I'll be moving back to NI on July 13th and I'll be staying with my parents in Larne to start with. Anyway I'll need to get internet access ASAP or I will go crazy. Does anyone have a recommendations on who provides the best service? I'm not exactly technically minded so I want it set up with as little fuss as possible. (BTW I use a Mac)

Hi Elaine,
Well when we were in Larne we used UTV internet and found them fine - you will notice a BIG drop in your speed though you will at best get 2Mb. the other internet companies you could use are BT or SKY, I am sure there are others too though. You will possibly not get set up straight away, it usually takes about 10 days to setup and plus you will be arriving on a bank holiday so that could slow things down too!!

Hope this is of some help,
Sinead

Thanks Sinead. Can you remember what your paid per month?

Yeah we paid about £29 but that was for the highest package, unlimited download etc. With UTV they start from about £12.99 for the basic package, try this for details. UTV also do free evening and weekend calls which is pretty good. (No I am not being paid by UTV )

Hi EB...our internet is with BT...cost is around £18 a month but that includes BT vision...am not sure what it is on it's own....x

This gives you an idea of what's available in Larne :-

http://www.samknows.com/broadband/exchange/NILE

If your parents have Sky already then this will be almost certainly the cheapest option....

are you sure you're not on commission?

thanks FK

Thanks for the link.

Unfortunately my parents place is a technology wasteland, they don't even have Channel 5 yet

LOL we fell out with BT a while ago and swore we would never go back to them so we went with utv, although we were thinking of changing to sky before we left!!

Hi Elaine,
We have just sold our house and were informed by BT that it would take 5 days to transfer broadband to our rented house, it took 22 days and loads of phonecalls.It's still not working right! My advice for what it is worth is to try someone else like UTV or Tesco broadband.
Les

Thanks for the heads up on BT my mum can't stand them either she got pissed off with then ripping her off and changed to phone to someone else (the post office I think).

'Lo.
You are right bout Larne being a technology wasteland. Hell, anything further north than Greenisland doesn't even get cable tv.

Anyway, do you have a laptop? If you do, check out the mobile broadband options from the likes of three mobile - http://www.three.co.uk/personal/prod...nd_/detail.omp

Or vodafone - http://online.vodafone.co.uk/dispatc...pageID=MB_0001

With this set up you don't need to faff about with phone lines & activation and so on. You just buy the dongle whatsit and hey presto you're online the same day. If I wasn't about to skip the country, this is what I would have. No need to pay bloody £11 per month for a phone line.

If you haven't got a laptop, honestly I wouldn't bother too much thinking about the service of different providers. They are pretty much all the same when push comes to shove. I'm on Orange broadband, no complaints, always works, decent service although at £19.99 per month I could save a few quid by moving elsewhere if I wanted.

My Dad is on one of the BT broadband packages, also no complaints. Pretty much the same thing, only slightly cheaper than me. I hear that Tiscali are decent, and also that the Carphone Warehouse have some deals too.

HTH

Thanks for that, I do have a laptop (it a Mac ibook G4). Sounds like a good solution as I don't really want a 12 month contract.

Ah right, well happy days then. I'd go for any of the mobile broadband options (provided they are Mac compatible). There is a Three shop & a Vodafone shop in Castlecourt, I'm sure they can sort you out!

Anyway, here is something funny to ease you back into NI life. This kills me every time (If you can ignore the girls really fake accent in the middle) Enjoy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Anfds...eature=related