18 months of TalkTalk hell is almost over, so I’m looking for a new phone company. I have also been completely underwhelmed by Vodafone recently, so a package that includes, home phone, broadband and mobile phone could be the answer.
Of course, I don’t doubt that most companies are just as useless, so who to choose…
And, even if I did think about going back to BT, they don’t seem to want me back, with a comedy, “Installation fee just £124.99” (this is obviously a new use of the word ‘just’ indicating a complete rip off). Unfortunately that kind of limits the choice somewhat, as many other providers require a BT line. One option I’m beginning to give serious thought to is Virgin Media (they must have improved since the NTL days by now surely?!) but I have reservations: their pricing seems a tad chaotic (their junk mail seems to include a reasonable offer, but it doesn’t appear on the web site it tells you to go to!) and if I pay for 4Mb broadband from them I would be extremely upset not to get the whole 4Mb, all the time. None of this ADSL/’up to’ nonsense. Sure, it might not be possible to supply higher speeds, so charge me less (not difficult really)!!!
Maybe Orange could be the answer– that would take care of the mobile part of the equation without going near O2 or Vodafone, which is a plus. At first glance they don’t seem to require a BT line either…
You also need:
a home phone line (excluding Kingston Communications and cable)
I suspect that’s just the tip of the iceberg, so I’m still looking. Any suggestions for who to try, and who to avoid, would be very very handy!!
Notes from a small field 
We hope you don’t mind us commenting, but we honestly think that we could help you out.
If you’ve already got broadband, one option you might want to consider for your phone is Vonage. We offer a great service at excellent prices and all you need is a broadband connection & touch-tone phone. We are happy to offer you a free trial. You can find details at http://www.vonage.co.uk, or feel free to drop us a line.
Whoever you go with, good luck with your search.
Thanks for the comment Costas. Correct me if I’m wrong but it looks like what you offer is basically the same as the Orange livebox second line feature.
If I stay with TalkTalk, move to Orange, or sign up to another provider which includes phone calls in the package, I don’t see any advantage to using Vonage. On the other hand, your service could potentially be useful if I end up with separate phone and broadband providers, if I only want to pay for line rental. I think that’s fairly unlikely but certainly another option to consider.
I don’t know anything about the Vonage package and haven’t looked at their site. What I do know is that the Livebox that is available in Poland was a pain and largely crippled over e.g. something like a Netgear wireless router (locked-down NIC MAC addresses etc), so I ended up replacing the Livebox with an off-the-shelf router instead. Dunno what the deal is with these things in the UK.
I think I need to move off Pipex, as you noted in your link to my Twitters, so I will be watching your progress!
Your absolutely right JT, if you did sign up to Virgin Broadband like you mentioned, you could then just use their broadband connection (you wouldn’t need a Virgin phone line to use Virgin Broadband unlike BT and other ADSL providers) and then sign up to Vonage for your sole phone service. All you would pay with Vonage is a monthly fee of £7.99, a delivery fee for your Vonage adapter of £8.99 and a one off activation fee of £8.99. You could even transfer your existing BT number over to Vonage, this would be free!
If you are with an ADSL provider like BT or TalkTalk, then Vonage essentially would be a 2nd line as you would pay for phone line rental with your ADSL provider and also Vonage. This could work out if you just wanted a really cheap 2nd line which I don’t think is what you are looking for.
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