ISP Choice - One for the UK residents

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Cutter

Carbon Allotrope
Oct 8, 2001
1,799
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I will be moving house soon, and switching from the LLU provider BE, for whom I have nothing but praise, to an area where my choices will be between an LLU connection with AOL or TalkTalk, a normal BT connection, or the usual ADSL suspects over a BT line, meaning I'll be paying BT simply for the privilege of them allowing someone else to provide my internet. Virgin Media cable is not available in this area.

Traditionally, AOL are notorious for a risible connection with high latency.

TalkTalk (aka Carphone Warehouse) have also traditionally had a bad reputation for customer service, and my own previous experience with a mobile phone contract with them bears this out.

Has anyone had any recent experience of either TalkTalk or AOL's LLU services?

If I'm getting a BT phone line for normal phone calls, would I be better either going for BT's own internet service, or plumping for one of the better "ADSL over BT line" providers like Zen?
 
Have you checked if any LLU exist in your new exchange? http://samknows.com

I've become a fan of BE, they do seem to be one of the best ISPs out there. I even find the support useful and understanding, even if you don't use their shitty BE box and use a decent ADSL 2+ M router instead. Love em.
 
Yep, I already knew about samknows.

At the risk of sounding cheeky, you've clearly not had your morning coffee yet! :) Re-read the first sentence of my first post - I have a choice of two LLU providers - AOL and TalkTalk. Not BE alas.

I'm half tempted to write a nice testimonial letter to BE saying how great I've found their service and if they have any plans to enter the exchange where I will be moving to.

On a separate note, I've not had any complaints with the BeBox, but are you minded to recommend and ADSL 2+ M routers from experience, and to say what is good about them?
 
Have witnessed awful service over a TalkTalk LLU, so much so I recommended a switch over to the Tiscali LLU, long before the companies merged; it's very much a mixed bag on what you get from either these days.

Does SK give an estimation on when your exchange will be upgraded to ADSL2+?

Personally I'd avoid either LLU and just plump for an ISP providing over BT Wholesale who meets your liking, i.e. is BE value ADSL Max over BTW, or LLU only?.
 
As far as I can tell, BE are LLU only, although slightly annoyingly, you still need a BT line...
 
Be are in the process of rolling out their own line rental

Never had a problem with Zen, their customer service and performance was very good, had them for a while before changing to Be purely for speed/cost
 
Be providing WLR and CPS doesn't mean they'll be providing suitable internet, unless they're buying into Wholesale Max too; though I'm guessing the o2 "home phone and internet" is the same thing?

It's not very quick to set up, but going moving your Wholesale Line Rental and Carrier Pre-Select to a 3rd party does have it's advantages with slightly cheaper rental and calls, though if your exchange isn't LLU enabled for that carrier, the internet part isn't always as cheap as they advertise, as it costs them more to provide via Wholesale Max.
 
Cutter I was double checking you had your information on LLU from the right place :)

I use the Linksys WAG 320N on BE.

The BEBox I had running at work and it locked up and caused problems. The lad I work with in IT used BE before me and got the Linksys router since he was fed up with NAT and port forwarding problems.

If the BEBox works great. If not, I recommend the Linksys. I haven't used any others.
 

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Hah!

Must admit though, I preferred the old layout on SK.

I think really the problem I'm facing is that living in Scotland, once you move out of the immediate city centre areas of Glasgow or Edinburgh, your available broadband options in terms of speed and cost just fall away.

The area I'm moving to will be covered by the Loanhead exchange (ESLOA), which, at just under 5000 subscriber lines, is about a third of the number on my current exchange.

I think I'm basically coming to the view of BT for my residential phone line (as I'm just not keen on anything Carphone Warehouse related (their fighting talk on subscriber privacy notwithstanding), and where I'm moving to isn't covered by cable) with say Zen for the internet.

Then its either try to hint hint to BE that it would be great if they enabled this exchange, or sit around waiting for BT to lay fibre (some hope) or start my own ISP if I want anything better.