* ORM *
Still Loves Emma Bunton. Roy McDonough is God!
I was happy with Freeserve for years, had no problems when they were taken over by Wanadoo and no problems again when they were taken over by Orange until a couple of months ago when I received a phone call saying they were scrapping my tariff and how would I like to move to a new package costing an extra £3 pm.
I then switched to Sky, after waiting for ages, and a variety of bs excuses for Orange to provide a MAC code until threats of action persuaded them that they could get hold of the information immediately.
I had no problems with Sky (See, Speak, Surf) and there's quite a decent independent Sky forum (covering everything to do with Sky) that helped with initial teething probs I had (mostly of my own doing).
The Sky help support is dire to say the least. They give you an 0870 number but there is a free number that they don't publicise (don't ask me for it but you can find it on the forum). I'd recommend that if you don't get a Scottish/English person first time around hang up and try again.
The talk package is well worth it. The basic Speak £5 pm only covers evenings and weekends but covers UK and quite a few international calls including mobiles. But for an extra fiver you get free calls all day and night, all year.
One important point which I can't even find in the small print. Sky completely CANE you for premium rate numbers. As long as you are still paying quarterly rental to BT for the phone just remember to dial 1280 and then the premium rate number to direct the call through BT (still not cheap but cheaper than Sky !!!).
Once fully set up I've had no problems at all with phone or Broadband.
