Decisions, Decisions

[sobrique]

NTL:
Internet
1MB Broadband Internet only £37.99 per month
600K Broadband Internet only £24.99 per month
150K Broadband Internet only £17.99 per month

(crappy upload, dynamic IP, their stoopid inktomi proxies and lousy support)

Phone:
National calls at local rates, that's 3p a
minute weekdays, 2p a minute evenings and 1p a minute weekends.
only £9.50 per month

(or up to 25 quid for lots of free time per month)

TV:
£9.50 for basic which IMHO misses out all the channels that it's actually worth getting cable TV for - UK Gold, Sci-Fi etc.
£19.50 for 'big'. Presumably you still need a TV license for cable TV?
Or:

Griffin Internet:
Up to 500Kbit/s Download Speed
Up to 250Kbit/s Upload Speed
Maximum 50:1 Contention Ratio
24 x 7 Unlmited Internet Access
Unlmited E-Mail Addresses
100Mb Free Webspace
Upto 5 Static IP Addresses
Quad Virus Scanning of inbound and outbound e-mail
Spam filtering of inbound and outbound e-mail

500kbit/s = £50 (£58.75) up front and £19.99 ( £23.48 inc vat) per month
1000kbit/s = £50 + £33.99 (£39.93) per month

Or Office:
Up to 500/1000/2000Kb/s Download Speed
Up to 250Kb/s Upload Speed
Maximum 20:1 Contention Ratio
24 x 7 Unlimited Internet Access
Unlimited EMail Addresses
500Mb FREE Webspace
High Quality News Group Access
8 Static IP Addresses (5 Useable)
NEW Quad Virus Scanning of inbound and outbound e-mail
NEW Anti Spam Filtering of inbound and outbound e-mail

Setup charge: £ 50.00, Monthly charge: £ 25.99 ( £30.53) / 500Kbps, £ 42.99 (£50.51) / 1000Kbps, £68.99 (£81.06) / 2000Kbps

Phone line from BT:

£10.50 per month.

TV: Freeview or terrestrial. (45 quid, + tv license or just tv license).

NTL 1Mb + 100 channels, + phone line: £66.99
Griffin 1Mb, 'standard' TV + BT phoneline: £50.43

Course, we might just end up skipping TV all together but...

Comments

[ewx.livejournal.com]

NTL's web poxies have been turned off (at least hereabouts) for some time now.

[karen2205]

Don't go anywhere near NTL - their customer service is appalling.

Various geeky friends recommended somewhere else to me as a broadband provider, but I can't remember who - will try to comment later with details.

[ehrine.livejournal.com]

While true, we have a friend that works in the the local NTL cable modem support department who can help speed up dealing with them ;)

[ehrine.livejournal.com]

Don't forget that all of those NTL speeds are getting upped this summer.

150 -> 300
600 -> 750
1000 -> 1500
iirc.

Dynamic IP has only been an issue when their system crashes assuming you remain online 24/7 (as I do).

You do still need a tv license for cable.

[karen2205]

Here we are, it's http://www.nildram.net/ that's been recommended to me.

You can pay for your TV licence by monthly direct debit, rather than all at once.

<pedant> verb: to license, noun: a licence</pedant>

[sobrique.livejournal.com]

That's what I thought. However Dictionary.com has it as simply the British and American variants of the same thing.

[sobrique.livejournal.com]

Actually, it seems that Dictionary.com has the two words used interchangably, but one being the british variant...

[ewx.livejournal.com]

That's an American dictionary; I'm not sure I'd 100% trust it to document British usage. (Though indeed, plenty of British English speakers don't make the licence/license distinction that they do for advise/advice.)