BT Infinity is this exclusive to BT? or other ISP?

Have just had the news that BT Infinity for my line will be ready sometime in April. I am tempted purely for the speed as on ADSL now lucky to get 1mb and BT are saying 35MB should be possible with Infinity. My question is : I'm assuming BT are changing the copper line to FTTC? If so will my curent or any other ISP be able to provide a service using the fibre or do you have to go with BT to take advantage of the fibre line?

Infinity is BTs name for their service offering, your free to choose an ISP that is currently offering FTTC packages. Some big names aren't quite yet, but there are ISPs out there like entanet that do offer FTTC.

ISPs offering FTTC services :-

http://www.robertos.me.uk/html/isps_offering_fttc.html

Yarwell has kindly given you a link to my list. You will also find the owner page of that one is a description of how FTTC works, as your existing copper connection to your existing cabinet is still used.

The result is your attenuation is over the distance to your cabinet (plus a few metres), not to the exchange.

The only problem you have is that Infinity is cheaper than all the alternatives. This is apparently to do with how BT Broadband connects to the system at their end.

The good things about the other ISPs is that:

- most will accept orders a bit below the 15Mbps estimate level that BT Infinity cannot be ordered below, though if the connection speed at install time is below the 15Mbps limit the installation is aborted on any supplier;

- they often make it available as soon as your cabinet is enabled, whereas Infinity may be later due to marketing plans or sheer BT inertia, (though the time difference may only be a couple of weeks);

- most are preferable to BT in many people's eyes;

- possibly shorter contracts than BT.

Thank you for all this info. I now have a better understanding of what to expect.

Please don't go with BT Infinity!

Please don't go with BT Infinity!

Care to expand? Its working well for me, has been for around 6 months without a problem. The pricing and usage limit make it very competitive unless you have niche requirements.

In reply to a post by New_Londoner:

Please don't go with BT Infinity!

Care to expand? Its working well for me, has been for around 6 months without a problem. The pricing and usage limit make it very competitive unless you have niche requirements.

Same.

In reply to a post by orly:

In reply to a post by New_Londoner:

Please don't go with BT Infinity!

Care to expand? Its working well for me, has been for around 6 months without a problem. The pricing and usage limit make it very competitive unless you have niche requirements.

Same.

Exactly.

I would never go near or recommend BT Broadband ADSLx products, or even the BT Wholesale ones from another ISP unless unavoidable.

But as our cabinet should be going live within the next couple of weeks, with my usage of around 20GB pm with occasional TV or radio catchup and maybe snooker/tennis/cricket from sheer laziness as the TV is the other end of the room, Infinity does look by far the best option and by far the cheapest.

> Infinity does look by far the best option and by far the cheapest.

Mutually exclusive, surely?

There must be a reason that they are cheapest. Somewhere corners are being cut. I don't know where, but BTR aren't offering a cheaper package because they love us and want us to be happy.

Rational customers in the economic landscape have to assess quality and performance, not just price.

Do you really want to be one of the statistics when BTR boast how many people have come back to them for "Infinity"?

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Sploog