And may be you will as FTTC is rolled out to the 66%.

What bit of TalkTalk is pants? Visited someone who has a line that is running with them and seen how it performs?

Yes sales are over zealous, yes those who were with an old Tiscali account are seeing issues, as billing systems integrate, but the few TT lines I have access to run as close to Zen qos.

Maybe really pins it down but I appreciate your point.

Still maybe 5 years down the line when I maybe was due WBC next year isn't really re-assuring but knowing it for sure would make me feel a little better.

Andrue: Llandudno is not 21cn afaik, where did you hear that? It's Market 2 atm, with C&W also putting kit in there before Summer. There's a WBC desert stretching along the North Wales coastline after Rhyl and BT have shown no interest.

A letter from my MP to Ann Beynon was responded to with garbage.

As already stated, I get the full 8mb on my 1km line and my 25Db downstream attenuation and 4.5 SNR gives me a guess-timate of about 18mb. ADSL2 will be far better for me. I'm currently with IDNet at, who are a superb ISP and their Max Premium product is outstanding. The rub is that it's expensive at £35 per month for 40gb peak/160Gb off-peak bandwidth and I only use about 80Gb total. I can get 100gb off Vivaciti at double the speed and nearly half the cost. No-brainer really.

As for TalkTalk, I've read nothing but horror stories over the years and they seem to consistently cakewalk worst ISP awards every year. It may be true that the service itself isn't so bad - if you're lucky enough that it works okay - it seems to be when you have trouble with it that the problems begin. Useless tech support and ignorant call centres.

I'd rather use an Opal reseller. Shame Xilo is a bit slow out of the gate with their checker.

As for townies v "rural", the argument could go on all day. I guess it's the nature of the beast when the deregulated monopoly incumbent telco just puts profits first and cherry-picks where they're going to spend their money. Rip-off Britain is chock full of postcode lotteries, until the Government makes investment inroads to start catching up with our foreign brethren, why should broadband availability be any different?

Edited by deleted (Fri 11-Mar-11 14:21:37)

To be honest I am not sure whether other countries have conquered the rural/urban divide.
It is easy to see the best in other countries, but ignore the realities for those outside the areas with lots of PR.

To people looking at the UK from outside, we have 50% of homes with the option of 50Meg services now.

The situation was simpler in 2002/2003 since only BT Wholesale and NTL/Telewest were playing, but now there are more players and choice, and BT is not the monopoly it once was.

Talktalk have missed our exchange out for a reason.

All the other exchanges have got it.

The problem is, at least from our perspective, is that we have differing opinions to BT as to the definition of rural.

When you have a town so big that it takes 3 seperate exchanges to serve its 20k+ lines and we are still languishing in antiquated ADSL Max hell, it's easy to get narked when you see places 20 minutes away on the A55 getting FTTC, despite the fact that its in the ass-end of nowhere and has less lines than your own exchange.

The North/South Wales divide is particularly irksome. Most of the infrastructure investment takes place around Cardiff and Swansea. Loads of little exchanges around Cardiff, far smaller than ours, are state of the art. North Wales gets next to nothing. Unless you are Hawarden, or one of the chav-centrals (Rhyl, Wrexham).

It would be nice to have some transparency from BT, so at least you can understand the logic behind it all. What's the problem with the North Wales coast? Exchanges physically too small? Backhaul upgrade costs too high? Distance to nearest PoP? Lack of actual active broadband take-up in the areas?

Bah

yes at least knowing what goes in to making the decision and perhaps why some places are denied the technology would help.

Basically we are asking why.

Might get somewhere with a freedom of information request on that front.

In reply to a post by Aurhinius:

Might get somewhere with a freedom of information request on that front.

You'll get nowhere at all - FOI doesn't apply to commercial companies.

FWIW, given the lacklustre response to recentimproved bandwidth being provided in Wales, its even less likely that they will install anywhere except a dead cert.

My theory is that some areas will miss out on possible company investment as firms will see that they might get 20-30% of the money from sources like councils and BDUK and Welsh Assembly.

Cornwall bit the bullet and went all out, Wales while talking a lot has not committed to something yet.