…i’m moving over to the UK next week for 2 years doing study (from the Isle Of Man).
im trying to sort out internet in the flat ive found, but im confused about the line rental…
currently the flat has a bt line running into it… which I will need to take a contract out on…
my land lord said that i’d have to pay bt for the line rental (as its their line)
but now I go online and see others saying I can pay (for example 7.50 with o2)… does that mean I dont have to pay bt? (and why not)
ALSO… any suggestions on the best unlimited package? (I am studying law, so may need to download a lot of documents and of course reading tmf)
am I better scrapping the idea of lined broadband and getting a dongle? (saving the line rental and having the flexibility of using it out of the flat too?)
any suggestions?
thanks
J
In properties where there is an active BT line, you will just be able to take over the contract. Basically, the contract ends in the old customer’s name and starts in your name.
If the line is not currently active, it may be that the line is no longer “complete” to the exchange. Parts of it may have been reclaimed or re-routed to provide somebody else with a line. In this instance, you will be obliged to pay an installation charge of nearly £170.
Companies like Virgin Media and O2 provide their own lines. In this case, they will not use any part of the BT line that you say is currently there, but will run their own from a distribution point in the ground (if there’s one near you,) to your premises. This means having a new phone socket in the wall etc. I used to work for BT so know about the BT side of things but not others too much so don’t know if you’re obliged to pay an installation charge for this. In this case, you won’t have to pay BT, but your landlord might not give you permission to have a new line installed.
I used to have broadband with Sky. They were rubbish. had really bad reliability problems. I have since moved to BT. Quite a bit more expensive, but it has never let me down and is always working (and cheap calls in the VoIP phone!) They are rolling out 20mb speeds for new customers. This is one of the fastest available speeds on non-cable lines… (cable being virgin media, pipex etc.)
Dongles although good don’t always work. You will have a much slower connection speed and won’t always be within signal (like with your phone, if you don’t have signal it won’t work.)
Any new connection is subject to a credit check. When i worked in sales I never did an off-shore credit check. You should be OK but might need to pay a deposit. This is typically 6 months up front, refunded if you’re good and keep up to date with payments.
Good luck, if you want any other advice (I still have friends in the business,) send me a PM.
Cheers
Tom
Thanks Tom…
I might be best looking at the packages bt offer… saving the messing around… but like you said… they do seem more expensive…
Thanks
J
