Any smaller ISPs who can compete on FTTC?

I'm in the market for an FTTC package and have been checking ISPs for attractive offers. I would prefer to give my business to a smaller ISP but it seems none(?) of them can compete on price and data caps with the big boys. Any suggestions for smaller ISPs with interesting FTTC packages that I may have missed? Thanks in advance.

Judging by the number of responses it seems there isn't much competition for the larger ISPs. Oh well, I've signed up with Plusnet.

Good choice!

The larger ISPs are doing great deals nowadays. Even BT!!

I can't really see why the average user would select a smaller ISP at the moment. Most of the small ISPs I looked at weren't even close to anything the bigger providers could offer(in terms of fundamentals like price and data caps). They must be getting absolutely crushed in the FTTC market.

Even for standard broadband it's similar.

Say you have no LLU in your area.

BT do truly unlimited no throttling for £16.
Smaller ISPs want £50+

Then in LLU areas it is near on impossible to beat sky's 7.50 for instance.

Hi

Sorry to hijack but I need FTTC for a business line (light usage and up to 16.2 Mbps predicted by BTwholesale checker) and the big boys are not competitive for FTTC on a business line.

The following ISPs are competitive:

ADSL24 - £16.58+vat
Chilli-mintlabs (Invictel) - £20+vat
Fast.co.uk - £18.71+vat
Goscomb - £20+vat
Greenisp - £20.56+vat
Icuk - £20.83+vat
IDNet - £22.50+vat
Merula - £20+vat
Ukfsn - £22+vat
Vivaciti - £22+vat

Money is tight and reliability is not important enough to me to pay over the odds for - BT Infinity starts at £30+vat on a business line.

I can switch phone as well.

Any thoughts much appreciated.

If reliability, (ie fix time priority), is not particularly important, why do you need a business grade line? Most of the ones you list, though not all, will happily allow SOHO use on residential packages.

I dont need a business grade line but I prefer the number to be listed in the business section of the directory - is this possible with a residential package?

A good enough reason .

I don't know about the question. It should be easy enough to find out?

If the phone line is a basic (residential) then you wont get it listed as a business in the directories (unless a paid for entry) but even if the phone line is a business you can still have a residential broadband service on the line.

Will any ISP do this?

Asking that of an ISP who has just given a helpful reply, with no suggestion by them that you should prefer them to the others on your list, could be considered a bit of a cheeky question .

On the subject of that list I'd certainly avoid UKFSN.

I didnt expect him to reply, but someone else might . BTW thanks for your tip on UKFSN and thanks to Vivaciti for his reply.

We try to help!

In reply to a post by Spud2003:

Judging by the number of responses it seems there isn't much competition for the larger ISPs. Oh well, I've signed up with Plusnet.

This is the problem, if I ever went for FTTC, I would love to go with a smaller ISp, but at the moment they don't offer enough for the price. I blame BT for this, it is what you get when you got a monopoly.

i don't mind paying a little bit more than I would from a larger ISp, but it is not a little more in many cases.


for what I would pay is around the £25 mark, from a small Isp it would get me 40Mb/s download, which is fine because I would not get much more, but then only 30Gb usage, ok unlimited in off peak times, but that is no good to me.
i watch Netflix and other online video, in fact it have replaced my normal TV watching, as I now don't have a licence.

I would pay £25 a month if it was say 100GB and off peak usinge unlimited, then of cause I have to think of line rental above that.

the larger Isps offer too many gimmicks for me to be honest, look at Bt, now they giving away sport Tv, which is of no interest to me, then cloud storage, free wi-fi, some system so you can use your mobile as your normal phone and god know what else.

Not everyone want all of that, all I need is a internet connection at a fair price. so until a smaller Isp can offer that, I will stay as I am with my wireless broadband.

We are working to come close, but can only do that on Market 3 Exchanges.
BT infinity 2 with phone line rental is £41.45 our Unlimited FTTC with phone line rental is £48.60

In reply to a post by vivaciti:

We are working to come close, but can only do that on Market 3 Exchanges.
BT infinity 2 with phone line rental is £41.45 our Unlimited FTTC with phone line rental is £48.60

That is getting there, the problem I have is bundles, i have never liked this eggs in one basket thing. I know what you are going to say, you make the money ont he calls, but not if people don't make calls.

Still it is good to see that it is getting closer, the problem is how close can you get and still make money to survive?

Difference is you don't have to have line rental with us, we do give the option of just the broadband.

In reply to a post by zyborg47:

i watch Netflix and other online video, in fact it have replaced my normal TV watching, as I now don't have a licence.

Do you watch anything this way while it is being broadcast live - i.e. live relays?

In reply to a post by vivaciti:

Difference is you don't have to have line rental with us, we do give the option of just the broadband.

That is good, no doubt it will be more expensive. Not that I am looking at FTTC at the moment, I am happy with my wireless broadband and anyway I am still under contract for another 12 months. If I do decide to go back to fixed line broadband then to FTTc, I will have a look at what you have got at the time.

The problem is FTTc is more expensive than what I am paying now by the tie they add line rental which I would need from someone. i don't have line rental at the moment.

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

In reply to a post by zyborg47:

i watch Netflix and other online video, in fact it have replaced my normal TV watching, as I now don't have a licence.

Do you watch anything this way while it is being broadcast live - i.e. live relays?

Nope, so I don't need a TV licence. i don't watch much catch up Tv anyway, just Dr who and that is it. the rest is with Netflix.

Whats killing them is now wholesale requires 12 month commitment so one of their selling points is trashed (short contracts) I expect all of them have been onto ofcom about that been anti competitive favouring the big boys (who typically had long contracts anyway) and that the big boys are loss leading or at least happy to operate on very slim profits. Plusnet I wouldnt class as a big boy but their owner has deep enough pockets so they can operate like one.

aaisp I feel are holding their own still, they seem to be adapting (they never did complete in mainstream market remember that) and also still managing to offer FTTC terms that are more friendly than the big boys such as £1 migraition fee on FTTC and less than 12 months contract. But of course they dont offer unlimited usage (unless you prepared to pay for it all in units) and their base pricing is higher, but in return its a more technical niche isp. however I do feel the likes of vivaciti, xilo etc. seem to offer little over what plusnet does. Other than the fact plusnet has a long thread on its own forums with peak time speed issues and a lagging profile system, which those isps may not have but the cheap unlimited on plusnet is just swallowing so many into it.

add a monthly contract option and I will give you a punt.

£45 for the unlimited 80/20. £8 extra per monthly customer to subsidise those that cancel early? worth trying?

In reply to a post by Chrysalis:

Whats killing them is now wholesale requires 12 month commitment

Openreach actually.

FTTC services cannot be ordered for less than 12 months.

In reply to a post by Chrysalis:

add a monthly contract option and I will give you a punt.

£45 for the unlimited 80/20. £8 extra per monthly customer to subsidise those that cancel early? worth trying?

Monthly contract for FTTC? that is not going to happen. I know EE got a trial, but you have to be a mobile phone customer and after the trial you get put onto their ADSL service.


As been above, blame BT, be it openreach, wholesale or retail, they all the same company. Also blame our government.

FTTC Self-Install will happen, much like when ADSL was engineer-only installation and then changed to self-install a year or two later (may be even longer).

The trials have been banded around for a while and seem to be making some actual progress now.

Matt

In reply to a post by uno:

FTTC Self-Install will happen, much like when ADSL was engineer-only installation and then changed to self-install a year or two later (may be even longer).

The trials have been banded around for a while and seem to be making some actual progress now.

Matt

But to do that then surly they need to have combined routers and modems as it makes setting up a lot easier.

TBh, i prefer the faceplate on the socket instead of these stupid filters hanging off cables, the amount of time I caught one when cleaning the carpet and had to replace it. that is why I went back to a faceplate.

Would ADSL filters work with FTTC? not that i am planning to go to FTTc anytime soon

it seems like BT retail is not planning for combined routers as their latest HH4 is ADSL and wan only, no VDSL modem built in

In reply to a post by zyborg47:

Would ADSL filters work with FTTC?

Apparently yes, some people have retained existing ADSL filtered faceplates, but some of the more techie people on here reckon they aren't quite as effective. On a self-install I'm sure a suitable filter will be supplied - the specifications for it are in SIN 498 along with the modem requirements.

Edited by RobertoS (Tue 21-May-13 15:33:43)

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

In reply to a post by zyborg47:

Would ADSL filters work with FTTC?

Apparently yes, some people have retained existing ADSL filtered faceplates, but some of the more techie people on here reckon they aren't quite as effective. On a self-install I'm sure a suitable filter will be supplied - the specifications for it are in SIN 498 along with the modem requirements.

The problem is the filter they will supply is stuck on the end of a cable, as I said above, I have broken a some of them when i been cleaning the carpet. the ones without a cable just sticks out and they are easy to knock as well.
that is why i like my faceplate, I presume when they start doing self install, someone will sell faceplates.

I a Bt openreach modem will still be sent to people on self install, certainly untl ISPs start sending out a combined unit.

Still, as I said, no plans to change to fibre at the moment,bt just in case.

In reply to a post by zyborg47:

The problem is the filter they will supply is stuck on the end of a cable

You obviously have inside information from every ISP. Wow!

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

In reply to a post by zyborg47:

The problem is the filter they will supply is stuck on the end of a cable

You obviously have inside information from every ISP. Wow!

Ok, they will probably supply a filter that is stuck on the end of a cable. I am just going by what is supplied by ISps on ADSL.

I doubt they will supply a filter plate.

It'll be interesting to find out.

One thing we can be sure of. If they supply an interstitial plate like the Openreach one, they will get a heck of a lot fewer support calls than if they supply dangly filters. Though how they would deal with a non-NTE5 premises is an issue.

A filtered faceplate such as yours would be beyond most punters to fit.

Maybe they'll pay Openreach to carry on as now. That will probably be the most cost-effective for them

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

One thing we can be sure of. If they supply an interstitial plate like the Openreach one, they will get a heck of a lot fewer support calls than if they supply dangly filters.

OTOH, the other thing we can be sure of is they will have to lose "Would you try swapping filters?" from their scripts.

Anyway I'm not so sure of that. I've had more trouble from BT filtered faceplates than all the danglers I've ever used. I know they're not the same as an interstitial plate but is essentially the same idea.

People are already selling the Interstitial filter faceplate

http://www.coolwebhome.co.uk/faceplate/

Did this seen as already seeing people not realising that the first socket revealed is still filtered, obvious if you know about filters, but not to the average person and so far ISP support desks.

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

It'll be interesting to find out.

One thing we can be sure of. If they supply an interstitial plate like the Openreach one, they will get a heck of a lot fewer support calls than if they supply dangly filters. Though how they would deal with a non-NTE5 premises is an issue.

A filtered faceplate such as yours would be beyond most punters to fit.

Maybe they'll pay Openreach to carry on as now. That will probably be the most cost-effective for them

Two screws, that is it, just unscrew, take the old plate off, put the new plate on and then screw it up.

I lost count of the amount of filters on cables I have damaged with the cleaner.

thankfully I don't have to rely on filters at all now, the poor phone socket is just sat there doing nothing, a shame I can't have it taken out to be honest.

Not quite so simple if there are extensions. That's the point of the interstitial plate.

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

Not quite so simple if there are extensions. That's the point of the interstitial plate.

Oh yeah, forgot about extensions.

Thank goodness i don't have that problem. My Ethernet cable come down from the roof, down the outside wall and into a hole in my living room behind the Tv and then plonked into my router and that is it.

they both do but isps deal with wholesale not openreach.

instead they will get support calls how to install it

I agree with zyborg its likely to be a dongle. A simple plugin device.

I did test my x1-fe dongle and it peformed no different to my FTTC install provided faceplate.

In reply to a post by Chrysalis:

they both do but isps deal with wholesale not openreach.

I assume the BTW 12-months is because of the OR one . Anyway, how do you know there are no TalkTalk Business Wholesale FTTC resellers?

But this is a silly part of the overall discussion. I suggest we drop it.

no problem, but I agree with your last post anyway

Have gone with Xilo for phone and fttc.

In reply to a post by alotbit:

Have gone with Xilo for phone and fttc.

Just out of interest, what is the cost?

Line rental is £10.50 + VAT per month and there is a £5 + VAT fee to transfer this over.

FTTC pricing is on their availability checker and has a £80 + VAT activation fee and 12 month contract.