recommend a home phone and BB package

[RobTi]

Hi all

Daughter has just moved into her first flat and is looking for the cheapest package for home phone( probably with a free call package) and basic BB ( surfing, face-book, messenger & the odd download ).
She has both bt line & virgin line in the flat.

So any ideas, was looking at O2 as she is on that network.

Thanks

[MercutioUK]

I can generally say fairly nice things about O2. The connections been pretty stable etc. I think they start pretty cheap for a basic "no frills" access too.

Plusnet are an alternative for something relative cheap and decent.

If it's virgin cable in the house for the usage pattern she's likely to show (with stereotyping not SOOO heavy on downloads) cable in the past has been easilly the best connection i've had. Telewest gave me about 3 days downtime in 2 years and I believe virgins about as good. The main gripe folks have with virgin is bandwidth restrictions on triggers but these generally require pretty hefty day time downloads to trigger.

[Gipo]

I've found Virgin a bit poor value really. Downloads are good on the BB, but phone package is a bit rubbish, especially daytime and evening calls.

I quite like TalkTalk though (used to use it when living at home with parents), cheap and cheerful, and actually broadband performance was pretty good! Phone calls all free, to 0870 as well as 0845 numbers, which I like. In fact I'm swapping from Virgin to TalkTalk soon

[ik9000]

is Be in her area? Their value package used to be very reasonable, and the broadband is usually good with lower contention ratios than many competitors. I would be using them now but the exchange in my area was too full for them to get the extra kit in (they install all their own kit and do not rely on BT whatsoever - one of the few companies to do this).

www.bethere.co.uk

(Left with a choice of BT ADSL/Fibre, a company using BT's ADSL or Virgin I plumped for Virgin and am very happy, though am on 50MB package so it's not the cheapest.)

[chadders]

One offer that's been on the telly, seems to fit requirements: BT Winter Warmer Deal @ £16 per month, first three months free plus UK anytime calls - plus free connection (18 month).

[ik9000]

my time with BT was an irritating affair of stuttering iplayer (basic, not even HD) and cripplingly slow performance. If you rang them up to complain their test claimed I was getting 5-6Mb/s but iplayer basic only needs 3Mb/s so I'm confident that either my line was not getting that speed or BT were throttling it to the eye-balls (and no, I'm not an intensive P2P BitTorrent user, just a regular punter). Happiest day of the whole affair was telling BT they could stick their internet and phone and their offer of 50% price cut did nothing to tempt me to stay. They're rubbish IMO. Fine if you're a very low user who justs wants basic email access, sucks if you want any more than that (though will depend on your location as my exchange is wayyyyyyyyyyy over capacity hence BE couldn't get there kit in there.)

[chadders]

is looking for the cheapest package for home phone

You gets what you pays for...

edit: Virgin £28.54 (£23.34 first three months), could go PlusNet £6.49 per month for BB but the problem is line rental, even BE* is £27-odd per month (unlimited calls), hence making OP aware of that offer to fit daughter's needs.

[pipTheGeek]

You may as well stick a pin in the yellow pages.
I have virgin and have found them to be good as far as broadband speed and not bad with calling to report faults. Their pricing system is a topic for a whole other thread... Check the VM forums though and it seems there are plenty of people who do not share my experiance.

Several people I know have Talk Talk.
My grandfather lives in rural Norfolk and his exchange hasn't been LLU'd by anyone so he is paying £15 a month for basic broadband, connection is stable, performance is good considering where he is. He's had a fault on his line a couple of times, Talk Talk have responded pretty quickly, never had trouble getting through. I assume the people who come out to fix the fault aren't Talk Talk? They only seem to fix it temporarily.

A couple of friends also have Talk Talk, they haven't had any problems with them.

Another friend had Tiscali, which was fine, then they got bought by Talk Talk and he has now ditched them. Atfer spending nearly a month with no broadband. They also then spent 3 months thinking he was still a customer despite numerous phone calls. He's now switched to BT and not had any problems.

If you want my advice, I'd say judge them only on price. Get the cheapest (for you) deal you can. Customer service from the lot of them is patchy at best so I don't see the point in worrying about it too much.

[deebee1970]

Primus are currently offering line rental for just £6.79 a month, which right now is the cheapest in the UK for Landline only - so you'd need to add bb from another supplier which is ok but may start to complicate things.

Talk Talk offer low cost combined packages with free evening and weekend calls (check out their 'BB and phone Essentials' package which comes in at around £15.80 a month all in. Plus you can cancel in the first 30 days if you don't like it. BUT check whether they are LLU (local loop unbundled) in your area. Basically means they lay their own network. This is fine but you'll have to pay a connection fee if you go back to the old 'national' one - around £100 to £150. PS that Talk Talk deal ends 31st March so decide quick

Virgin have got a deal on at the moment which is 6 months half price if you take both bb and phone.

I wish there was a definite 'this is the best' answer - best tip is stick to what you actually want and keep it cheap. Too easy to go for big download speeds and fancy features you won't use. (that said I've got pretty much everything Virgin can throw at me and I love it!)