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Which ADSL to sign up ??

Hi Posters:

I am trying to help my sister to sign up for to an ADSL ISP. At the moment I'm with Metronet, and was going to recommend her the same as mine.

However, I have seen a better deal with TalkTalk ofered by Carphone Wherehouse. Approx £20 will include the phone calls and 8MB download speed broadband. Can anyone share us with the experienced you may have if you have already join TalkTalk. What are customer service like etc..

I know I will tell my sister to avoid Tiscali !!

Any other ISP's better than TalkTalk??

Regards,
 
I might be wrong here, but in my opinion even Tiscali are better than TalkTalk.

It looks like you're after a broadband / phone package, which I've no experience of, so I'll hand over to some of our more esteemed / knowledgeable members on here. ;)
 
My sister is currently with BT option 1 (telephone package only), she makes very little use of the phone.

She just wanted to use the broadband for surfing the internet (she is still learning how to use a PC!). So I don't think she will be using the broadband for extreme downloading etc.

The reason I wanted to avoid Tiscali is that we ad very bad experience with them before. They withdraw a lot of money from my credit card and it was impossible to cancel the contract. It took 6 months for my solicitor to resolve the problem.
 
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Hi Posters:
SNIP

Any other ISP's better than TalkTalk??

Answer: Most of them are better than TalkTalk, even those who have ceased trading.

We changed to TT from BT telephone tempted by a special offer of Free Option whatever for 12 months, then they changed it to 6 months and in the end it they charged us full price anyway, ending up more expensive than BT with abysmal customer support. Back on BT option 1 and our phone bill is back to normal. In my opinion Materials Science has yet to create a material of sufficient strength from which one could make a barge pole long enough for me to touch Talk Talk. But that's my own opinion.

On paper the TT offer seems good value but I have doubts about TT's ability to "look after" you.

You could try some of the "starter" adsl packages, I know Eclipse and Plusnet for example do £9.99 basic accounts, but thats just an idea not a recommendation. Have a look around.

On a not unrelated note, if you sister is a really low user of the phone, she could go into a light user tarrif with BT. However, ADSL users are excluded from this tarrif.
 
My advice is stay clear of T T there are plenty more ISP'S to choose from? My step-daughter has just been hammer with a BIG BILL from T T ???? and have already taken it out of her account D D was setup for just a normal monthly charge but they went O.T.T. she is not happy???? about it in fact I would hate to be a fly on their wall tomorrow? so beware!!!!
 
You can save £1.25 a month on BT option one by paying by direct debit and registering for paperless billing http://www2.bt.com/youraccount

As froggy suggests though Light user scheme and a dial-up service might be worth considering if she can make do with dial-up speeds :eek: .

It is worth checking the cashback sites (eg quidco and rpoints) as several ISPs feature on them, for instance quidco ( www.quidco.com/aol ) give a £39.95 cashback (after costs) if you join them and use their link to sign-up to AOL (read the help on the quidco site on how to make sure orders are tracked) AOL silver 1mbps includes a free router, activation and a first month free month but unfortunately a 12 month contract and they are now owned by craphonewharehouse and aol support sucks more than that of any other isp I can think of, but as it it costing me £10.41 a month I can live with it, well just about.

Virgin have a £9.99 1mbps deal don't know what the catches are (other than a very low cap) or what their service is like.

http://www.virgin.net/internetaccess/broadband/bundles/
 
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Consider UKOnline

£9.99 a month for 1mB broadband. Have never needed Technical Support, but on the occassions I have rung Customer Services, they've been very courteous and helpful. And it didn't take forever to get through. Have had the odd disconnection, but never more than a few seconds. They have a rather vague Fair Usage Policy but it hasn't affected me and the real speed seems pretty good.

I have telephone service through little-known provider cristoolwebsolutions Good rates and good service: prompt, efficient and friendly. Saving a mint compared to BT.
 
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In my opinion, with ISP's, you definately get what you pay for. But you may not know how good/bad they are until you need help......

I'm transferring from ADSL4LESS to VISPA for this very reason. VISPA will cost me £5 a month more, but they do actually help you (I used them for dial up). HTH.
 
"In my opinion, with ISP's, you definately get what you pay for. But you may not know how good/bad they are until you need help......"

True...but ifs you are a complete computer 'numpty' or one of those who 'tinker' and muck about with things best left alone...you don't NEED the ISP's support...you need a computer engineer!

My own opinion is that people place too much faith in ISP support lines and require them to know how to mend a broken computer...broken not by anything that the ISP has or is liable to do but to sticky fingers or failure of a critical component or software....none of which is anything to do with the ISP support line but if they don't know how to fix it for you they are branded useless ....:nod:
 
indeed, the way l see it after years of fixing my own small problems if l cant fix it this end by any means possible and l know its not my end then its agrivating been told to do things lve already done...

hell l phoned aol support a few times not for problem fixing help but they always tell me that theres something wrong with my connection until l tell them lm using my own hardware and l know how to operate it lmao...
 
From the Adsl point of view your sister would be happy with NDO(namesco) They have excellent customer services and some good deals . I pay £14.95 for a 2GB connection .Their Forums are also frequently viewed by several staff . Drawback no phone connections so Sister would still need BT
 
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A friend of mine who DOES work for a well known ISP's helpline once told me of a rather irate lady who rang up to complain that she couldn't get online...the 'crib sheet' was followed to the letter and after every turn she said "Nothing works" or "Still not working" the end she was almost spitting feathers still unable to connect..Exasperated my mate said "One last thing madam, is the computer switched on?" "Yes of course it is...do you actually know what you are doing?" was the angry reply...My mate said..."can you hear the fans whirring?" ...Of course...you think I'm deaf now?"..."is your monitor also switched on?".....deathly silence from the other end.....the phone was slammed down at the other end..........."Goodbye madam"......That is true...really:nod:
:laugh: :D
 
All very good however in my previous job with another ISP we had a lady call up who had not even removed her PC from the box she brought it in but wanted us to set it up to go on the internet. You do get some very good stories on the other end of the telephone.
 
All very good however in my previous job with another ISP we had a lady call up who had not even removed her PC from the box she brought it in but wanted us to set it up to go on the internet. You do get some very good stories on the other end of the telephone.

V21?
 
On a not unrelated note, if you sister is a really low user of the phone, she could go into a light user tarrif with BT. However, ADSL users are excluded from this tarrif.

Correction: ALL internet connections are excluded from BT Light User accounts. Option 1 still gives discounts for low use but not as good as the light user discounts which are designed to help those people who really only use their phone as a lifeline.

Try the individual ISP forums. You might even find an isp with good reviews - which you're unlikely to get on the 'complaints' forum! :)
 
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Correction: ALL internet connections are excluded from BT Light User accounts.



They did use to say (pre-adsl) that it couldn't be used with dial-up although it never stopped me using 0800 or friaco based ISP services. I believe it was not supposed to be possible to join the BT surf or whatevever it was called that pre-dated friaco.

However, there is no mention that I could see now. http://www.bt.com/Pricing/pis_info....=1314&obsPage=/Pricing/pis_infojsp&obsNoSee=Y

It is important to note that customers are not eligible for the Light User Scheme if they:
have a telephone service provided by another supplier, either directly or indirectly
have a telephone service provided by a mobile network operator, either directly or indirectly
have more than one telephone line at the same or different address, for example at a holiday home
have an ADSL
have a line used exclusively for a burglar alarm (this does not include "lifeline" alarm systems which are also used as telephones)
have an ISDN line or business line
have a payphone line, residential BT rented cardphone or temporary line.
have a line with incoming calls barred (i.e. your line only allows outgoing calls)
have an incoming line only, because you owe money to BT.
If customers have a second line because they are responsible for paying the telephone bill for a relative, they may be eligible.
The Light User Scheme cannot be used in conjunction with other discount packages (e.g. Friends & Family, or BT Together etc).

You cannot sign-up to an ADSL service if you are on Light user scheme, it shows up in BT's adslchecker as an incompatible product or service - some ISPs checkers apparently say incorrectly that adsl isn't available at your exchange, or that your line doesn't support it.

However, there are probably a fair number of ADSL users who are still on light user scheme because it didn't use to be rejected. (I've also come across one or two posters who claim to still have adsl although they'd stopped their line and are therefor managing to evade paying BT rental) - I dare say BT will catch up with them eventually.
 
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