Can someone talk me through broadband providers please? Specifically what the difference is between 8 and 5 dowloady something or other...

[fryalot]

BT are charging me a lot for my line rental and broadband - my bill this quarter was £109.03 and there are NO calls on that.

Apparently we are on the lowest possible line rental charge, but we can go lower for broadband, but they wouldn't recommend it (well they bloody well wouldn't, would they?) because I will have to downgrade to 5 (gig? meg? something or other) from 8

If I do this, how will it affect my mumsnetting?

Is there a cheaper, yet efficient alternative?

(and please remember I am the polar opposite of a geek. I am an un-geek)

The very lowest speed broadband should be sufficient for mumsnet. I wouldn't expect you to notice for most websurfing.

If you're not downloading video or other large files, you probably wouldn't notice the difference.

I don't really do anything on t'internet but mumsnet, facebook (with my mumsnet mates) and email (my mumsnet mates) [are you sensing a theme here? ]

Dp downloads music every so often - will that be affected?

Will the amount of time we are on-line be affected at all? I tend to switch it on in the morning and turn it off at night, and whilst I'm not sitting here surfing all that time, it is technically on. Will I still be able to do that?

(thanks for replying btw )

Do you have sky ?
They are offering free broadband but £50 connection fee.
We are going to swap from bt who have said they can reduce broadband to £12.00 a month we are now paying £17.99

the £17.99 one was the one they quoted as being the lowest we could pay.

We are currently paying £22.99.

And yes, we do have sky. I will investigate them. Do you happen to know if there is a time limit on the free broadband, or if it is only for the first three months or whatever?

I'm with Virgin and have a 3 for 30 quid bundle.

I get phone line, (which includes free weekend calls), unlimited broadband (only 4 meg I think but tis plenty for me) and mobile package (300 minutes and 300 texts).

My last phone bill was £3.38, and I never go over my mobile phone allowance so never pay any extra on that.

I think that's pretty good.

right.

Finally finally, finally got through to Sky.

The difference between what they can offer us and what we are getting at the moment is £15.

Which is about the amount we currently spend on mobile calls, and these are not covered by the free stuff on sky, so we would still be paying about £15.

Which makes it not worth switching.

grr

will try virgin tomorrow, sidge - can't face it today after being on hold for hours, told I had rang the wrong number, given the correct number, when I told the bloke twas the same number I had just rung to get through to him, he said "I know it's confusing, but this is the number to ring" It's not fecking confusing, I rang that fecking number, you twat!!!!

Anyway, I shall try virgin tomorrow.

I am with the Post Office now as can't get any of the Sky/ Talktalk / Virgin / Orange deals.
Was with Tiscali but left them due to appauling customer service and they still owe me money .
Post Office cheapest deal for us and v good so far. Did have v annoying issue that wasn't dealt with brilliantly, but def better than Tiscali. Was due to BT engineering works anyway.
Post Office said I could only get 2mb on my line, but I was getting about 5 with Tiscali so went for their top deal to get free wireless router and unlimited downloads.
They quote 'up to' 8 mb. We only ever got about 4-5 and this was plenty for MN and You Tube etc. 2 would prob be fine if all you do is MN. (I am no expert though).

Oh and you can check on line whether you can get the deals by putting in your phone number on the various website rather than calling. Might save a bit of frustration .

Music is OK, You won't need high bandwidth for occasional music downloads.