Welcome Stamp Questions
 

H all,

Like lots of people on here, my fiancee and I are really interested in the Welcome Stamp that is currently on offer but have a few questions that we would really appreciate some help with if anyone has experience or knowledge of:

What are some of the best health insurance companies to look at? I've found a few but would be great to get recommendations (I have a pre-existing heart condition).
Has anyone brought a cat (or dog) with them? We have a cat that we want to bring and would love some advice on the best way to do this.
In comparison to the UK how expensive are food and household items? We live in London so confident we can save on rent but curious about other costs.
What are other 'life' costs like? Phone contracts, cost of a haircut etc.
I've seen the wifi speed is excellent but is it reliable? We'll both be working remotely so this is vital!

If there's any other advice you feel would be useful, please do let me know!

Thanks for reading.

James

Re: Welcome Stamp Questions
 

Im sure some of the bim locals will be along with specifics but a few pointers on prices compared with the uk, - if its imported its expensive, between how much and HOW MUCH! but it helps to know you can get uk brands tesco waitrose etc plus us brands but actually some uk stuff comes via the us where it has been marked up once already... True rates of taxation on imports [added together] are 25-50% for most things. Think WTO plus caricom additions.

A pound for a tin of beans, 10 pounds for a bag of coffee for example. Local or regional tends to be cheaper, and the mango you pay a pound for in the uk is much cheaper - in season - but not all things local are cheaper. For sure anything made in caricom has lower taxes/duties and is usually reasonable quality.

Bring all IT clothing and footwear, dont bring any wood unless its bug proof. Buy uk private prescriptions for meds before you leave. Sort out your rental car price, and dontt rent a place for longer than a few months, you may want to move or find a better option when there.

Broadband is fine usually, supplement with 3/4g also fine. You will see an occasional outage but nothing bad. Do invest in VPN for iplayer etc - nordvpn personally, but there are others, but buy it, freebies are not good. TV isnt essential, maybe the uk apps and netflix?

Re: Welcome Stamp Questions
 

Like all things prices depend on the economy you buy them in, a haircut is from cheaper than the uk to lots more, local guy, salon in the mall or spa in the hotel? Mobile phone costs maybe 3-4 times what it costs in the uk.

Re: Welcome Stamp Questions
 

Really useful, thanks very much! Just for a bit more context, what would a takeaway coffee cost?

Re: Welcome Stamp Questions
 

Italia Coffee house here.. two Frescante Espresso coffees (one large, one small) for around Bd$20...

Health Insurance.. there is a company that is running insurance for those on the Welcome Stamp.. Contact Gallagher Insurance https://www.cgmgallagher.com/

It is possible to bring pets here.. subject to all sorts of import regulations. There are brokers who specifically deal with pets try Michael Greaves Associates Michael Greaves Associates

Home internet is generally fibre to the home so typically better than UK. It's generally reliable.. there are various packages available.. to include TV and or mobile. We get a hell of lot of "free" minutes to UK and US numbers too... which might be useful for business. I would definitely recommend a VPN, if you don't know much about them there are plenty of people who can advise.

Prices... its a hell of a lot more expensive than the UK.. but those costs can be mitigated somewhat depending where you choose to shop.

Re: Welcome Stamp Questions
 

Home internet in cities in the uk is currently MUCH faster than you can get in the caribbean, and much cheaper too.

In the caribbean distribution from Flow [old C&W] is based on the DOCSIS 3.0 standard so technically 300mB is possible but 100mB is usually the best on offer for home but its contended. In the uk 300-500 is easily available - i use virgin business there at home which is 500mB uncontended for 30 pounds a month bare cables. HOWEVER since you wont have a single client capable of anything like that and the standard routers supplied struggle at 100 its sort of moot. Even in the UK with 500mB, a fast solid state client, a power gaming style router, and a big data torrent 50 maybe 70 mB is about the most anyone can do [remember real life you cant write to a non silicon HDD > about 20.]

Re: Welcome Stamp Questions
 

I pay around BD$230 a month for a fibre circuit giving me speeds of approx 200MBs, a tv package and landline with inclusive UK/US minutes.

Is that much cheaper than the UK? Serious question as I don't know UK costs these days..

Re: Welcome Stamp Questions
 

Thats about 85 pounds, which is knocking on about twice the uk cost - you could pay that much but only if you had every sports and movie channel known to man.

Fibre itself doesnt mean anything unless you are operating at gB speeds, its just cheaper to lay, coax cable in docsis 3.0 [caribbean] is good for 300 mB but ive never seen it ever deliver > 150 in real life, and 3.1 for about 1gB [uk]

The joke is that you just dont need it, even 4K TV is tiny as a bandwidth, most websites could never deliver > 100mB streams, traffic management for domestic users will kill any high performance loads and your clients and router cant do it either. Speed test apps and websites are. bit of a con really in that respect.

Re: Welcome Stamp Questions
 

But here I have access to every sports and movie channel... lol....

I would agree you don't NEED fibre.. but if it gives you the "feeling" of security (in a speed sense) when you will be working from home.. then it's worthwhile. All developing countries worldwide are putting in fibre and not bothering with co-axial based systems. It's not cheaper when you have to move and ship large amounts of cabling.

Re: Welcome Stamp Questions
 

LOL you've clearly never compared a mile of fibre on a drum with a mile of coax - its 20th of the cost size and weight, and costs a little less to lay.

Theres also no extra security in fibre - its inherently more breakable and a bigger pain to repair. The smart solution was FTTC which has been the standard for years - fibre networks but last hop in coax, though you realise this will all be redundant in a few years anyway, LTE will make all wired local networks redundant - especially in places like caribbean islands.

This is already under way in trinidad - but its 4.5G based right now. There are also stealth wireless networks coming - amazons district/neighbourhood networking solution free within all alexa devices will see to that.

Re: Welcome Stamp Questions
 

LOL.. i work in a business which travels with miles of cable.. moving to fibre saves an absolute fortune in costs in all sorts of areas.

Yes fibre is a bigger pain to repair.. but, as a for instance, my home fibre hasn't need to be repaired since installation.. My last hop isn't in co-ax that is exactly how the UK is set up right now.. until they finally get rid of the remaining bits of coax.

LTE will make a huge difference.. and here we have LTE coverage over a wide swathe of the south and west..data packages come in at around BD$150 for a 12Gb plan... add ons are available.. You can share data between up to 2 numbers with Flow through your device itself...

Re: Welcome Stamp Questions
 

The full bells and whistle Sky package works out to about 100 pounds a months with 60mb/s guaranteed download speed on an 18 month contract and that's with a sale on!

I've just done a quick speed test at home and got 45mb/s download and 15mb/s upload which is generally enough for what we need so sounds like we should find something easily.

Thanks for the help!

Re: Welcome Stamp Questions
 

Do you have any mwLTE yet - thats the game changer but right now there really isnt much in the way of justification for it even in London. LTE as she is played here isnt really better than 3G so far as i have discovered - and the LTE from Digicel isnt really 5G most places its the 4.5 variety.

I have some ex-colleagues who are working for Apple in Dubai, on 6G - not a clue on the true meaning but it sounds interesting.

Re: Welcome Stamp Questions
 

Try virgin - they actually supply parts of the sky network anyway. Its a geographical thing, if you are in London virgin do most of it, in the home counties its worldcom, etc etc.

And yes 50 is PLENTY if its actually achieved - traffic management will probably halve that in real life but its still plenty unless you have 20 devices on a fast router.

However if you drop the tv and use pure web solutions, 500 mb is actually about 30 a month and thats with NO traffic management - its pure 500 mb down and 100 up - but its a virgin business offering, but it can be put into a home.

Re: Welcome Stamp Questions
 

I always thought LTE was only 4.5G anyway...

I don't believe there is any 5G here yet.. or anywhere in the Caribbean?