Service Providers (Louisville: real estate, mortgage, credit)

[Koetsier]

We are in the process of relocating from the UK to Louisville, i have some questions, can someone help please?

Can you tell me who are the local providers of these services?

Broadband Providers in US?
TV services
money comparison sites (like moneysupermarket)
Who to bank with? Get a mortgage through?
Landline providers?
Mobile phone services
Big Supermarket chains? and who to do online grocery shopping with?

may seem like basic questions to Americans but i have no idea where to begin.

Thanks

[bbkennedy]

The local broadband provider is Insight Cable. They offer television, internet, and phone services too. If you buy all three services from, or for that matter two services, they give a discount. There are several DSL providers too.

T.V. is either cable, again that's Insight, or you have several satellite providers to chose from. If you don't care for commercialized T.V. you can get movies for $20 to $25 per month from Netflix without the commercials. Our broadcast media is terribly commercialized compared to yours. Even if you grow up here it can be overwhelmingly annoying.

I'm not sure about the moneysupermarket. Maybe someone else will have a good solution. I use mint.com to help track money but they don't peddle services as heavily.

There are many banking options. If you can join a credit union I recommend that because you are less likely to have to pay fees for using your debit card and using other basic services. Credit unions have a special non-profit status so they don't have to pay taxes like banks. It gives them an advantage.

To find a good mortgage you need to shop. Most banks have reasonable rates but some of the local mortgage companies can beat them. I'm a real estate agent and I have a lender I recommended because he has consistently given my clients a better deal than they can find anywhere else. I'll pass his info along if you are interested.

Landline providers? The term here implies telephone lines. Again, Insight is a good choice. There's several internet phone services such as Vonage which is who I use. You must have a high speed internet connection for the service. Better services are coming on line such as ringcentral.com. They are business oriented but offer cheap phone service and I'm sure they will find more residential use. There's a trend of dumping the land line altogether and just using the cell phones.

There are several good mobile phone providers. Verizon is probably the best but if you want to use the i-phone I think AT&T is presently the only carrier but this is supposedly changing.

There are a few big supermarket chains in town. Just about anywhere around Louisville you will find Krogers. Most of their stores are in good shape and offer a nice experience. There are a few Meijers and Walmart has some grocery stores too. You can move almost anywhere in Louisville and be within 10 to 15 minutes or closer of a nice grocery.

Welcome to "the 'ville".

[Koetsier]

Hi thanks for the response, it gives great insight to people who have never lived in the USA, this all seems so daunting! Yes please send me the details of the mortgage lender you have as that will be very helpful. I am struggling to set up a bank account from the UK as we dont have a ssn yet. Thanks again for the reply.

[tomocox]

Originally Posted by Koetsier

We are in the process of relocating from the UK to Louisville, i have some questions, can someone help please?

Can you tell me who are the local providers of these services?

Broadband Providers in US? ATT & Insight Communications are the primary owners of the infrastructure.TV services
money comparison sites (like moneysupermarket)can't help ya on this
Who to bank with? Get a mortgage through? huge competitive list of banks from large national banks, to excellent regional and small local banks.
Landline providers? ATT & Insight own the infrastructure
Mobile phone services ATT, Verizon, T-Mobile, Sprint,
Big Supermarket chains? and who to do online grocery shopping with? Kroger, Meijer, Sam's, Costco, plus many local independents

may seem like basic questions to Americans but i have no idea where to begin.

Thanks

You will likely be best served by coming over, then enjoying the research process. It can be fun to shop, to compare, etc. Just remember that "too good to be true, probably is"