This is The West Country | CommuniGate | North Cadbury Broadband Feedback Home & Disclaimer Glossary FAQ (common questions) Popular Providers (ISP) FAQ (Part 2) Background to Broadband locally FAQ (Part 3) FAQ (Part 4) What is Broadband? Summary My personal plan Can't get broadband? Networking Security & spyware Links for North Cadbury Broadband Message Board Guestbook Event Calendar Mail Form Was this site useful? Yes No  Results From my own research - includes personal opinion I have given some figure from early 2004. You will need to check for up to date terms & conditions. Some cheap packages may be sufficient for your needs … but understand what you get! Provider Cost for 512Kb Install Cost Min. Term Comments Eclipse Internet £23.95 £50 1 Month Regular winner of "Broadband Provider of the Month" award, and a great company to deal with. If you order from Eclipse Please use the referrer code 'CAMELOT'. Yes .. I do get some points (I think) but I believe you will find they are as recommended as anyone. But feel free to do your own research!! Nildram £27 £50 1 Month Also a frequent winner of awards. Good reputation. They also provide a "static IP" address which is very useful if you want to run your own web site etc. BT Yahoo £29.99 Free 12 Months It's one of BT's official Broadband offering. AOL £27.99 Free 12 Months You have to use AOL's proprietary software, i.e. you can't use Outlook Express for your email. You may also have a limited choice of hardware - AOL used to use a proprietary method of verifying your login details (authentication), but this might have now changed. AOL is often considered a good choice if you're not very confident setting things up on your computer as it will generally do everything for you. Tiscali £24.99 Free 12 Months Customer Services is based in India and is a nightmare to deal with; some say Tiscali is very unresponsive when dealing with problems; frequent failures in service. Zen £28 1 Month Very good reputation, BT Broadband £27 £40 (Free currently) 12 Months Also an "official" BT offering. The charges appear on your normal BT quarterly bill. Of course I should have added Wanadoo (Freeserve) to the list! All the companies are offering different deals (with regular changes) so you should check from a price point of view: Initial Connection fee/activation - could be free ... up to £50 Monthly charge - some specify ex-VAT .. some inclusive Half price for 3 months - or other deals? Free USB 'modem'? or may cost £30+. However see other info as you may be better off with a router if you want to connect more than 1 computer or use Broadband on a wireless connection. Routers from £60+ Micro filters: see message re filters. You may get 1 or 2 free. Cheap ones only cost around £1 - and are often perfectly alright. More expensive ones £6 -£8 Contention: see faq re contention. For most users this will not be a big issue. VAT: included in quoted price? Limits on speed: some cheaper services only allow downloads at 150k or 256k. If this is sufficient for your needs .. no problem. 512k recommended as true broadband. Limits on download: Some cheaper ISP restrict you to say total 1gb of downloads per month. Maybe fine if you are not gaming, downloading music or video etc. Contract: minimum period can be 1 to 12 months. Less is good .. so that you can change if you are unhappy! Some deals will include Firewall and/or anti-virus software as well. Total Cost in first year These links have info about different providers and the TOTAL cost in the first year and may help you make comparisons. Things change all the time! http://www.adslguide.org.uk/isps/summarylist.asp?order=name http://www.btinternet.com/~bb4llanwern/isps.htm Choosing a Service Provider There are well over 100 service providers, each of whom offers different services, different terms and conditions, and of course, different prices. All the providers are resellers of the Broadband service, which is provided indirectly by BT Wholesale. By choosing a service provider, you are deciding which company is going to provide the service to you. BT operates the infrastructure, and makes the actual connection, but your ISP provides the service. In terms of choosing a provider you need to weigh up the pros and cons of each company, and decide where to go from there. You may want to avoid the providers which have a minimum 12-month contract. Some providers offer cheaper packages, using a slower connection speed, some even use a different technology and might not be available on all telephone exchanges. The link below is a great starting point for reasonably up-to-date information. But take care to compare like with like. Look a exact prices, terms, conditions, hardware and TCO (Total Cost of Ownership) over 1 and 2 years. Review ADSL costs  Email page  Feedback  Home Home & Disclaimer |Glossary |FAQ (common questions) |Popular Providers (ISP) |FAQ (Part 2) |Background to Broadband locally |FAQ (Part 3) |FAQ (Part 4) |What is Broadband? |Summary |My personal plan |Can't get broadband? |Networking |Security & spyware |Links for North Cadbury Broadband |Message Board |Guestbook |Event Calendar |Mail Form