Shared house, total newbie to uk broadbands

Hi there to all forum followers,

I'm new here and in desperate need to get a good broadband inside my house but the more I ask around the more confused i get . First of all, I dare mention the fact that my location is in Canterbury (If it makes any difference, similar to the mobile networks).
I've read a lot of the topics here and still am confused as hell. I need something like the title says, for a shared house, and would really like to have decent speed (b/n 4-8 mb REAL that doesn't have any peak times or be capped) because all 4 of us are students so we speak over VoIP services all day, download p2p from sites movies from our families and others (nothing illegal by all means) and finally every single one of us stays with youtube or other internet streaming site opened in the browser 24h/day.
Most important thing is not to have any download limit because i had some experiences in my 1st year with download limits and if you get to that point, you will stay the rest of the month with speeds under 100kb/s ). So that's a no-no. Besides that, if it makes any difference, all of us own laptops and we need something compatible with both macbooks and pc (just said there to clear out the fact that we won't connect through a direct link).
My budget would be somewhere around 20-25£/m and a contract would be best at 9 months (heard that virgin may do that but i'm having second thoughts because i've seen many complaints for the lousy services they offer), if not 9, 12 months is ok.
Also i have to mention the fact that i am already in the house so if i would appreciate it if you could also tell me how long will it take before the connection goes active (i saw that be and o2 take up to 2 weeks :| and that would be a nightmare from the stone age).
Thank you all in advance and will check the forum soon

Edited by deleted (Mon 22-Aug-11 19:28:12)

Two weeks will be usual for any provider you go to...Virgin or otherwise.

If you can get the Virgin Media 50Meg or 100Meg service then that is your best bet. Yes there are complaints, but for all providers there can be issues.

To be honest £20 to £25 for unlimited with no peak time or caps - and I assume you don't want traffic management is hard to find.

Speeds will vary considerably across Canterbury, so exact location is very important.

As the Irishman said, 'I wouldn't start from here'...

Have you checked your phone line on the speed checker?
http://www.productsandservices.bt.com/consumerProduc...

That will determine if you will be able to achieve your aspirations.

You are asking an awful lot for what you are prepared to pay.

O2 have traffic management and are not good for p2p

BE will take 5 - 7 days on average - often quicker if the phone line isn't yet active

BE do 3 month contracts for a bit extra with a connection fee

No download limits, no traffic management and although there an FUP it has never been invoked for usage - only a DDos attack

It sounds as though you don't have a landline phone. If you do, put the number into this checker and post the link to the result. If you don't have a phone, use the post code instead.

That will tell us what is available to you.

BE is congested is it not?

Not for me it isn't

In reply to a post by nredwood:

Not for me it isn't

Must just be everyone else with imaginary charts that show it then.......
http://forums.thinkbroadband.com/beunlimited/f/40287...

Or you are just wrong as usual

Certainly not mine
http://forums.thinkbroadband.com/which_isp/t/4035657...

Please now tell me in what way I am wrong

Your best bet is Sky Unlimited broadband. Might as well get Sky Talk coz then your'll get the first 6 months broadband at half price (£5) as you'll need a line anyway.

Even with a 12 month contract I would expect Sky to be cheaper than Be*, although It's up to you to check that.

I would avoid O2's new traffic managed packages if you can, they are also more expensive now and don't compare well to Sky's pricing.

There is no Virgin Media in Canterbury.

[EDIT]

My mistake!

It's half price line rental for 6 months and £2.50 discount on Broadband for the first 4 months.

Damn Sky are confusing with their pricing. At least you don't have to have Sky TV any more to have Sky broadband.

http://www.sky.com/shop/broadband-talk/#join

Edited by deleted (Mon 22-Aug-11 19:16:20)

hi all,

Sorry for the late reply, but you know... i don't have any internet so i have to come all the way to uni in order to find a good provider. Thanks for that site, this is what i got: http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/6/broadbnd.jpg/
Unfortunately i have no idea what anything there means except for the fact that i can connect to those networks.
Also, if it makes any difference, last year the house was supplied with broadband from o2 and it worked great, good speeds, almost 1mb/s on torrent downloads but the contract transfered from another place and they must've got some premium advantages or something because it was like 25/m.
Thanks and be patient because i will be late with replies

thanks for the reply,

1st of all, could you please explain the line "although there an FUP it has never been invoked for usage - only a DDos attack"
2nd i don't know if my phone line is active but i can tell you that the previous contract with o2 was canceled at the end of july.
3rd is there anyone that could give me a reason why BE is not good because at the moment i may be delusional for not having any internet and "between 5 and 7 days" echo in my mind like a siren's song .
I miss everything related to internet, especially the movies my friends upload on torrents. I haven't seen a movie/videoclip/montage since thursday.

P.S. if you haven't figgured it out yet, I NEED INTERNET

checlk sam knows as Openreach GEA should be live in Canterburty from December Commiunication providers shuold have updated information reasonably soon

We'll be lucky. BT hasn't started any work in Canterbury!

People download over 1-2TB a month without problem

Its more if you misuse it to attack websites and such.

1) What this means is that BE will not contact you to say you are using too much or threaten to kick you off for using to much
As an example, I know of at least 2 people who download over 1TB a month and BE haven't said a thing (although what they are downloading the costs for storage are anyone's guess
They have only taken action when there has been abuse that breaks the law
With your usage pattern, this will therefore not be an issue fo you and there are very few ISP's to choose where the same applies

2) Whilst the phone might work, it is not technically active until you have taken it over and have a contract with a phone provider.. There are quite a few providers that do 1 month rolling contracts which would suit you nicely - Post Office, Vivaciti and others. This could also mean you are provisioned quicker than the 5 - 7 days

3) I've been with BE over 5 years, joining not too long after they launched as the first ADSL2+ provider in the UK. They are a breath of fresh air compared to BT who I was with previously and they are generally popular amongst students and house sharers

If you go for the Unlimited 3 month contract, if there are issues you can then move elsewhere very easily

The speeds on BE will be similar if not the same as they were on O2, with the added bonus that BE lets you have fastpath and it sounds as if you have quite a good line

Or BE's DNS servers, which is what happened

It's fine here too.

If Be* is to be treated with caution, what else can you suggest at that price point to best fit the requirements of the OP?

Exactly

And whilst Sky might be the next best thing possibly, they still have DLM although from recent reports it does appear to be a bit easier to get it switched off these days (and that it's owned by Murdoch)

You take your chances with any ISP imo - I know I did when considering my move from BT to BE

Edited by nredwood (Mon 22-Aug-11 23:31:32)

In reply to a post by Anonymous:

checlk sam knows as Openreach GEA should be live in Canterburty from December Commiunication providers shuold have updated information reasonably soon

That turns out in most cases to be just a "not before" date, not an expected live date.

More importantly, he says he would ideally like a 9-month contract starting now. So four months to December, plus a minimum term of 12 months on FTTC, (18 months for Infinity), doesn't look to be the sort of thing he wants.

I never had any significant congestion issues with them myself (I was there for over two years). There were a few times when things seemed a bit slow and/or high latency for half an hour or so, but had no prolonged issues.

I do recall that there were larger issues that affect some customers but not all, but IIRC they were taken seriously and quickly resolved (people who experienced the issues might feel differently, of course).

I've only been gone a month or so - unless something very drastic has happened I doubt they've gone badly downhill in that time.

That shows you have quite a number of LLU options as well as BT based ISPs, but it does not show what sort of service you can might expect. If you have a phone-line into the house (or know the number that was used last time the line was active, i.e. the phone number of the previous occupants) put it into http://dslchecker.bt.com/adsl/adslchecker.welcome and post the results here. If you don't have a line or don't yet know the number, use the postcode based checker instead.

Assuming your line is not too long (they won't touch anything beyond a certain length) I would probably recommend Be's "unlimited" product (or the cheaper "value" product if the line won't go faster than 12Mbit anyway. If you plan to upload much (i.e. any of you make much use of P2P) and you have a short line, you might consider the Pro product with "upload plus" (their name for AnnexM). Again without any line stats at all we can't say anything much more definite. Be are essentially unlimited, I found them to be reliable (I only moved away from them to get the better upstream speed offered by FTTC)

It looks like you might have FTTC available at the start of next year, so it would be worth trying to get a 6 month contract or less initially (Be offer a 3-month minimum on the middle and top products, others may offer similar and some will not so make sure you check when comparing plans). If you take a 12 or 18 month contract now it'll be expensive to switch over to FTTC in six months time if your exchange does get enabled in December.