Best business phone & broadband provider

[Business News]

We have been with XLN for many years and the service has been pretty good. They have introduced lots of little increases to their packages that combined have raised costs by around 10% in a year; including strangely a Business Assurance charge. Due to these large increases it'd be a good time to run a comparison to see if there are better deals out there so if people could let me know who they use and are happy with as a bundle provider then I'll get squirreling.

Just one thing, no call connection charges as they kill the charges as many of our calls are of a few second duration; when people don't pick up but the answer machine does. Thats why we went to XLN in the first place, moving from BT reduced the package cost by over 50% just because of the high BT call connection cost.

Any pointers will be helpfull, it's a line/broadband package I'm looking for so no VOIP options as I already run VOIP as a seperate line.

 

[cjd]

If you're looking for broadband alone (we don't provide exchange lines), our broadband is from £22 to £35 pm. It runs on an empty network so VoIP suffers no congestion.

http://www.voipfone.co.uk/broadband.php

 

[simplesimon86]

i hate to admit it but our normal call costs with BT are pretty good.

for £15 per month we get 5500 minutes to any where but premium rate number, international mobiles, 0871 and 0844. everything else included.

line rental lets them down. 1 analogue line is £17.

but i have a business setup at home ,beacuse i can

all together my monthly bill is fixed to £50.

 

[chrishankinson]

I'm not sure if im allowed to post pricing on here, but here goes.

For UKBF members I can do the analogue line rental for £11.35 pcm, and broadband depends on requirements, anything from £22.95pm up to £52.99 per month.

Drop me a message if you would like a quotation

Chris

 

[simplesimon86]

CJD - Chris - this is by no means a jab at you -

but is there any reason your BB is a bit on the pricey side?

 

[chrishankinson]

CJD - Chris - this is by no means a jab at you -

but is there any reason your BB is a bit on the pricey side?

haha I get that a lot. I think people are used to paying £12 a month with people like Talk Talk, and unfortunately you get the service to match. we are never going to try and be bargain basement for broadband, we have found our clients pay the extra to be able to call us, speak to a human, and know we can call the ISP 2nd and 3rd line support directly. thats what I gather anyway....

 

[simplesimon86]

haha I get that a lot. I think people are used to paying £12 a month with people like Talk Talk, and unfortunately you get the service to match. we are never going to try and be bargain basement for broadband, we have found our clients pay the extra to be able to call us, speak to a human, and know we can call the ISP 2nd and 3rd line support directly. thats what I gather anyway....

damn...thats a good answer!

 

[justintime]

Have a look at Talktalk business. For around £30 + Vat a month you get unlimited broadband and unlimited calls, including line rental.

I know talktalk itself has a bad rep but as far as I am aware business uses separate infrastructure (old Pipex) and has a reasonable reputation.

http://www.talktalkbusiness.co.uk/store/business-broadband/office-broadband/

 

[simplesimon86]

Have a look at Talktalk business. For around £30 + Vat a month you get unlimited broadband and unlimited calls, including line rental.

I know talktalk itself has a bad rep but as far as I am aware business uses separate infrastructure (old Pipex) and has a reasonable reputation.

http://www.talktalkbusiness.co.uk/store/business-broadband/office-broadband/

hmm i would check the 'unlimited calls' either only to landlines or more importantly a inclusive package rather than 'unlimited'

 

[justintime]

hmm i would check the 'unlimited calls' either only to landlines or more importantly a inclusive package rather than 'unlimited'

Yep, sorry, it would be landlines only I assume.

It says unlimited on the website, rather than an inclusive calls deal. Its £6 a month for unlimited peak or offpeak, or £8 a month for both.

 

[cjd]

CJD - Chris - this is by no means a jab at you -

but is there any reason your BB is a bit on the pricey side?

A few reasons, People like TalkTalk are trying to sell bundled consumer services so they'll headline a low cost for one part and try to gain on the others. They are also prepared to sell at a loss to get market share against the other major telcos.

You'll note that they all have a minimum of 1 year contract - some much longer - so they can guarantee themselves a minimum income over time and hope for inertia when the contract runs out. (Our broadband, like all our services, is no contract - cancel anytime if you don't like us.)

But they also cut costs by using traffic management/shaping which restricts certain types of traffic at busy times of day - causing jitter and lag.

They all have uniformly horrible customer services.

If you're running a businesses, you really need a business quality network - particularly if you're using VoIP and as the cost difference is sod all really, why take risks with a dodgy consumer product?

 

[simonclark123]

Hi
I may be able to help here.
No minimum call charges.
No call setup fees.
Calls to mobiles from as little as 1.6p.
Broadband ADSL2+ (ie up to 24 Meg) £22.50 (includes Static IP).
Special offer at the moment of up to six months free line rental.
Best Regards
Simon Clark at Business Telecoms dot com