In reply to a post by brandscill:

Does this affect those of us already in a contract?

Seems so.

My line rental is going up by £1, but the discount is going up by 15p, so 85p increase for me...

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

Sorry. I should have said that on Zen FTTC the £11.22 line rental is not available.

Thanks - I just saw an ADSL and line rental "consolidation" http://www.zen.co.uk/home-office/voice/phone-service... and nothing in the T&C's, I thought perhaps you had seen something that I had missed

The B4RN crew are loving this. A couple are taking great delight in pointing out that those of us in cities on things like Infinity are going to be paying £16.99 / month in line rental alone without any broadband when they are paying £30/month for something over 12 times faster than anything those of us outside VM areas can get.

Farmer Giles in the middle of nowhere having superior broadband at lower prices than our cities. Awesome.

In reply to a post by Ignitionnet:

Farmer Giles in the middle of nowhere having superior broadband at lower prices than our cities. Awesome.

That has to be the most selfish, egocentric, post I have read here on a long time - and I have read a few!

Don't worry there are still plenty of us on exchanges that haven't been upgraded to 21CN and struggle to get a stable connection let alone a fast one

Wouldn't even say I'm super rural, massive tesco only 10 min drive away

In reply to a post by Stevenage_Neil:

In reply to a post by Ignitionnet:

Farmer Giles in the middle of nowhere having superior broadband at lower prices than our cities. Awesome.

That has to be the most selfish, egocentric, post I have read here on a long time - and I have read a few!

Okay.

In reply to a post by Ignitionnet:

The B4RN crew are loving this. A couple are taking great delight in pointing out that those of us in cities on things like Infinity are going to be paying £16.99 / month in line rental alone without any broadband when they are paying £30/month for something over 12 times faster than anything those of us outside VM areas can get.

Farmer Giles in the middle of nowhere having superior broadband at lower prices than our cities. Awesome.

You should post that to David Cameron, MP

seriously though I suspect we would see quite a few B4RN type deployments in cities if the legalities were easier. The good thing about farmers fields is only one farmer to talk to, and pay, to get across the field. In towns / cities the number of owners you have to get permission from to run a 1km fibre is often insane :-/

In reply to a post by jchamier:

In reply to a post by Ignitionnet:

The B4RN crew are loving this. A couple are taking great delight in pointing out that those of us in cities on things like Infinity are going to be paying £16.99 / month in line rental alone without any broadband when they are paying £30/month for something over 12 times faster than anything those of us outside VM areas can get.

Farmer Giles in the middle of nowhere having superior broadband at lower prices than our cities. Awesome.

You should post that to David Cameron, MP

seriously though I suspect we would see quite a few B4RN type deployments in cities if the legalities were easier. The good thing about farmers fields is only one farmer to talk to, and pay, to get across the field. In towns / cities the number of owners you have to get permission from to run a 1km fibre is often insane :-/

That's the rub - the current regulatory and taxation environment actively dissuades infrastructure competition.

I very much hope there are a ton of B4RN deployments and it catches on profoundly. It may actually make people look at the numbers and realise that where the UK is deficient against our peers isn't our rural coverage of SFBB, where we are above the average, it's FTTP in urban areas where frankly we suck.

After all those years of rural dwellers complaining about the digital divide it'd be hilarious to see city dwellers complaining about only being able to get 76Mb over pretendy-fibre while some rural dwellers are packing BDUK-funded FTTP or altnets.

If it's self-centred of me to point out the disconnect and economic harm of urban areas having the same or worse services than rural areas so be it. That makes each and every person who ever complained about the 'digital divide' egocentric too so I'm in plenty of company.

Anyway I'm rather distracting from the thread. Merely wanted to illustrate what a total rip off line rental is.

If Ofcom had any testicular fortitude they'd be looking at the clear cartel-like behaviour on line rental. There is zero reason why all the big players have such convergent line rental costs with such rapid increases when their wholesale costs have dropped.

That's a clear competition failure, however Ed Richards and company are too busy getting orgasmic over what they consider the awesome results of their regulation to notice. Ed Richards is the tool who plays up FTTC and considers it some fantastic success of the UK market rather than trying to engineer an environment where more investment in infrastructure is rewarded and welcomed.

In reply to a post by Ignitionnet:

That's the rub - the current regulatory and taxation environment actively dissuades infrastructure competition.

Completely agree with you, especially to the failure of ofcom to regulate real competition.

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

Another option for those happy enough with service, but annoyed at price rise is line rental saver and/or lock in to another contract term which may see a better offer made.

I tried a couple of weeks ago to renew my contract and they said they could not renew at my current prices and that if I renewed they would increase significantly. It was agreed that I should let my contract lapse and just continue on a monthly basis paying my current price (subject to any price rises like the one due in December).
In December I will be paying £1.45 more per month which as far as I am concerned means Im still on a good deal.