Who's cheap but safe for 18Gb/month...?

Who's cheap but safe for 18Gb/month (which is about the largest usage I've measured)?

I'm hoping to reduce my ever increasing phone bill also.....

Currently on 10.27 BT + ADSL 17.99 + Calls on TalkTalk(OneTel)CPS.
I probably need to go on an Anytime phone package. Lots more daytime calls at the moment and some to Canada. Assuming all that I get the following maybes...

BT Any + Enta 30/300 £35 12mo/1mo
BT Any + Plus op2 £30 12mo/1mo
Plus Any + Plus op2 £29 with some free international mins too 1mo/1mo
TT Any + TT LLU £21--> but setup makes it £23 over 18 months. 18mo/18mo
BT Any + O2 Access £32 Possible Cashback? £xxxx 12mo/12mo
BT Any + UKO 2Mb £30 --> but router makes it £34 over 12 months. 12mo/12mo

The BT lines are about £1 extra to get a 1 month voice contract.
All add about £1.50 for caller id although BT can do it free if route 6 calls/qtr.

TT and Plus stop you using Short Prefixes for other call handlers.
BT line keep that option open with CPS too.

I guess the crucial questions are:
1) is TT better now and worth a £7-£12 saving.
2) is there a £70 cashback on the O2 access product too.
3) plus (with op2) actually looks sensible - is it?

Are the long lock ins a problem still given that many packages are getting worse anyway.

1) My brother has been on TT top package which was called International 3 when he signed up for a year or so now and he continues to be very pleased with it. However he is a light user.

I believe the bandwidth allowance is 40GB but not sure.

I am not tempted to go to TT myself. Never mind the Broadband, I feel uneasy about full LLU of the phone. On the other hand an ex-BT employee across the road got so fed up with BT Retail's handling of a couple of line faults he switched to Tiscali full LLU!

2) £70 cashback on Access - yes - recently confirmed in an email from Quidco to another poster.

3) Scroll down to this page to the expected speeds table. If you are happy with that then it is probably a good deal. 15GB allowance but sensible extra usage charges.

Many providers would provide 18Gb+/month. Until recently an Entanet reseller would have been my first recommendation but I would wait a while to see how things settle there (go look at their forum here for details of recent and possibly-upcoming issues).

Be is probably a good option if you don't mind going LLU. 13.50 if you elect for the 8Mb cap and don't need a static IP address, and only a 3 month initial sign-up after which it is a month-on-month contract, and if you can find a Be user to recommend them to you you'll not pay the sign-up fee either (I'm very close to subscribing to their "Pro" package myself, migrating from Entanet - I have friends on Be who recommend them though I've not used them myself yet).

If you don't mind a 12 month contract, O2's current offer is hard to beat if you have O2/Be LLU in your area. 12.23/month (7.34 if you have one of their phone contracts) with three months free and £65 off if you signup via quidco (though there are hoops to jump to get the full amount). Their network is the same as Be's (who the own) if you are on LLU. Of LLU the package isn't as cheap, but I think the 3-months-free and quidco offers still apply.

Both O2 and Be claim to have never needed to enforce their FUP and some users claim to download 100s of Gb each month, so your 18G should be well within acceptable limits!

I would definitely recommend TalkTalk. I have had it for nearly 2 years and love their service. You can see my sync speeds in my Signature (although i do live about 1KM away from the exchange).

Their member forum is a VERY useful tool. This forum is staffed by top notch TalkTalk staff who know what they are talking about. If you have any problem whatsoever, i would go there first; 99.9% of the time the problem gets sorted. Its a really good tool for support. This is found at www.talktalkmembers.com

What exchange are you connected to? You better make sure your exchange is LLU'ed.

Edited by Recoil (Wed 07-Jan-09 21:32:36)

In reply to:

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I would definitely recommend TalkTalk. I have had it for nearly 2 years and love their service. You can see my sync speeds in my Signature (although i do live about 1KM away from the exchange).

Their member forum is a VERY useful tool. This forum is staffed by top notch TalkTalk staff who know what they are talking about. If you have any problem whatsoever, i would go there first; 99.9% of the time the problem gets sorted. Its a really good tool for support. This is found at www.talktalkmembers.com

What exchange are you connected to? You better make sure your exchange is LLU'ed.

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well it would be nice if they would put some of those staff on their phone support
its rather useless if your net connection is down and you can't get on the forums.

Many people say this. You have an internet connection at work/school/college etc? Use it

Phone support is a lot better than it was, and as long as you get a stable connection back, you can pop onto the forums and get it sorted back to your original profile (unless of course second line has already done this for you).

Edited by Recoil (Wed 07-Jan-09 22:53:25)

.......... and don't forget Dial-Up if needs be

In reply to:

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.......... and don't forget Dial-Up if needs be

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what's that?

recoil what happens if the net goes down in the evening when you're not at work/school/uni and you have critical stuff to do(and don't have a dial up account setup)?

after my experience back in 2006 I'd rather avoid them thanks very much, cpw staff missold to my parent(told them the bb was free when infact we'd have to pay extra due to not having llu at our exchange at the time) and we had to run around in circles to get it cancled. its a good thing our phone line didn't get switched to talktalk, would have been even more trouble trying to get back to bt.

after looking at the price I did have a slight incling but a few factors got rid of any desire:

1) acording to the line test we only get 2mb so can't use the speed increase add on;
2) phone support(or lack there of);
3) throttling;
4) moving the line back to bt would be expensive + big hassle(can't migrate the bb without moving back to bt from what I understand).
5) phorm

2&4 being the major factors.

I'd also add them continuing to bill once migration away from them has gone through.

It got to the point of them threatening us with debt collectors before they realised that we no longer had any connection with them. Although this required a letter to head office politely stating that any further correspondence would be sent to a solicitor...

I'll never go with TT and I always recommend against them. Sorry.

Andy

Yeah, combined with the long minimum contract the hassle of getting back from Full-LLU is the worrying thing. As I understand it you have to go in this order:

1. Wait for contract to expire
2. Get Return-to-donor - this avoids the heavy fees. LOSE B/B once they move it
3. Have period with phone but no broadband.
4. Get New B/B - pay IPstream activation charge or find another LLU operator

There have been posts by people who never even heard of return-to-donor and had to pay BT's reconnection charge as for a new line. (as far as I recall anyway).

Without this AND the long contract I'd probably have grabbed TT when they first offered it.