Broadband and phone help

[Mister Six]

As of this week I've got a new flat and a nascent freelance journo career, so I need to sort myself out with broadband internet and - possibly - a phone line pronto. Can anyone recommend a decent UK broadband firm? I've heard mixed things about BT (okay, mostly Richard Herring slagging them off), and while Plusnet seem to have some good deals I don't know anyone who uses them. I'd prefer to have uncapped bandwidth too.

Also, do iPhones, Androids or other fancy phones have a function that allows them to record phone calls? My only reason for having a landline would be so that I could record interviews that I'd be performing, but I'm wondering whether it might be cheaper just to get a contract phone with a record facility - preferably one that makes PC-compatible files.

I'm in the Holloway Road area of London, if that's relevant.

Help me, CaB! Grown-up life is big and scary and I need someone to hold my hand.

[Lfbarfe]

Plusnet is a division of BT. O2 do very good broadband at a very good price, but only if your exchange has been fitted with their equipment. If not, they resell BT Wholesale.

[Zetetic]

I'd prefer to have uncapped bandwidth too.

Then you'll have a broadband provider that'll do everything in their power to make it meaningless. And it'll still have a cap, it's just that at most you won't be able to discover what it is and it'll be part of the Fair-Use Policy. AAISP is a possibility, in that at least they're clear about bandwidth caps and don't use throttling, but they may seem expensive. They're unlikely to disconnect you in the event of any unpleasantness as well.

Also, do iPhones, Androids or other fancy phones have a function that allows them to record phone calls? My only reason for having a landline would be so that I could record interviews that I'd be performing, but I'm wondering whether it might be cheaper just to get a contract phone with a record facility - preferably one that makes PC-compatible files.

Possibly consider Skype? You'll still need extra software even if you take that approach though.

[Zetetic]

O2 do very good broadband at a very good price, but only if your exchange has been fitted with their equipment. If not, they resell BT Wholesale.

I'm assuming that 'Holloway Road' means that whatever the local exchange is, that there are 3rd parties there.

[Wilbur]

As of this week I've got a new flat and a nascent freelance journo career, so I need to sort myself out with broadband internet and - possibly - a phone line pronto. Can anyone recommend a decent UK broadband firm? I've heard mixed things about BT (okay, mostly Richard Herring slagging them off), and while Plusnet seem to have some good deals I don't know anyone who uses them. I'd prefer to have uncapped bandwidth too.

Also, do iPhones, Androids or other fancy phones have a function that allows them to record phone calls? My only reason for having a landline would be so that I could record interviews that I'd be performing, but I'm wondering whether it might be cheaper just to get a contract phone with a record facility - preferably one that makes PC-compatible files.

I'm in the Holloway Road area of London, if that's relevant.

Help me, CaB! Grown-up life is big and scary and I need someone to hold my hand.

BE unlimited are part of O2 and cheaper. I recommend although you may be put off by their hideous web site.

[greencalx]

BE Unlimited have served me well too. Living close to the exchange I get the full 24Mbps, despite the extremely dodgy-looking wiring that hangs down the back of the flat and blows around in the wind.  As with any network, you get the odd periods of sloth / dodgy routing / DNS weirdness, but I've only noticed problems on two or three occasions (and none of these have been recently - about 2 years ago DNS was a frequent issue but, fingers crossed, that seems to be sorted now). The tech support have been responsive and competent on the couple of occasions I've contacted them.

Of course, if you go into the support forums you'll find loads of wailing, gnashing of teeth, accusations of caps and throttles. My feeling is that people think they should be getting leased-line performance despite paying 1/15th the cost... I must have missed the "moon on a stick" option when I signed up.

[MojoJojo]

As of this week I've got a new flat and a nascent freelance journo career, so I need to sort myself out with broadband internet and - possibly - a phone line pronto. Can anyone recommend a decent UK broadband firm? I've heard mixed things about BT (okay, mostly Richard Herring slagging them off), and while Plusnet seem to have some good deals I don't know anyone who uses them. I'd prefer to have uncapped bandwidth too.

Also, do iPhones, Androids or other fancy phones have a function that allows them to record phone calls? My only reason for having a landline would be so that I could record interviews that I'd be performing, but I'm wondering whether it might be cheaper just to get a contract phone with a record facility - preferably one that makes PC-compatible files.

I think you have to get a fixed phone line with any broadband package... at least I'm not aware of any that don't.  ADSL goes down the phone line, after all.

I had a look at Android market to see if there are any phone recording apps. One which seems to suggests it does but lots of user comments complaining that it doesn't work. I think there are technical and legal reasons why such an app is probably not available/doesn't work well. If you need to do this for work I would suggest against trying it.

[Dead kate moss]

Virgin does the job well imo.

[Ignatius_S]

....Also, do iPhones, Androids or other fancy phones have a function that allows them to record phone calls? My only reason for having a landline would be so that I could record interviews that I'd be performing, but I'm wondering whether it might be cheaper just to get a contract phone with a record facility - preferably one that makes PC-compatible files...

Just for sake of argument, you only get a mobile and your network goes down, what are you going to do then?

As MojoJojo said, you'll need to rent a landline anyway – you wouldn't have to get a telephone service as part of the package, but that's going to save you practically nothing.

There are recording apps out there and but normally there are restrictions like  associated costs to use it.

[Mister Six]

Cheers, man. It looks like BE Internet requires a BT landline anyway so I might as well get a phone, I suppose...

[Ignatius_S]

One thing that I meant to mention, when transcribing tapes, a foot pedal is very handy - e.g. http://www.footpedals.net/

Audio transcription software would be worth looking at.

[Mister Six]

Oooh, those pedals look good but they're a bit of a luxury at the minute. Will have to rely on the tedious, 'stop typing, rewind a bit, play again' method for now.

One last question: there's phone hooked up in the place which suggests that there's a phone line, but Be Internet and the like need the number before I can use them. How can I find that out without paying for a BT bloke to come around? The owner doesn't know.

Also - do I need a tenancy agreement to activate the line? My mate whose mum owns the flat says I will, but as I'm just there as a friend and without a contract I don't have the agreement at all.

[Ignatius_S]

Oooh, those pedals look good but they're a bit of a luxury at the minute. Will have to rely on the tedious, 'stop typing, rewind a bit, play again' method for now.

One last question: there's phone hooked up in the place which suggests that there's a phone line, but Be Internet and the like need the number before I can use them. How can I find that out without paying for a BT bloke to come around? The owner doesn't know.

Also - do I need a tenancy agreement to activate the line? My mate whose mum owns the flat says I will, but as I'm just there as a friend and without a contract I don't have the agreement at all.

The pedals have the double bonus of being fun, but they are very very good. If you do end up doing a lot of taped interviews, they're a good investment... as you'll see for yourself.

With the phone line, I would call BT and ask them – just because there's a box, doesn't actually mean it's ever been connected to anything. If a phone line is there, it used to be that they just needed to flick a switch at the exchange – if it hasn't been used for a while, then it might need an engineer. When I went with Virgin, I had a deal where the installation was next to nothing.

I don't think I've ever needed a tenancy agreement when I've taken out a phone line (not that often admittedly).

[Mister Six]

Brilliant, cheers!

[greencalx]

BT may claim that your property's never been connected even though it has. I once moved into a flat, plugged a phone into a socket sporting a 1980's BT logo, and got a noise that said "Yip - it's connected to something". BT believed their database that had no record of a phone line at the flat more than the evidence I presented to them. Had to pay the full connection fee, but it was waived when the engineer came round, took one look at it and said "I could have done this from the exchange".

[Ignatius_S]

Brilliant, cheers!

Ah, I would save your thanks until you get it sorted and I hadn't given you with a load of duff information!

BT may claim that your property's never been connected even though it has. I once moved into a flat, plugged a phone into a socket sporting a 1980's BT logo, and got a noise that said "Yip - it's connected to something". BT believed their database that had no record of a phone line at the flat more than the evidence I presented to them. Had to pay the full connection fee, but it was waived when the engineer came round, took one look at it and said "I could have done this from the exchange".

With something like that, I would expect it was more a case of user error, rather than the database – with some addresses it could be easy mixing properties up.

Things might be different these days, but it used to be the case that BT always sent out engineers to residential customers as a last resort – mainly because more time spent on residential jobs meant less time spent on business customers, which made far more money. In the case of installation, I don't think the amount charged to residential customers covered the entire cost to the company (due to regulation, the company didn't have control over it).

If there is a line but it hasn't been used for a long time, connection may not be possible from the exchange and an engineer does have to come out.

[greencalx]

Yes, but if you plug a phone into it and it goes "Whee-oo-whee-oo-whee-oo" it's clearly connected to something.  Might not be an exchange as such, might just be a green cabinet - but they don't need an engineer to go into the flat to sort it out. The BT salespeople simply could not grasp that, because the one flat out of eight didn't appear in their database, didn't mean it didn't exist!

I've heard similar stories from a number of other people in my area - sounds almost like a deliberate policy or something.

Actually, the best example along these lines was someone who got a call from an engineer asking what street they were in, as they couldn't find it. Turned out the customer's premises was in Edinburgh, and the engineer was in London.

[Ignatius_S]

Yes, but if you plug a phone into it and it goes "Whee-oo-whee-oo-whee-oo" it's clearly connected to something.  Might not be an exchange as such, might just be a green cabinet - but they don't need an engineer to go into the flat to sort it out. The BT salespeople simply could not grasp that, because the one flat out of eight didn't appear in their database, didn't mean it didn't exist!

I've heard similar stories from a number of other people in my area - sounds almost like a deliberate policy or something.

Actually, the best example along these lines was someone who got a call from an engineer asking what street they were in, as they couldn't find it. Turned out the customer's premises was in Edinburgh, and the engineer was in London.

As I say, there are times when the engineer does have to access to the flat when the line has not been used in a very long time. This obviously isn't the case with your line, but on the BT system, the person should be able to tell if it is and explain that to the customer that they need to book an engineer to visit.

BT is losing money when they send an engineer even if a full installation is needed – and if it turns out if no engineer is needed, then that worker could have been doing something that actually brings in the money and the customer is annoyed... it's not a company policy, it's the last thing BT wants.

I appreciate how frustrating it must have been for you, but it would be cock-up than by design.