Is this a good deal?

Oh_Noes

Apologies for the basic level of the question but there seem to be so many packages and so many companies around with both positive/negative reputations, researching it just has me a little bit befuddled.

I joined Eircom roughly a year ago and signed up for 7mb broadband. They had an offer at the time of 20% for the first three months or so. I have a phone line there because you need it for eircom, so I pay the line rental too.

My bill was coming to around €75 per month after their discount expired. I found this quite expensive, considering €30-40 of it is line rental and VAT.

I called them today and asked them is there any way to make it cheaper without slowing my broadband down, so they put me on a slightly different package and will work out at €61 per month with free calls in the evening and weekends and 8mb broadband.

I've had no problems with the broadband really, it's fast enough and doesn't congest like it used to.

The €61 per month still seems a little high to me, however. I see a lot of ads for different broadband companies offering better speeds for cheaper with no line rental charges.

I live in an urban area so pretty much all the major ones would be available to me. I looked into UPC but I'm not interested in television so opted not to go with them.

So should I stick with this new eircom deal (there's no minimum contract) or should I go elsewhere. And if I should go elsewhere, what would be the best option?

Spear

Oh_Noes wrote: »

I live in an urban area so pretty much all the major ones would be available to me. I looked into UPC but I'm not interested in television so opted not to go with them.

So should I stick with this new eircom deal (there's no minimum contract) or should I go elsewhere. And if I should go elsewhere, what would be the best option?

You don't have to take TV from UPC. There's a surcharge of €7.50 if you don't though. But even with that, 10 meg from UPC would only by €32.50.

jor el

Oh_Noes wrote: »

so they put me on a slightly different package and will work out at €61 per month with free calls in the evening and weekends and 8mb broadband.

If you've already agreed to this change, then you're most likely in a new contract for 12 months. It may be too late to stop this, but if the order was placed over the phone, then you have a 7 day cooling off period to cancel it.

Oh_Noes wrote: »

I live in an urban area so pretty much all the major ones would be available to me. I looked into UPC but I'm not interested in television so opted not to go with them.

UPC would be one of the better non-DSL alternatives. For price, speed and cap, I don't think any ISP can beat them, even when you take the extra €7 for no TV service into account. Digiweb Metro is a good wireless product (as was Imagine Breeze, but I think that may be getting scrapped now), with a good speed and price, but a low cap (by comparison to UPC anyway).

Oh_Noes

Thanks for the replies. They told me on the phone that if I took a 12 month contract then it would be €51 for the first three months so I opted for no contract period, I wanted to make sure of that.

I might go for UPC, would I be able to use the router I got from Eircom or should I pay the €50 for the UPC one?

Spear

Oh_Noes wrote: »

Thanks for the replies. They told me on the phone that if I took a 12 month contract then it would be €51 for the first three months so I opted for no contract period, I wanted to make sure of that.

I might go for UPC, would I be able to use the router I got from Eircom or should I pay the €50 for the UPC one?

If you mean an ADSL modem integrated one, then it's unlikely. You'll need to use a UPC provided modem or router.

You wont be able to use Eircoms router its not compatible. Pay the €50 and get one from UPC.