Bit of advice needed for someone who is confused by all the various offers.
I'm seriously considering the Virgin Business solution for phone and internet at £39 pcm but just felt that I should open it to the floor before making any commitment as always better to ask those that have already been in this situation.
So, for anyone running a small office with more than one phone line and a fast internet requirement, who and what would you recommend to supply your service and what should I expect to pay.
Many thanks in advance,
Shaun.
__________________
Shaun
Responses are not meant as a substitute for professional advice. Answers are intended as outline only the advice of a qualified professional with access to all relevant information should be sought before acting on any response given.
I do not know about Virgin but Talk Talk Business are offering a good deal at the moment, £25 for high speed B/band and free unlimited landline calls.
Sound's great but here's the rub, Talk Talk are c**p at aftersales service, once they have sold you the product. I have been offline most of today, chasing my tale, trying to get it sorted, after 45 mins on a premium rate number going through four levels of technical support, they cut me off!!! to rub the salt in, once they end the call to the support staff (India based, with poor English skills), they ask you to complete a satisfaction survey, take about two minutes but don't forget it's a premium rate number on your dollar.
Phoned them back (quicker this time but still my cost), only to be told they couldn't help. After 12 hours of no internet (or forum) it has returned on it's own, and it turns out to have been a service fault. Why don't they tell their support teams.
The sales help line is a free phone number but the support line is premium rate. Suppose while you are making an enquiry you are a prospect, once they have you, you're a customer!!
Thank's Shaun for giving me the opprtunity to rant and get it of my chest. Hope you got the message
For anyone else on Tak Talk (or Tiscali, as was) 0208 1275747, is a non premium rate number for level four support. Don't waste your time with level one, who only tell you the obvious (switch everything off, leave it for 10 seconds, and turn it on again)
Hi Shaun, There are too many offers andf different deals to be sifted through for anyone ever to have the definintive answer, it seems to me. You're essentially flying blind into the advertisers' spider web, like the rest of us.
Your £39 doesn't include vat - this may or may not have a bearing on your decision. And you should factor in your mobile phone needs, too, to the cost decision. Your example is for a 2 year contract; if anything else comes along (and it always does, I found) you won't be able to take advantage of it for 2 years.
Ordinary phone lines, regardless of provider, hardly ever - ever - drop out; big claims about billions invested to assure you of connections and 0800 help if anything goes wrong seem to be marketing froth, in retrospect. An ordinary phone line with a mobile phone somewhere in the background is almost always good enough for us bookkeepers. That's my thought, anyway. What price would you pay, buying piecemeal - which allows you flexibility?
Personally, I've got a BT deal for all calls to all landlines and a mobile deal which covers all calls to all networks. Both are for about 18 months, but staggered. My download speed has quietly risen to be about twice as fast as they advertised (meaning that it's down the the exchange and your distance from it). All in, it probably costs a regular £55 pcm including VAT.
sounds like you really needed to get that one off your chest. That was an unbelievable response that there was nothing that they could do!
I use Virgin for my home internet, been with them now for around 17 years and the worst that I've had was losing my internet completely and I didn't ave their number to hand. After much searching I found a number in the original agreement which I contacted only to be told that I needed to contact the number on my service agreement.
Ok, says I where can I find that number?
To which I got the response that they can't give that information out. I just need to log into my account to get the information... Duh!
That one put the phone down but I phoned back and got a really helpful girl who understood the catch 22 and gave me the correct number to call. Once I'd done that the issue transpired to be with BT and they did something magical (sent 40 packets down the line in rapid succession whatever that means?) and it cleared it and I was back online again.
So, appart from one small messup where you needed to log into the internet to find the number to call someone to tell then that you have no internet to log into in order to find the number they've actually been pretty great which is why I'm looking at them for the business system.
__________________
Shaun
Responses are not meant as a substitute for professional advice. Answers are intended as outline only the advice of a qualified professional with access to all relevant information should be sought before acting on any response given.
Cheers for the info. I'm actually VAT registered so no issue on that score Also already got the mobile from O2 and been quite happy with their service appart from the mess where they changed me over from Analogue to digital (yep, I really have been with them that long!) by just switching my phone off without any warning.
I know what you mean about the spiders web. And just to add to that, there is also the ever present risk with some of these companies that you may try to log on one morning to find that the company no longer exists!
I've made a bit of money trading telecom shares on the AIM in the past and the number of times that on a Friday night the company looked fine then when the market reopened on Monday they had closed up shop.
After losing a bit on these fly by nights I got into the habit of selling everything on Friday nights and buying back on the Monday. Cost me a bit but saved more than I lost by not losing everything on some "next big thing" telecoms companies. Anyway, don't do shares at all in the current economic climate.
Before signing up to anything I'll take a serious look at the BT deals although their policy of slipping £5.40 onto every bill for taking your money unless you pay by direct debit (which after a nightmare with British Gas is something I am adverse to using) really grinds on me and it's the one thing that's really made me think seriously about sending my home phones (I've got two seperate landlines) Virgins way as well.
Many thanks again for the info.
kind regards,
Shaun.
__________________
Shaun
Responses are not meant as a substitute for professional advice. Answers are intended as outline only the advice of a qualified professional with access to all relevant information should be sought before acting on any response given.
