Internet

[slg46]

Hi, my friends and I just signed the lease for our flat next year and need to set up our own internet/broadband in it. Does anyone know of any good deals with companies and what you need to do, help!

[Fawksie]

First off you'll need to take over the BT line. If it hasn't been disconnected between the last tenants leaving and you arriving (i.e. there is still dial tone) then this is free, otherwise there's a charge of £124.99 . The contract runs for a minimum of 12 months at £11.54 per month. You need to pay by direct debit and switch to paperless billing, otherwise it's a couple of pounds dearer. Calls to UK landlines and 0845/0870 numbers are free at weekends and 1.5p/min evening, 5.9p/min daytime on weekdays. Ending the contract early will mean you pay £7.50 per month remaining.

As for internets, it's worth warning you specifically to steer clear of BT themselves. They are relatively expensive (especially for the quality of service they provide), they perform aggressive throttling on common services like BBC iPlayer, their router is abysmal and the maximum speed you'll get in St Andrews is 8mb/s. Resellers of BT ADSL Max are also to be avoided, you generally want to stick with LLU operators.

I strongly recommend Be Broadband, they beat everyone else on the market in terms of price, their complete lack of traffic management, throttling or usage caps (except on the Be Value package), 3 month contracts, superb customer service, reliability and configurability.

O2's broadband runs on Be's infrastructure and is a good bit cheaper if you are an O2 mobile customer, and don't require Be's extensive line parameter control, free 24 hour phone support, IRC support (which you most probably don't).

Be have equipment in St Andrews exchange, though they seem to be indicating that capacity has been reached. It's worth calling them to find out. If it has, then the only other half decent LLU operator in St Andrews is TalkTalk, though I am loath to recommend them. TalkTalk are able to take over your line rental from BT so that you pay only one bill.

[Fawksie]

Be have confirmed that there is no capacity for new lines in St Andrews as of the 16th of March :/

[slg46]

Thanks anyway for checking

[Thalia]

Adsl24 is quite good

[orudge]

Indeed, I've used ADSL24 for a number of years now (and indeed introduced Thalia to it by using it in our flat last year ). They offer a 1-month contract, very good speeds and don't slow down your downloads, etc, artificially. But they don't offer inclusive phone service if that's the kind of thing you're after.

[donpablo]

I would recommend them too. I took up ADSL24 on a previous recommendation by orduge in another thread. Faultless service, perfect connection.