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I know this has probably been done to death on here, but technology is ever-changing as they say, so want up-to-date advice.

Just moved into a new flat, BT line going in on Thursday.

I understand that with a lot of the cheapest broadband deals, Aberdeen (or certainly areas of - which includes where I live) is not able to get them for whatever reason. O2 mention 'unbundling' but I have no idea what that means.

Aaaanyway, I basically want broadband for the cheapest price possible but willing to pay a bit more if it means a) a more reliable connection or b) not dealing with a shitty company. I'm a pretty light user, only really use it for browsing but do buy music from iTunes and occasionally acquire TV shows and watch things on iPlayer or 4OD.

Any advice?

SUMMARY: Moved into new flat, require advice on cheap broadband.

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I've got Sky Broadband... 2GB d/l, but can pay more for 8GB... the line's pretty stable although the routers are touch and go. 1st router was fine, hardly ever dropped out. 2nd router is pretty gash and takes a 2 minute break every hour. They're sagem ones, although netgear also provide Sky broadband with routers.

(Have this because it's dirt cheap with Sky TV and the free skytalk)

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O2 mention 'unbundling' but I have no idea what that means.

Local Loop Unbundling. It means they run their own fibre network to their own handover kit in the exchange. Basically, the BT landline is BT's only involvement. The other way ISPs provide broadband is by buying the capacity from BT Wholesale.

Hope that helps. I'm with plus.net myself who are cheap but bleh. I had Zen before them and they were amazing but expensive.

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i too have sky broadband, but i have sky tv so it made sense!

the line itself is fine but agree about the routers. first router i got sent (netgear) just plain didn't work. second one works fine but not in the normal telephone socket, had to pop off the cover and plug it directly into the "test" socket. - don't ask me why!

thankfully i can't really see this as it is behind my tv but it WAS a bit of a hassle getting it set up.

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Had Zen at my last flat in town, currently on BT down here and never had a problem with either, though if you're inclined to sell your soul to Murdoch, the Sky package does look really good. There's three folk in my office who can't speak highly enough of it.

:up:

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Thanks for all the advice - this might be a ridiculous question, but can you get Sky broadband without a Sky TV package? I've checked the website and it's not clear.

Chris - which broadband 'package' do you have? There are three - 5, 10 and 15 / month...

I've got TV and Talk as well but I think I've got the middle package, up to 10mb. For talk, TV (with 4 mixes) and broadband I pay about 24 a month. Which is what I used to pay just for the shit broadband I had before.

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I've got sky, best ISP I've ever had. No problems at all and everything is mega fast. Even gets close to the speed they advertise!

I use it for torrents, gaming, streaming video. It's all good.

Agreed. Getting as fast as they promote and can deliver, pretty darn fast. 15 p/m. Heavy user though. They have packages as low as 5 I believe and that's up to 2meg.

Last time I looked that is...

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Promotional free Sky + box, standard TV package (inclusive of 'news' option for Sky Sports News), Sky broadband 'everyday' (upt to 10Mb d/l speed, 10Gb usage / month).

One-off connection fee = 30

Monthly fee = 27.50

Thanks, how much will your line rental be on top of that?

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  • 3 weeks later...
Guest Gladstone
iirc the sky line rental is a fiver a month, also if you don't have a phone line, pay BT to get one installed and Sky will refund you the cost

Is that true?

I've just moved into a new house, with no line, and looking into different options.

Sky Broadband is looking pretty good, and I've despised BT for about 8 years, so getting line rental from Sky at half the price is looking good, plus the added bonus of them paying for the installation of the phone line sounds amazing!

On a similar note, I looked at BT's website yesterday, and the connection charge is about 120 for a new line, which I was kind of expecting through past dealings with BT, but my wife was speaking to a couple of BT engineers that happened to be doing a bit of work on our road yesterday, and because of our location (middle of nowhere), they seemed to think it could cost up to 1000 to get a phone line (due to it being underground cabling or something), despite the fact there's a house directly across the road, because they have to go under a road or something. Just wondering if anyone has any experience of this?

The BT website makes absolutely no suggestion that the connection would ever be more than the 120 odd. I'm guessing Sky won't refund us 1000, but we might get our 120 back...

We'll obviously need to give BT a call to see what they say. I'm really hoping that it isn't the 1000......

And on that note - anyone got experience of mobile broadband? I.e. the broadband where you plug a wee stick into the USB port. May have to go for this in the meantime if it's going to cost 1000 for a phone line. We get a solid vodafone signal, and I had a leaflet with my last bill about getting a decent deal on mobile broadband.

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Has anyone considered dumping their mobile phone and just getting the cheapest broadband/landline? like the good old days? I'm considering it, connected through my v630i and o2 at the moment :( dropped connections

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Another thing everyone should bear in mind is that, whatever line speed ISPs provide, they also throttle all kinds of traffic and some are more honest about it than others. I'm with plus.net who have a comprehensive timetable for downstream speeds on the various ports used. With the package I'm on I can't get more than 2mbps on any port despite my line supporting up to 6mbps according to them.

Which is okay by me as I don't have much use for super-fast internet and it's fairly cheap. This is probably typical across the cheap ISPs though, as they all pay BTW prices as their bottom line*

*unless they have their own LLU enabled kit.

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