Well thats Sky out for me EVEN if they were the only ones to unbundle here. I had doubts about the requirement to use their router, but this? no thanks. So thats me..and other members of the family they have lost as potential customers. I don't go for this triple play thing, there is usually something lacking in the deal for me. I guess I have to hope for Talk Talk (reseller) or C&W..... so the reality is continue the IPSC crawl for a long time to come.

Sky just unbundled a tiny exchange in this county - which kinda blows out the theory about financial viability - especially as its in a tourist village which is part empty for a chunk of the year - and no it isn't because of a nearby LLU exchange - this is the only one within about 30 miles.

I gave up trying to understand how this Broadband farce works.

Hi

http://forums.thinkbroadband.com/which_isp/f/4037478...

I posted about this last week, and luckily signed up to Sky Broadband Unlimited (from O2 Standard Legacy) on the 29th August so I didn't have to take their Line Rental, I pay the same as Sky (£12.25) to the Post Office but they don't require a contract period which is ideal these days.

Zen will do a SIM provide - I think it may cost extra though

In reply to a post by warweezil:

Well thats Sky out for me EVEN if they were the only ones to unbundle here. I had doubts about the requirement to use their router, but this? no thanks. So thats me..and other members of the family they have lost as potential customers. I don't go for this triple play thing, there is usually something lacking in the deal for me. I guess I have to hope for Talk Talk (reseller) or C&W..... so the reality is continue the IPSC crawl for a long time to come.

The same here now, i am glad Cable and Wireless unbundled our exchange, I would not have gone with Talk Talk, even if they was not fully unbundled, I suppose I may have gone with Sky if I was not on C&W when Sky unbundled our Exchange, i would not do it now.

i am not sure about these triple pay things either, I done it once with BT, Broadband, home phone and broadband. Not sure that i would do it again.

I got no contract for my home phone now, no contract for my broadband, the only contract I got is for my mobile, wish i stuck with what I had to be honest, but once this contract is done i will go back to sim only. Still be a 12 month contract, but for a lot less money.

Sky just unbundled a tiny exchange in this county - which kinda blows out the theory about financial viability - especially as its in a tourist village which is part empty for a chunk of the year - and no it isn't because of a nearby LLU exchange - this is the only one within about 30 miles.

i don't understand it either, Talk Talk are also unbundling small exchanges, do it really pay them to do that? i know of someone who lives in a small town that Talk Talk have unbundled and he said they get bombarded with Talk Talk rubbish every week, at least once a month they get a Talk Talk rep on the door step, he told them he have no interest and don't even have a home phone never mind broadband.

A lot of people he talks to in the town is getting fed up of them as well.

I gave up trying to understand how this Broadband farce works.

It is sign as many people up as possible and then stick them in a long contract and then reduce the quality of their service.

when a ISp say they give you a monthly contract, then you know they have to give you a decent service because you can be gone pretty quick, but when they lock you into a 12 month or longer contract it makes me wonder.

That is not just for ISps either, utility companies, phone companies, mobile phone companies, ok I know you get a phone so that have to be paid for.


Why do utility companies want people to sign up for 12 months, they don't give us a new meter or anything, so it don't cost them anything.

In reply to a post by zyborg47:

In reply to a post by warweezil:

i don't understand it either, Talk Talk are also unbundling small exchanges, do it really pay them to do that? i know of someone who lives in a small town that Talk Talk have unbundled and he said they get bombarded with Talk Talk rubbish every week, at least once a month they get a Talk Talk rep on the door step, he told them he have no interest and don't even have a home phone never mind broadband.

Saturation of the larger exchanges forcing providers to look elsewhere for a better market share had it last summer with TT and Sky when they unbundled. For years and up to weeks before the unbundle, The Ivory Tower Brigade would come out with the profit margin shareholder subsidising rural exchanges etc, and no chance of anything but BT ADSL MAX for years to come, of course they were wrong they were always going to be, however it made them feel better.

Well my exchange serves 2 towns and has shown a static line count on Samknows.com at 8k lines for many years despite a lot of development going on. A BT engineer I spoke to recently put the true figure for this exchange at 10k lines. The one Sky unbundled is showing 3,800 residential lines and covers a wide very rural area of the county so I would expect a lot of long lines.

I am on monthly contracts for everything, Post Office for Phone, Tesco for Mobile and Enta for Internet, although I am looking hard for a move somewhere with an allowance that meets my needs and where the reseller has decent support, the BTw speedtester hasn't worked for me in a couple of years, I find evening browsing slow (with Opera telling me repeatedly that Im on a slow network) and neither my reseller or Enta support has shown any real interest, as ever with UK broadband, it seems once they have you signed up, they do the minimum to provide a decent service. Of course I cant get a BTw speedtest to show me what I am actually getting, but the Speedtest here seems to indicate an under-performance in my line.

Whatever happens it wont be Sky.. too much "lock in" with full LLU. The migration out from that is a joke and something OFCOM needs to sort out, which we all know wont happen with this regulator that seems to be frightened of upsetting the industry.

The reason I won't go fully LLU unbundled is because my phone line is with the Post Office who give me free mobile and international calls at weekends, and I signed up for 12 months with them for this reason, about 7 months ago. Sky for full line rental and calls is actually a poor deal telecoms wise, only slightly better than BT and definitely not worth committing to them fully.

I had both services from Sky 18 months ago and at the time they provided line rental and calls by reselling BT. They wrote to me every month stating they were going to move me onto their "Voice and Broadband" network rather than the two services being provided seperately, this is the full LLU, and at the time it was panned in the forums for reliability and speed drops. So I resisted until I finally had enough of having to phone them up to opt out every monht, then I moved by line rental back to BT and to PlusNet as ISP (which was rubbish). When BT declared a price increase I broke out of their contract and put my line rental to the Post Office.

The analogy of BT broadband and line does not really stack up because you cannot buy Sky Broadband from anyone other than Sky, so having a BT line does not restrict your ISP choice like having a Sky line does.

Unfortunately LLU is a must for me having a 60db margin on a 7km line, BT's DLM always manages my line down to about 1.3 mb, whereas I am currently with Vivaciti LLU and always hits 2meg. If Vivaciti would allow me on a lower noise margin (say 3 rather than 6) then I would be happy.When I was with Sky I called them up and was able to get the line set to 3 db and minimum interleaving giving be 2.5meg and 30ms ping.