance) for the best ISP at that level. IDNet as suggested by Cavillas is possibly fractionally better but a lot more expensive. ......

But don't Newnet include up and downloads in their allowances? In which case Newnet prices are not as good as they might appear when comparing them to iDNet whose prices are based on downloads only.

[Disclaimer] I have no connection with either iDNet or Newnet.

In reply to a post by Tacitus:

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

For what you ask for in your opening post I suggest you go for Newnet Home M (12GB allowance) for the best ISP at that level. IDNet as suggested by Cavillas is possibly fractionally better but a lot more expensive. ......

But don't Newnet include up and downloads in their allowances? In which case Newnet prices are not as good as they might appear when comparing them to iDNet whose prices are based on downloads only.

[Disclaimer] I have no connection with either iDNet or Newnet.

Yes you are right, but in my view at under 20GB per month not many people do P2P or FTP uploading to any extent so uploads are less significant, and the price difference particularly on the Home M allows significant additional GBs to be bought if needed occasionally.

Right - now signed up to IDNet No confirmation e-mail, oddly - but hopefully things will go through on schedule...

In reply to a post by jon_m:

Right - now signed up to IDNet No confirmation e-mail, oddly - but hopefully things will go through on schedule...

Quality should be great .