Broadband deals

[PhoenixAsh]

Okay, I'm a student in the UK, and I'm moving into a house with 3 other people soon and we should be living there for about nine months. I don't have a TV license yet, or a phone connection and we want to get broadband, so I was wondering if anyone could give advice on what the best/cheapest deals are? I don't want something useless, but I'd prefer not to spend money unnecessarily.

Any advice?

[Baloki]

If you live in the right area go for Blueyonder from Telewest, its the cheapest and fastest, also they usually throw in cheap telephone calls and a cable TV package.

However if your not then go with BT. Their currently offering 1 megabit line for £29.99 with 1 Gig a day bandwidth (download only) limit. Also they allow you to use internet connection sharing so you can have upto 10 computers connected through one line.

Also you can purchase a router and use that instead of the modem they give you free, and that means you don't have to leave one computer on all the time to service the others with the internet.

Hope that helps :)

[PhoenixAsh]

Okay great, I was looking at BT, so I'll see if Blueyonder works for me first. That's really helpful I appreciate it a lot.

[Shoeberto]

If you live in the right area go for Blueyonder from Telewest, its the cheapest and fastest, also they usually throw in cheap telephone calls and a cable TV package.

However if your not then go with BT. Their currently offering 1 megabit line for £29.99 with 1 Gig a day bandwidth (download only) limit. Also they allow you to use internet connection sharing so you can have upto 10 computers connected through one line.

Also you can purchase a router and use that instead of the modem they give you free, and that means you don't have to leave one computer on all the time to service the others with the internet.

Hope that helps :)
I'd definately recommend a router, especially a wireless one. I've noticed that Linksys 802.11G routers are relatively cheap, as are 802.11b. If all you do is planning on internet and not swapping files from computer to computer, I'd recommend 802.11b, since it'll save you money. And Linksys is a recommended brand, since they are known for their security.

Of course, you could always get a good ol' wired router and save yourself even more.

[crono_logical]

You better be careful if you get a package with a crappy transfer limit like 1 GB and one of the people in your house turns out to be a heavier than average user :p Heck, even with regular users, you effectively only have 333 odd MB each, which is pretty tight if one of you suddenly decides to download a movie which could average at over twice that :p

EDIT: Also I definitely do not recommend a wireless router for 3+ devices, especially if you're gonna be sharing files amongst yourselves :p Not to mention the extra security implications and possibilities of people tapping in on your LAN and stealing your bandwidth :p Even with MAC protection enabled on the wireless router, they could possibly DOS you instead by scanning for your MAC addresses then faking that same address on their own equipment :D

[Xander]

Tiscali is the best, and good value, and me and Lindy have it so therefore it is the best.

www.tiscali.co.uk