Arf have a look at t-mobile..they are doing a special offer on notebooks with web n walk. Might be worth a look?                                                                                                                                                                             

thanks again m95:o).............   thanks to you too Kitten:o)....hope alls well in your world:o)x                                                                                                                                                                             

Arf I was with BT and it should have been £11 a month which we both agreed on...it was set up on direct debit but after two months they decided to take £40 a month without telling me...I rang them up and asked why..they said it was because I MAY use the phone more..which didn't make sense as I didn't use the house phone ..I used the connection for the computer only...anyways I cancelled BT and went to talk talk...who took over the BT connection...there was no set up fee just £17 up front which would be my first months payment and from then on I would pay £17 a month..........my computer connection is free and it doesnt cost me anything to use my phone after six at night...I phone the states at least three times a week and it doesn't cost me a penny........I have found talk talk to be faster than most connections and have never had any probs with my connections wether it be modem or wireless...however as I think has already been said with talk talk you have to have a BT connection first but then talk talk take over.........hope this makes sense to you mate...basically have a good talk with talk talk and decide what you want to do...is best to go into the carphone wharehouse to speak to em rather than phone em up .

If he wasn't confused before he will be now.                                                                                                                                                                             

lol @ Ricdude!......he def was confused before n all:o)....... ......ta Herne by the way:o).................. all roads seem to be leading to talk talk at the mo, so guess i might tag along:o)............carphone warehouse hey rather than phone up?.......ok, don't know what connection there is between them, but will take your advice:o).......... thanks once more to you all for taking timeout to help this illiterate computer doughnut start to make sense of what is , in all sense n purpose, a foreign language to me!:o)..........hope to be back with you all soon....byeeeeeeeeeeeeee.........                                                                                                                                                                             

i personally would say dont go into the shop!   You'll get conned and tricked by salesmen into making you buy a certain package that you don't want.  Only go into stores if you know what you're talking about and have done your research first.   I'd say use the net and find what you want for yourself, in your own time and without any pressure.   I assume you already know about AOL?  I'll refrain from telling you what I think about them and the people who use AOL - needless to say DON'T USE AOL!   My neighbour had NTL, as did my Grandad in the UK in the past, and I found they were pants.  Hardware always failing for both of them, and a slower connection than broadband over the phone line.   So that's AOL, Sky, NTL and Virgin I would say don't use.   Get a BT line activated for free if you have one already installed, then find an ISP speedtest guide either online or in a magazine.                                                                                                                                                                             

Some links for you...   broadband-expert.co.uk/broadband thinkbroadband.com/isp/compare.html broadbandspeedchecker.co.uk/speed_ratings.aspx   It's looking like this Be company is good... bethere.co.uk   If you can get it in your area that is.                                                                                                                                                                             

Matt chances are if you don't go into the shop you'll only be put onto an indian call centre who haven't a clue.....Arf carfone wharehouse is the ownwers of talk talk and do as I did ..say to the desk look I know what I want so don't give me no shit about extras else I will go elsewhere..and they will really go all out to get what YOU want at a price YOU want.

Matt, Herne, your both ..thankyou for yor time:o)............

oh i didnt know they owned talk talk, news to me.  In that case do go in IF you want talk talk.  But review them website links first as it seems others are faster (much faster)                                                                                                                                                                             

And just to rub ur nose in it... i'll be getting 2 glass fibre internet lines at my house soon running at 200mb per second!!!!  Imagine transferring a full CD across the internet in 3-4 seconds.   :-)                                                                                                                                                                             

  I get my phone and internet connection via Virgin Media (formerly known as NTL) and with both companies my telephone and internet service (touch wood) have been excellent. However...their customer service leaves a lot to be desired. I'm forever being pestered with phone calls from them (to get their television package)and forever telling them NOT to phone me as I aint interested.   It got so bad, when it was NTL, that I threatened to seek a solicitors advice about their harrassment, so they stopped phoning me and started  sending me mail!     Arf I hope you get sorted soon                                                                                                                                                                                 

oooooh NTL is now virgin media.   Lots changed since i left the UK, but seems they continued NTL's pathetic reputation.                                                                                                                                                                             

this is who i was with... http://www.plus.net/   Costs a quid or so more, but is worth it. Customer service is excellent and you don't have to phone them (online ticket system).  You get free web space, free fax number, etc... they're really good.                                                                                                                                                                             

You could always use the comp in the library,Arf,it's free                                                                                                                                                                              

I've been with Virgin now for 2 years and always found their helpline helpful,never had pestering phone calls or e-mails offering me stuff and if i've upgraded or downgraded tv,phone or whatever its always been done at the time they said it would be done. Seems all companies have happy customers and p****d off customers. The choice is yours Arf.

think u got lucky ric  :-)                                                                                                                                                                             

I have been on Virgin for 2 years now, 20Mb bandwidth and regularly get 19.5-20 Mb downloads from Usenet sites. Had one outage of 3 hours in that time.  I have had a couple of calls from their sales lot which resulted in getting the phone network services(caller ID, call waiting etc) thrown in for free when I told them I was thinking of going back to BT and ADSL. So far I can't fault them as opposed to Tiscali my former ISP, ended up in small claims court with them as they cut me off for six weeks and I just couldn't get past first line support(Indian call centre)                                                                                                                                                                             

Spooky!!! - Just had a call from Virgin trying to get me to take their TV package.  Go on own up, which one of you lot works for Virgin?                                                                                                                                                                             

Sky isn't that bad it all depends on the area you live in. AVOID TALK TALK I used to work for the on their support line. I would never recommend them as their support system is treble and they don't care about you once they have your money. Typical Carphone mentality. I am with Virgin myself (ex telewest / Blueyonder) i have never had any big issues with them and they have good stable connections on an infrastructure they own. I have a friend who works for Virgin in technical and they don't report you to the police for file sharing unless your causing a serious problem. most interned providers operate a similar policy. As for Internet over the mobile phone network, yes it is good but the short comings are when you try to do anything clever like watch on line video as the connection sped can vary depending on how good a signal you have.  I use my mobile to access the INTERNET on a regular basis for work and know how bad using the mobile networks are.