UK Unmetered Internet Access
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Finding the best UK unmetered internet access.

Listings of unmetered ISPs and guides, directories and reviews of unmetered providers. Before signing up to an unmetered deal, you probably should find out what current users think about their service by looking in the larger forums.  Unmetered services frequently have connection time and download limits.

Broadband is increasingly available at the price point of unmetered dial-up internet access.

Overview of ISPs:

• AOL

  "AOL Flat Rate costs £15.99 a month and offers 24/7 narrowband access for a fixed fee." - Register article.

   

• BT Openworld - offers unmetered anytime or evening and weekend access.

  Anytime costs £15.99 (plus your BT line rental), with £1 for the first month.

  120 hours of evening and weekend access costs £6 on top of line rental for a BT Surf Together package and £6.99 for the internet access. Access is from 6pm to 8am Monday to Friday and all weekend (6pm Friday to 8am Monday).

   

• Telewest unmetered access

  Telewest telephone customers - "For a flat rate of only £14 a month you have the freedom to surf the net 24/7."  Subscription to Telewest telephone service costs £10 per month, with a £25 connection fee (currently waived). Their pay-as-you-go service costs "2.5p a minute any time of day".

   

• Wanadoo (was Freeserve)

  Wanadoo anytime is £14.99 per month. (£7.49 for the first 3 months)

   

• Plus.net

  £9.99 provides 10 hours per week of anytime access, £14.99 provides 40 hours, £29.99 provides 70 hours and £99.99 provides unlimited access.

   

• Clara.net

  Offers a choice of ADSL or a specified number (12, 35, 80, weekend, evening) of hours per month 0800 access for a fixed monthly fee.

   

• One.Tel

  Offers an unmetered access (£13.99 per month), daytime (£6.99) and off-peak (£9.99) and reduced rate access (1.5p per minute, flat rate) and is also a long distance telephone provider.

   

• Virgin.net

  Their 24 seven service offers unmetered access for £13.49 per month.

   

• V21

  Offers unmetered access for £9.99 per month, but with a cap on usage of 42 hours per week. Other schemes offer different numbers of hours, a 24/7 lite package costs £7.99 per month with a 28 hours per week cap.

   

• Tesco.com

  Tesco.com offers unlimited access for £12.49 per month. Or £5.99 for daytime (until 4pm) access.

   

• MoneySavingExpert.com's unmetered access article lists a number of cheap possibilities:

  Fast4.net at £6.99 per month.

  Free24-7 costs £8.50 per month

Cheaper daytime access:

If you do not use the internet very much, then an ISP offering cheap per-minute access rates may be more economical for you.

Firefly offers prepay cards with 3,000 minutes for £15 or 6,000 for £25, that's 0.5p or 0.42p per minute.

One.Tel (above) has a rate of 1.5p per minute at all times for internet access.

Telewest's (above) pay-as-you-go service to telephone subscribers costs 2.5p a minute any time of day.

Listings and overviews:

• Listings, forums and reviews of ISPs:

  • Google's list of Chats_and_Forums covering UK ISPs (derived from the category at Dmoz.org).
  • ISP Review features a top 10 ISPs section and reviews of ISPs as well as forums.
  • The Scream features a busy discussion forum.
  • 08whatever.com has reviews of unmetered/free ISPs.
  • Google's UK ISP category is usefully ordered by popularity with 0800 access and directory categories (derived from the Dmoz.org version).

Other lists:

• Internet Works has a regularly updated list of the top 20 ISPs rated by access availability.
• If variety is what matters to you, the List has a large directory of UK ISPs.

You may also be interested in my section on how to secure your PC whilst using the internet.

How to speed up dial-up:

Charity ISP services:

If you use a subscription-free service and want to give to charity, I'd be tempted to use one of the cheaper daytime access services above and give what you save to charity. Otherwise, some services give a portion of their revenue to charity, though exactly how much of the cost of the phone call they receive is uncertain.

Care4free.net - "a proportion of 75% of profits go directly to registered charities".

Waitrose (part of the John Lewis Partnership) donates their share of the profits to charity.

Christian Aid's Surefish.co.uk says "All the profits from your internet connection charge go to Christian Aid." (on this page).

Charitydays.net offers a subscription-free service as well as expensive ADSL access and limited hours unmetered access packages.

Email forwarding and POP3

If you want to have a permanent email address that you pick up via your email client, you may want look at free email services linked to from my email forwarding section.

• Telecoms Advice has advice on ISPs and general telephony, The Register article - "It may be paid for by the telecoms but if the initial slew of articles and features are anything to go by, the site has hired an autonomous content editor with a brain."

My home networking page includes a section on "Securing your Windows PC whilst on the internet".

Broadband access is becoming more affordable, see my page on UK broadband internet access.