Broadband costings

[Shady]

Hi chaps

Can somebody please enlighten a confused person.

If you sign up for broadband from BT, do you still have to subscribe to a service provider and pay their subscriptions on top of the BT charge - or is the BT charge all-inclusive i.e. BT openworld acts as an ISP ?

When you see AOL and Tiscali advertising their broadband services, does this include the BT charge or can you do without the BT charge completely.

I am looking to go Broadband, but if BT is all-inclusive for their coverage and offers all of the facilities you need - why would anyone subscribe to AOL, Tiscali etc.

What from your experiences is the best way to go ?

Cheers

[bigphilm]

Hi

Not sure about BT Openworld but Pipex offer 512K broadband for about £23 a month, you will need to by a modem for this but thier setup is free.

Phil

[-Jay-]

NTL charge £25 a month for 600k with free modem :smashin:

[Branxx]

"Is the BT charge all-inclusive i.e. BT openworld acts as an ISP ?" YES.

[James45]

liverpool does the NTL 600k modem include an ethernet port for console connection? if so me wants. thats great value at £25 a month

[Geoggy]

www.adslguide.org.uk

the reason people go with other providers is that BT are supposed to be a poor ISP.

You must have a BT line to get ADSL - you do not need to go with BT there are plenty of ISP's out there.

I am with plus.net - they charge 22.99 per month and about 40 quid installation.

they then pay some of this over to BT - ie they rent the line from BT - this is nothing to do with you - you just pay your monthly subs to your ISP.

Have a read of the site above - there's comparisons on the different ISP's and forums where you can ask which is the best one.

If you have cable in your area then go with cable as per liverpool's suggestion.

HTH

G

[-Jay-]

Originally posted by James45
liverpool does the NTL 600k modem include an ethernet port for console connection? if so me wants. thats great value at £25 a month

Yes it doe's as i have mine connected that way.

[Sinzer]

Shady, you have two intitial choices ADSL or Cable. Check to see whether you are in a cable area first, if you cannot get cable then check for ADSL. Telewest and NTL have postcode checkers on their website, then give them a ring.

Cable (generally) is much better than ADSL in terms of latency, speed and cost, I speak from personal experience and having to support them in a commercial environment.

In terms of ADSL it is very confusing. Essentially all you need is a BT phoneline then you simply choose the company you wish to sign up with. As Geoggy has already posted adslguide is your best source of info, simply choose the ISP you would like to sign up with. Personally I would recommend Nildram, their service and support is excellent although they are slightly more expensive than most suppliers.

[Bonesy]

Yep, for ADSL....

BT actually run the ADSL capability on the existing PSTN network.
They then 'wholesale' sell this to service providers.

BT Openworld is one such Service Provider, as is Nildram, Freeserve, Zen, etc.

These people take your order, check that you have an BT phone line in place, check that the local telephone exchange has ADSL kit in it, and then they order/request from BT that your phone line is enabled with ADSL.

the BT engineer does the biz, activates you, and then BT charge the Service Provder £10 or so a month for that connection.

Then the Service Provider charges you £29 or so a month.

The reason why the Government and the lobbies get involved is that BT Openworld may use their link to BT to pretend they are the only ones that can provide a good service, therefore unfair competition.

In reality, in choosing you Service Provider, you are selecting their price, their customer service capability, their IP addressing and other 'packages', and to some extent their pipe onwards to the Interent.

[Shady]

...but still not clear on the original question...

BT advertise something like £25-30 per month charge. Do you still have to pay this in addition to subscribing to Pipex, Tiscali, AOL etc.

I have seen people quoting service providers and the costs per month - but is that all the charge there is ? Do you still have to pay BT for the supply of the line / service charge ?

[graham.myers]

no you don't pay bt, your ISP pays Bt from the wad of cash you give them

BTOpenWorld are just another ISP who use BT's cabling

[Geoggy]

Originally posted by Shady
...but still not clear on the original question...

BT advertise something like £25-30 per month charge. Do you still have to pay this in addition to subscribing to Pipex, Tiscali, AOL etc.

I have seen people quoting service providers and the costs per month - but is that all the charge there is ? Do you still have to pay BT for the supply of the line / service charge ?

errr. did you not read my post?

you pay ONLY the money to the ISP.

ie i only pay plus.net 22.99 a month. I pay NOTHING to BT (apart from my voice line rental and calls of course)

It is also customary to say thanks when people take the time to answer what is a relatively daft question given the info on the net on this, particularly when i even posted a link to the most definintive guide available on ADSL :rolleyes:

[graham.myers]

ooo fisticuffs:eek:

[Geoggy]

Originally posted by graham.myers
ooo fisticuffs:eek:

you want some? :grin:

[-Jay-]

Originally posted by Geoggy
you want some? :grin:

Watch out boys, here comes mouthy spice :rotfl: ;)

[Shady]

Geoggy

My apologies if you took offence and like most people I appreciate the time and efforts people have gone to in their response.

I admit I did misconstrue your reply and now that I have read it closer I realise what a complete and utter F***wit I must appear. My apologies to you and to everyone else who feels they have wasted their time in replying. I assure you it is appreciated.

So, next question then - If I am paying another ISP for the monthly broadband charges - what appears on my BT bill ? would the standard voice calls and service charges be at my present - non broadband - rate ?

If I signed up for BT Openworld - how does this appear on their bill. The only reason for the question is because my employer pays part of my bill including the service and vat charge. If their bill is all inclusive and shows the breakdown as calls, service and vat - with the broadband element included as 'service', then I am laughing.


Cheers

[Sinzer]

Lets start again shall we?

:p

J/K

* DSL utilises the parts of your phones copper wire that are not used by the frequencies in voice communications.

* Broadband ADSL has nothing to do with your phone bill except for the fact it shares the same copper wire. It is a completely SEPERATE service.

* With ADSL you select an ISP and they bill you one lump sum for connection then a monthly fee, regardless of how much you use it. It is SEPERATE from your phone bill.

* BTO and BT are two SEPERATE companies, they will not send you one bill, BT will send you a phone bill, BTO will send you a broadband bill.

You are getting confused between what you would have paid for a dial up account and what happens in broadband. All you need to know is that the two things are COMPLETELY seperate, BT will never ever charge you for anything to do with broadband, your ISP will, whether that is BTO, Pipex, Nildram, Plusnet etc etc

You do not pay for minute by minute calls on broadband, because it is always on. You pay a monthly fee to essentially be on a large LAN (WAN) provided by the ISP.

[Shady]

Many thanks - much clearer

Cheers

[Geoggy]

Originally posted by Shady
Geoggy

My apologies if you took offence and like most people I appreciate the time and efforts people have gone to in their response.

I admit I did misconstrue your reply and now that I have read it closer I realise what a complete and utter F***wit I must appear. My apologies to you and to everyone else who feels they have wasted their time in replying. I assure you it is appreciated.

So, next question then - If I am paying another ISP for the monthly broadband charges - what appears on my BT bill ? would the standard voice calls and service charges be at my present - non broadband - rate ?

If I signed up for BT Openworld - how does this appear on their bill. The only reason for the question is because my employer pays part of my bill including the service and vat charge. If their bill is all inclusive and shows the breakdown as calls, service and vat - with the broadband element included as 'service', then I am laughing.


Cheers

sorry. i over reacted. was having a bad day. did you have a look at that site i posted?

i can recommend plus net. I've had no problems with them and i'm on a month to month contract, unlike some other isp's who tie you in for 12 months.

all the best

g

[bob1]

Try looking at pipex it cost £23.44 for setup free modem, free filters then £23.44 a month after that.Broadband gets a mention on your bt bill at£0.00 if i put your details forward to them i get a month free it must be worth it just for that.I play ut and ut2003 pings as low as 35 up depending on sever.

[crazzy kopite]

I am with NTL broadband 600k £25 a month. If i was to purchase an x-box is there a way i can connect it to my ntl modem. I am useing ethernet connection to my pc what is the best way to connect it to an x-box.
I want to play pro evouloution, project gotham raceing, mario kart, soul calibre and virtua tennis these games would be great on line.
I have a psx2 and gamecube already. I traded my xobx for a gamecube when the gamecube just came out though some of the games on xbox live look good.

[graham.myers]

My NTL 600k will be installed on Saturday and freshly delivered this morning I have got.....

Linksys BEFW11S4-UK Wireless Access Point Router
Linksys WMP11 Wireless network PCI Card
Linksys WPC11 Wireless network PC card

The router plugs into the Cable modem (downstairs in my cinema room)

The XBOX (downstairs in the cinema room) will plug into one of the 4 network ports in the router

My desktop pc (upstairs) will use the PCI card, and my laptop will use the PC card. They will connect wireless to the router and into the internet

:clap:

Came to about 200 notes.

The router was £99
PCI card £40
PC Card £60

or there abouts

You can also wi-fi the xbox - a WET11 at about £75

I used Dabs direct

As a minimum you'll need a router - you can get one without the wi-fi connectivity. This is because NTL will only allow one IP address and the router takes care of that.

[colesy]

Graham,
keep us up to date on how everything works,
Cheers

[mikeq]

Just signed up to freedom2surf.com, they are about £22/month with an initial setup fee of £30.

Also bought a Draytek vigor 2600We, wireless router (£203 incl shipping). Sitting downstairs typing on the works wireless enabled laptop with the router upstairs:grin: :grin: :grin:

[gizlaroc]

One thing I would say about adsl is different service providers give very different results.

without going into details why , I have had at the same time 2 accounts , one with pipex and one with openworld, both on the same exchange.
now even though Pipex is cheaper by £8 or 9 a month I have had far better speeds and uptime with pipex, in fact only been down for one 20 hour period when they first started a year ago.

however I have just stated another account where i work with Zen using static ip's, all I can say is wow !!!!
this connection is lightning fast, I really didnt think I would notice if it got quicker staying at 512k but it does.

d/loading from an ftp that I always, and I mean always, get 42-44K from on pipex I am getting 57K constantly.

this is a few more quid a month than pipex but if I didnt have to wait ages for them to cancel pipex and zen to start it up again I would change tomorrow.


All these connections are wireless including xbox, got to love broadband :grin:

[graham.myers]

let the fun and games begin. not:(

NTL called Friday to terminate the cable at my house so they could install on Saturday. Its blocked so are going to call out the team to unblock - weeks delay

Tried setting up the DSL router and wifi without the broadband connection - that was fun. not.

Set up the router with WEP (40-bit) gave it a name from the default and then did the same for the two cards.

only semi works. The desktop cant see the laptop and only gets a signal of around 40%. The laptop can see the desktop but can't browse.

gues I'm going to have to RTFM:lesson:

[mikeq]

Try setting up the wireless connection without WEP first, to see what you can and cannot see.

I couldn't ping the router when I initially set it up with WEP, so I set everything to the least secure to get things working and gradually increased the security.

Mike

[pendulum]

I use Nildrams 512k adsl service, at 23 quid a month. downloads usually go at 59k/sec.
I play tfc a lot and my ping varies form 25-35.
And to think isdn was costing me 50 quid a month in total...

[graham.myers]

Booked NTL for this afternoon, so took day off. They came at 10:30 (must have forgot to put thier watches forward:laugh: )

Anyway...

They wired up the modem. The very kind chappy made me a 10m ethernet cable to plug my DSL router into.

Plugged laptop into DSL modem and ran the config. The onboard lan card was "bridged" so I had to unbridge it before the software would see it. Got it up and running pretty quickly

Then unplugged everything. replugged dsl to router to laptop.

worked first time after previous setup (including WEP)

unplugged cable and plugged in the PCMCIA wi-fi card. Connected straight away:clap:

went upstairs turned it on. works.

wandered around outside lowest I got was a 40% signal but could still surf in the back garden.

OK, onto xbox

plugged xbox into router with normal rj45
insert live disc and selected motorGP
said hey register and rebooted into the config screen

few mins later all done and playing motorGP (badly)

very very simple to set up.

my next task is to tone down the WEP security in WinXP so the laptop and desktop can share files.

so for the total cost of about £200 I've got xbox live hard wired and 2 pcs wi-fi to the internet on a 600k link. top banana

The machine upstairs is getting a 50-60% signal and lists it as v.good. However I can tell the difference in speed between the laptop and the desktop. But its usable so what the heck.

[rigman]

however I have just stated another account where i work with Zen using static ip's, all I can say is wow !!!!

Was signed up to go with BT when my exchange goes BB live at the end of this month but I have now cancelled it and are going with Zen instead

Thanks for the heads up on that.

Darren

[gizlaroc]

I have have my zen for a month nearly now and it is awesome !!

you want be disapointed :smashin: