In reply to a post by Mince1978M:

... im actually 43 lol.. however my folks are 75 next year and would never deal well with talking to bt on the phone and probably have rings run round them....

My immediate reaction was that's ageist . I know or have known many people 10 years or more older than them who are fully capable of handling such matters.

Your experience may differ. Though I do accept that some are not.

In reply to a post by Mince1978M:

Do you folks out there think we should get a good deal as loyal customers in an upgrade scenario, or just get fobbed off instead?

You will probably get a decent deal if you haggle politely. If not, you can just take your business to a different provider.

Part of the decision will depend on what you want to do with your parents' voice service and phone number.

If you want to take FTTP and voice from the same provider, then your options are BT, Sky and Zen. You will very likely have use the ISP-supplied router (definitely for BT). The "landline" plugs into a port on the router.

If you're happy to move their landline number to VOIP, then you can order data-only FTTP separately from a wider range of providers, in parallel with your FTTC. Then when you're ready, migrate the phone number to VOIP, and this will cease the FTTC.

You could of course keep the analogue line and FTTC for a while, but (a) that's paying for two services, and (b) in areas where FTTP is also available, there's likely to be a "stop sell" on copper soon, which means you'll have to give it up.

I'd also say: keep your options open for providers. Don't rule out a provider because it "only" does 500M. Whatever you think, you don't really need 900M.

Personally, I take 300M from a business provider, and I'd much rather have that than 900M from a consumer retail provider (and I pay less too).

In reply to a post by pluralist:

My immediate reaction was that's ageist . I know or have known many people 10 years or more older than them who are fully capable of handling such matters.

I thought the same, but I know some older whom are fully capable of handling such a debate, it is just the topic of broadband is not in their experience, and others whom can handle it with ease. Prior experience makes the difference, I think.