Market 1 may not have brought competition to your exchange, and I do not think that was the idea. I am also on a market 1 exchange but there are now other operators here but as the classification has not changed we still have to pay extra. If there is a change that will resolve that anomaly then I would certainly appreciate that.

Plusnet are one of the few or maybe the only ISP who pass on some savings to the end user gained by BTw charging them and other ISPs lower fees in the exchanges that have been classified by OFCOM as mkt 2 and 3 exchanges due to some sort of LLU provision within the exchange.

Fibre Pro £30 / month
http://www.thinkbroadband.com/isp/sky.html

The £7.50 Sky price assumes you take a TV service too, £10 otherwise

In reply to a post by martinsq:

Hi,
hopefully you have had time to review the new Ofcom proposals.

Unfortunately all the gobledygok and acronyms went way over my head !

As a Market 1 victim I was hoping that Ofcom would scrap the Market 1/2/3 classification,
it hasn't brought any competition to our 1500 lines semi-rural exchange and now it never will....!

Can you tell me, as Market A, would we still have to pay DOUBLE the price ?
Thanks, regards,
Martin

I have read this entire thread as of 21/07/2013 11:12 and find that most, if not all, of the responses given seem to ignore the fact that you are a Market 1 subscriber and that web site prices are based on having a Market 2/3 service.

Market 1 "victims" do indeed pay **a lot** more for Internet services and are forced to use BT retail, or a reseller of their services, if FTTC is required. Currently my ADSL service is provided by TalkTalk over a BT line and the combined monthly rental of line and Internet costs me £32.29 + £15.45 = £47.74

The TalkTalk web site tells me I can have their "Fibre Large [76Mb]" for £15 + line rental of £14.95 = £29.95 but that price is for Level 2/3 exchanges ONLY. My exchange is not LLU enabled so I have to choose a BT Service.

So checking out PlusNet I am told that I can have -
Unlimited fibre broadband, 80/20 for £46.80 per month including VAT.
+ Line rental with anytime UK calls for £17.40 per month including VAT.
Monthly total £64.20

Admittedly this is for the business class service as it offers a faster response time during a fault, more experienced agents for any over the phone queries and a different traffic management platform to a residential customer. If those "bells and whistles" are not required then the residential service comes in at £43.99

So the facts speak for themselves; a Level 1 victim will find his costs between 50% to 100% higher than someone just a few miles away on a Level 2/3 exchange and has to put up additionally with a restricted choice of ISPs.

Oddly enough with PlusNet, only a residential customer can opt for 12 months line rental up front payment.

Well this is the quote, in an email, from PlusNet. I thought about IDNET but their response was nothing more than saying their web prices are correct which leaves me with uncertainty if they really mean Level 1 exchanges.

My exchange is Elstead with a RFS date of September for FTTC. Perhaps next month, ADSL2 will be available. I am connected to cabinet #1 which is about 400 meters away.

So with due respect to the OP in hijacking this thread but my exchange, like him, also supports around 1500 lines in a semi-rural area. We pay dearly for living out in the sticks, don't we? Of course we are grateful for BDUK in bringing us FTTC otherwise we really would be in a communications black hole!

A nice rant, but full of holes I'm afraid.

Market 1 "victims" do indeed pay **a lot** more for Internet services and are forced to use BT retail, or a reseller of their services

No ISP resells BT Retail services.

The TalkTalk web site tells me I can have their "Fibre Large [76Mb]" for £15 + line rental of £14.95 = £29.95 but that price is for Level 2/3 exchanges ONLY

Not exactly. I haven't checked all the M2 exchanges in the country, but it is highly likely there are some where TalkTalk cannot (a) supply their LLU product at all, and/or (b) supply their "Fibre Large" product. Nor do all M2/3 exchanges have FTTC.

So the facts speak for themselves; a Level 1 victim will find his costs between 50% to 100% higher than someone just a few miles away on a Level 2/3 exchange and has to put up additionally with a restricted choice of ISPs.

That is simply incorrect in many cases. A huge number of Level 1 exchanges now have one or more LLU suppliers - the classification was in December 2010.

I thought about IDNET but their response was nothing more than saying their web prices are correct which leaves me with uncertainty if they really mean Level 1 exchanges.

There's the nub of so many people's misunderstanding. Of BT Wholesale based ISPs only PlusNet offer lower prices at M2/3 exchanges. All other ISPs, including IDNet, charge the same price at all exchanges, usually more than the PlusNet M1 price. EE is an exception, an IIRC there is one other, where there is higher pricing than their normal one in exchanges that they did not have LLU'ed when they were an ISP not a vISP.

Perhaps next month, ADSL2 will be available.

What a shame that it won't be ADSL2+.

I am connected to cabinet #1 which is about 400 meters away.

Is that 200 houses then, with a gas and electricity meter in each?

If you are going to criticise earlier responses, at least get your facts right.

In reply to a post by trolleybus:

Market 1 'victims' do indeed pay **a lot** more for Internet services and are forced to use BT retail, or a reseller of their services

No, they are using BT Wholesale services. Only BT Retail uses BT Retail services and they don't price by market area.

In reply to a post by trolleybus:

The TalkTalk web site tells me I can have their 'Fibre Large [76Mb]' for £15 + line rental of £14.95 = £29.95 but that price is for Level 2/3 exchanges ONLY.

No again, that price is for TT non-LLU exchanges. TT don't operate by market areas at all.

Edited by XRaySpeX (Sun 21-Jul-13 14:00:48)

In reply to a post by brightd:

If there is a change that will resolve that anomaly then I would certainly appreciate that.

BT Wholesale has a monopoly on ADSL provision at market 1 exchanges, so they could charge whatever they want and customers have to pay it, or go without ADSL.

Which is why Ofcom cap the amount which BT Wholesale can charge ISPs on market 1 exchanges. Any change in wholesale prices will be because Ofcom force BT Wholesale to drop their wholesale price further.

Edited by Oliver341 (Sun 21-Jul-13 12:57:39)

In reply to a post by XRaySpeX:

If you are going to criticise earlier responses, at least get your facts right.

In reply to a post by trolleybus:

Market 1 'victims' do indeed pay **a lot** more for Internet services and are forced to use BT retail, or a reseller of their services

No, they are using BT Wholesale services. Only BT Retail uses BT Retail services and they don't price by market area.

In reply to a post by trolleybus:

The TalkTalk web site tells me I can have their 'Fibre Large [76Mb]' for £15 + line rental of £14.95 = £29.95 but that price is for Level 2/3 exchanges ONLY.

No again, that price is for TT non-LLU exchanges. TT don't operate by market areas at all.

Please accept that tiny errors can slip into a posting. Of course I meant to say BT Wholesale.

And as for TT, Elstead exchange, as I am lead to believe, will not be unbundled. Since to get TTs FTTC service you have to take **their** line rental, so in my book that means I won't be able to have a FTTC service from them. If I have got my facts wrong on that then I would be obviously delighted to run with them. I won't hold my breath though on that one. Your elaboration on your statement would be welcomed.

In reply to a post by trolleybus:

And as for TT, Elstead exchange, as I am lead to believe, will not be unbundled. Since to get TTs FTTC service you have to take **their** line rental, so in my book that means I won't be able to have a FTTC service from them. If I have got my facts wrong on that then I would be obviously delighted to run with them.

That's an interesting question, and the only thing to do is ask them.

They insist on your having line rental and calls with them, but that isn't quite the same thing as insisting on an LLU line. They do WLR just like all non-LLU ISPs. I'm not sure what BT Wholesale ADSLx products they sell on those exchanges - at one time it was limited to 8Mbps but I don't know if that has changed.

The actual question is whether or not they do BT Wholesale FTTC , as the backhaul and handover capacity they have for non-LLU is reputedly dreadfully low even for ADSL2+.

Non-LLU TalkTalk has a terrible reputation, as does Sky's, and O2 and Orange did. I really do think that TT FTTC on a non-LLU exchange, even if they would supply it, would be a false economy.

I guess a lot of the errors I made in my posting is knowing what the definition really is of a Level 1 exchange. I always thought it meant that you could only choose an ISP that supplied your internet service via BTW and that LLU was unavailable. So please correct me on that perception.

I have watched, and spoken to the engineers, working on cabinet #1 and the adjacent FTTC cabinet. It seems highly likely that it serves around 200 houses. To all those properties, gas and electricity is available. Why you asked that, I've no idea. I gather there are 7 original cabinets connected to the exchange of which 6 now have an adjacent FFTC cabinet with most powered up and interlinking cabling but the fibre is not yet blown to any.

21CN WBC status has now slipped to 31/10/2013
FTTC status: RFS date set : 01/09/2013
So the thought of using ADSL2 as a stepping stone to FTTC is a bit pointless now.

However, the basic premise of both myself and the OP remains the same; we pay more for an FTTC service because we are connected to a rural exchange.