Whatever the deals are, they won't be the same in 10 months .

But on a Market A(?) exchange, (Markets 1,2,3, ceased to exist a long time ago), Vodafone LLU will not be available. I don't know if they even do BT Wholesale connections, but if they do and it is like the Sky and TalkTalk ones were, forget it.

Post Office similarly. That is run by TalkTalk and is dire if TalkTalk LLU not on the exchange.

So, given that it is a Market A exchange, and no LLU is present, what options do I have that are not pants?

Is it just BT, Plusnet and John Lewis?

uswitch seems to have different options sometimes when I look. I'm sure it had Origin at one point this week, but doesn't now.

What about SSE, TenTel, Pop?

I would say stick to BT or Plusnet. They are the only proven ones to keep throughput decent at exchanges where no LLU is present. There are smaller ISPs, but they will be more costly in most cases.

When you get Fibre Optic in your area, you may then find you are able to get Sky, TalkTalk etc as normal.

Edited by ukhardy07 (Wed 12-Oct-16 10:57:10)

There used to be a tiny few exchanges, I think in the north of Scotland, that were restricted to one or two retail ISPs. This was where they had paid for the BT Wholesale equipment in the exchange and the backhaul to it. I don't know if that is still the case.

Everywhere else there are over 100 ISPs available on all Market A exchanges. For instance, just put your phone number into the checker on this page and see they can supply. Just to prove whether there is a restriction or not.

Having said that I agree with ukhardy07's suggestion plus John Lewis - which is run by Plusnet but possibly has better first-line CS.

Edited by RobertoS (Wed 12-Oct-16 11:41:06)

SSE, TenTel, Pop are on the avoid list for small exchanges that have no LLU presence.

I phoned BT, and it was pretty painless.

They have tied me into a 24 month contract at £10/month, as opposed to £20.

I might have got a cheaper one year deal had I moved, but I have had no issues with BT, throughput stays surprisingly high even at peak times, albeit I only sync at 8Mb/s.

Better the devil you know, and all that.

Cheers for the input.

Good choice.

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

Whatever the deals are, they won't be the same in 10 months .

But on a Market A(?) exchange, (Markets 1,2,3, ceased to exist a long time ago), Vodafone LLU will not be available. I don't know if they even do BT Wholesale connections, but if they do and it is like the Sky and TalkTalk ones were, forget it.

The price at a non LLU exchange appears to low. They want £25 pm for 38Mbps FTTC. Price includes line rental I don't know what the performance is like.