Internet for a student house

[oshta]

Im moving into a house with four engineering mates while at uni in loughbrough soon.
- And hence we need a internet conection of some sort!

I assumed we where going to be on somthing like a 2mbit ADSL line, with a cheap router and switch, possably wirless access point or wireless router. Apprently theres an "NTL router" there already? Although knowone seams to be able to tell me anything about this?

There seam to be some allright deals knocking about, but then theres the issue of relabitly with the cheaper ones i guess (we're with BT at home) - Also bandwidth capping.


Just wondering what sort of thing i should be looking at really, and also, if we get a capped conection, what sort of cap is sensable for the sort of useage we will be puting though it? (bearing in mind there 5 of us, and we're all fairly heavy users)


Daniel

[Steve B]

woops double thread-start

[streetster]

to be fair, you might aswell go with a decent package, kinda £25-£30, as that works out at £5-6 a month each, which over 12 months, isnt a helluvalot

whereas if you went with tiscali @ £18pm, fair enough thats more like £3.xx each, but the service will be sucky, and you'll get told off for downloading - i mean if you have to reformat and download a load of drivers + windows update + some patches, that'll put you over the limit for the day, or if you want a new demo of something, you have to constantly worry if you're going to hit the cap.

Basically, for the sake of a few quid you should go for a decent ISP i speak from experience

[oshta]

woops double thread-start

Ah dam, Sorry!

to be fair, you might aswell go with a decent package, kinda £25-£30, as that works out at £5-6 a month each, which over 12 months, isnt a helluvalot
- Basically, for the sake of a few quid you should go for a decent ISP i speak from experience

Yeah, i guess thats proberbly right really.
- I think several people in the house are attracted by the cost of the cheaper packages, but they'd be the first to complain if/when it goes tits up, and it will wind up being me who sorts the bloody mess out, proberbly involving dialing premum rate numbers on my mobile!

[Marcos]

I'm in the same boat, need to get a wireless connection sorted for 6 students in a house, not big downloaders, only maybe about 3GB of files a month together.

[streetster]

The same advice works I sorted the internet for our house last year, and we went with tiscali @ £18pm, it was shocking, couldnt play any online games, and download speeds were pathetic at best during the day, overnight wasnt too bad, but i never reached above 75% of my 2mbit line... oh and their fair use policy is basically 'dont download please'...

Just pay the premium (come on, it works out at about 12 pints over the whole year?!) and go for a more reliable service

[muddyfox470]

eclipse business broadband option 1 is what we shall be getting, unlimited, up to 8mb and it has priority over residential lines

ian

[oshta]

Yeah fiar enough.

Ive just done an avalabilty check on the postcode and we can get:
- BT Wholesale ADSL
- BT Wholesale ADSL Max
- BT Wholesale SDSL
- Bulldog LLU
- NTL Cable

So im thinking possably go for the NTL route?
- Although i dont know anything about cable (yet) as we dont have that in our area (here) at all. But im sure its fairly simple.
- Im also not 100% sure theres a phone line to the house? ill have the check that.


Daniel

[streetster]

if you're going to go the NTL route see if you can get their 3 for £30 deal, ie phone+net+cable tv we could only get 2 out of 3

[Marcos]

if you're going to go the NTL route see if you can get their 3 for £30 deal, ie phone+net+cable tv we could only get 2 out of 3

With 4 girls in the house, i think it would be a bad idea for me to bring up the idea of digital tv and a phone.

Fights would be guaranteed

[depresion]

I wonldn't recomend NTL as for the last 3 months I've had a very intermitant service (down almost as much as up) and they have basicaly been able to do nothing to get it working right. Customer services are a joke when you can be on hold for 14 min at 0845 number rates folowed by only getting a few mins on the phone to somone who has no idea (they sacked all there broardband CS staff a couple of years back) and will tell you that they may get somone out to you in 3-5 days between 9-1 or 1-6. That said the bloke who keeps comming out seems nice enough and we are on first name terms now.

[Agent]

Customer services are a joke when you can be on hold for 14 min at 0845 number rates

0845 is local call rate buddy

[unrealrocks]

I also share with 4 people, we have Telewest (basically NTL, lol) 10MBps internet is quite expensive for one person but between the 5 of us its fine and we've got SkySports etc. ... works out expensive as a single bill but its really not that much split five ways

Also pester your landlord, if they don't want you putting ethernet cables in they may pay for a wireless router (ours did)

[oshta]

Ok, thanks all. Theres four lads, one girl! But ill look into a 3in1 package, although tbh, im not overly fused about cable tv.

The house is (im 99.9% certain) fully cabled already, from the back of the tv where the switch was, to each room. So thats that sorted. Unless im mixing it up with on of the other houses we looked at!!


Daniel

[Nox]

www.eclipse.net.uk

£9.99(inc vat) sort of uncapped - uncapped between midnight and 6pm, 20GB per month between 6pm and midnight.

and then it varies up to £21.99 (inc vat), as above, but you get priority over other users on your exchange (no idea how that works!) and 50GB between 6pm and midnight, uncapped outside those times. Which is pretty much uncapped if you ask me!! ie ie 1 & 2/3 GB per night, on average! With this option they will also throw in a wireless router, netgear one currently.

These are first 3 month prices - they do go up a little after 3 months though (14.99 and 29.99)

I've been with em years, had great service and speed - look em up on adslguide.org too.

If you do like it, my referrer code is jmeclipse

Nox

[depresion]

0845 is local call rate buddy

No it's "Lo-Call" rate, charged above even national rate charges but a cleaver bit of naming. Hardly suprising that it's more expensive as the person you are ringing is getting a cut.