I'm paying £15 a month for my dial up usage in my student digs in Edinburgh and basically I'm looking to upgrade to broadband and was wondering if anyone could recommend a certain package and also give details of it.

So far BT/Yahoo's £24.99 per month or £26.99 per month package seems to be in the lead. It has a connection speed of 512k and allows transfer of 15Gb a month and provides free connection and modem. Is this any good? - is there better out there?

Cheers

I've that package for about a year Raving and no complaints. Though we had to pay 50 quid for our modem so your deal seems quite a bit better.

I'm with Pipex. It's £23.44 per month for 512k, the connection and modem are free and it's uncapped. If you cancel within 12 months you'll have to pay a fee of £58.75. I've been with them just over a year and they've been brilliant.

adslguide.org.uk is good for checking out broadband ISPs.

I'm about to sign up for Tiscale 256k for £17.99 p/m. Does anyone have any opinions on it?

The basic Tiscali 150kbps is OK but you're taking a big risk with service and reliability. Enter this forum if you want to read about other people's experiences of Tiscali.

If you can get NTL, they're pretty good. (Although the email is a bit ropey from time to time.)

They're about to upgrade the middle package, which I'm on, from 600kb to 750kb at no extra charge as a thank you to their loyal customers.

£24.99, 15 email addresses, 10mb (I think) of webspace, etc etc.

Dunno if it's available where you are though.

Free installation too.

I might go with Pipex. Is the 1GB bandwith cap significent? If not I'll take the £19.99 p/m package.

It depends on how much you download. Remember that when you view webpages you are downloading. I'm not entirely sure how much 1GB is in terms of viewing websites.

You want Wanadoo mate £17.99 a month for brd/bnd good services and support and no problems with it.

Only problem is it takes about ten days to set up, but I believe its the same with many ISP's.

Plusnet are outstanding and give you a SH*TLOAD of web and email space, various packages avaiable. Have a look at the forums, some good info in there and customer support is 1st class

http://www.plus.net/products/broadband_home.html

taz121 as a referral if you take it mate

I have newly invested in BT Broadband, excellent!

I've gone for AOL's 256k one, £19.99 a month and unlimited transfer.

I'm not so bothered about the speed, more interested in being able to use the phone at the same time.

Agree with Melv - speed isn't vital as I'm doing fine on a 56k at the moment. Using the phone and unmetered access are the main two reasons for me upgrading.

Anyway - I've went for Wanadoo. Fingers crossed.

aye that just about covers it!

Cheers lads.

I have only used AOL so I have suppose I have nothing to compare it to.

My 12 months must be up, or nearly. I take it the modem (supplied by AOL) can be taken onto another provider, maybe saving the cost of a modem if it works cheaper in the long run.??

Yeh mate most ISP's can easily transfer you connection to them, all you pay for (sometimes free) is the connection charge

I'm on AOL already just now, been with them for about 3 years. Only had one problem with them, and when I got through (fair enough, it took a few hours) they seemed really helpful and managed to sort the problem quickly.

As for Spyware, I've never had any problems directly from AOL, and any Spyware I have had, I've been able to clean-up with Ad-Aware or something similar.

Only problem with Wanadoos cheapy package is the tight transfer limit that can easily be eaten up when viewing webpages.

I use BT Yahoo at 26.99 with a 15GB allowance which seems pretty decent.

Other option would be do you want full speed broadband (ie 512 kbps upward) or would you accept a slower speed at a lesser cost? eg AOL 19.99 for 256 kbps (not true broadband)

AOL's allright until you decide you fancy a change, then watch your problems begin. Removing the program leaves wee bits and pieces still floating about on your hardrive.
When my original 2 month free trial was up, I phoned them to say that I wanted to cancel. Pathetically, I let them talk me into another free month. Only one problem...the b@stards charged me for it!
I've been with Tiscali 3X for the last few months and find it Ok. Occasionaly it won't let you connect but I can live with that. I signed up mainly to free up the phone line and it was cheap. £15 a month.

Only Broadband worth considering is Pipex. You get an unlimited 1mb connection for £33 a month. Worth the extra fiver because you are getting 20x the speed of a normal 56k dial up.