OK, Bulldog originally said they're not in my area until May 2005 but
now they rung me today to say they're fully installed in my telephone
exchange.

so they're offering for the next 12 months is £30 per month inc. line
rental and 4 mb/s internet access - about 8 times faster then what I
have now.

I'm paying pipex £23.44 for 512 kb/s soon (well anytime up to August) to
be 1mb/s

And my dad pays the BT line rental - whatever that is .... £10 per month
I think

Phonecalls are with Talk Talk

.. so what I want are reasons not to switch for at least the next 12 months

Is there anything bad about this deal or this company for both internet
or phone service? we mainly use 1988 as well for call abroad I assume
this will still work - seem too good to be true compared to what other
are offering.

Any thoughts on what prices and other comanies will be doing in 12
months time because after 12 months the price goes up to £40 per month -
but for 4mb/s unlimited it's still pretty good - BTW they say no
newsgroups on BullDog, but I can still read and post through Google
Groups, right?

"Dee" <archer1NOSPAM@PLEASEjustemail.THANKYOUnet> wrote in message
news:42558aef$0$298$cc9e4d1f@news.dial.pipex.com.. .
>.. so what I want are reasons not to switch for at least the next 12 months
>
>Is there anything bad about this deal or this company for both internet or
>phone service? we mainly use 1988 as well for call abroad I assume this
>will still work - seem too good to be true compared to what other are
>offering.

Well, if you do change to Bulldog, would you mind using my referral code?

However, the main reasons not to change to Bulldog are:

a) Your TalkTalk CPS service will not work on a Bulldog LLU exchange.
b) I presume you use 1899 - the short 1899 prefix (actually the "short
prefix' of any 3rd party telco) will *not* work on Bulldog LLU lines, though
1899's 0808 170 77 88 number should work, as will their VoIP service.

Other than that (taken from another post of mine):

The biggest gripe is that on a handful of exchanges (seemingly some of the
ones they 1st LLU'ed years ago) new installations take a long time as
Bulldog encounter capacity issues - so shoudn't affect you as your exchange
has just been LLU'ed. However because of this Bulldog quote long lead times,
even if they actually do the installs much quicker in the majority of cases.

Other than that a few people have reported being switched to Bulldog (and
with the ADSL working), only to hear a voice message on their line, saying
call 150 to activate their voice line but when they do,
they just hear the same message repeated again and again - I believe this is
easily fixed though.

Also, sometimes it takes a while to get through to technical
support/customer service staff - though it is a 0800 freephone contact
number.

In general, once its up and running it seems fine (apart from the odd
network problem) and Bulldog is owned by Cable and Wireless.

>Any thoughts on what prices and other comanies will be doing in 12 months
>time because after 12 months the price goes up to £40 per month - but for
>4mb/s unlimited it's still pretty good

In 12 months time, ADSL will be cheaper/faster etc. both from Bulldog and
other companies. Bulldog, UK Online and BT (among others) are all working on
ADSL2+ products which will probably launch later this year and could reach
maximum speeds of 18/24 MB.

As such, 12 months is a very long timescale, so sign up for whatever suits
you now and change later if necessary.

In the meantime, I believe that Bulldog are looking to launch faster ADSL
services soon. This is based on the fact that Bulldog's upload speed is 400K
*but* their business LLU services offer 512K upload and many people have
recently found (new installations) that they are provisioned as 512K upload
on home services as well.

Bulldog have appartantly also started sync'ing the download speed to the
fastest your line can handle (including up to 8MB) and then trottling you
down to the promised 4MB.


In my view, its a very good price at the moment and while the £30/month
lasts for 12 months, your contract is only actually 1 month long not 12 - as
such, if Bulldog come out with a different offer/speed/tariff or another ISP
does, it should be easy to change. Also, after 12 months you can change to
whatever current offer Bulldog are running if you haven't already by then so
you should never have to pay the £40/month.

The only other offer one of "similar value" seems to be UKOnline's £29.99
8MB LLU service which does have a cap (500GB/month!), is a 12 month contract
and BT line rental is extra but if you would benefit from the extra speed
and can get it, then it may be worth considering.

>BTW they say no newsgroups on BullDog, but I can still read and post
>through Google Groups, right?

Yes. It just means they don't provide a news server themselves - you are
free to use a 3rd party one or Google Groups.

Regards
Sunl