Changing TV provider and telephone and internet.

[ericmark]

Mother had sky internet and telephone, this was disconnected when she died, all done by Coop who are doing the probate.

We also use Sky+ HD lowest package and we simply took our box to mothers house, my wife insists the free sat and free view does not have enough programs of the type she wants to watch, however after returning home and starting to watch sky again I feel there is very little point in sky, watching programs like Alibi may show programs I have not seen, but wait a couple of months and they are repeated on Yesterday, Dave or some other free program.

So I have stated that only advantage of Sky is sky's own programs, Hog Father, Going Postal etc, all the others only advantage is seeing them sooner, same as hiring videos in days gone by.

So looking at the other pay systems, be it Netflix's or Amazon or another, it seems like Star TV in Hong Kong for the other pay packages if you pay, then no adverts, so it seems better if any pay for TV is anything but Sky.

However then we have the question who to get broad band from? Having Phone, broad band and TV all from same company makes some sense. Often cheaper that way, so at the moment we have no phone, broad band or pay TV.

So until you get a package you don't really know what you will get. So any advice please.
Other than Terry Pratchett movies I can't think of a single thing we have watched on Sky which was not latter repeated on free to air channels.

 

[Iamchamps]

Get broadband only with virgin no need for a phone line everything can be streamed easy.

 

[ericmark]

I have looked at Virgin, the only channel in their list I can't get for free is Netflix, it is not clear what is included with Netflix seems costs £5.99 one TV, or £7.99 for two TV's as only two of us not really worth £9.99 for four TV's. So not sure what is included in the £34 (£35.67 by time you include activation fee) per month paid to Virgin? Plus price goes up after 12 months, to £53 per month.

 

[securespark]

I started off with Plusnet BB and worked my way up to superfast unlimited fibre (with the help of the boys....). Included is telephone. Then I added Netflix (7.99). We have got Amazon as well, but it's a bit rubbish, so I will drop it soon.

Plusnet unlimited fibre extra plus line rental plus eve, weekend & mob calls and Netflix is £48.

 

[Astra99]

Talk Talk are currently offering fibre broadband (which includes a telephone line) for £27.50 per month on a 24-month contract. A "boost" of £8.50 per month will give you unlimited UK calls (01,02,03) and you can add (IIRC) four mobile numbers to your calling circle which will make them free calls too. However, if you need to contact customer services, getting any sense out of them can be "challenging" to say the least.

 

[Iamchamps]

Talk Talk are currently offering fibre broadband (which includes a telephone line) for £27.50 per month on a 24-month contract. A "boost" of £8.50 per month will give you unlimited UK calls (01,02,03) and you can add (IIRC) four mobile numbers to your calling circle which will make them free calls too. However, if you need to contact customer services, getting any sense out of them can be "challenging" to say the least.

I am guessing you know it is not fibre to the premise? Still copper pair meaning the speeds they can offer are quite restricted.

If speed is not much of a bother then talk talk could be an option.

 

[Astra99]

Further to my earlier post and to reply to Lamchamps. Yes, this is FTTC (Fibre To The Cabinet) but I am getting 40Mbps down and 10Mbps up. My old ADSL2+ was giving me about 9.5Mbps down and about 0.5Mbps up.

 

[Iamchamps]

See I could not live with that. I get a consistent 350mb down on Virgin, but I am quite a bandwidth hogger

 

[big-all]

i am with talktalk fibre
average 20/10 thingies download up load speed broadband
for £25 a month no home phone calls but 300 mins on the mobile and unlimited texts and 500 thingies on the phone for as long as i have my broad band package
they did give me a free tv box but as i have three freiview recorder boxes recording free tv i found the remote method off selecting a specific program for catch up annoying so never use it
i have never and will never pay for any content from any source as there is more than enough free to keep me several weeks behind in my veiwing

 

[ericmark]

Thank you, did try talktalk twice, once on line, once with telephone went OK until last bit when it seems their computers crashed, at least that's what they said.
Broadband £17 if you haggle and say it's £17 on Uswitch. Then the pluses.
Boost can't remember exact price think £8.50 which offers things like Gold so seemed worth it.
Again can't remember exact price but around £8 for free UK calls under an hour.
And £25 (one off payment) for their set bottom box, allows you to rewind and we have always found that handy.
However when we tried to order had a problem. So not now sure if I have actually scribed to it or not?

Box says 185/60 hours standard/HD recording, however they also say I need an aerial, and the aerial has been a bit hit and miss, would prefer using satellite, I am interested how it picks up non freeview channels with an aerial? Also they wanted the router within 2 meters of the TV, that seems odd, would think hard wired LAN would be faster than the standard broadband so why within 2 meters, when I said hard wired LAN they seemed to think it was OK.

They wanted to email stuff, hang on I don't have broadband in that the house, that's why I wanted broadband to start with. As soon as we get broadband in new house, we will cancel Sky here, so not sure what happens to my Sky email address, think it's really Yahoo so it may keep working, oddly my old talktalk email and website still works, even when it's been around 5 years since we were with them or more.

 

[big-all]

normal channels come through the aereal pay for and catchup comes through the internet
yes its £7.50 unlimited calls
they do sender for the internet but they dont work too well at any distance

 

[opps]

The "general" reliability of broadband has improved over the years , however when I had to troubleshoot issues for clients, Talktalk were the worst firm to deal with by a country mile.

I appreciate that they may have improved but any firm that is (was) so sh!te should, by rights dropped the branding (period).

 

[big-all]

to be fair any big company will get better or worse over the years
suspect in the last couple off years talk talk have upped there game quite a bit other wise they would be out off buisiness

 

[ericmark]

Oh dear what have I done, seems it should go live on the 11th but it has taken umpteen phone calls and internet chat systems to get this far, around 6 hours over two days to set it up, told wife to forget it, if treat new customers that way, what hope if anything goes wrong?

Anyway on holiday now, so will just forget about it until I get home again.

 

[Astra99]

I have been with TalkTalk since around 2003. I was on holiday when the switch-over occurred, adn my son told me he spent many hours talking to "technical" support before the broadband connection actually went live.

Now, TalkTalk's main customer Service centre is understood to be in India, and there have been many cases of employees and ex-employees calling customers in order to scam them. I have had several calls over the past couple of weeks, and I always hard-question the caller on why (s)he has called me. Invariably they disconnect the call! Beware!