UK Broadband Costs

mZbZ

mZbZ

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Johannesburg, South Africa
Heres a price list from a ISP in the UK called Metronet converted into rands for comparison, all these accounts are uncapped ,unshaped ,have an upload speed of 256MB ,month to month contracts ,have an activation fee of £69.95(R805.12)

More Info : http://www.metronet.co.uk/adsl/paygo

It goes like this:
Package : Download Speed(Kbps) : Min Cost per month : Data Usage Included : 0.235p(R2.70) per mb from : No extra charge over : Max Cost per month

Note: R/£=R11.51

50:1 Contention ratio packages
PayGo500 : 512 : £11.75(R135.24) : 400MB : 401-5080 : 5080MB : £22.75(R261.85)
PayGo1000:1024 : £13.75(R158.26) : 2000MB : 2001-7535 : 7535MB : £26.75(R307.89)
PayGo2000 : 2048 : £18.75(R215.81) : 10000MB : 10001-18510 : 18510MB : £38.75(R446.01)
PayGoExtra500 : 512 : £16.99(R195.55) : 15000MB : 15001-17450 : 17450MB : £22.75(R261.85)
PayGoExtra1000 : 1024 : £19.99(R230.08) : 45000MB : 45001-47880 : 47880MB : £26.75(R307.89)
PayGoExtra2000 : 2048 : £22.99(R264.61) : 90000MB : 90001-96705 : 96705MB : £38.75(R446.01)

20:1 Contention ratio packages
PayGoS500 : 512 : £23.99(R276.12) : 100000MB : 100001-108935 : 108935MB : £44.99(R517.83)
PayGoS1000 : 1024 : £25.99(R299.14) : 125000MB : 125001-139465 : 139465MB : £59.98(R690.37)
PayGoS2000 : 2048 : £27.99(R322.16) : 150000MB : 150001-180640 : 180640MB : £99.99(R1150.88)
 
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bah metro net cap too much you want

http://www.freedom2surf.net/adsl/homeuser.php

uncapped options.. upto 8mbit *dependant on exchange/ length of your phoneline*

edit i think i should add that there is no port blocking or packet shaping on freedome2surf either.

Ill also add im not with freedome2surf lol im with www.zen.co.uk no capping and no shaping or anything but more expensive. But i reckon there worth it over 2 years!. With less than 24 hours of downtime and speeds always at max of the connection type im paying for.
 
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Thiers is uncapped, yet you pay for what you use
For instance if you get the paygo500 and you only use 400MB or less you only pay £11.75, but for every mb you use you pay an extra 0.235p until you reach £22.75 then after that you can download as much as you want

Anyway im not saying its the best solution (though it was rated the best on several sites) im just compiled this to compare the general prices of the UK packages to the lovely ones Telkom give us.
 
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Cool option if you're into pay as you go broadband I guess, but personally I like fixed rate options more. Not the cheapest by far, but take for instance the offer from Virgin Online (www.virgin.net) where you can get a 512kbps connection on a 3GB cap (I chose it specifically because it compares to our own offerings). You get a free modem, free activation and it's not on contract for only 14.99 (R173) per month.

Personally I'd rather go for something like V21's (www.v21.co.uk) offer though. They have an uncapped 1Mbps offering with a contention ration of 50:1 for 19.99 (R230). Now that's what broadband should be all about.
 
I guess I could read into it in detail, but could someone explain the complete costs/requirements.

e.g.

You need an existing BT telephone line, you pay an acitivation fee (once off), you pay the ISP (Broadband Provider) for the package you want (monthly) and nothing else?

No "ADSL line rental" etc and all that bull****?
 
I think Metronet is bloody brilliant only R276.12 for 512 line and 100GB and a contention ratio of 20:1 and the max the price can go to is R517.83 to 108GB or more
 
as a fellow member of adslguide plusnet have been having capacity problems lately and have began shaping at peak times *not by much* cutting say 10k/s off everyones p2p at peak. may not sound like much but from all there users thats p2ping thats alot of bandwidth freed.
Im happy with my current isp zen internet £34.99 a month for 2mbit uncapped/unshaped they claim there network capacity *central pipes* from bt are running at 60% at peak time.
i reckon the extra money is worth it

in responce to that Bt phoneline needed catch, its not really a catch cause most people here have BT phonelines anyway cause BT are the biggest phone provider in the country by far. Infact out of everyone i know, i know like 1 person who has an ntl phone everyone else has BT lol.
 
in responce to that Bt phoneline needed catch, its not really a catch cause most people here have BT phonelines anyway cause BT are the biggest phone provider in the country by far. Infact out of everyone i know, i know like 1 person who has an ntl phone everyone else has BT lol.
Click to expand...

Cool. So you just pay whichever ISP/Broadband provider you choose, an activation fee, and then the monthly fee for your package?
 
MansoN said:
Cool. So you just pay whichever ISP/Broadband provider you choose, an activation fee, and then the monthly fee for your package?
Click to expand...
- most of them tend to waive the acticvation fee at the moment because of stiff competition - but yes- it's a single monthly charge for adsl.
 
Blackmesa8 said:
as a fellow member of adslguide plusnet have been having capacity problems lately and have began shaping at peak times *not by much* cutting say 10k/s off everyones p2p at peak. may not sound like much but from all there users thats p2ping thats alot of bandwidth freed.
Im happy with my current isp zen internet £34.99 a month for 2mbit uncapped/unshaped they claim there network capacity *central pipes* from bt are running at 60% at peak time.
i reckon the extra money is worth it

in responce to that Bt phoneline needed catch, its not really a catch cause most people here have BT phonelines anyway cause BT are the biggest phone provider in the country by far. Infact out of everyone i know, i know like 1 person who has an ntl phone everyone else has BT lol.
Click to expand...

Its illegal to packet shape in the UK. According to Ofcom. If they are having capacity problems, the shaping is happening at a hardware level were they have no control over it, as their is incificient bandwidth to go around.

Its been my exerience, having lived in the UK for the past 7 years that the best dsl package comes from Bulldog DSL in the UK A Cable and Wireless Company, but run over BT lines instead of Cable.
 
the above info is correct...if you have a bt line (you are paying~ £10 a month rental already) then adsl gets added to the line as a service, but your line rental doesnt change. You get a bill from your isp for the adsl itself (the £20 odd mentioned above)

If you do not have a bt line (i.e. cable and wireless or ntl) then those companies can supply you with broadband through your set top box, or via a broadband modem. So you dont HAVE to have a bt line, unless you want ADSL...the other companies can supply broadband also through their own networks without touching adsl.

e.g. assume you ar eon ntl as your tv provider, with an ntl set top box. You pay £20 a month for the smallest "family" package of tv channels. This includes a phone line rental (so paying £20 for tv will get you a phone line also.) The broadband gets tacked on top of that, so you end up paying one company £50 a month for tv (equivalent to dstv) with a phone and for a 2mb broadband package.
An exmaple is on their home page http://www.ntl.co.uk/index.html 3 for £30...phone, tv and broadband...

Your actual phone bill for calls made can be done through another company too....so e.g. pay ntl for their tv/broadband/phone package, then get a seperate bill from another supplier for actual calls made. OneTel is a popular service, as they supply a doodah which plugs inline with your phone, and basically prefixes all numbers dialed with another code to route the calls over their switches.

I am not bragging here...there are hassles with this country too, but the state of play in the Uk re: telecoms/tv/broadband is actually beginning to be quite interesting now that you can get your services from whomever you prefer.

I just wish S.A. companies/government would wake up and smell the roses.....
 
sburrell said:
Its illegal to packet shape in the UK. According to Ofcom. If they are having capacity problems, the shaping is happening at a hardware level were they have no control over it, as their is incificient bandwidth to go around.

Its been my exerience, having lived in the UK for the past 7 years that the best dsl package comes from Bulldog DSL in the UK A Cable and Wireless Company, but run over BT lines instead of Cable.
Click to expand...

Go to adslguide plusnet have admitted that they are traffic shaping AND plusnet have been running a cheaper 2mbit service for £14.99 where p2p has been shaped for ages!

Bulldog are pretty decent but less than 10% of the uk can get there services cause they aint rolled out there LLU services at much exchanges. mainly only in major cities

basicly here in the uk all isp's are alright *Accept tiscali lol which have a terrible reputation here* and you get max speed most of the time with them all even though its rated as being contended at 50:1.

This one time i complained to my isp cause i had around 2% packet loss for like 2 days *turned out to be a central pipe at my isp having problems or something and was promply fixed* anyway since i been reading at this forum i feal somewhat greedy to complain about something so small when the people in south africa are lucky to get 30k/s from international servers and so on.

I have yet to find an isp in the uk that treats international bandwidth any diffarant from local we have none of that here its all the same to them.
My connection downloads from 244k/s *or so* from the uk/us/germany where ever as long as the server keeps up.

When i see people on adslguide going mental and having rows over which isp is better and so on i think "imagin if they lived in south africa" lol

Personaly as long as i can always get uncapped dsl over 1mbit with acceptable pings to play online games ill be happy.
 
Thats nothing, my isp freedom2surf is offering me a 24mbit service inc free ip-tv!
whatda think of that!
and its about £27, NTL can shouve that up thier holes!
 
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