Tesco LLU - Any customers out there?

Just researching broadband for my new flat, and was thinking either Xilo (Be 16Mb) or Plusnet Extra.

However I see Tesco are pitching in at £2.50 a month for 12 months, plus a £30 gift voucher, if you take your phone line rental with them.

From their website checker, they seem to have LLU in my area ( which I gather will be C&W ? )

Problem is, it seems ludicrously cheap - to the point of setting off my suspicion detectors.

Anyone out there with them at the moment, and if so, how's your service?

Well If you went direct to BE there doing half price broadband for 12 months and you could get 60quid cash back via quidco not sure if this is just for full price broadband

Cheers - that seems a very good offer.

I'll see if I can take them up on it now (even though I don't move in till after the offer ends) - and unlike the Tesco situation, I have (positive) experience of Be myself.

Still be interested to know what sort of service Tesco can be providing for £2.50 a month tho...

You get what you pay for I suppose..


Talk talk do there broadband cheap but when they took over AOL back in 2007 I think Aol went from excellent to rubbish..

As for BE there support is in Bulgaria and is amazing and you can understand them unlike the indian call centres of Talk talk not sure on Tesco but cant see them doing UK support 24-7

In reply to a post by gordon_k:

Still be interested to know what sort of service Tesco can be providing for £2.50 a month tho...

From what i know Tesco broadband (C&W LLU based) is quite good. No throttling & UK based support. However they do have a 100GB FUP per month and their default SNR is 9 db so you will lose speed unless you use a broadcom router which can be tweaked. Why are they so cheap? Simples...its full LLU

That sounds pretty good for me - I use about 60GB a month I think.

From what I gather, the one thing they do intend to throttle is P2P traffic, as it's not time critical. So might slow down Dropbox for me, but that's about it.

They say they don't throttle streaming video, which is one of my concerns, but of course what companies say and what they do is not always the same thing...

I see Plusnet are also doing a half-price for 12 months offer at the moment - I'm kinda spoilt for choice...

Choice between a LLU (Tesco) isp over a BTw (Plusnet) isp? LLU everytime. LLU operators have far more bandwidth so less likely to suffer from peak time congestion,no silly peak time data limits, no DLM (or can easily be switched off in the case of TallkTalk) and considerably cheaper. No brainer really

In reply to a post by baby_frogmella:

Choice between a LLU (Tesco) isp over a BTw (Plusnet) isp? LLU everytime. LLU operators have far more bandwidth so less likely to suffer from peak time congestion,no silly peak time data limits, no DLM (or can easily be switched off in the case of TallkTalk) and considerably cheaper. No brainer really

That makes sense to me.

But I'm noticing that on the ThinkBroadband ISP comparison thing, Plusnet seems to rate consistently higher than TalkTalk (for example) for speed and reliability. I do think people tend to let their customer service frustrations spill over into their other ratings though, so that may not tell the whole story...

Is that Tesco deal partial LLU or 21CN WBC? Broadband only does seem possible according to the Tesco web site so that might indicate partial LLU (SMPF) or 21CN WBC.

If Tesco use 21CN WBC or SMPF why would that be better than Plusnet 21CN WBC? Of course if one's exchange is not 21CN enabled then SMPF would be better than IP Stream...

In reply to a post by 4M2:

Is that Tesco deal partial LLU or 21CN WBC? Broadband only does seem possible according to the Tesco web site so that might indicate partial LLU (SMPF) or 21CN WBC.

If Tesco use 21CN WBC or SMPF why would that be better than Plusnet 21CN WBC? Of course if one's exchange is not 21CN enabled then SMPF would be better than IP Stream...

AFAIK if your exchange is C&W LLU equipped, Tesco offer both full LLU and partial LLU broadband - so you can keep your line rental with BT if required. Obviously full LLU will be the cheapest. I do know that Tesco can supply broadband using 20CN based BTw (if no C&W LLU) but whether they can do that on 21CN BTw as well (again if no C&W LLU) then i've got no idea. Either way, BTw based Tesco broadband will be more expensive - i think their BT 20CN based broadband (up to 8 meg) is 18 quid a month

Edited by deleted (Sun 09-Sep-12 07:21:34)

Sounds like Tesco are in direct competition with TalkTalk when it comes to providing a full LLU service, although Tesco seem to require that the phone number be changed when the line is moved from BT.

Partial LLU with Tesco would probably be more expensive but one could keep the line with BT and thus retain one's phone number.

If the exchange is 21CN WBC enabled and Market 2 or 3 then I would see Plusnet as being a very attractive alternative since it would be in a "low cost area", available both on an annual contract or 30 day minimum term.

Orange would be another alternative for a 21CN adsl2+ service if one is in their �network area� but the line rental would have to be paid to Orange and it would be a 12 month contract. This might be particularly attractive if one is an orange mobile phone user.

However if cost is not an overriding factor then xilo/uno 21CN would certainly be my choice

Edited by 4M2 (Sun 09-Sep-12 14:11:41)

Have you considered sky

If you order now ( you can specify install date to a later date)

£100 cashback via quidco
6 months half price

No throttling of p2p or anything. Totally unlimited.

Would be around £22 a month inc line rental and cheaper for first 6 months.
Call centres in Scotland Ireland and uk. 24/7 support too

In reply to a post by ukhardy07:

Have you considered sky

I haven't actually.

It sounds a good deal what with the Quidco bonus & all - but it's probably fair to say I'd rather gnaw off my left leg than part-finance Rupert Murdoch & his henchmen.

I used to feel just like that.

I then moved into an area without freeview and got forced into sky tv by the fam...
I then got sky BB after being recommended on a different forum, had massive issues with a different ISP.
Then switched over to virgin and then back to sky as they persuaded me to take the broadband & phone & line rental with them by offering me it stupidly cheap and ALSO discounting the TV.

It worked out cheaper with broadband, line rental, calls and TV than just the TV was costing. Their stupidly cheap retentions have made me stay & the service is too good for me to consider a switch really.

Murdoch. Dislike... I also hate virgins hardware e.g. superhub. So catch 22.

Edited by ukhardy07 (Sun 09-Sep-12 23:27:39)