Most economical home broadband package?

Fenster

I'm looking to cut down on my monthly costs and I'm finding that Eircom broadband is a big culprit. I have home broadband plus on top of my monthly line rental. Other than a few phone calls to and from Germany and the US each month to friends, I only use the line for broadband. The total cost per month is around 120 euro, which is fairly steep, to be sure.

So I'm looking to cut down on the cost. I know that several companies are pushing broadband and line packages right now, but just how good are they in practice?

I'm a gamer - I play WoW a lot, but I don't download much in the way of anything, other than BSG weekly. So latency is a problem. I don't want to get into a mess like with the issues I see people having with IBB.

More than anything else, line rental is the biggest overhead I want to cut down on, as it seems to be the bulk of the cost.

Anyone want to chip in with advice?

Chaz

M e T r O

Blaster99

That would be €120 for two months I would guess?

If you have NTL cable and you can get their BB, then that's probably your cheapest option. Starts at €25pm for 1Mbps. Smart is also very cheap, if they have any service in your neck of the woods. €35pm inc line rental for 2Mbps.

In Eircom ADSL land, BT Ireland offers the best deal right now. €40pm for 1Mbps inc line rental, €50pm for 2Mbps inc line rental. The switch-over from Eircom should be seemless.

There are various wireless operators as well, M e T r O being one of them... I haven't used them, but I'm not getting a warm fuzzy feeling reading stuff on this forum. It's not cheap enough to take the risk in my opinion. €42.35pm for 3Mbps and a phone service that doesn't seem to work.

Bear in mind that Eircom speed upgrades are imminent and all the ISP's are waiting around for this to happen so they know the lay of the land. There's likely to be changes in offerings over the next month or so.

watty

If you have Cable and want Pay TV then NTL/Chorus with Phone and TV and BB is best.

If you MUST have an Eircom line and can get aDSL then Smart, BT or UTV

IF you are happy to ditch Eircom and don't want/can't get NTL/Chorus then Digiweb Metro (Wireless) is best, includes a real phone connection (not skype) with free line rental.

If you don't want a phone line at all and don't care how poor the service is then IBB basic package.



Most people don't have access to BB at all, then after that most have no choice.

Fenster

120 per month

kaizersoze

Fenster wrote:

120 per month

The handiest option to switch to would probably be BT.
The same package you have now with Eircom would cost you €50p/m including line rental and a bigger cap from BT.
If your in Galway city and want to ditch your phone line completely then see if NTL is available to you.

Fenster

I'm looking at the NTL site right now. I'm right in the city centre to start with and my household already is a member of NTL

MartMax

here, we have ntl digital with sports n movie packs. also bb max. no phone lines as we go with blueface. roughly it costs us €120 for the digital, bb and blueface a month.

Freddie59

mart_max wrote:

here, we have ntl digital with sports n movie packs. also bb max. no phone lines as we go with blueface. roughly it costs us €120 for the digital, bb and blueface a month.

If you don't want to pay too much with NTL then for €45 per month you'll get the 1 Meg BB plus basic analogue cable. Another €10 per month gets you Bluface (http://www.blueface.ie/products/residential.aspx) with unlimited local and national calls to landlines 24/7, and if you want to splurge, another €10 will get you basic digital TV. €65 per month the lot!:)

Benster

Fenster wrote:

I'm looking to cut down on my monthly costs and I'm finding that Eircom broadband is a big culprit. I have home broadband plus on top of my monthly line rental. Other than a few phone calls to and from Germany and the US each month to friends, I only use the line for broadband. The total cost per month is around 120 euro, which is fairly steep, to be sure.


I'm a gamer ...
....

Wow, 120/mth is a lot all right. I do much the same as yourself, I have 2mb BB + from BT for gaming, general surfing and more recently, Skype. I had Eircom line rental on top of that for the phoneline itself. With a bro and sis in UK, international calls were getting dear.

So just this month I finally switched over the lot to BT, line rental for €10 a month and international calls for 8c a minute (+VAT), and all national calls are local rate, even to up North where "home" is.

For me the biggest rip-off was the line rental and now that is lessened, I'll be interested to see what the monthly bill will be saving me from now on.

B.

LostinBlanch

Blaster99 wrote:

Smart is also very cheap, if they have any service in your neck of the woods. €35pm inc line rental for 2Mbps..

have Smart got their 100,000 customers signed up for the free rental yet?

rabbitinlights

Im in Galway and I recommend Smart. they will transfer you from eircom (change of phone number) and its only €35pm for 2MB and your line rental, also the free trial untill 15th Feb is 6MB/512Kbps. If you stick with the 2MB after the trial, they can boost your Upload for €5 pm extra I think.

SO, instead of paying €120pm, you can get the same service for €35pm from smart.

S.

Fenster

Smart looks like a great deal, have you a link to their site?

dub45

Fenster wrote:

Smart looks like a great deal, have you a link to their site?

www.smarttelecom.ie

www.google.ie is wonderful too!