ezzie

As you're all looking to come out here, and we're looking to get back there...thought you might be in a better position to tell us the best internet provider, home phone and mobile phone providers over there? Who's been happy with theirs?

Rosewater

It's so much cheaper over in the UK than it is here in Australia for all of this. We had Broadband and phone line through Bulldog which cost next to nothing. I think all our UK landline calls were free and calls overseas ridiculously cheap. Our high speed, unlimited broadband was about 15 GBP per month. I think Bulldog and Tiscali are now linked and seem to offer very competitive deals.

In terms of mobiles you can and should barter to get yourself the best contract possible if you aren't using Pay As You Go. I was with Orange and they were fine, once my contract was coming up I called them to say I had a better offer and they matched it giving me a top of the range phone, unlimited texts and extra hours of call time for about 25 GBP a month. It's worth going in to see all the major providers and playing them off against each other to get the best deal. In the meantime you can unlock your Aussie phone and get a UK SIM card on pay as you go. Lebara mobile SIM cards seem to have good rates.