Laptop/mobile phone contracts

[crockshard]

My daughter needs a new laptop and mobile phone (starting university). Can anyone advise of a good deal for both, with a dongle connection?

[Huderon]

I'd have thought, if she is in residence, that the uni will have wi-fi available to the students, so she wouldn't need a dongle as pretty well all laptops now have wi-fi built in.

My daughter started uni last year, and it took about 5 minutes to get her laptop registered to us the wi-fi there. All the rooms in residence had their own phones, so she used to call us on her mobile, and we would call her back on her room phone (BT deal gives us an hour at a time for no charge .. if the call was going to be longer than that we'd just hang up and call again).

Friends of hers were not in residence, but did use Virgin where they were staying, so again the connection was wi-fi and the people in the house shared the cost of the Virgin package.

For TV programmes, my daughter used the catch up services available on the main TV networks. She got to watch programmes she was interested in a bit later than broadcast, but she didn't have to pay for a TV licence.

It's probably worth asking the uni what facilities are available if she is in residence, if they haven't already given details in the stuff they send out to students.

[crockshard]

Many thanks for your answer, Huderon. However, she is not in a university residence and do not want a BT connection. It is the Virgin-type contract we are interested in knowing more about.

[Huderon]

I don't know the details of what the lads did last year, but my daughter will be in a shared house this year and will be using Virgin. I'll see if I can find out some details from her tomorrow - she's out on the tiles tonight.

My best guess is that one of the people in the house will take out the contract with Virgin, and the total will be split between everyone in the house. I believe they are planning to go for the full phone/broadband/TV package and I'd guess they will go for the 20Mb broadband though and not the 50Mb one. As long as they have a good wireless router, that should be fast enough for them.

It's worth asking the uni about wi-fi access anyway - chances are that it will be available in places like the uni library and other places around campus, so it would make sense for her to make use of it there when she can.