rant thread, my sky tv/broadband is up on the 11th of aug, so being prepared i gave notice, then joined plusnet, set up for changing the 29th and 30th, i did this for no down time, get a message today your order is delayed, so far this is the second day with no internet at home!! and to boot on the message it says ring us on the 0345 number cheeky sods! why is customer service so hard!! i know bt are striking atm too

@"Cuprajake"#p22849 Jake, what do Plusnet offer on broadband that Sky do not? I was with Virgin for 20 years and had to move when we moved, if that makes sense. I need a tv package so went with Sky and 4 years on, bearing in mind they are piggybacking BT, have found the broadband reasonable value and reliable. I think for the incoming phone line and broadband I pay about £36 or so a month.

@"Cuprajake"#p22849 Losing Sky after using it for 20 years is the best thing that happened to us. Never missed it! A great decision. Well done. 👌

@"dfk41"#p22850 But I bet you could be paying less than £36, I think I pay about £31 currently with Vodafone but I know I could be paying nearer £26. It's £60 a year so not to be sniffed at

@"Dusk"#p22852 My wife is disabled and I need a tv package that she understands and can work, letting her record, so unfortunately I have to lump them all in

We got rid of the Land line a few years ago. We are with Virgin business broadband since 2008. Currently paying £32 plus VAT for about 400 gb down. You get a great customer support, 24 x 7 technical support and no bandwidth restriction as we get a full speed at all times.

@"LMSC"#p22855 wow! I’m with virgin, currently paying £41 for 100mb. How did you get such an amazing deal?

I think @"dfk41"#p22853 has not included the cost of the TV package, I know him too well. It's useful thread though, to share what we are really paying and exactly what for. I currently pay £26 per month fixed for 2 years, no rises during the contract…It ends 23/4/23. For this I get; talk talk TV, basically Freeview through the box and catchup. I don't use it though as I stopped my TV licence. 150 MB per second GFast, unlimited, no throttling I've ever noticed Phone line…VOIP, presumably, but I'm plugged into copper. My service allows WiFi calling (my Smarty mobile can use my WiFi to if signal is weak). No extra charge My phone has usual blocking etc options for free. I don't take an anytime phone package from TT for £7 because my Smarty package is unlimited calls and texts for £5 per month. It's also more convenient. So my home phone I only use for incoming. P.S. I have no fibre providers in the area, Cable came and left before my house existed 27 years ago…so I'm waiting for BT to do it.

Well the sky was £80pm, that was TV broadband, kids and entertainment package which includes the Netflix. But there was £5.50 to go on that with the rises. When I spoke to them the best they could offer was £63 pm. Plusnet offer unlimited fibre for £22 pm. We're binning sky, it's crap now, I agree the user interface is great, much better than virgin we had yrs ago. Sky offered me BB at £33 pm I plan to bin Netflix, keep Disney and Amazon. I don't get to watch as much as I'd like And the £60pm saving can pay for gas/electric 🤯 Spent 40mins on hold and didn't get an answer…

> @"MediumRoastSteam"#p22857 How did you get such an amazing deal? Unless you are having a laugh, it’s better now. Am thinking of upgrading. https://www.virginmediabusiness.co.uk/connectivity/internet-access/business-broadband/?intcmp=soho_nav_bb When does your contract expire ?

@"DavecUK"#p22858 **I think for the incoming phone line and broadband I pay about £36 or so a month.** [URL=https://i.imgur.com/s5V2xn4.png][IMG]https://i.imgur.com/s5V2xn4.png[/IMG][/URL]

what really grinds my gears

CoffeePhilE

DavecUK that’s not a data plan, that’s making it look as if you have a data plan 🤣

My mobile plan is to plan on not using mobile data … unless I really have to. Like when I set up to fly the drone. Come to think about it, that’s about the only time, ’cos I need location services turned on for auto-return. Everything else gets done via wifi.

But then, my plan for the mobile is it’s for little more than emergency contact, in or out, on an almost cost-less PAYG plan …. or Don’t-PAYG, in my case. Maybe Barely-PAYG.

Tight git? Wot, me? 😄

LMSC

Cuprajake This pay deal reminds of the rough treatment our government has given to the Jr Doctors. These Jr doctors have been excluded from the recent pay deal of 5% to all medical professionals They just got 2% before Covid. One stays as junior doctor unless become a consultant. It’s not only joke and an insult to these tens of thousands of junior doctors who work tirelessly day and night to save our lives. Add the selfless service these guys since Covid, it is really rubbing salt in the wound.

It gets better.

Another profession that gets insulted. Their pay was literally frozen since Mr Cameron became the PM and since then are being given 1% pay hike in between.
A few years ago, the government allowed the universities to double the graduate medicine intake from 20 to 40 - since 2020 I think. The common sense would be to open up / create additional jobs in the NHS. No, why would we? We keep the job vacancies constant and make the extra (newly qualified) doctors sit at home, deny critical foundational trainings and leave them high and dry searching for a locum jobs.
Why wouldn’t the NHS and the teaching profession be in a mess that we have created on our own?

Edit:

The current mess we are all in is going to require a divine intervention, if there is one. We need to save a few pounds here and there so that we can surrender them to the energy companies at a stratosphere rate!

Meldrew

LMSC Will it be an excuse to privatise the NHS section by section. The excuse being that they cannot cope and are failing the public. I dare not ask if this would go to anyone associated with any of our parliament, just like the PPE did. Call me cynical.

PortafilterProcrastinator

This thread has been really helpful.

We’re now out of contract with BT so I’m cancelling BTTV saving £7 and am going to switch to giffgaff saving another £7.

We’ve just had fibre installed along our road so I’ll look into option there. The biggest concern is how they get it from the street into where I want it.

LMSC

PortafilterProcrastinator Don’t you have Virgin? Not necessarily cheaper but steady and stable.

If this is possible, you can rod of the Land line.

PortafilterProcrastinator

LMSC Fibre was only installed about two months ago, so VM wasn’t an option.

I’ll start looking around now.

I’ll also check out smarty, see what they’ve got to offer.

LMSC

Meldrew Will it be an excuse to privatise the NHS section by section. The excuse being that they cannot cope and are failing the public. I dare not ask if this would go to anyone associated with any of our parliament, just like the PPE did. Call me cynical.

No, privatisation. Unfortunately, that’s the direction one party has taken and is taking the pride of our country. The reality is they can’t cope, not for reasons of skills, dedication, hard work and sacrifices of the NHS staff. The crunch and the associated risks are the by product of forgetting what it actually stood for, let alone focusing on enabling vital resources — financial and human - to ensure the system and the people making our lives safer are well protected - all types of wellness.

The last thing they needed is calling them unethical and unprofessional!

LMSC

DavecUK i.smarty.co.uk/pP891J

Who are these guys? Never heard them before. I think it is powered by 3. The £18 tariff is a good deal.

My wife is with 3, who gets about 20GB for a tenner. Myself and my daughter are with o2. We pay £16.86 for 25G and £21.86 for 120G respectively. Super stable and excellent coverage even in remote places. I would hesitate to change, especially my daughter’s as her mobile is business critical in her daily doctors’ job. The last thing we need is a lack of coverage when she is at the hospital. :-)

Edit :

Their coverage in the UK

DavecUK

LMSC Smarty uses the 3 Network, I have the right old git plan….£6 per month with 1 GB data, but £1 back if you don’t use any data. So for me £5 per month, as many calls and texts as I want and free roaming across Europe.. I can even text people in UK when roaming. You could change and notice no difference.

Cuprajake

My son is a rolling monthly one

Soon as the broadband is active I get unlimited calls/txt and 20gb for £8 pm I didn’t think that bad tbh.

Only reason I wasn’t on that quicker is I let the Mrs and son have the first two Sims on the account. Now we have/will have plusnet BB we can have up to 8 Sims on that deal

DavecUK

Cuprajake Soon as the broadband is active I get unlimited calls/txt and 20gb for £8 pm I didn’t think that bad tbh.

That seems very good….free roaming as well?

Plusnet seems designed for Northerners…who are even tighter than me 🤣

Cuprajake

Not sure on roaming, plusnet is just bt

MediumRoastSteam

I’m on payg with Three. A tenner a month for 4G of data, unlimited voice and texts also when roaming - I used data all the time whist in France, but didn’t make calls.

Now, 4G of data for some is a lot. I’ll need to look at the smarty plan!

Me tight? Nah. 🤣🤣🤣🤣

Doram

MediumRoastSteam I’m on payg with Three. A tenner a month for 4G of data, unlimited voice and texts also when roaming - I used data all the time whist in France, but didn’t make calls.

Now, 4G of data for some is a lot. I’ll need to look at the smarty plan!

If you are out of contract with VM, all you need to do is pick up the phone and you will get a better deal. No need to haggle or argue, just ask what they can offer. Last time I did this the price went down 30% and they doubled the broadband speed as well (currently paying £36 for 200 Mbps). This price includes a landline that I never use, but oddly enough broadband was cheaper with a landline than without it.
Do you still get free roaming on Three? We had 5 phones from them. On four of them they forced us to move to a new plan with no roaming - gave us no choice to keep the roaming. I therefore moved those four contracts to O2, who are currently the only network that offers free roaming in Europe. I expect Three to cancel roaming on the last line I have, and then I will move that one as well (unless O2 also stops free roaming, which won’t surprise me).
When I moved from Three to O2, for the same price I got 5GB of Data vs. 4GB from Three. In addition, when you have both VM + O2, you get Volt: your mobile data allowance is doubled (so we get 10GB instead of 5GB) and your home broadband speed is upgraded (so we get 400Mbps instead of 200Mbps).
Having said that, don’t overestimate what you need. Even my teenage and grown-up children only use a fraction of their 10GB data allowance. I regularly use less than 1GB per month (so more than 9GB per month are just wasted on me).
As for broadband, we were in a holiday house this week. I asked the children what they thought about the internet speed and they said it was just fine. A speed test revealed it was 17 Mbps (and at home we have 400 Mbps…).

MediumRoastSteam

Doram you still get free roaming on Three?

Yes. We are on Three Pay as you Go, so, as long as you buy an add-on, you can use that add on in the EU, or any “feel at home” destination, without paying any extra.

As for VM, thanks. I’ll give them a call tomorrow for sure!

Bicky

I switched to Smarty last week, 100GB for £12. £2 more than I was previously paying on EE, but x10 the data. Personally I typically use a couple of GB a month, but the kids are at the age where they’re constantly asking for a hotspot for their devices!

DavecUK

Bicky I never looked at them for a long time because of the stupid name….but for me, it’s very much the best deal and the 3 network backing Smarty, gives me great service. I used to be on GifGaf, but that became expensive.

Cuprajake

See I had three but my coverage was shocking.

Saving grace with mine now it’s not tied in 1 month rolling so can cancel anytime.

Remember the good old days of a 12m contact. Now it’s 18/24/36

Meldrew

Well we made our choice and decided to stay with BT. It may not be the cheapest deal available, but we have been happy with BT up till now. I might also change my mobile over where I can get 8gb data unlimited texts and calls for £8 a month and 20% discount on another phone, so could move the wife over if the Bt/ EE network is ok.
500 Minutes Calling Plan
500 minutes of calls to any UK landline number or UK mobile, anytime.
£5.70
Broadband Package

150
Mbps
Your estimated download speed
30
Mbps
Your estimated upload speed

Your Stay Fast Guarantee
Your Stay Fast download speed is: 100Mbps

£40.99
Special offer discount
Your special offer discount lasts for 24 months
-£5.00
Total ongoing charges £41.69

CoffeePhilE

Cuprajake that’s what I did the sky doesn’t finish till aug 11th.

Yet here I am lol.

Well that’s a right bu …. erm, <insert phrase I’m sure I can’t use here.>

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