I'm with Tallk Talk, and on a relatively non-congested exchange. Their cheaper, non-fibre, ADSL2+ product does everything I want because it syncs at maximum speed. However, if I ever need to download something quickly at maximum speed at, say, 5pm, then it appears that I'm throttled to around 2/3/4Mbits downstream. So most of the time I either wait or put up with it, depending on how quickly I need it; but TT definitely seem to do some "peak-time throttling", for whatever reason. I'd be an awful lot more angry if I was paying for a "Business" connection, though.
LLU services like TT might be a bit behind the game, but increasingly, ISPs seem to want people to switch to fibre and stay there. My parents have BT Retail fibre, because they were offered a one-year free "Upgrade to fibre" deal about 3 years ago. Every time the offer comes to its expiration date my dad has phoned up and said
"No, that's fine, put me back to ADSL2+ then.", and they've transferred him to a different department who awkwardly explain that they can extend the non-inflated price for another year, based on him happily saying that he'll have it put back to ADSL2+ and/or leave BT as an ISP. Last year he actually asked the BT phone guy
"Why have you extended my half-price discount, when the first bloke said he could only get a quid off if I begged?" and the man answered honestly, by saying
"Because you phoned us up and challenged us, and stayed on the line".
I think it's a bit different with LLU ISPs though, isn't it, they haven't got the go-ahead from their bosses to try to ensure as many people as possible remain on fibre or convert to it. TT have never made a personal call to me with a view to getting me to switch to fibre, all they do is post non-named junk mail through my door every other week and call me up offering a "completely free YouView box", which all 3 times I've accepted has turned out not to be free, so I've sent it back at their expense.
TalkTalk: If it's fine, accept the low price and hope to never have contact with them. If it isn't fine, and/or you have to make contact with them about a serious issue, change ISP.
Edited by deleted (Thu 21-Jan-16 23:08:30)