No chance of ADSL2 now?

Being a victim of the Orange screw up, I rang last night to get a MAC code and begin my move to Sky. The guy on the phone actually tried to get me to stay and when told I was moving to Sky said that there were no LLU options in my exchange any more as the change was BT driven and not Orange's choice.

Is that true? Even when checking SamKnows and looking on the Sky web site they both show as Sky Unlimited being available will I only get "upto" 8meg? Does this mean I will have a ridiculous 2gig cap or some rubbish?

And what the hell is 21CN WBC anyway? My Exchange is scheduled for 1st October this year. Does this mean I will have to ride it out until then? Will I be able to go with Sky and they will implement 21CN WBC and give me the choice when it becomes available?

I'm peed off enough after having my service slashed by more than half and still paying the same for the privilege.

Hes right, the only mainstream LLU in your exchange is Talk Talk. With Sky, you would be on "Sky connect" which runs on the BT 20CN network just like Orange have moved you to. Personally I would stick it out with Orange, because when your exchange is upgraded to BT 21CN, you will get at least the same speed as you used to get.
Its a major fail that Orange have moved some people down like this, especially as their equipment is there. Everyone complaining about this, seems to say their exchange is getting upgraded soon anyway, so Orange only had to wait a few months to avoid seriously [censored] off a large amount of customers.
The problem is that all the good value mainstream suppliers are pretty much as bad as each other when it comes to customer service.

If your exchange is Armthorpe then look again at Sam Knows. It says Sky LLU enabled which means ADSL2+ up to 20Meg broadband.

In reply to a post by mr_spokey:

If your exchange is Armthorpe then look again at Sam Knows. It says Sky LLU enabled which means ADSL2+ up to 20Meg broadband.

Thats what I thought, but the Orange person I spoke to said that all ISPs were back to IPStream or whatever.
I thought I could just swap ISP but it seems if I swap now I will get the same connection under a different name, and perhaps a massive cap on my monthly download.
ARGGGGHHHH!

In reply to a post by markdixon:

And what the hell is 21CN WBC anyway? My Exchange is scheduled for 1st October this year. Does this mean I will have to ride it out until then? Will I be able to go with Sky and they will implement 21CN WBC and give me the choice when it becomes available?

I'm peed off enough after having my service slashed by more than half and still paying the same for the privilege.

Hi, your exchange maybe enabled ahead of schedule with BT 21CN WBC ADSL2+ 24 Meg speed, as my exchange has been.

Hey not to far away, Bessacarr myself.

I have friends on that exchange with sky's 20meg service. Orange are lying to you buddy. You will get similar speeds to what you got on orange before they switched you to 8 meg, possibly even better

Sky have no intention of going to IPStream, they paid a lot of money for their LLU backbone and I would bet my life they will not be going back to 8meg.

We have Sky here and we're very happy.

EDIT: There are no caps on LLU which you will be getting. It's truly unlimited with no throttling.

Edited by ukhardy07 (Mon 11-Jul-11 15:01:08)

I think they are obviously telling you porkies Mark in an attempt to keep you as a customer, myself I have decided to try to stick it out with Orange until CN21 is enabled on our exchange, but i can tell you it had better hurry up as my patience is running thin, I know when i enquired about Sky broadband a few months back they said i could only have the upto 8meg service, but when i checked a couple of weeks ago it reported upto 20meg now & where SamKnows reported no Sky/easynet LLU it now shows it as enabled. I hope you get sorted anyway let us know how you get on please.

In reply to a post by markdixon:

said that there were no LLU options in my exchange any more as the change was BT driven and not Orange's choice.

Rubbish! Do you really believe that just cuz Orange ceases LLU and hands over to BT that all other ISP's LLU just evaporate?

That would mean that every big town in UK would have no LLU ISPs.

I did think the guy from Orange was talking out of his ass, but I kind of believed him thinking it was some plan for the 21CN update due later this year... clear out all the competitions LLU gear and then were back to BT only...
Well my MAC should be here in a few days (by Wednesday) and I will be ordering with Sky.. fingers crossed.

I did think the guy from Orange was talking out of his ass, but I kind of believed him thinking it was some plan for the 21CN update due later this year... clear out all the competitions LLU gear and then were back to BT only...
Well my MAC should be here in a few days (by Wednesday) and I will be ordering with Sky.. fingers crossed.

I can see your logic here...

ISPs paid a lot of money to install LLU in exchanges around the country. This means having physical hardware installed at the exchange of their own and having their own backhaul.

Sky purchased a network called easynet which is far superior to BTs overcrowded network.

This also means sky are not paying ridiculously overpriced prices to BT for the data their customers use.

This is why LLU providers can offer far better packages in terms of being unlimited than isps that go via BT.

Obviously it's more complicated but this is a simple quickie All in all they'd not want to lose their expensive investment unless they are doing pretty badly e.g. losing lots of customers and feel their network is not being utilised enough for the investment to be worthwhile.

Edited by ukhardy07 (Tue 12-Jul-11 09:05:51)

I guessed as much. Just cant wait for my MAC code to arrive so I can place my order...

In reply to a post by markdixon:

I guessed as much. Just cant wait for my MAC code to arrive so I can place my order...

Don't think you need a MAC code to join Sky LLU. Just place your order and they do the rest.

Sticking it out with Orange is not necessarily going to get you onto 21CN, my exchange has 21CN (has done since March this year) and, when directly challenged, the executive office cant give me a date when I will be moved from IPStream to 21CN as there are "No definite plans with regard to 21CN and your exchange, you will have to wait and see but hopefully it will be in the near future". Not very inspiring by any means. In the meantime Orange want to wast their money getting a BT engineer to check my line and come to my home. My home is a new build, has no extension wiring as everything is done from the master socket, 1 phone, 1 sky connection and 1 router. Sky dont have LLU in my area so it is IPStream with them as well so that is not an option and frankly Talk Talk customer service seems worse than Orange. BT is a non starter due to their ridiculous pricing. I long for the days I was in a Virgin cabled area, only had 2 problems in 12 years, not like the nonsense I am having to endure now. I do hope you get 21CN musicmate but it is by no means guaranteed.

Sticking it out with Orange is not necessarily going to get you onto 21CN, my exchange has 21CN (has done since March this year) and, when directly challenged, the executive office cant give me a date when I will be moved from IPStream to 21CN as there are "No definite plans with regard to 21CN and your exchange, you will have to wait and see but hopefully it will be in the near future". Not very inspiring by any means. In the meantime Orange want to wast their money getting a BT engineer to check my line and come to my home. My home is a new build, has no extension wiring as everything is done from the master socket, 1 phone, 1 sky connection and 1 router. Sky dont have LLU in my area so it is IPStream with them as well so that is not an option and frankly Talk Talk customer service seems worse than Orange. BT is a non starter due to their ridiculous pricing. I long for the days I was in a Virgin cabled area, only had 2 problems in 12 years, not like the nonsense I am having to endure now. I do hope you get 21CN musicmate but it is by no means guaranteed.

Live fast, Die ...Auld!!

Have you considered a company that uses talktalk backhaul such as http://www.vivaciti.net/

This way customer service etc is not with talktalk but you get a speed above 8 meg (assuming a short enough line)

I had considered that ukhardy07, but then the prices start to get to silly levels again. I was getting 4686Kbps with Sky Connect, however their contention and traffic shaping during peak times was dire to say the least (lowest speed recorded was 283Kbps), I switched to Orange and was getting 3650-3750Kbps and all was stable, then the switch came and I was told that my line was only able to manage 2Mbps and was never going to be higher than that (despite having speed test results to show differently from Sky Connect). When I think back to the amount I was paying Virgin for the speed I was receiving it all seems a little expensive for the garbage speeds I get now, the cost should be proportionally representative to the speed that you get (in an ideal world) and I dont think things will get any better until FTTC and FTTP is better established. Until then I will just have to make do with being a thorn in my ISP's side and constantly harassing them until they do things right. Orange have admitted that the deal with BT was, in hindsight, a truly terrible business decision for its customers and that the level of disapproval was never meant to be this high. Orange also tried to tell me that everyone would see a speed benefit over what they had before, I questioned whether Orange was referring to LLU or IPStream as I have not seen very many posts that indicate that there has been an improvement in BOTH upstream and downstream, there seems to be a small boost in one with a reduction in the other, all of which has just served to hack Orange customers off. Orange seem to be under the impression that many of its customers will not be as technically minded or will just not notice the difference, allowing Orange to profit more by supplying connections at more than half the speed of what was previously provided and expects its customers to just put up with that, their Director of Operations (Harry Wilson) even considers this as an improvement, I questioned whether he had the testicular fortitude to spell out these improvements in public. So far Mr Wilson has not shown that he possesses said testicular fortitude and I highly doubt that he ever will.

I had considered that ukhardy07, but then the prices start to get to silly levels again. I was getting 4686Kbps with Sky Connect, however their contention and traffic shaping during peak times was dire to say the least (lowest speed recorded was 283Kbps), I switched to Orange and was getting 3650-3750Kbps and all was stable, then the switch came and I was told that my line was only able to manage 2Mbps and was never going to be higher than that (despite having speed test results to show differently from Sky Connect). When I think back to the amount I was paying Virgin for the speed I was receiving it all seems a little expensive for the garbage speeds I get now, the cost should be proportionally representative to the speed that you get (in an ideal world) and I dont think things will get any better until FTTC and FTTP is better established. Until then I will just have to make do with being a thorn in my ISP's side and constantly harassing them until they do things right. Orange have admitted that the deal with BT was, in hindsight, a truly terrible business decision for its customers and that the level of disapproval was never meant to be this high. Orange also tried to tell me that everyone would see a speed benefit over what they had before, I questioned whether Orange was referring to LLU or IPStream as I have not seen very many posts that indicate that there has been an improvement in BOTH upstream and downstream, there seems to be a small boost in one with a reduction in the other, all of which has just served to hack Orange customers off. Orange seem to be under the impression that many of its customers will not be as technically minded or will just not notice the difference, allowing Orange to profit more by supplying connections at more than half the speed of what was previously provided and expects its customers to just put up with that, their Director of Operations (Harry Wilson) even considers this as an improvement, I questioned whether he had the testicular fortitude to spell out these improvements in public. So far Mr Wilson has not shown that he possesses said testicular fortitude and I highly doubt that he ever will.

It's a shame that your speeds are less but everyone knows LLU is generally better

The Bt profile system will slow you down slightly. Then I assume the networks more congested than LLU would have been.

The thing is the internet doesn't work in terms of speed. ISPs are billed based on the amount you download.

E.g. someone on a 24mbps connection may only download 2gb a month whereas someone on 5 meg may download 100gb. Should the person with 24 meg pay more, afterall they're using the connection less?

The ISP will be paying far more to provide that 100gb than that 2gb. Assuming both are on the same provider

Then Non-LLU providers have to rent from BT who charge a-lot for their backhaul and data allowances. E.g. a Non-LLU ISP may pay £10 for 100gb

LLU providers bypass BT and have their own backhaul and network. Therefore they may only pay £1 for 100gb. As LLU providers recently installed their own equipment in exchanges, generally they invested in upto 24 mbps equipment.

Whereas when BT invested, it was several years earlier and BT only invested in upto 8 mbps technology. BT have been rolling out 21CN (24 mbps) but this hasn't reached most places.

Hence LLU ends up faster and cheaper, ultimately as LLU is not paying BTs expensive prices and LLU have invested in newer technology that provide speeds above 8 mbps.

The fact is it's probably far more expensive to provide your 2 mbps orange service via BTs equipment than to provide a 20 mbps service via Skys LLU.

Hence the internet world is unfair.

This isn't a very technical explanation and I might have got things slighty wrong But the general idea is there.

Edited by ukhardy07 (Wed 13-Jul-11 13:25:11)