For FTTC, any ISP that offers packages based on FTTC will be ably to supply, not just the likes of BT or TalkTalk. I prefer Plusnet, but there are others available.

FTTP is a bit more limited.

That's not entirely true for LLU providers - they need to arrange a connection between their exchange equipment and the BT Openreach side. So there will be Sky/Talktalk unbundled exchanges that don't offer fibre. Sometimes this is just a temporary delay.

I checked a phone number and postcode from another part of the village with a live FTTC cabinet and Sky are offering Sky Fibre Unlimited to there, so I suspect that's where I'll go to when my cabinet goes live in a couple of weeks time.

If you're going to go with sky, its worth calling and pretending to want to go elsewhere

Have a read of my thread from August:

http://forums.thinkbroadband.com/sky/f/4146843-fibre...

My BT checker message has changed:

***

Your cabinet is planned to have WBC FTTC by 31st December 2012. Our test also indicates that your line currently supports a fibre technology with an estimated WBC FTTC Broadband where consumers have received downstream line speed of 34.6Mbps and upstream line speed of 6Mbps.

**

PlusNet have a 40/250 download limit don't they?

If I want to watch iPlayer and so forth without worrying it seems to be a toss-up between BT and SKY.
(I wouldn't [censored] on Talk Talk)

I'll do some digging but if anyone has a summary of speed vs cost vs download limit for FTTC providers it'd be handy.

(Ideally I would stay with BE, but....)

Edited by deleted (Thu 11-Oct-12 09:57:57)

Yep, I got that change too. It's terribly exciting, isn't it

I'm having a toss up between plusnet and sky I think.

Don't like Plusnet's usage caps.

I don't do much streaming right now, because basically I can't. Even the SD iPlayer won't work on my ADSL.

I'll be streaming HD though, when we get this, so whilst 250GB might seem a lot per month, I don't know how much I'll end up getting through.

Nice dilemma to have though.

I suspect I'll end up going with Plus Net.

Wonder what speed we might get long term?

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Name | 38 mb | Cost p/m | 76 mb | Cost p/m | Wifi hotspots | DL limit.......| Monthly Line R |
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| BT......| Y....... | £18.......| Y..........| £26.........| Y.................| P2P speed.. | £14.69..............|
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Sky....| Y........| £20........| Y.........| £30.........| Y..................| None...........| £14.50..............|
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| +Net...| Y....... | £20.......| Y.........| £23.49.....| Y................ | 250MB.........| £12.99..............|
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


It's a bit tricky this because some of the packages include calls with line rental.

But basically it looks like:

- If you want unlimited but aren't too bothered about p2p during the day go to BT.
- If p2p does bothers you, go to SKY.
- If you think your usage will come in under 250MB per month, go to PlusNet.

I'm sure this will be wrong but that's my initial assessment.
Any more for any more?

Plusnet is 250GB rather than MB

Also its unlimited overnight.

I did a quick calculation and watching a 5Mbit stream would give over 100 hours before you hit the 250GB limit. So it depends how much streaming we're actually talking about, and what bit rate the HD stream runs at.

In reply to a post by Kr1s69:

Plusnet is 250GB rather than MB

Also its unlimited overnight.

Details dear boy, details.

I tend to use my BB mostly between 17:00 and 01:00 and a bit of that can be iplayer,
But yeah, I need to do the sums - but I quite like the peace of mind anyway - if the difference is only a fiver a month and that includes wifi hotspots it might be worth it.

The fact that +Net usage doesn't "count" between Midnight and 8am means I should be able to schedule my Amazon S3 backups for that time, up/downloading 80-150GB of data for backup isn't pretty or fun, but I should be able to do it at full tilt during those hours. Could work out well.

Knowing my luck, they'll use their "We can change anything we want at any time" clause in their contract to remove this usage concession when I'm 2 months into the contract :/

(I don't have any faith at all in ISPs, or telecoms contracts in general).

Been bitten both by BT and Sky in the past, which is why I was considering +Net or Talk Talk.

And i wish I could stop thinking like it's here already. Not long, not long...