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Broadband prices

Hi,
I have been with Names.co.uk since they were NDO, and am not unhappy with the service. However, for the coming year they want to charge me £185.41, which seems a lot for 6Gb/month with less than 2Mb speeds.

But who do I go to? The problem is that my BT exchange is not that modern, and I am about 3 miles from it at the end of a spur, although the line is actually very reliable.

I was sent a mailshot by O2, as I have a mobile with them, for their current £7.34-month-with-2-months free offer, so I called up and said please could I have it, but apparently, my own personal quote would be £17 or so a month. The man at O2, while not actually rude, obviously couldn't have cared less about losing a potential customer and wasn't going to waste his time explaining the reason for the extra high price to me.


Can anyone explain to me why I end up having to pay a premium for a more old fashioned slower service than someone living in a city with access to high-speed high-tech cable and fibre-optics does?

Many thanks
Anji
 
Probably because (as O2's response suggests) being in an area where ISPs such as O2 don't consider it worth putting their own equipment in, you are stuck with a "BT Wholesale only" line, and any ISP, whether it be Namesco, O2, or anyone else, who has to use BT Wholesale as the basis of their service, has higher costs.

That is why O2 and other ISPs who use "LLU" (Local Loop unbundling, basically running their own stuff in the exchange instead of using BT) usually have different prices, as you found out when you rang them - if you're covered by their own system, it will be cheaper than if they have to use BT's.

Pop over to Samknows and use their availability checker:
http://www.samknows.com/broadband/checker2.php

That will tell you what's available in terms of the wholesale suppliers. If, as I suspect, the answer is BT Wholesale only, then, as you're happy with your current ISP's actaul service (as a fellow NDO/Namesco customer, so am I!) I would reckon there's not a lot of point in looking around for anything significantly cheaper that's any good.

If I've guessed wrong, and anyone other than BT Wholesale *is* listed, then it's worth investigating what they (or their retail outlets) can offer, of course!
 
Our own checker is also based off the Samknows tech, just stick your phone number in and scroll down to see which unbundled providers cover you:
http://www.ispreview.co.uk/checker/

Also if you post your router stats then we may be better able to tell you about what your telephone line can do (speed wise).
 
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Many thanks for explaining so succinctly.

The ISPreview checker doesn't seem to want to work this morning, but Samknows says you were right and I got BT or nothing. So I will stick with Namesco.

I would post my router stats if I knew how! ;}

Cheers
Angie
 
Usually it's under the section in your router related to Connection Details or Status, you just need to copy and paste info. like line Attenuation, SNR (Signal or Noise Ration / Noise Margin) etc.
 
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