BT Wholesale- which provider?

Hi,
I was hoping someone may be able to give me some advice with regard to which Broadband provider i should go for. The properties exchange is only enabled with BT wholesale, will there be any variation in speeds from different providers? I'm assuming the service from all should be the same, apart from download limits, contract length etc. Your advice would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks,
Sam

Edited by deleted (Tue 28-Aug-12 22:04:37)

Well you've hit the main points there, but yes, there can be quite big differences betweem providers.

A major one is of course the minimum term. (Contract length is a bit of a misnomer). If you are likely to move within twelve months it matters.

The quality and reaction time of support is another big differentiator. If you need to kow which bit plugs into which, most can help, but if you want to know why your speed has suddenly dropped by 3Mbps then not many are much use.

Pretty important is whether you will be doing a lot of gaming, or whether you want to do lots of downloading, or possibly uploading. Some do speed limiting at various times of day on some sorts of traffic, others just leave it to slow down when it's busy, and others have plenty of capacity and no problem at any time. SO really, we could do with some idea of what you will be doing.

For instance, I spend an awful lot of time online, but my usage is tiny by current standards. If I were forty years younger with a wife and two school-age kids, my needs would be hugely different, and so would be my choice of ISP.

?
You sound like you may be just going to university? Students needs are a bit specialised.

Yes, it's a house of three students on a working gap year. We'll be using the internet quite heavily in the evenings (unlimited downloads). Ideally contract length can't be any longer than 12 months, however we are prepared to pay early termination fees if necessary. Unfortunately the property is in an awkward area, exchange is only BT Wholesale enabled - approx 2km away. I'm aware this will affect speeds quite heavily. Line rental will also be required. Is there any provider which you would recommend for our circumstances?

In reply to a post by spresley:

exchange is only BT Wholesale enabled

There's BT Wholesale and there's BT Wholesale!

If the exchange is only 20CN enabled you can only get "Up to 8 Meg" IPStream ADSL Max and there could be a vast diff technically between providers and there could be high congestion.

Or the exchange could be 21CN enabled and you'd get "Up to 24 Meg" WBC ADSL2+. Then there won't be so much diff technically between providers.

To find out which, look hare: http://www.samknows.com/broadband/exchange_search or which exchange?

It is the idmiston exchange, not yet 21CN enabled - scheduled for an upgrade at the end of October this year.