ISP choice - help needed

I need help choosing an ISP for the place I will be moving into...I'm quite a beginner at this, and I'm getting confused over the various terms that I've been reading about (LLU etc), so I'm hoping somebody can help me.

The broadband will be used by two people, but neither of us are big downloaders. We will be surfing mostly, with only occasional downloads (generally an album here and there, rather than movies or games). No need for anything particularly high-speed either, what we're looking for is reliability and a decent price.

Here is the Samknows exchange page for my area: http://www.samknows.com/broadband/exchange/THGI

As I said, I'm a beginner, so much of what is on that page is Greek to me!

We are looking at broadband and line rental deals, as we do not yet have a phone line. We were considering the BT Total Broadband Option 1 for £15.65 per month (plus another 11 quid for the line rental) or else the Virgin Broadband M and Phone M deal for £10 per month plus line rental, but we've read some negative comments about BT and Virgin on this website, so we're not sure what to do.

Any advice would be more than welcome!

Thanks,
Neville

I suggest BT for your line-rental and phone and Be or O2 (LLU) for your (ADSL) broadband.

Basically the same suggestion as john2007 but with variations. Broadband in phone and broadband bundles rarely approaches that provided by the the best ISPs.

O2/Be are the best ISP on the market at the moment, and amongst the cheapest. Of those O2 is the better for everyone except online gamers.

The only alternatives you should consider at that exchange are:

- Sky, and only if you want Sky TV. I think they can also install the phone line, but if/when you want to leave Sky then the phone line can be a little complicated as it won't be a BT Wholesale line. (Although it will be installed and maintained by BT Openreach engineers);

- Virgin Media cable, but stay well clear of Virgin Media ADSL.

If you don't go for Sky or Virgin cable my recommendations are:

- get the phone line from the Post Office (but steer clear of Post Office Broadband). Cheaper than BT but still a BT Wholesale line so no complications like with Sky. Also only a monthly contract.

- sign up for O2 Standard broadband. This limits you to 8Mbps, but for the first two or three days it is connected uncapped so you can see what speed it can go at on your line. Then you can decide whether to upgrade immediately. On O2 Standard at the moment with three free months and cashback you are looking a a first year broadband cost between £16.06 and £60.07 for the whole year! (Except for the Vat rise due on 1 January).

- my hobby-horse - unless you already use gmail, Hotmail or similar get yourself/selves a domain or domains from somewhere like Purple Cloud (links in my sig) or 1 & 1. Purple Cloud costs £7.34 every two years for the domain (xxx.co.uk or xxx.me.uk) and £10 per year for Home email. That's £1.15 per month equivalent. It looks good, feels good, and means you never have to change email address if you change ISP. (Changing email address is something that deters many people from migrating even if they are really fed up with their ISP).

For more information about O2 have a look at MKD's excellent O2/Be comparison document, particularly the free-standing up-to-date pricing Page 4.

See this comparison of the ISPs mentioned.