Having been on dial up for the last 7years I finally have to move after dear
old Virgin Media have decided to terminate my NTL Freedom dial up service in
March 08.
This gave unlimited use of the net at any time of the day for any period
(the NTL gearbox cutting you off after 2 hours...but you could dial right in
again) and any phone calls up to £15 worth a month.... that is national,
international, 0898 premium no's, and mobiles however you were capped at
£15 unless you wanted to be charged more if you exceeded £15 worth. Minimum
call charges were 7p.
Only trouble is I am on BT lines with BT rental so cost per month ends up
being quite high at an additional £12.49/ month.

Having looked at U switch and the like the choice is overwhelming....
ideally I want the same level of service... that is any call (except
international which I dont make) included in the price, line rental included
ideally, my post code is DN20 and some providers state that I should be able
to achieve 5 to 7 mb/s. I am 1.2 miles away from our BT exchange.
Also the likes of U switch don't have the Post Office in their list, but
then I am wary of any ISP which saturates TV with advertising since it is
likely at least in the short term to have very poor customer service due to
being inundated with demand which they would may have difficulty in
supplying.

My call totals for the last few months was as follows, latest monthly
charges at the top;
£5.38
£12.60
£4.33
£3.02
£5.20
£6.12
£7.63
£5.89
£6.80
£14.88
£15.38

All I need is telephone and broadband... any suggestions of suppliers
please?.... and I dont want to use Virgin again!

Oh yes...and theres something else..when Virgin took over from NTL they
stopped posting of JPEG's to newsgroups!..causing some problems for me to
get my hobby of canal photos to other interested parties on a newsgroup. I
had to send them through an intermediary.
So I need access to as many newsgroups as possible including the unmoderated
ones, and the ability of the newsgroup accepts binaries to download my
photos.

thanks Guys and Gals

"BigGirlsBlouse" <bgb@tesco.com> wrote in message
news:NDT8j.4559$PB.510@newsfe4-win.ntli.net...

BigGirlsBlouse wrote:

Virgin didn't take over from NTL. NTL simply changed its name to (rebranded
itself as ) Virgin.


These days you're usually going to have to pay for binary newsgroup access.

Graham

"BigGirlsBlouse" <bgb@tesco.com> wrote in message
news:NDT8j.4559$PB.510@newsfe4-win.ntli.net...
Virtually all of the big names, ie, BT, Orange, TalkTalk, Tiscali etc.,
etc., etc., are all the same in respect of crap customer service and not
wanting to know when problems arise. Look at any "listings" and one month BT
will be at the top, next month someone else will be, so you pays your money
and takes your chance. There are others like Entanet or Idnet who are very
good but cost more.

Personally, because I was a BT employee at the time when they started BT
Internet, I went with them and have been with them ever since. Two good
things about this is that you minimise (but don't altogether avoid) the
"It's nothing to do with us, it's Orange.... No it's nothing to do with us,
it's BT" scenario, and they also carry a huge range of newsgroups, including
binaries, for no extra charge (newsfeed from Giganews).

There are so many variables that you'd have to do the maths and see if it
was worth it but, I'd suggest BT as your ISP (BT Total Broadband, Option 1,
2 or 3) and also paying your line rental to BT. Go for BT Together Option 1
for that so that you can then use a CPS provider (Carrier PreSelection) like
www.18185.co.uk for calls - that is, you rent the line from BT, if it ever
goes faulty you still get BT to fix it, but you pay someone else for your
calls. BT are the only ones who, by law, have to let you use a CPS provider.

You could go the whole hog and get an Orchid Dialler (or similar) and
program it to route different calls, at different times of the day, with
whichever provider is the cheapest at that time. Have a look here for
further info
http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/...74&postcount=4

HTH,

John

John wrote:
Alternative/additional stuff:

ISPs fall into two camps on installation charges. The big brand names tend
to have "free install" and "free router/modem", but its paid for by a 12 or
18 month minimum contract. The smaller niche providers tend to charge
installation (typically £40-£50) and may also charge for router/modem
(perhaps £30-£50 from computer supplier).

One relatively cheap route towards getting a niche ISP later is to take a
brand name for their 12 months, then get your MAC code to transfer. The
niche ISPs tend to not charge for transfers (don't get charged a setup by BT
Wholesale and Openreach), and you keep the old router/modem from your
original ISP.



On the BT Internet option; Additional to John's point. BT now bundle
"Broadband Talk" with their consumer ISP packages. That gives free evening
and weekend calls to UK landlines via a VOIP handset (*), so that may be an
acceptable way of keeping phone use down. Optionally there is a monthly
rental fee which extends the "free" period to "anytime of day". Check small
print for number ranges covered, but 01x and 02x are in the "free" group.


(* handset = either the phone supplied with the "home hub" to customers
taking the expensive broadband packages, or any old PSTN telephone
(including DECT cordless) plugged into the VOIP socket on the supplied 220v
router on the basic package ).




I'm not saying "go with BT", just look at the option and do the sums.



- Nigel (ex BT R&D, involved in ISP services, so know what is offered).

--
Nigel Cliffe,
Webmaster at http://www.2mm.org.uk/

John wrote:
with BT, but I've been using the German server for years (formerly free,
now 10 Euro per year).

BigGirlsBlouse wrote:
just to be clear, ntl took over virgin.

I doubt this. Are you sure you weren't suffering some other issue?

[Mark McIntyre], on Sat, 15 Dec 2007 21:07:17 +0000, said :-

Try getting it right.

NTL bought Virgin Mobile after buying Telewest.

NTL then renamed itself as Virgin Media.

"S Viemeister" <firstname@lastname.oc.ku> wrote in message
news:5siqdpF19a2bnU2@mid.individual.net...
They've always provided it free but it was very hit and miss before they got
Giganews about 12 or 18 months ago (IIRC).

John

"Spin Dryer" <me2@privacy.net> wrote in message
news:nvi8m3lbgsj7qj9lkqbrihpro7605512sf@4ax.com...
Surely the Virgin Group wouldn't allow that?

Mark McIntyre wrote:

Bought the Virgin mobile business to be strictly correct.

Graham

BigGirlsBlouse wrote:

It was part of the deal when buying Virgin Mobile.

AIUI all Virgin businesses are simply a branding exercise like a franchise
after a fashion. Branson gets to influence how they are run but he doesn't
own them outright

Graham

John wrote:
have on that.

Spin Dryer wrote:
Thats what I said. ntl took over virgin.

What, you thought I meant the whole of virgin? Be sensible, the OP was
referring to virgin's internet business.

BigGirlsBlouse wrote:
The Virgin Group sold its mobile and internet business to ntl, including
the rights to use the name Virgin Media.

If you want to know why ntl did that - your question is the answer!

Its perfect rebranding, everyone now thinks they're something to do with
Branson's empire.

Spin Dryer wrote :
Try getting it right.

Telewest /actually/ took over NTL.

It the renamed itself NTL, then VirginMedia.

On Sun, 16 Dec 2007 11:00:23 GMT, Jono <nothanks@blueyonder.invalid>
wrote:

Not exactly sure of the point of this thread, but I'll chip in anyway.

On paper Telewest acquired NTL, the new company was renamed to NTL
Telewest and then Virgin Mobile was acquired, with a subsequent
rebrand to Virgin Media.

I haven't looked at the Wikipedia entry for a while, but I'm sure it
still sheds more light like it used to ...



Alex


--

Alex Brown
Senior Product Manager
Product Management, Virgin Media

"Mark McIntyre" <markmcintyre@spamcop.net> wrote in message
news:13m9vp4a0872ba7@corp.supernews.com...
You said NTL took over Virgin.
Try to be more clear in the future.

"Alex Brown" <alex_brown@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote in message
news:hf1am3lslblo8ooie4n2nk95r3tg79cik6@4ax.com...
Can anyone guess why they wanted to use the Virgin Media brand name?

Jono wrote:

Actually, not. The two were roughly equal in value but with different
debt leverage, so on paper it was a merger. But at the end of the day,
ntl bought telewest - they took on 3Bn of telewest's debt and paid cash
for some shares. The ntl shareholders ended up with 75% of the combined
company, which in most people's books makes it a takeover...