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Questions about broadband, phone and tv
Former Member
Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
Helloo,
I want to get broadband in my house as theres currently no internet connection.
I've been looking at deals online and have decided to go for tiscali as they offer broadband to suit my needs, free phone line rental with free weekend calls, and a tv variety pack all for £20 per month.
But I have 3 questions...
1) I currently have freeview and get a few channels that i dont want to lose. However, when i look at the list i would get with tiscali it doesnt have the ones i want to keep- would i get my existing freeview ones and then the tiscali ones in addition? Or instead?
2) There's no phone line in this ancient house, how would i go about getting one set up? I dont have much money to be paying for this so is it possible to get that for free?
3) In regard to the digital switchover, how will i be affected if i have my current freeview, or if i sign up for tiscali digital tv? The tv itself is not digital so when the switchover happens will i lose my freeview? Its just connected through an old style ariel plug thing that connects to the freeview.
4) How quickly (realistically) could i get a phone line fitted and have everything up and working?
Thanks in advance for any help!
I want to get broadband in my house as theres currently no internet connection.
I've been looking at deals online and have decided to go for tiscali as they offer broadband to suit my needs, free phone line rental with free weekend calls, and a tv variety pack all for £20 per month.
But I have 3 questions...
1) I currently have freeview and get a few channels that i dont want to lose. However, when i look at the list i would get with tiscali it doesnt have the ones i want to keep- would i get my existing freeview ones and then the tiscali ones in addition? Or instead?
2) There's no phone line in this ancient house, how would i go about getting one set up? I dont have much money to be paying for this so is it possible to get that for free?
3) In regard to the digital switchover, how will i be affected if i have my current freeview, or if i sign up for tiscali digital tv? The tv itself is not digital so when the switchover happens will i lose my freeview? Its just connected through an old style ariel plug thing that connects to the freeview.
4) How quickly (realistically) could i get a phone line fitted and have everything up and working?
Thanks in advance for any help!
0
Comments
1. I'm not really sure how the Tiscali option works, probably tv over broadband. In any event there's nothing to stop you keeping your current digital box.
2. Pay BT one hundred and something pounds and they will connect you. No you won't get it for free.
3. Freeview is digital, it doesn't matter what your TV is.
4. About a week for provision of a new line, probably another week after that for broadband. Probably longer if they actually have to lay a cable.
i'd have a search for reviews on tiscali as i've heard bad things in the past, not too sure how they are currently tho.
the only other channels you get other than freeview look to be the sky 1 2 and 3 channels, if thats something you want then maybe not a bad deal
In my area i can't pick up many freeview channels so most of the ones that tiscali offer i dont already have. But there's a couple i do get that i dont want to lose and tiscali dont list, not sure if i'll get all the tiscali ones and then ones picked up by freeview in addition?
i may be wrong, but i dont think this is TV over broadband
but should get you more channels!
the box records as well, so thats all good in the hood
My parents have been using tiscali broadband for about 7 years and never had any problems with their service or customer service so im definatly going for that
LuckyStrike, what do you mean by "tv over broadband" ? And what is PPV? And am i likely to need one of these signal booster things regardless of whether i get tiscali tv, when the digital switchover happens?
your tv apparently comes down your phoneline, never used it to be honest, but technically should mean you dont need any aerial at all....
PPV is pay per view, the movies and music on tiscali seems to be pay for it if you watch it.
tiscali is rated 2 out of 10 on ispreview and 2.5 out of 5 on thinkbroadband
they've got a forum over at thinkbroadband which is good, so might be worth posting on there
also if you download at all, p2p etc.. they throttle the connection which means you'll get piss poor download speeds
Getting the TV over broadband would mean that you should get the whole channel list, but the quality will depend on the standard of your line.
I've always had great service off them. They even refunded my bank charge they caused me to have. Twice. Bargain!
Is this likely to be the case with all packages i look at, including tiscali?
Im overall quite confused. I'd prefer to have the type of broadband before where it didnt use a phone line, it was cable. Dont think i have a socket for that though so i gather i'd have to pay extra to have one installed
Fuck that, those guys are still struggling with a form of communication invented centuries ago.
Virgin Media or Zen are the way forward :thumb:
Im not in a cable area so cant get cable broadband. My only option is adsl broadband but theres no phoneline in this house. I was under the impression that i need to pay £125 to have a new phone line installed and then i can get something like tiscali adsl broadband. But... on the bt website it says that if i have a phone line installed then i have to pay at least £10.50 per month just to have the phone line??
Why can't i just get a phone line installed by bt and thats that from them, then choose whichever broadband provider i want to get adsl from, without having to pay a monthly fee to bt in addidion to my broadband supplier?
even in addition to adsl internet though? Seems a bit unfair thaat if i got a bt package that i would have to pay line rental on top of that
Why would you expect to have a phone line for free? Someone is providing you with the service, you'd pretty much expect to have to pay them for it.
If you consider it as erksome to have to pay a phone line rental as well as paying for your broadband service, then just think of it as one bill. That'd be easier with BT 'cos it most likely is one bill.
Yeh i guess so im just shocked at how much this is all going to cost, especially as im used to cable broadband where line rental hasn't been an issue
I'll need to have very low speed broadand in order to afford it
did you have bad experience with virgin cable or non-cable?
Hell yeah, they're absolutely shocking. Used to be ntl, I never had a problem but my boyfriend was with them and kept trying to cancel cos he was moving out and every time he did they just hung up on him (obv on commission). In the end he canceled, and a year later they sent him a bill for all the months he hadn't been there. Argued but said no record of him canceling. There was nothing he could do so had to pay it
Now we're with virgin media and they've been a hassle. Sent us the stuff for tv, net and phone cos the lines were already installed. Couldn't even register the net for a week because the system was down (but still paid for it). Wasn't given a scart or a remote and had to ring up no less than 20 TIMES to get sent one. Got through to foreign people all the time and transferred to different departments. 2 weeks later remote and scart arrived. Finally we were told that no-one would have to come round at all. Someone turned up unexpectedly to set up the phone line at a very inconvenient time. The incompetent fucks :mad: :mad: :mad: