Really Cheap Home Broadband for O2 customers

[chizh]

From HUKD...

Quidco are currently offering a £70 cashback for the o2 home broadband service. If you are an o2 mobile customer, you can get the standard package for 7.34 a month. Aftter Quidco it works out at just over 1.50 a month for a 12 month contract!

(First 3 months free too)

http://broadband.o2.co.uk/

Standard

£7.34 per month
for O2 customers
£12.23 per month
for all other customers

• Up to 8 meg download speed (subject to location)
• McAfee security software
• 100 free web texts per month

Premium

£9.79 per month
for O2 customers
£14.68 per month
for all other customers

• Up to 20 meg download speed (subject to location)
• McAfee security software (for up to 3 computers)
• 200 free web texts per month

Pro

£17.13 per month
for O2 customers
£22.02 per month
for all other customers

• Up to 20 meg download speed (subject to location)
• Prioritised Customer Service
• McAfee security software (for up to 5 computers)
• 500 free web texts per month

[kracken]

Interesting ..... it states

Unlimited downloads

What about excessive network usage?
There is no limit on the monthly network usage. However if we feel that your activities are so excessive that other customers are detrimentally affected, we may give you a written warning (by email or otherwise). In extreme circumstances, if the levels of activity do not immediately decrease after the warning, we may terminate or suspend your Services.

Hmm , wonder what "...so excessive" means in real terms ?

This will save me at least £20+ per month

[chizh]

No such luck. Not read thru' it all tho'.

http://www.o2.co.uk/termsconditions/broadband

4 What about excessive network usage?
There is no limit on the monthly network usage. However if we feel that your activities are so excessive that other customers are detrimentally affected, we may give you a written warning (by email or otherwise). In extreme circumstances, if the levels of activity do not immediately decrease after the warning, we may terminate or suspend your Services.

[Freaky]

the only ones to scrap that fair use policy are sky, which i thought the others would follow suit, dont look like they gonna tho

[venkata]

I'm on the 16MB 02 version paying 9.79 a month. I can say, it's pretty fast and regualarly even get download speeds of 1MB/s

Note you can only get these speeds if BE/02 have installed the equipment in your local exchanges, otherwise it's 8mb max using BT's existing infrstructure...

Brilliant site that gives you info on your exchange with future upgrade dates etc...

http://www.samknows.com/broadband/search.php

Enter your postcode to find where your exhange is...

[chizh]

Yeah. Moving from Be as this is have the price.
If Quidco comes off I'll be paying £28* for a year's broadband.
Put a MAC request in to Be last night and got it back within the hour.Order went straight thru'.
Had 2 texts&emails this morning confirming order and saying DD already set up. Looks like they're processing the router.

As I'm moving from Be, I expect there's a few shortcuts.

Be broadband is currently activated on this BT landline number. Because Be is part of O2, you can move to O2
Broadband without any penalty and without giving Be your usual three month notice of cancellation.

*Just checked Quidco and (only) £60 is being tracked.

Not the £70 in the OP but I'll raise a ticket once I'm connected.

[Waka]

Just looked into this for my folks...

According to samknows their exchange hasn't been 'unbundled' by O2/BE - does this mean they can get the service, even if it's only 8MB or can they not get it at all?! Coz the retard who answered O2's sales line didn't have a clue!

Interesting you can get this deal even if you're on O2 PAYG.

W.

[chizh]

Holy shit, this beats my current student rip off bastarding landlords who charge me 160 per year for upto 2mb...

im dubious about wireless broadband though...

It's not wireless. You get an O2 router to plug into your phone line. http://broadband.o2.co.uk/home/wireless.jsp
Mine's just arrived as I type. 4-port ethernet and wireless box and 2 microfilters, CD, PSU, cables and manual.
Sticker says WEP (64bit) but also does WPA.

Just looked into this for my folks...

According to samknows their exchange hasn't been 'unbundled' by O2/BE - does this mean they can get the service, even if it's only 8MB or can they not get it at all?! Coz the retard who answered O2's sales line didn't have a clue!

Interesting you can get this deal even if you're on O2 PAYG.

W.

8Meg max if not yet on an O2 exchange. Basically whatever the BT lines can handle.
http://broadband.o2.co.uk/home/findmore.jsp

[XBOX4LIFE]

Went with these a few weeks ago fellaz and no problems so far, the modem is a piece of crap though so I still use my netgear with special fw be carefull the modem they ship comes pre configured with wep wireless protection so it will need changing

I spoke to o2 about a fair usage policy and they said they didn't have one in place and i've thoroughly abused them for the first few weeks just to make sure...

[kracken]

Went with these a few weeks ago fellaz and no problems so far, the modem is a piece of crap though so I still use my netgear with special fw be carefull the modem they ship comes pre configured with wep wireless protection so it will need changing

I spoke to o2 about a fair usage policy and they said they didn't have one in place and i've thoroughly abused them for the first few weeks just to make sure...

Have you got your cashback yet ???

[XBOX4LIFE]

I signed up before the offer was around mate

[Waka]

Just been into an O2 shop. Seems if the exchange hasn't been unbundled you have to pay £17/month :-(

W.

[chimpy29]

i have been with them since last february and never had any problems....top notch service all round

[kracken]

I signed up before the offer was around mate

Damn , thats a pain

Just been into an O2 shop. Seems if the exchange hasn't been unbundled you have to pay £17/month :-(

W.

Yeah same here , oh well no O2 for me.

I will have to *explore* other alternatives

[Geko]

Cheers.


Gonna try and swap tonight. Was looking for something new as Sky have started charging now and the service, in my opinion isn't good enough to cost a fiver a month.

[chizh]

Got my message from O2 and plugged all the stuff in. Up and running within 10 mins.
Couldn't use the supplied microfilters tho' as they completely cut off the phone and limited the ADSL to 1Meg.
Using my existing one gave me a respectable 12.5Meg usenet(Astraweb) d/l with a reported connection of 13,745 downstream. That's 1Meg extra speed just by moving from Be to O2 - who share the same equipment apparently. Hopefully that'll increase slightly over the next few days.

Agree with XBOX4LIFE. The Thompson box is pish. Having said that, the Bebox I had was a Speedtouch780 so I'm already used to the workings.
What's the 'special' firmware deal?

[beerman]

What's the 'special' firmware deal?

He's probably talking about a Netgear 834gt with the UberGT firmware installed. It lets you tweak the SNR and get better speeds

[XBOX4LIFE]

He's probably talking about a Netgear 834gt with the UberGT firmware installed. It lets you tweak the SNR and get better speeds

That's the one mate, definately worth looking into

[chizh]

Thanks. Will take a look-see.

[kracken]

He's probably talking about a Netgear 834gt with the UberGT firmware installed. It lets you tweak the SNR and get better speeds

UberGT firmware hasnt been developed for a while , the one even better than UberGT is DGTeam Firmware (http://dgteam.ilbello.com/).

Im running V4.01.40 - DGTeam Rev. 0849 on my Netgear DG834G

On a side note, the cheap broadband offer was not available on my exchange , so I decieded to investigate.

I dont live in a big city and the thought of faster than 8Mbps broadband on BT's 21st Century Network (21CN) would not be at my exchange for a couple of years .

Dont get me wrong , but getting 850k/s was fine, but we all need a little extra .

Checkin the status of my exchange I noticed there was already a LLU provider in there (why didnt i look there first ... duh!) and they were TalkTalk.

Oh no you might say, me too to be honest, but I decieded to go for it and check them out (can cancel in 30 days).

£6.49 for "upto" 8Mbps broadband

"Ill have some of that" I said and signed up.

Anyway, got transfered over onto their equipment this morning and got my line stable

Also noted you can have your ADSL cap lifted (if you sync high enough) for £4 a month on top.

"Hmm....." I thought.

Grabbed meself a piece of that too (for a test) and within 15mins of enabling the option in my account area I rebooted me router and got a nice sync connection.

Heres a speedtest result ...



Line Attenuation: 15 dB
Noise Margin: 8 dB

Bit of tweaking , I may get some more speed from it too

So, for £6.49 + £4 speedboost option aint a bad buy. Previously I was paying Zen £29.99 + vat!! for a *mbps ADSL service

Result