Hi all,

I'm renting a flat where the internet is included in my rent, and stated in the contract (from what I can make out, around £5 per week). The internet connection is shared by the purple one and myself, plus eight other people. The line is a maximum of 6mb.

I moved into the flat in early September, I didn't get internet access until mid-October. The connection was slow, I hit a best of 50mb/s downloading a pdf file from the uni servers...Within nine days the connection had died. I'm now using next doors connection (same land lady, same password), I'm not sure if I should be doing this...

Currently, pinging the BBC site, I get these results:

My ping had similar results when I had a connection.

My land lady is away on holiday at the moment, so I can't do anything. I'm struggling to do work because the connection is so slow sites time out, recreation wise, Facebook doesn't work because the AJAX actions time out, and things like MSN/IRC can be a little unreliable to.

I'm needing to download an OS image file for part of my major project, the download manager reckons it'll take 59 hours to complete! I may need to do this on a bi-weekly basis! The 30mb PDF that outlines an assignment took me half an hour to download the other day, and I stall had a 250mb zip file full of stuff I needed. I've downloaded files to read for research and spent half an hour waiting for them, only to find they are of little use. These files are anywhere from 10mb-150mb...It's ridiculous!

What can I do?
My land lady doesn't seem to care, she keeps on saying "Oh I don't know, I'll ask the guys in town" (she contracted the local computer shop to do all this), but nothing ever comes of it (apart from the answer "they're monitoring the situation"). I know people who have gone to these guys in town and due to customer confidentiality, the shop has said nothing (quite rightly too, but it's a pain).

Does it say what kind of speed would be provided in the rental agreement?

Mind you, at £5 a week, I'd say you have a fair argument that you're being ripped off.

I think the best option would be to buy a dongle and pay £15 a month ish for it and stop paying for the broadband in the house.

Your landlord won't care an your line is probably being caned by someone (one of the other 8) constantly having P2P stuff uploading and downloading.

You could suggest taking responsibility for the line and asking her to put your name down to be able to contact the people who look after the line.

That way you will be able to do something.

Beyond that getting your own dongle is probably the best way forward.

Agreed, £5 a week between 9 of you comes to £180 a month. That's what you should be paying in a year for a 6Mb line.

Seeing as it's in the contract that I'll pay for broadband, I'm not sure how I can say I'll not pay for it. But with the money she's taking from me every month, it leaves me in a situation where I can't afford a subscription of any other kind. The purple one and I were looking into having our own internet in the flat which we are able to do, but even sharing the charge costs too much for us to justify.

http://www.t-mobile.co.uk/shop/mobile-broadband/mbb/

Hmm... I see your trouble with the contract.

You could always tell her that she has made no effort to provide the connection she has described in the contract. That way she is not as solid and may be pushed to allowing you to stop paying.

Mobile broadband is not as expensive as it used to be (see link) and you can share the connection also.

If you are paying for a 6Mb line then you should get a 6Mb line. If you have told her that you are not getting it on a number of occasions then tell her you plan to get your own internet connection and stop paying for the one she isn't providing unless she sorts it out.

She's getting £180 a month for a £20 a month broadband deal. She should be spending the money on making sure it is working.

Agreed - go through your contract with a fine tooth comb. Make an agreement with the others to stop paying for net access until it is sorted.

Where I lived last year, I had 20meg connection for £20/mth and £10/mth on top for phone line. That's still cheaper than what you are all paying.