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Thread: Internet for a student house

  1. #33
    The late but legendary peterb - Onward and Upward peterb's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by cougarslam
    really pisses me off that people get 7.5 mb conenctions and pay the same amouint as me on a 4.5mb connection

    surely they shoudl scrap the pay for up to 8mb and pay per mb so i can get it cheaper
    If they are capped, just means they reach their cap sooner! If it makes you feel better, your are all paying for 2Meg connections, but some happen to be faster!
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  2. #34
    Are you Junglin' guy? jamin's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Spud1
    NTL. Really, just don't do it. Just don't.

    They have attractive packages I know, we went for them last year - things like the 9 month contracts, student deals etc really make them look appealing...and I guess if you use them for one person at a time you would be ok..you get stressed every few days when you get issues but it's copable.

    When theres 5 of you trying to use it though...thats when the real problems start. We had NTl last year in our student house, shared between 4 of us. So that was 3 digiboxes, and one net connection shared over wireless. The speed first of all - varied immensely, sometimes we could max it out, sometimes you got 10-20kb/s on downloads (with just one person using it). So it varied alot..no biggie really, can expect that now and again.

    Then the disconnections - some days (curiously at what I would call 'peak' times, 7-8pm ish) the net would just stop working...for minuites, days, even a couple of weeks. All this with no word from NTL, nothing ont he website (checked from uni) to say there was a problem etc etc. Sure it always got fixed..but its very inconvenient when it happens in the middle of a CSS or DoW game..

    Then the TV picture quality - I don't really know if this is related to the internet and shared bandwidth, but sometimes you got *shocking* quality on the channels, by this I mean pixelated faces, artifacts, picture skipping..again normally around peak times.

    Customer service? Consists of sitting on the phone for usually around an hour, only to get through to an (understandably) stressed out person on the other end who either A)swears blind that everything is fine, B) tells you to reboot your modem and then call back if you still have problems (before cutting you off) or C) tells you about the 'sheduled maintenance' that he doesnt know when will end.

    Oh and I can't forget the billing...they wanted to set up two accounts for us, which required two separate bills..complex but we can deal with it. For the first 6 months though, every single bill we recieved was wrong - either over or under what it should have been..or we would recieve a bill, pay it the same day we get it (with 20 odd days left to pay it), and then get cutoff 20 days later with NTL saying that we never paid..despite holding the reciept in our hands. A quick phone call (inc 1 hr wait) always got us back online, but this happened 3 months in a row ffs.

    Anyway sorry for the rant, just don't do it Sky+a respected ADSL company is the way to go, it will cost you more but between 5 of you its not much really..and really worth the premium for a bit of reliablilty.
    Did you at any point call to report a fault? A heavily pixellated picture usually indicates something wrong locally as it is the Box being unable to compensate for all the errors in the RF signal it is seeing, which would also tie up with the modem going slow and randomly disconnecting. Usually reasonably easy to fix too....
    Beer is life, life is good!

  3. #35
    Theoretical Element Spud1's Avatar
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    Yup reported the faults many times..to no avail.

    I was guessing it was to do with the bandwidth, since I guess the internet and TV both share the same line..and if we were using alot of net bandwidth and 3 boxes at once...which is unacceptable really. Ofc that might not have been it, but we had reported the faults anyway - standard replies were 'reboot the box', 'reboot the modem', 'we'll arrange an engineer..*click* phone dies' etc

    I have done my stint in IT support and I know rebooting fixes 90% of problems, but not when you have done it a thousand times with no help...

    It's just not woth the stress; I don't rate cable as a technology anymore anyway, and NTL just compounds the problem.

    Hence why its sky+bt for this year..

  4. #36
    Are you Junglin' guy? jamin's Avatar
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    Sounds like you have been pretty well fobbed off mate, sorry to hear it.

    Although Box and Modem share the same cable, the TV channels are on different frequencies to the MCNS (Data channel) Which is why the problem you had with all services led me to the conclusion that there could be a problem local to you. One bad F connector could have been the cause of all your woes! But, as you couldnt get anyone out to fix it, I can see why you are anti NTL mate,
    Beer is life, life is good!

  5. #37
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    Anyone apart from me considering that they won't be in their student house over the summer... so with a 12 month contract (like NTL, this Eclipse deal people are talking about & many others) could mean you're paying for internet you're not going to use, or pay a disconnection charge of about £50?

    I decided to draw up a table of the best deals I can find, and do a total cost of ownership over 9 months:

    http://www.withayam.com/articles/broadbandadvice (and at the bottom of the page)

    May be of some use.

    Steve
    Last edited by steve.withayam; 08-09-2006 at 10:33 AM.

  6. #38
    Gold Member Marcos's Avatar
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    But NTL doesn't cost £30 a month for internet

  7. #39
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    No it doesn't. I'll show you how i got the effective monthly charge of £29.15 for a customer staying for 9 months.

    NTL Offer: First 3 months @ £12.49, the rest at £24.99 with a 12 month contract.

    Over 9 months the total monthly outgoings will therefore be: (3x12.49) + (9x24.99)

    This cost spread out over 9 months is: 262.38 / 9 = £29.15

    So this figure is the total cost of ownership if you will only use 9 months of it. Sorry for the confusion! I was hoping seeing the costs this way would show the actual value for money on a 9 month basis.

    Steve

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    No it doesn't. I'll show you how i got the effective monthly charge of £29.15 for a customer staying for 9 months.

    NTL Offer: First 3 months @ £12.49, the rest at £24.99 with a 12 month contract.

    Over 9 months the total monthly outgoings will therefore be: (3x12.49) + (9x24.99)

    This cost spread out over 9 months is: 262.38 / 9 = £29.15

    So this figure is the total cost of ownership if you will only use 9 months of it. Sorry for the confusion! I was hoping seeing the costs this way would show the actual value for money on a 9 month basis.

    Steve

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    Your list has bulldog LLU, get there 24mb!!! Friend on their 8mb and his is great, better than my ADSL MAX..

  10. #42
    Senior Member oshta's Avatar
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    What about "freedom2surf"

    ADSL, £19.99 month, 9mb/sec, 3month contract, 20gb cap, with unmetered access between 1am and 6am.

    Sounds plausably cheap, its 3month contract which is good, the cap seams reasonable, and the unmetered out-of-hours thing seams good too, as we're prolly all be awake then anyway!
    - But doesnt anyone have any knowlage of how relaiable it is?

    http://www.f2s.net/adsl/homeuser.php?is=m1hbb#home



    Daniel

  11. #43
    Gold Member Marcos's Avatar
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    My problem with ADSL is it requires a landline, so thats an extra £11 a month on something i wouldnt be happy about having, i can just see all the girls fighting over the phone, and the bills!

  12. #44
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    Quote Originally Posted by Marcos View Post
    My problem with ADSL is it requires a landline, so thats an extra £11 a month on something i wouldnt be happy about having, i can just see all the girls fighting over the phone, and the bills!
    Back when I was at uni this was the most annoying aspect of having the internet, I lived with three lads so we never actually used the phone and it cost £10.50 a month just to be able to pay £25 for the internet.

    What annoyed me even more was that NTL rolled out in the area I was living and missed three streets out, and ours was one of them, even back then (this was when broadband internet on a mass scale was brand new - about 4/5 years ago) NTL was cheaper and more flexible.

    As for your situation, I would currently choose AOL mainly because it is truely unlimited and in a shared house the last thing you want is having to work out who left bittorrent open when you went out on the p*ss. The speeds arent great in the cheaper price range (Silver 14.99, etc..) but slow and steady sometimes is best.

  13. #45
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    How about getting sky? for £25 a month you get a basic tv package, 16mb unlimited broadband with free installation and wireless router

  14. #46
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    Quote Originally Posted by Supermagicmatt View Post
    How about getting sky? for £25 a month you get a basic tv package, 16mb unlimited broadband with free installation and wireless router

    I read somewhere the lead time on sky broadband is upto 3 months in areas where they have LLU'ed, I wouldnt like to imagine the lead time in areas they havent. I cant tesitfy for the three months personally but I have a friend who placed a order at the end of july (straight after the announcement), his exchange went LLU live on the 1st August and he still hasnt got broadband on his BT line.

    He is the kind of friend you love to hate though so I dont really care that much.

    I wouldnt imagine a three month wait would be cool with a bunch of student who only live there for nine.

  15. #47
    Senior Member oshta's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by young_one View Post
    I wouldnt imagine a three month wait would be cool with a bunch of student who only live there for nine.
    No, not at all.

  16. #48
    Senior Member oshta's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Marcos View Post
    My problem with ADSL is it requires a landline, so thats an extra £11 a month on something i wouldnt be happy about having, i can just see all the girls fighting over the phone, and the bills!
    Yeah, thats true. Although i recon i properbly would us the phone a fair bit, and we only have one girl...

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