ISP without fixed term; moderate use

I'm looking to move to an ISP with no fixed contract term. My usage is moderate - varies a bit, but used for lots of browsing and e-mail, and the odd bit of iplayer and youtube usage, and skype - so would like at least a moderate download allowance. Reasonable price will be good, of course, and reasonable service. My line doesn't run massively fast (never got about ~6Meg) so not much point in paying for anything super-fast.

Any suggestions would be great. Was thinking of NewNet or UKFSN (or worth trying another of the Entanet resellers?)

We have just launched our new broadband service, our site can be found here:- www.saq.net
Kind regards

To advise properly we need to know your exchange details. Can you look it up in samknows and post a link to the result?

Newnet is very good for under 20GB usage (down + up) per month and you should fit in there. UKFSN used to be very good but just at the moment is suffering from a less than good transition by Entanet from IPStream (ADSL Max) to WBC (BT 21CN ADSL2+) and IPSC (a way of connectiing non-21CN exchanges to the ISP over the WBC network).

Jason at UKFSN is also now a one-man band and under personal pressures on top of the trememdous support work-load from dealing with the above troubles. Unfortunately not in the running right now though hopefully that will change in the future.

You could look at other Entanet resellers such as vivaciti and Titan, both of which are offering non-Enta LLU and ADSL Max packages. To discuss those you should go to the Resellers and Other providers forum, not the Entanet one. I do not recommend any Enta package for the moment - both of these resellers have stopped actively marketing them because of the mess.

So, the exchange?

Thanks

Edited by jon_m (Thu 21-May-09 18:39:08)

Have a look at IDNET They offer 1 months contract and have an excellent reputation plus all help and support is free.

Thanks - re IDNet, they seem more expensive than NewNet (for a certain download limit). NewNet also seem to have a decent rep?

Idnet have one of the best reputations in the market. They are more expensive but you do get what you pay for.

I'm going to get a bit complicated here sorry.

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. Above 20GB per month then IDNet or Zen would be the quality ones to look at. Newnet does of course have 20GB Home S which you may consider.

Now the messy bit.

O2 LLU is available on your exchange. The Standard service is £12.23 per month but is a 12-month minimum term. Keep reading!

The O2 LLU service cannot be compared to the BT-based Newnet connection. A major difference is the non-existence of the BT profiling and inflexible target noise margin systems. A lesser but important one is O2 is unlimited.

12 months Newnet Home M is £210.72.
12 months O2 Standard without an O2 mobile is £146.76

Difference £63.96, so after 9 months of O2 you could buy out the rest if you wanted to leave, and still be cheaper than Newnet at 9 months. At this point the decision depends partly on why you don't want a fixed term, as well as the other factors above.

But it gets more complicated - in favour of O2.

For starters if you sign up through Quidco after following the recommendations about clearing cookies then you get £50 cash-back after 3 months. (Less £5 if it is your first Quidco transaction in a month). So that makes O2 = £96.76 or £101.76 for the year, and the pay-off point is 6 months.

Then, if you have an O2 mobile phone there is a £4.89 per month discount on the broadband. A PAYG phone with £10 per quarter qualifies.

Still fairly simple, but now ...

On O2 Premium you won't get any higher speeds, but there is an offer on of 3 months free, which you can get as well as the Quidco cash-back.

That makes the first 12 months £132.12 or £82.12 or £87.12. Cheaper than Standard! And of course the mobile phone reduction is also applicable. The draw-back would be at the end of the 12 months a downgrade to Standard would start a new 12-month term. But if you were happy that wouldn't bother you.

So I will leave you to find an envelope and pen to do more arithmetic comparing with the Newnet (or indeed any ISP) costs. The excellent document by MKD has the full O2 calculations in the last page, and I see that is now accessible by itself.

Thanks.

Unfortunately, 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

O2's service seems pretty good. If they could do me a monthly deal, w/out the 1 year contract, I'd be keen to go for it - but, sadly, it doesn't look like it It's ironic that - because they insist on tying me into a 12m contract - I'm being pushed to leave w/in the first 30 days...

Edited by jon_m (Thu 21-May-09 18:27:45)

look at www.vivaciti.co.uk, aquiss.co.uk or UKFSN as you have found. Pick one and if you do not like it then you can move to something else within a month (on entanet servicE). You could also try www.freedom2surf.net..... etc..

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 .