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I have just moved house. My new house does not have a landline phone or internet connected. As i am dependent on the internet to such an extent that i strongly suspect that i would become quite literally suicidal if separated from it for longer than a couple of weeks (right now, i'm using the internet in the friend's house i've just moved out of), and also spend a shitload more money than i probably ought to on mobile phone calls, a significant percentage of which are to landlines, it would make a huge amount of sense to me to get a combined phone-and-internet package. However, i'm having a lot of trouble in searching online for the cheapest one...
A quick google search ("home phone internet broadband") brought me this site as the first link, which offers price comparisons, and from the info on that page, of the ones on offer (I note that it doesn't include some quite major companies that provide phone/internet packages, such as NTL), Talk Talk appears to be by quite a long way the cheapest, with Tiscali some way behind in second place, but still well ahead of any of the others.
However, here's where i seem to run into problems. On both of those companies' websites, there seems to be the undisturbed assumption that anyone who could possibly order a phone/broadband package from them must have an existing phone line - in fact, to find out your eligibility, you have to enter your existing landline telephone number, with no apparent way around it and no option available for anyone who doesn't already have a landline phone, nor any explanation of how to get their services from that position...
Checking BT's website for reference (after all, BT, being the UK's original and still primary landline phone provider, must be able to offer a phone line to someone who doesn't already have one... right? Right? *crickets chirping* *tumbleweed blows past*), it seems that "[i]f your property hasn't had a BT line before", to get a new line installed you have to pay at least £125. However, there's no indication of what the situation is if "your property" has had a BT line in the past (which i assume this house has, as there are connection points for a phone line in the house), but doesn't now, or of how to find out whether your house has had a BT line before...
So, er, does anyone know what i'm supposed to do? In previous houses, i've never been the person who set up the phone or internet connection (it was either already set up before i moved in, or other people with more techno-knowledge than me did it, and just told me what the share of the bills worked out to, and i paid them). However, in the situation i'm in now, i'm going to be in the house on my own for at least a couple of weeks before any of my housemates move in, and i really, really don't want to be in the house on my own without internet for that long...
Any ideas? |
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