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ISP recommendation - business, LLU, one month terms

Looking to rent a local office to work out of, as the broadband options at home are dreadful.

Unfortunately my nearest town has pretty poor connectivity so I'm faced with a choice of trying to get the best I can there, or travelling further. If I go for local:

--

The following services are available in your location:

BT Wholesale ADSL
BT Wholesale ADSL Max
BT Wholesale WBC (21CN)
BT Wholesale SDSL
BT FTTC
AOL LLU
O2 / Be LLU
TalkTalk (CPW) LLU
Sky Broadband / Easynet LLU
Tiscali LLU
Orange LLU (Formerly Wanadoo)

You are connected to the Alton telephone exchange.

ADSL is available in your area
Your exchange is also enabled for ADSL Max services
Your exchange is also enabled for ADSL2+ services
According to BT Wholesale, houses at your postcode should be able to support

up to 2Mbps via ADSL
7.5Mbps or greater ADSL connection via ADSL Max
15Mbps or greater via ADSL2+

Standard ADSL RAG results
You can receive 2Mbps ADSL
You can receive 1Mbps ADSL
You can receive 512kbps ADSL
You can receive 256kbps ADSL

You are approximately 515 metres from the exchange. Note that this is the straight line distance - the actual cable length will be longer!

ADSL status: Enabled as of 28/02/2003
ADSL Max status: Enabled as of 31/03/2006
SDSL status: Enabled as of 17/07/2005
21CN WBC status: Enabled as of 31/03/2010
FTTC status: Available in some areas

AOL: Enabled
O2 / Be: Enabled
C&W / Bulldog: Not available
Edge Telecom: Not available
Entanet: Not available
Lumison: Not available
NewNet: Not available
Node4: Not available
Orange: Enabled as of 29/11/2007
Pipex: Not available
Sky / Easynet: Enabled as of 07/05/2007
Smallworld: Not available
TalkTalk (CPW): Enabled
Tiscali: Enabled as of 25/07/2007
Tiscali TV: Enabled as of 25/07/2007
WB Internet: Not available
Zen Internet: Not available

--

There's no cable and although the exchange has been "enabled" for FTTC, no business areas I can find can get it. Wonder if some businesses there have leased lines BT wants to protect. Hmmm..

So if I go local then I'm stuck with ADSL and all the broadband speed maps show dreadful speeds in the town.

I need to negotiate with the office place to make sure that I can exit immediately if the broadband turns out to be useless (accpeting I'll have to shell out for the line install and one month's broadband). I'm looking for 10Mbps down minimum and have to accept that upstream via ADSL will be slow anyway.

I've narrowed the list of possible ISPs based on my requirements, but I still can't find one that fits them all:

- Line install and rental and broadband must be from same supplier (can't be bothered mediating between the two in case of a fault and want a direct line of accountability)
- BT have to be eliminated from the circuit as far as possible, so not an ISP using BTW (rules out IDNET and Zen who I'd otherwise go for)
- One month contract
- SLA

It's that last one that's the problem.

AAISP look perfect and can provision over BE but no SLA (is that because BE don't do SLAs? Their own site makes no mention of them in a B2C capacity)

Spitfire can do the SLA, not sure about minimum contract term and LLU. The one month is a must in case it's rubbish.

Am I overlooking anyone? What would you suggest?

Thanks.
 
You might find "I'm looking for 10Mbps down minimum" to be rather difficult on that line, especially since the UK average is around 5-6Mbps, so the statistical odds aren't in your favour.

If you like BE then you could try going directly via their http://www.bewholesale.co.uk division, I don't know for sure if they could help but one of their staff informed me not long ago that they might be able to do individual services to business clients.

Unfortunately ISPr doesn't focus on business services because far too many ISPs don't make their related package details, prices and policies public. As a result it's not possible for us to produce a useful database.

I would say that if you need speed then there's always the option of line-bonding, although with an SLA it could be quite expensive.
 
I'm not a BE disciple (people with it seem very, er, loyal... but that must be a good thing!) - I've never used LLU before, mind you only one place I ever lived in before could get ADSL, the other 4 were all unserviceable.

My other options are:

Line bonding at home - 4 lines to get about 5Mbps - cost was about £1.8k in yr one IIRC with no guarantees of speed at all

Leased line at home - out of the question thanks to setup costs

Leased line at the office above - quoted £2k setup with 1st year cost £9.5k (10Mbps symmetric), this would be a good fall back but again it's just too expensive for too little

Drive to Aldershot or Farnborough every day to get 20Mbps Virgin business cable (this is a decent option but the nearer of those is 15 miles drive)

Wait for Farnham (next nearest town) to get FTTC, rollout was in progress but this has become a bit of a farce, the dates keep moving, and again no speed guarantee and a lot of "BT in the circuit" plus the issue at Alton - can't have it in business areas - may repeat

Sadly just out of range for the local wireless provider here.

As regards the office they have 4 lines performing at 5Mbps, 5Mbps, 6Mbps and one at 11Mbps and the availability checker reflects those speeds when you put those numbers in. So my chances might be 1 in 4 perhaps.

So it's 5 miles drive and an ADSL experiment that might be pointless or 15 miles drive and some certainty.

If I take the local option I wanted to make sure the combination of ISP/LLU has the best chance of success.

With respect to the SLA - any ISP worth picking has a reputation to uphold, that end doesn't worry me. It's the bit BT look after - the 1km or so of ancient phone line - that I need the SLA to cover.
 
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