Telephony

[davidn]

I had been planning to organise setting up the phone service for the flat this weekend, but seeing as there was no point in delaying it (particularly as Whitney needs a number to put on her job applications) I phoned up the BT help line this lunchtime.

Incidentally, I've been looking at the phone and broadband services available and I've decided that the best thing for us is to get the line from BT (£10.50 a month) and combined phone and broadband service from Tiscali (£16 on top of that, 4GB limit a month, 2Mbps bandwidth, free UK weekend phone calls, guaranteed all calls cheaper than BT, billions of other things). If you can think of a better one, please stop me as soon as possible.

A lot of the convenience of setting it up relied on the presence of a BT line in the flat, which I was fairly sure we had. John from BT chose to phrase my real situation in the most disappointing way possible. "Your flat does have an existing BT line", he said, pausing gigantically and allowing me to get my hopes up, "but it's been physically disconnected." So an engineer will have to be sent out to it at a time when we're in and reconnect the phone line. At the moment it's unclear whether this will involve the substantial £70 reconnection fee or not - BT is decidedly uncertain and says that "We may have to charge you for additional costs depending on how much work is required." Maybe if we ply them with enough cups of tea while they're down there it'll all balance out.

Comments

[steveo-h.livejournal.com]

2Mbps with a 4gig limit? I'd download 4 gig in much less than a week on that. I'd get a better broadband package, that doesn't restrict you so much in what can be downloaded.

[davidn]

Now that I look at it, a 30GB limit is only £2 extra a month (they hide their offers until you look like you're going to register). It's rather difficult to gauge how much I would realistically use, though - even 1GB a week seems a lot to me.

[ex-gh232.livejournal.com]

At home I use the Connect Lite package from http://www.freedom2surf.net/ and I can't recommend it enough - it's always fast and reliable. Look at their other packages if you want a higher download capacity.

[gr33bo.livejournal.com]

ARgh!
Not Tiscali! They're evil unreliable bastards!

Go with pipex or something (though they do charge 60 quid for disconnection if it's within a year of the start of the contract)

[davidn]

Looking further, it seems like everyone says never to go anywhere near Tiscali (I can't remember who recommended it to me in the first place). Pipex is marginally cheaper even after getting round the way they try and trick you in to thinking you're paying £10 a month and not £25, but it's disappointing that the "No 12 month contract" is a bit of a fib as well.

[wilddon121.livejournal.com]

I'm back with using Pipex just now as it was the best for unlimited bandwidth, I'v never had a problem with Tiscali, got them at home and works great there, however I couldn't seem to find their unlimited bandwidth package when i was looking for a connection in Glasgow, so I'm assuming they have withdrawn it.

[wilddon121.livejournal.com]

If you do decide to go with Pipex, please let me know, I have a proposition for you, you'll have to speak to me on msn or email me though.

[davidn]

I think I may do - I've looked around the Internet further and the concensus seems to be to avoid Tiscali as much as possible. My email address is the same as my MSN.

[wilddon121.livejournal.com]

I have already sent an email to your uni account, hopefully you should have got it, if not let me know.

[davidn]

There's no sign of it here, I'm afraid... dkn@?

[wilddon121.livejournal.com]

Oops, i must have send it to the other David Newton that lives in St Andrews, oh well, shit happens. I'l email it to you when i get back to Glasgow which will be tomorrow (monday)