Surely this applies to Market 2 exchanges too? My exchange is marked as Market 2 because Virgin Cable is available to the lucky ones who's houses are a few years old when they last bothered to connect people up.

So isn't it any exchange where the only option via a phone line is BT?

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

Well if BT doesn't like the price cuts, roll out more WBC and remove the IPStream

Or just pack up and go home. Leave M1 exchanges to mobile and dial-up. There's no USC in place and even the one proposed allowed BT to withdraw from areas it didn't like.

Three years or more notice to withdraw a service in place without a similar spec or better replacement.

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

Three years or more notice to withdraw a service in place without a similar spec or better replacement.

Ah, thanks I didn't know that. That does make a difference then.

"However, in Market 1 - made up of exchange areas in which BT is currently the only provider of wholesale broadband services - we decided that BT should be subject to a charge control."

So Market 1 only

Great. So we could find that the worst exchange to be on is a Market 2 one because they may not have to lower the charges and wont have the incentive to do upgrades.

Could we see Market 1's changing to 3's fairly rapidly?
Could we see BT encouraging (or paying for!!) one other provider into a Market 1, making it a Market 2 and thus the cost reductions are not imposed and BT sit pretty again?

Or am I just being too cynical again?

I see where you're at - Market 2 exchanges with 2 or 3 principal operators could turn out to be the highest price exchanges where there isn't enough competition and there isn't any price control. They cover 10% of the population, apparently.

Cynical becomes a level headed approach when Ofcom and BT are mentioned together. It�s like seeing the true definition of Love or Profit perhaps both, I can�t decide.

Of course ISP's may just decide to not pass the cut on anway, 60 odd pence a month from a small proportion of customers, versus figuring out managing which market that customer is in.

My person vote is for the money to go on extra capacity

It's not the cut that I'm bothered about (although cheaper broadband is always welcome as long as it's reliable), it's trying to encourage at least one LLU operator into my exchange that I'd like (and any others in the same situation).

Having been on O2 LLU before moving house, I preferred my lower sync speed LLU connection to my (at least double the sync) IP Stream connection. Better upload speed, less disconnects, none of this nonsense speed profile, etc.

Financially, small exchanges are not worth any upgrades to speed up the broadband network, I completely get that and I don't blame anyone (or rather any company) for not wanting to spend a few K on an investment that could take years (if ever) to make a return. It's just very frustrating to see old houses with high speed broadband via cable, LLU/FTTC in bigger exchanges yet new housing estates connected to new(ish) but small exchanges end up with IP Stream.

Hopefully it wont be too many more years before my type of connection is seen as the one to be targeted for upgrades because everyone in the countryside and everyone in the big towns/cities will have FTTC and us stuck in the middle will be the broadband lepers of society.