Was that just SSE that it was unavailable to or any other provider, in which case how many and which were tried?
I doubt very much bt were given priority. There are likely to be genuine technical reasons why it was unavailable to SSE. Likely that they use a separate network( their own or another CPs) and they had no GEA connectivity at the headend.

Edited by deleted (Mon 24-Oct-16 15:41:17)

As per what MHC says, plus it is actually BT Wholesale that is on the ball and BT Consumer and Business keep up to date with what they supply.

As do a 100+ other ISPs who use the BT Wholesale service. That's nearly every ISP there is except Sky/TalkTalk and Vodafone. Though there are some ISPs that use TalkTalk Business Wholesale so depend on TalkTalk. Though some of those also use BT Wholesale but it is more expensive.

In reply to a post by onejagjohn:

The answer is to go for BT and opt for Infinity 2 as this has no connection fee and you can use your own router although the BT Hub6 is excellent. I do know that Sky is also now available, but at a lower speed.

Rubbish re the lower speed.

Sky don't really push their higher speed product do they? It's possible they are only seeing the 40/10 because Sky aren't doing much to advertise the pro package?

True, but it's not hard to find. I don't see any speed specification on this page, until I click the down-arrow against Broadband down at the bottom under Legal. I was surprised to see they are offering Sky Connect as well - perhaps they need to but a lot of the goodies they are selling might rather under-perform!

I suppose it's possibly they do at least now budget for adequate BT Wholesale throughput capacity when sport etc. is showing.

If you don't like BT, then Plusnet are a safe choice. These days they are slow to answer support calls, but they are likely to have adequate backhaul so the service itself should be OK. You can use your own equipment, but it makes sense to have an ISP supplied router as a spare, and in case you need to make a support call. They do know if they have not supplied a router.

Vodafone are very competitively priced. To use your own equipment you have to get your password from them. That is likely to require persistence. See the Vodafone section on this forum for a link to a long thread on a Vodafone forum. It is just possible that if you order on the phone saying 'I will place an order now if you waive the connection charge' would work,

There are many ISPs with introductory offers. See this web site and the regular price comparison websites.

Actually just had a look at their site and it is much more obvious now that it was a little while back so not sure why it wasn't visible.

Where? I had a bit more of a look around but didn't see it. Just a mass of "wonderful entertainment products".

Years ago it was almost impossible to find, then became quite easy. Now?

Thanks again for all the advice/tips.

I've spent a lot of time today trying to get to the bottom of things and comparing suppliers. What I've found out is that our cabinet went live in August 2015, after we'd signed up for a 12 month phone and ADSL package. We're now out of contract, so can go with anyone.

I've re-verified that there is capacity in the cabinet, so we can get FTTC OK. I then rang our supplier to ask why they can't give us fibre, as they offer a fibre package and our username log in includes the words "btbroadbandcomplete.com", which implies that they are reselling services from BT Wholesale. What I got from our current ISP was an odd answer. Apparently, they can only offer fibre if the local exchange is unbundled. I've not heard of this before, but can't see a logical reason why the exchange being LLU'd should make any difference to a FTTC connection.

My very friendly Openreach chap has confirmed that they are not going to unbundle the exchange now (its a very small rural exchange) as they've put in a fibre cabinet, which negates the need to LLU the exchange in their view.

With thanks to those here that have posted useful info, I'm now trying to put together a spreadsheet to compare line rental costs, call costs and ISP FTTC costs from various suppliers, to try and see where the best balance of speed, customer service and overall cost, lies. One thing that sticks out is that some ISPs charge a fairly hefty up-front installation cost, even when you tell them you already have an FTTC capable NTE5 Mk3 box and modem/router, so have no need for an engineer visit or any hardware from them.

I suspect this is going to take me a fair few hours to wade through, as it seems that ISPs just don't want consumers to be able to make direct comparisons.

Following the above debate about BT getting priority, I can confirm that four suppliers have told me that they cannot offer us FTTC as the cabinet is full. Even when I point out that Openreach and BT Wholesale are adamant that there is spare capacity, they have all told me that the reality is that cabinet is full. I've double checked with the Openreach guy, and he told me this morning that when he last looked around a week ago the cabinet was only about half full, plus he said there is an extension rack already in the cabinet so if need be they can plug in extra DSLAMs to get more capacity than there are residents in the village!

As far as I can tell, the less well-known suppliers do seem to offer more flexible deals, and, from the very useful comparison on here, seem to offer good customer service.

Thanks again,

Jeremy

Edited by deleted (Mon 24-Oct-16 16:55:00)

If you tell us your current ISP it might help. Is it Rainbow?

Also if you post the exchange and cabinet number there is at least one poster on here who will probably know its usage status. It all sound like a load of baloney to me, saying it is full.

You seem to be being secretive for some reason, which rather limits the help advice you can be given.

Also - the ISPs offering free connection on FTTC are almost certainly charging through the nose for something you will pay for, and tying you in for a long time as well.

I think you mentioned call costs earlier. The low line rental price companies also charge the lowest call costs. Example of big boy rip-offs! Pulse8 are 1ppm (yes - one pence per minute with per-second billing) in peak and 0.8ppm in offpeak, with no setup charge. Outside of their call packages BT charge 19p call setup and 11ppm. (Eleven, not a double key-press).

That's simply incredible!