Best Phone and Internet package
| Related: | Personal Finance•Utilities•Broadband |
Hi all, I have just cancelled my Sky phone and broadband which I was paying £25 per month. I use the internet often and also th ephone calling foreign countries every day (landline). The package I had with Sky included this feature unlimited so i could call any country (landline) for a fixed fee of £5 per month - great.
The router I was given was rubbish and the signal i got from it was bad - their customer services wasnt very good and the phone would work and then not work / cut off.
i have now cancelled this and thinking of getting a similar package with talktalk at a cost of £23 / month (saving £2!!) but want to know if anyone knows of another package which they can recommend?
Responses (18)
I like O2.
UK based support at the end of a freephone number. They're quick to pick up too.
I think a package including foreign calls will be more expensive with them than the one you've got though. However, they normally give new customers 3 months free and if you're a regular customer they'll often give you the same deal when you renew your contract with them (a nice touch so new and current customers get the same deal, unofficially). I've even got my broadband half price this year as I've been with them two years so my deal's £18.75 a month for unlimited broadband (up to 20Gb speed), landline and free off peak calls (6pm to 5.59am and all day at weekends). Love the service I get and their equipment's reliable too.
We've been with Onetel, now a subsidiary of talktalk, and have their unlimited UK landline calls, excluding 0845 etc. Our monthly bills including calls from one mobile and broadband average £40/£45. The basic package costs £14.01 but we have to pay for BT line rental where we live and other extras totalling £17.88. Mobile contract adds another £5. This means that you may well find yourself paying more than the headline £23 per month.
There have in the past been problems with broadband down but they seem to have lessened recently.
The cheapest phone line is with Primus at £6.49 as long as you book it via www.homephonechoices.co.uk
You can get unlimited broadband from £2.08/mth with O2 if yve been an O2 customer for a while - if not then get an O2 sim card - top it up for 3 mths and then you should be able to qualify.
Please note this offer is if you go through simplyfy digital site, where you will get £50 cash back
http://www.simplifydigital.co.uk/providers/o2/o2-cashback-deal/?partner=mse
If you book through www.topcashback.co.uk then you can save up to £101 cash back on an O2 package
http://www.o2.co.uk/broadband/?cm_mmc=affiliate-_-57697-_-blank-_-blank
For making calls abroad why not check out www.vonage.co.uk - truely unlimited phone calls - no having to hang up after 60 min or risk being charged and or cut off!
Or invest in a skype enabled phone with 3 - theyre not that expensive (even cheaper on www.gumtree.com) and then you can call anyone in the world using your skype for absolutely NOTHING, and they the same to you.
Whats good about 3 mobile company is that once yve bourght the initial phone, you never have to ever top up again.
Also check out what are known as overide providers - ie like http://www.18185.co.uk/index2.php, where you use that prefix before every call.
So phoning anyone in the uk costs ZERO, apart from the 5p connection fee, and calling abroad is pretty cheap too.
And obviously theres yahoo messenger and paltalk etc where you can phone and see each other over the net, for free.
Its worth putting in the research - as not always everything bundled together is the cheapest deal.
You can also get calls much cheaper if you use the www.saynoto0870.co.uk website, to avoid the premium rate numbers.
Plus net are also offering now fiber optic broadband - check out their deals.
Hope thats given you some food for thought! Lol
NB: Forgot to mention that you need to check whether yr phone company will allow you to use an overide provider, as not all do
and the cheapest and best provider for mobile phone calls is www.giffgaff.com which is owned by O2 and so you use the O2 network. What they off as pay as you go will beat any contract out there.
Min monthly spend is £5 - going up to £25 - where you get 1,500 cross network mins, any landline any mobile network, any time.
Unlimited internet - no capping no throttling.
Unlimited txt messages.
All 0800 and 0500 numbers are free and for every minute that anybody calls you, THEY pay you! Which you can then either exchange for credit towards your phone, or cold hard cash which you can spend how you like on the high street, or give it away to charity.
I recently changed to them and Im very happy.
Hi Seaspray, my daughters have gone to giffe gaffe and it suits them fine,payg, a fiver a month. They sent me a simcard, and I thought I might switch to it when my current 30 day freedompack of ten pounds a month (30days), expires. However some one told me it does not work everywhere? It seems the most economical payg all round though.
Hi instinct, Cant comment about availability of network, but as they are owned by O2 and use the O2 network I really cant see you having any problems unless you live out in the wilds of Scotland! Lol
With the £5 a month you only get 60mins and no unlimited internet, so its better to go with min of £10 a month, but obviously its up to you what is best for you.
I recently switched to them after being with 3 network since 2005, as they had the nerve to cut my mins allowance while increasing my internet allowance as part of a new package, all for the same amount of £25 a month Im now paying giffgaff, but instead I get 1,500 mins plus all the rest.
So it was a no brainer to switch - and so far very happy.
Dont forget to click on a link under an agent to get a sim card, as that way you get one with a free fiver on it, as opposed to the usual free sim card on the giff gaff site
And remember to purchase the amounts of £5 etc in goodybags, as otherwise you wont get the call etc packages.
If yr canny, then you could get everything you want by putting it together yrself, for not too much more (maybe even less) then you were paying to Sky, and to use an American expression, a lot more bang for yr buck! Lol
Thought you might find this interesting too:
thanks for your responses! will explore them
I have been with hotmail for years.
Yes Ive been with yahoo since 1998 if not even before that.
Its been very rare to have a problem with their email
I'm reluctant to admit to still paying BT for my internet/phone - don't all shout at me at once! My main worry in changing is the loss of by BTInternet e-mail address as it seems to be tied in to everything. Does anyone know whether I will lose this if I cancel BT?
I believe so - a BT email account is what kept a friend of mine tied in for ages. I tend to go for webmail (hotmail, gmail, yahoo) so it's portable.
In the days when it cost per minute to access the internet plus the phone line etc - unlike the Americans - I would constantly switch isp's once their free monthly trial was up, so in the end I switched to using a yahoo email addy, so it didnt matter what isp I was with, I still always had an email address - and have been with them ever since.
Silly to stay with BT if there is a cheaper deal out there, just because of an email address!
Yes you will lose this email addy as its tied into BT - the simple way round this is to set up a yahoo email account - and do a big email blitz on informing everybody you know of your new email address, and get them to then all only email you on the yahoo one.
Once thats all done - switch to a different isp/phone provider.
I am afraid i wouldn't be dealing with talk talk again after finding their customer service and sometimes sharp price rises a bit much, Also i felt they didn't respond positively by listening or try to keep us when we complained and said we were changing broadband provider, though admittedly that was a few years ago.We got a cheaper deal and left them. I also recall feeling almost pestered at one time with their hard sell calls to the point of exasperation,though much may have changed since then and I don't have any recent experince with them.I suppose research and asking around is the best way to come to an informed decision.
So ClearCash, have you decided yet who yr gonna switch to for yr internet and phone?
Well the way Ive worked it out at the moment - £6.49 for line rental with Primus via homephonechoices.co.uk, use an overide provider such as www.18185.co.uk for all my uk calls as they are free except for a connection fee of 5p, broadband unlimited for £12.50 a month with O2 via Uswitch, and international and uk calls using my skype enabled phone - FREE or if to someone not with skype or on the net (yahoo, paltalk etc messenger ALSO FREE) then I can use skype unlimited to landlines in 23 countries for £5.74 a month
Anyone can come up with a better and cheaper deal let me know!
And if you still possess a video player, then you can get videos now for what 10/25p or even free via freecycle.
And again theres always the net for free movies and stuff too.
And who needs to pay for digital channels when you can get them for free via freeview and freeview satelight - most of the programs from what I see in the tv listings, are regurgitated across all the channels anyway, so why pay?!
As for films, well I can go down to my local Cash Converters where they have a long running deal of any 5 dvds of your choice, for £5 - and yes there is Lovefilm - but this way I get to keep my films at the end of it or sell them on if I wish. Plus according to BBC Watchdog, there have been a fair few problems with them.
And with the O2 offer I actually get free internet for 6 months! Cant grumble at that can you?!
im now toying between talktalk and 02.... talktalk seem to have a better package for my needs plus the inlaws have it and my wife calls them enough each day (which i have no problem with)
Talk talk have had a very bad reputation with all sorts of problems - look them up on ofcom report
Switched from TalkTalk to Sky better service and cheaper Talk Talk customer service can only be described as pathetic bordering on rediculas.
Posts within the money.co.uk community represent the views, experiences and opinions of members only. They should not be taken as financial advice and should not be followed without further research.
More Discussions for Broadband
Get fast answers to your money questions, Expert insight, top tips & much more...
thanks for the tip - may give them a call!