My 12 Months are nearly up

Hiya guys, my 12 months contract with NTL for broadband is nearly up.

I am really unsure where to go from here, I decided against posting this in broadband forum since I also want to explore telephony and tv services and I am hopeful to draw on customers knowledge.

I am currently on 3mb broadband and pay £37.99, my contract is due to end in a weeks and I have been looking around for alternatives, as any customer who is free from a contract would do

The services I am looking for are Telephone, TV and Broadband/ADSL I look forward to your suggestions

[MovedGoalPosts]

It's going to depend on where you are located, whether there is any viable offering compared to ntl. For example, the further you are from a BT exchange, the less the ADSL speed will be, if you are even in an enabled area. Coupled with that is the really fast 8meg ADSL services are only available in a few locations at present where there is percieved to be high demand. You might need to wait a while.

Remember that to have ADSL you need to have a BT based phone line connected, whcih incurs line rental, albeit that some companies like Bulldog, where they have their own LLU kit at the exchange, will take over that line, including all phone call costs. Needing the BT phone makes the costs of ntl TV comparatively high relative to Sky (there's always freeview too if you don't want many channels), since the phone line rental with ntl is usually bundled with the TV service.

The question has to be, do you have a reason for the upheaval of moving all your services, or is it just that you think the grass is greener?

Its more down to getting value for money.

i.e. for example, its now possible to get a 2mb ADSL with telephone line rental for the nearly the same price as NTL 2mb service.

Theres also the fact that some ADSL companies i.e. Zen, Bulldog provide Static IP Address, although with bulldog it costs a little extra.

With these prices in close comparison its important to take into account Sky £19.50 vs NTL £19.50 in my opinion is greater value for money, especially considering the vast amount of rants about the 'poor' cable tv service of NTL.
__________________

although this is not to say I want to move away from NTL because a recent mail shot for cable (£19.50 ) with free telephone for existing customers sounded interesting.

[paulyoung666]

from experience sky is far superior to ntl , however , from relations experiences , ntl bb is far superior to adsl bb , and as posted above , it depends on how far you are from the exchange and whether or not the exchange is enabled

[etccarmageddon]

have you considered saving on BT line rental by using VOP via your NTL broadband connection?

the pain with ADSL is that you must have a BT line even if you hardly use it or dont use it at all. that's around £10 a month in dead dosh.

i don't even know what that means need talk considering it lol can you explain

[jonifen]

I would probably do one of the following:

1. Sky TV, NTL Phone and NTL BB
2. Sky TV, BT Phone and Pipex BB

The first option is best in my eyes, as with Pipex, I'd have to buy a new router or an ethernet modem... i.e. more cost. I've also seen that ADSL really isnt as good as cable (from experience in past jobs etc). Fair enough, NTL have their "usage policy" but when its working great, its the most stable connection I've used. Hence I'd say getting Sky TV would be better as there is no longer the TV signal coming down the NTL cabling - possibly saving bandwidth.

I thought you had to a BT landline owner to get sky?

[etccarmageddon]

Originally Posted by xathras

I thought you had to a BT landline owner to get sky?

you need a phone line for your first 12 months with SKY. BT or NTL or whatever.

Originally Posted by etccarmageddon

have you considered saving on BT line rental by using VOP via your NTL broadband connection?

the pain with ADSL is that you must have a BT line even if you hardly use it or dont use it at all. that's around £10 a month in dead dosh.

Originally Posted by xathras

i don't even know what that means need talk considering it lol can you explain

you could avoid having a phone line by using VOP (voice over IP) this means your calls go via the internet. www.vonage.co.uk offer a product where for £10 a month you get all your UK landline calls free - it works by connecting to your internet connection (in this case your NTL cable modem) - your phone connects into a box they supply which then connects into the internet. you get a standard phone number for your area, eg. 0161 or whatever so no one notices any difference.

http://www.vonage.co.uk/products_premium.php?refer_id=

and you save on phone line rental and they offer a 14 day money back guarantee.

I assume if you get sky then you should be able to connect it to this box.