OT: dumping a landline

Only if your definition of a free laptop is "costs =A3200 more over the=20 term than buying both items seperately".=20

--=20 Conor

I only please one person per day. Today is not your day. Tomorrow isn't=20 looking good either. - Scott Adams

Sort of - as Conor says, it isn't free, merely easier than buying one yourself if you can afford the cashflow. The mid range Acer is £40 a month on the 15 / 15 deal. So that's £600 for the notebook then.

The cheapest netbook and broadband is I think £17.50 a month, you pay £7.50 a month for two years for the Acer Aspire A150b Windows XP netbook or £180, but that only gives you 1 Gb a month. £25 a month gets you the 15 Gb package with the Compaq Mini 700 netbook. Amazon sell the Mini 700 for £250 (near as matters) so there's a small discount here.

If I went down the Mini 700 route, I'd probably sell the Mini 700 and buy a

There will still be a commercial advantage to offer "free banking" - it's not going away. Granted, it may not be as universal as it currently is, but some will still offer it.

And yes, I had a 60 quid penalty (for going about 30 quid overdrawn for a day or so) withdrawn without a quibble. I was even given a free 100 quid overdraft facility to ensure it won't be a problem again. The bank manager agreed this was clearly a much more sensible solution. The charging structure as it stands is unreasonable.

Now shall I get started on the firms pushing "get rid of your debts"?

Neither of which is "unlimited", I have the Vodafone "unlimited" it's not "unlimited" like my broadband.

Because he's a fuckwitted morphing troll with no mates.

He's a social leper.

I took out my bank account when I was a student. The bank offered "free banking for life" as a feature of the original agreement. I kept the original agreement, I still have it safe. A few years ago they tried to move my account to one that had charges. I waved the contract under their noses, they gave up. From time to time some new junior tit from the bank rings me at home to ask me to move "to a more modern product" - they can f*ck off as well.

i bought my original sky box from yahoo auctions (going back a few years there) for 50 quid! then i got a local guy to supply and put a dish up for another 50 quid. so 100 notes in total and then i just rang sky and asked for a package, gave box number got card all done!

far better than being tied to a stupid contract for a year which says you should leave the box plugged in the phone line for 12months

So you're saying we're both numpties? :-)

I'm hoping that the last aspect may be network and area dependent. I use T-Mobile's high speed 3G data quite a bit both at work and home. At home, the connection is generally bulletproof and reasonably quick. At the office, it varies from dropping to GPRS through to occasional high speed access.

Then again, it may only take another few people trying to use the same cell and the quality degrades quite noticeably...

My personal 3G dongle is T-Mobile - my work laptop is Vodafone.

Not much between them - although it's good to have a choice of 2 at times.

Personally I find having enough money in the bank to meet that being taken out is a far better one.

They see you have a bit of money, and are desperate to get you onto a "added-value" type account. Which gives me precisely f*ck-all benefit. (looking at one such account, I bet the travel insurance won't cover me, nor will the breakdown assistance cover my car.) So yes, they can shove their account somewhere painful.

What I know of your financial history means your opinion is worth slightly less than the phone droids at the bank - and they're on the clueless end.

Now if the banks didn't want us to go overdrawn, they woudn't let it happen - eg mine was for a > 100 quid cheque, so no obligation on their part for them to honour it. But they'd far rather get their charges in, which is why they're in the situation we see now.

Fortunately the bank manager agreed the charge was nonsense - I just asked them, they didn't quibble at all.

I watch a fair bit of stuff on the iPlayer and youtube, and also listen to music via Spotify a fair bit - I'd be interested to see some actual figures in terms of how much bandwidth, per minute (or per whatever) they all use up.

Your ISP may be able to tell you. Zen can break it down by day and if you ask, by hour, probably in even more detail.

BT Vision requires a 1.5 pipe, I know that much...

Up until the point I banked, I never missed a single bill and never had=20 any charges. And the only reason it went shit up was a 60% drop in=20 income which rectified itself 2 weeks after I banked but by then it was=20 too late.

And if you're too stupid to listen to someone who has more than learned=20 the lesson and is quite anal about personal finances, then you're a=20 dick.

The only reason banks want you to go overdrawn is because they make=20 more money out of people who are in debt.

Instead you now have a =A3100 overdraft which they can charge interest on= =20 and that you're likely to use.

--=20 Conor

I only please one person per day. Today is not your day. Tomorrow isn't=20 looking good either. - Scott Adams

What kind of pikey institution are you using?

I have a couple of accounts with small 'safety net' overdrafts, which are interest and charge free.

My finances are in perfectly good order, thank you very much. I'm quite careful too, even though I don't actually need to be. Part of that care involves not letting banks rip me off.

Yes. Which in a lot of people's eyes is unreasonable.

You're quite funny sometimes. a) the interest on a hundred quid overdraft is peanuts (what, 20 quid a year at worst? So a few pence for a day or two), and b) you're utterly wrong about the chances of it being used. It's there in case of mistakes - I don't expect it to ever get touched, but it cost me nothing to put the safeguard in place.

I have no need for an overdraft.

Why? Can't you control your finances? Personally I prefer to have 4 figure bank balances.