Relocation Tips

[OutLawTorn]

Hi All,

My wife has recently received a promotion/transfer at work from Sydney to London, so we will be moving there early in the new year. We're not sure exactly where we will end up living (will figure that out when we get there) but will be renting somewhere within London.

I wanted to get some suggestions on internet and mobile providers so i can start looking in to... we'll be there just under 2 years, so would prefer to avoid contracts longer than 12 months if possible... am happy to bundle things together (if its worth it)... we will be bringing our existing mobiles with us, so BYO device plans are fine...

I know its a pretty open ended question, but any suggestions welcome

[nephilim]

Every company mobile company do a decent sim only deals for a mobile phone, just depends on what you want, and tv wise you'd be best off (in my opinion) going with sky. They do tv, broadband and landline for a reasonable price.

[gmonks]

In my opinion BT is good for Internet and telephone, Sky for television and I'm on Vodafone for the mobile.

[FN-GM]

BT is good but expensive.

When i was in Australia Vodafone was horrific, but in the UK its pretty good. The best deal is Tesco the supermarket. My deal is 5000 texts, 500 mins, 1gb data for £10 a month.

[Danp]

I have Sky for telephone, tv and broadband, £55 a month for the lot, one bill so suits me

[FN-GM]

@OutLawTorn when people talk about sky its pretty much the same as foxtel, the boxes and interface are identical. You can get TV without sky, the free stuff. Freeview TV channels are better here than Australia nowhere near as many adverts! Although its called freeview you need pay a TV licence.

[jamesreedersmith]

Look at talk talk, tv, phone, broadband at a great price and good speeds, mobile look at EE for excellent coverage (Best in the UK now as 2 networks combined to make it)

[elsiegee40]

Having had my husband do the opposite, swap his place of work from London to Sydney, I'll say the first thing you'll notice us how cheap it is in the UK compared to Australia. We reckoned cost of living was about double in Sydney.

Around the capital all the services are good.

I hate BT and their Indian call centre and was glad to switch to sky for broadband and phone... We already use Sky for satellite tv. Depending on where you settle, you may have cable options too. You don't actually need either as terrestrial options will work perfectly well with a digital tv tuner.

For mobile look at the deals available from O2, Vodaphone, Tesco (uses O2 as a carrier), 3, etc. Carphone warehouse's website will give you an idea of the providers

[MatthewL]

If you can get Virgin where you are staying they will generally provide a faster internet service if BT Infinity (fibre) is not available. If BT is your only option there are many ADSL providers around, I would personally recommend PlusNet.

I think Orange (EE) do some of the best and cheapest contracts, you can pick some deals up for around £20 a month if you work on them.

[rad]

London is Huge.... if you know where the head office will be based we can help with locations.

I have BT Infinity (fibreoptic) broadband, and t-mobile (EE) for mobile phone. TV I have freeview

[ZeroHour]

Sky have a fibre net connection package and the nice thing about sky broadband is that its really uncapped/unlimited.
Sky TV has the largest collection of channels.
T-Mobile is who I am with now from vodafone from o2 and I have the full monty sim only which is unlimited everything pretty much for £21 T-Mobile Combi SIM mobile phone on SIM only The Full Monty 31 (12 months)

[Gibbo]

Last time I checked Virgin contracts were 18 months.

And make any change to your package and they start a new contract.

[OutLawTorn]

London is Huge.... if you know where the head office will be based we can help with locations.

I'm not exactly sure where her office is, but after her discussions with some of her friends from work who are out here on secondment we're roughly looking at Brook Green or Canary Wharf as possible places to live once we get settled... she has to start work pretty much straight away, so i'll be doing the unit-hunting job once we get there...

[witch]

Well we look forward to seeing you at BETT perhaps?
Will you be looking for a job while you are here?

[OutLawTorn]

I'll be looking for work once we get there... not sure what and where yet tho...

Currently in Aus I work for a small business (~20 staff) which provides different levels of contracted support to approximately 40 schools all over Sydney (and a few small businesses)... I'm in a Network Administrator/Project Management role which is about as high up in the company as i can go without being the boss... I've worked in schools for ~7 years, so i'm tempted to use the relocation as an opportunity to try working in a different IT environment for a while...