At the moment I have my line rental and and free UK calls 24/7 for about £30 a month, depends on how many calls I make to mobiles, and I pay £18 a month for Broadband.
As I could get a mobile plan giving me 500 minutes a month, to landline or mobile numbers, for £10 so that could cover all my outgoing calls.
Is there a way of getting a rental only landline to receive incoming calls? Or could I get a total package of line rental, all calls and Broadband for less than £50? I have found the comparison sites not that helpful. Thoughts please!
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At 48 pounds a month for BB, Line rental, and calls, you are paying WAY over the top.
you can get a much better deal than that, Talk Talk will do that lot for you for 28 quid a month all in.
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Sky.
About £20 to £30 for basic telly, broadband and landline, including a call allowance.
I'd post a link, but the clever website always logs me automatically into my account which prevents me searching for products I already have.
The site's another plus - everything manageable online.
It even updates your pending bill during the month if you make an out of bundle call, or buy a film.
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>> Sky.
>>
>> About £20 to £30 for basic telly, broadband and landline, including a call allowance.
Iffy - are you sure that £20 includes line rental? Or is that after haggling?
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Cheapest Sky deal is £19.50 per month excluding line rental. Free calls are only for evenings and weekends. Unless PP wants Sky TV there are better/cheaper deals out there for a phone/broadband package.
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...Iffy - are you sure that £20 includes line rental? Or is that after haggling?...
Sky have been advertising £20 a month.
I'm not sure if that includes line rental, which is why I said £20 to £30.
As regards haggling, that's another reason I'm not prepared to tinker with 'my account' online to find a link.
I'm currently on £22.50 a month for entertainment, films, sports, unlimited broadband and unlimited landline calls.
It's supposed to be for six months, but I've heard stories of Sky forgetting to put customers back to full price, so fingers crossed.
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>> I'd post a link, but the clever website always logs me automatically into my account which prevents me searching for products I already have.
I use a different web browser for things like that.
IE for 99.9% of the stuff I surf, and Opera for the other 0.1% of stuff.
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>> At 48 pounds a month for BB, Line rental, and calls, you are paying WAY
>> over the top.
>>
>> you can get a much better deal than that, Talk Talk will do that lot
>> for you for 28 quid a month all in.
>>
Even better, after a bit of haggling Talk Talk brought my monthly bill down to £23.61 a month in return for agreeing an eighteen month contract as I had been out of contract for years.
I am now paying less for phone and broadband than I was for the phone on it's own fifteen years ago.
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Yeah I have my talk talk less than that as well, because I refused to move from tiscali pricing, so they bribed me.
Alas new Talk Talk subscribers don't have that leverage.
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Currently you can get Talk Talk Essentials for £6.99 per month plus £12.60 per month line rental which make a pretty unbeatable package price of £19.59 per month. Includes 40GB downloads plus free weekend and evening UK calls. 12 month contract plus free router and no connection charge.
Unlimited UK anytime calls are an additional £4.50 pm and unlimited international calls are £3
Last edited by: CGNorwich on Wed 20 Apr 11 at 16:29
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>> Unlimited UK anytime calls are an additional £4.50 pm and unlimited international calls are £3
>>
Are the international calls to unlimited countries, or is there a list of countires you can call within the package?
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The following 36 countries:
Austria
Azores
Belgium
Bulgaria
Canary Islands
Cyprus
Czech Republic
Denmark
Estonia
Finland
France
Germany
Gibraltar
Greece
Hungary
Ireland
Italy
Latvia
Liechtenstein
Lithuania
Luxembourg
Madeira
Malta
Netherlands
Northern Cyprus
Poland
Portugal
Romania
Slovakia
Slovenia
Spain
Sweden
USA
Canada
Australia
New Zealand
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Thanks, CGN. No good to us then. Our requirement is for Serbia and Croatia. Bizarrely, we have found Orange to have the best rates to Serbia, and that's from our mobile phones. They're cheaper than all the landline companies. Odd.
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Not saying it's the best, but O2 do a basic broadband plus line rental for £16, with an 'anytime' calls package for £6 = £22 total. To upgrade to 'unlimited' (100Gb I think) broadband, which is what I've got, is another £4.
So it's definitely possible.
EDIT: sorry - extra £5 if you haven't got an O2 mobile
Last edited by: Focus on Wed 20 Apr 11 at 09:14
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Talk Talk will give you the entire package, line rental, unlimited world wide calls, and broadband for £28 per month.
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I am with BT's Unlimited Anytime plan with which I get my line rental, all of my landline calls inclusive (plus caller display) and, in addition, my broadband is via BT Total Broadband. My quarterly bill is usually just over £100, depending how many calls to mobiles we have made (normally very few because my mobile tarrif is all inclusive). Never had a problem with BT and my broadband service is lightning fast.
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BT's Unlimited Anytime plan - £10 month for line rental if you pay in advance so £120 a year plus £5 a month on Direct Debit for the Anytime plan, £15 a month in total.
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Thanks for the input so far! Food for thought. If I change my ISP can I still keep and use my current e mail addresses BTW?
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The answer is - it depends. If you use the mail domain the internet supplier gave you ( ie joe.blogs@expensiveinternet.com) then no, you cant.
YOu should move to a non internet tied domain, like Google Mail, or Hotmail. Then changing ISPs is not an issue.
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...YOu should move to a non internet tied domain, like Google Mail, or Hotmail...
Reserving 'my.name@hotmail.co.uk' was one of the few sensible things I did when I started on this internet m'larkey about three years ago.
Used it as my only personal email ever since.
Never any bother.
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Thanks zero. AOL's site makes it look as thought access is possible, thru another ISP.
Set Up the AOL Software to Use Another ISP's Connection
If you are using another ISP's connection to access the AOL service, you will need to change the default connection to a TCP/IP (ISP/LAN) connection. Generally your other ISP's connection will be detected automatically, but you can manually set up a location.
Note: You will only need to change your connection to a TCP/IP (ISP/LAN) connection one time. After you set it up, it will be listed as the default connection for the AOL software.
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You can retrieve mail from another ISP whilst the account is open with AOL. Once you stop paying AOL they will terminate your account and the email address with it.
When I first got Internet access at home (1995) you basically went with the provider for email addresses. As soon as I could I switched to something else (Yahoo). Obviously a lot more choice now.
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For about a tenner a year I have my own domain, which does email forwarding to wherever I want. Mine happens to be firstname@firstnamelastname.com (e.g. perky@perkypenguin.com) which is easily memorable for people, and doesn't ever change to my contacts if I change providers - I simply redirect mail to wherever I want it (can be done on the fly, so you can move it temporarily if you need to). It also gives me a limitless amount of email accounts @perkypenguin.com if I need to be someone else for some reason (e.g. getting an introductory offer from a shopping site, although sometimes they recognise your credit card too).
I also have a small amount of web space but I don't use that.
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AOL?
Then you are effectively with talktalk.
( look at the bottom left hand corner of this page :
www.aolbroadband.co.uk/products/broadband-calls-line-rental.html
it says "© TalkTalk Telecom Limited 2011" )
Your charges indicate you must be on some legacy package.
Keep it simple. Get on the phone to AOL and ask if they can change you to the equivalent package for talktalk's phone+broadband and add boosts such as int.calls package and mobile calls to suit your needs.
this is from AOL Talktalk page:
sales.talktalk.co.uk/product/broadband/?portalId=AOL&promoId=AOL&branchId=1231
sales.talktalk.co.uk/product/boost/10659/type/boost
Last edited by: John H on Wed 20 Apr 11 at 10:33
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Thanks JohnH - I have been with AOL for 11 years and, as with changing banks accounts etc, I lack the inertia to do something about it. Now I have some incentive!
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>> I lack the inertia to do something about it.
>>
Shirley you mean you have the inertia?
BTW, if you are with BT for your phone line, check if your exchange is eanbled to get the super fast rtj70 infinity service. You can then get for £38 a month inclusive
Unlimited Broadband and Calls with superfast BT Infinity broadband
Up to 40Mb download speed, Up to 10Mb upload speed, Unlimited usage, Anytime Calls,
plus FREE, unlimited Wi-Fi
www.productsandservices.bt.com/consumerProducts/displayTopic.do?topicId=25633
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I pay about £38 with the international call option on the BT Infinity package (get anytime calls etc). If you take this out now I think you get a discount for the first few months.
There's also two versions of the BT Infinity service with one with only weekend calls and a lower upload speed but it's £10 cheaper per month. But that cheaper one has an activation fee and a 40Gb per month download limit.
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I am 2 miles from a rural exchange and on a copper wire so I am not going to get a better speed/service by changing provider but I may pay less for it. I shall be on the case tomorrow.
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When/if BT Infinity got to you, the reason why it is faster/better is the distance to the exchange is not important. The phone line is connected to a street level cabinet for the Internet service and the cabinet then connect back to the exchange via a fibre optic link. So instead of poor copper wire to the exchange for the Internet it is likely to be a few hundred yards.
But when you say rural I am guessing BT wouldn't put an Infinity cabinet near your home.
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>> Thanks zero. AOL's site makes it look as thought access is possible, thru another ISP.
Yes, you can, even after you throw the towel in with AOL.
The few emails I still have to AOL are currently collected by my hotmail account.
It was a bit of a faff to find the right place in hotmail to set it up, but it can be done.
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you must still be paying AOL in some way tho, when you stop paying them ( or through a controling company) your email address disappears.
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>> you must still be paying AOL in some way tho, when you stop paying them
>> ( or through a controling company) your email address disappears.
>>
I still use a couple of Virgin email addresses accessed via my Plusnet account, not paid Virgin a penny in years.
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Suspect they were old dial up accounts.
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>> you must still be paying AOL in some way tho...
Not so.
And they provide free email to non-customers:
new.aol.com/productsweb/?promocode=825946&lang=en&locale=gb
should you wish to be zero@aol.co.uk
Last edited by: AnotherJohnH on Wed 20 Apr 11 at 15:54
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Pretty unique then. Mind you you couldn't pay me to have an AOL account
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I didn't expect you to - TIC ;-)
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>>BT's Unlimited Anytime plan - £10 month for line rental if you pay in advance so £120 a year plus £5 a month on Direct Debit for the Anytime plan, £15 a month in total.>>
To add to this, the first three months on Anytime are free, i.e. the £5 per month is free for three months.
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>>BT's Unlimited Anytime plan - £10 month for line rental if you pay in advance so £120 a year
Do you have to be involved with direct debit if you are currently on the basic Unlimited Weekend Plan (paid quarterly) and want to save a few bob by paying the line rental a year in advance?
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Does LLU make much of a difference to pricing, the ISPs I spoke after checking the postcode all said the low price was only on offer in certain postcodes. My BB, calls and line rental is about £35 a month.
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Yes LLU does make a difference, if your exchange is not LLU, the ISP has to buy Internet from BT Wholesale, then sell it to you. They cant offer you cheap line rental either.
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That's exactly the problem I have with Tiscali/Talk Talk.
It got me a reduction of £135 after raising a top level complaint and this has now ran out.
I'm in the process of starting the complaint again as I was promised the problem would be resolved by April 2011.
The reduction was offered to stop me moving to BT for Broadband, but I would prefer to stay with Tiscali for broadband and add the phone to them too.
Pat
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>> That's exactly the problem I have with Tiscali/Talk Talk.
>>
IIRC, you too have the same issue as Perky - you use your ISP email address as your main or only address.
I have said it before that my advice to anyone who asks is: never use the ISP email address; and if you are doing so, start weaning yourself off it - it might take a year for all your past contacts to get using the new address but it will be worth it.
You will be free of the shackles of an expensive ISP and be able to move to better and cheaper suppliers at your choosing.
So go on Pat and Perky, take action now - set up your new email addresses and start using them.
Re. Perky's rural local exchange. Check samknows for what your exchange status is. Then go for an all inclusive package from Talktalk or O2 or BT in that order, otherwise choose a combination pack of BT phone with Plusnet Broadband.
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Thanks for the advice John H >>sigh<< :)
You've told me that before, and I've replied too!
My email address is also the contact email for the Charity I'm very involved with and although I have taken steps to have mail diverted to another address, it doesn't solve the problem of the huge amount of printed material we have with it on.
Pat
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>
>> My email address is also the contact email for the Charity I'm very involved with
>> and although I have taken steps to have mail diverted to another address, it doesn't
>> solve the problem of the huge amount of printed material we have with it on.
>>
>> Pat
>>
Well, you will just have to consider the extra £100 per year or so that it is costing you to keep that email address as a contribution to the charity! ;-)
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Perhaps I could Gift Aid it?:)
Shhhh, Mapmaker's listening!
Pat
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>> I have said it before that my advice to anyone who asks is: never use the ISP email address
I've had my fsnet.co.uk email address for at least 10 years. I haven't been with Freeserve / Wanadoo / Orange (whoever they're called this week) for at least 5 years. The email address still works (in fact all 5 separate fsnet addresses still work - completely different ones, not ones created just by changing the text before the '@' part of it).
When they stop working (which happens every 180 days or so), I just go to the Orange home page and unsuspend the email accounts with the link they've provided.
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>> I've had my fsnet.co.uk email address for at least 10 years. I haven't been with
>> Freeserve / Wanadoo / Orange (whoever they're called this week) for at least 5 years.
fsmail addresses are available to anyone, not just those who sign up with the ISP.
So they are just like the free gmail, hotmail, aol, yahoo addresses that any Tom Dick or Harriet can sign up to and cannot be classed as "ISP" only addresses.
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>> fsmail addresses are available to anyone
fsmail came along quite some time after the original freeserve and fsnet addresses.
You're correct though, fsmail addresses are given out like sweeties. freeserve and fsnet addresses however were your account name and could only be obtained by signing up with them..
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>>
>> Do you have to be involved with direct debit if you are currently on the
>> basic Unlimited Weekend Plan (paid quarterly) and want to save a few bob by paying
>> the line rental a year in advance?
>>
Direct Debit is need so you can pay for calls to mobiles etc that are not included in the Anytime plan.
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Possible telephone plan - Zero
