So Demon have finally wrecked their chances of keeping me as a customer. Their “Fair Usage Policy” is wholly unacceptable in today’s world – I have 3 kids and keeping everyone under a rolling 60GB limit per month is just impossible,especially with Windows 10 pushing out random updates whenever they like.

So I am looking for a new broadband provider. My exchange “EMBRIGS” is in a rural area and is on ADSL but does not have the ADSL2 hardware installed. BT infinity is out of the question, btw as we are not on fibre, only copper. This means I am limited with my broadband providers as almost everyone seems to require ADSL2 as a minimum these days. I need unlimited downloads and wondered who I can go to apart from BT which seems to have a bad name for all my mates who are on it.
I work from home so a speedy and reliable connection are essential, which was why i liked Demon until they brought in their fair usage policy and my kids grew up to the YouTube/iPlayer age.

Has anyone got any good recommendations outside of BT, Plusnet, TalkTalk and Sky, please?

Cheers Singletrackers

Mart.

You have no LLU on that exchange so your using BT no matter who you chose!

https://www.samknows.com/broadband/exchange/EMBRIGS

Looks like you might be stuffed – 0 LLU providers!

Sorry chaps I am a software developer but I had no idea what LLU is. So I have Googled it and it says:
“Local Loop Unbundling (LLU) is the process where the incumbent operators (BT and Kingston in the UK) makes its local network (the copper cables that run from customers premises to the telephone exchange) available to other companies”
Ok, I get that. So how does my mate on the same exchange have Sky broadband? And I have Demon. I presume they use the same hardware that BT provides, but I want another alternative to Demon that is not BT. Is that not possible then?

Cheers!

We’re in a same position to you (rural), and are on BT (and always have been here) – it just works, like any utility should.

Just extended our contract as my BT Sport had expired and was offered a ‘half-fibre’ option. With the old connection we got 4-5MB and they’re guaranteeing a minimum of 8MB with the new ‘approach’.

Price has risen from £11pcm to £21pcm and there was a £49 config plus £6 delivery on a new hub.

I think it must be something where they connect our copper circuit at the nearest switch onto fibre, rather than further ‘back’ – worth enquiring.

And I can see houses in the nearest village that get 80MB, all of 400 yds away…

This is ours:

https://www.samknows.com/broadband/exchange/ESSTB

. I need unlimited downloads and wondered who I can go to apart from BT which seems to have a bad name for all my mates who are on it.

I kinda ignore what ‘folk’ say about BT, as most of the complaints aren’t actually about BT but how Openreach and its’ operating contracts work (especially with how they have to work by law).

Other providers can resell Openreach connections via WLR3 (Wholesale Line Reselling)

Even Demon will have been reselling an Openreach Connection to you. To be fair, if your connection with Demon was stable then chances are any of the main players will be just the same.

I’d avoid Talk Talk like the plague, when working with Broadband, by far and away they were the company that popped up most with problems and billing errors. Sky, BT and PlusNet all have fairly good back end networks. (PlusNet are a BT Company as well if that bothers you).

Most of the others are little fish reselling each other who are reselling Openreach.

Stick with the bigger fish as they can offer you more deals and discounts usually.

Great advice, thanks guys!

It says Virgin has a presence at that exchange, but not sure of that is available where you are.
The only other option I can suggest is some sort of WiFi solution, although the exchange checker suggests there arent any. A 4G mobile solution could be possible, but thats likely to have an even more restrictive FUP than BT.

I think Virgin is available in some of the large houses in the centre of the village but they never installed the cables near where I live unfortunately.

It is annoying, the superfast northamptonshire website says they will upgrade the exchange by the summer of 2016, but i am about to give up waiting to be honest.

I did try to contact OpenReach to find out exactly what this meant, but got tied up in a web of bureaucracy where nobody seemed able to tell me exactly what the upgrade was going to be. OpenReach said they didn’t speak to customers, BT said phone OpenReach and even gave me the number to call.

I am none the wiser.

Those dates are indicative only, and when talking about fibre, not only does the exchange need to be enabled, but the cabinets (big green boxes that BT engineers poke about in) have to be enabled too. This all takes time and BT tend to activate the cabinets which will have the greatest uptake first, so a cabinet that only has a dozen users connected to it is likely to be WAY down BTs priorities.

Basically fibre is run from the exchange to the cabinet, then you get your connection delivered via the copper phone line. Because your broadband has to travel down a much shorter (in theory) copper wire, you have less speed drop than standard ADSL. However if your line is more thaqn 1km long from the cabinet, the chances are that Fibre will offer little or no improvement.

Thanks BigYinn, so it seems there is little point in waiting until the summer then

Unfortunately theres no way of knowing really. Given you havent got much alternative, just stick with what you’ve got for now.

Do you know anyone well with 80mb in the nearest village ?

If so fit one of these and split the monthly broadband costs

http://www.wifigear.co.uk/ubiquiti-nanostation-m5-airmax-wireless-ptp-kit

They are used quite a lot for community wireless

Unfortunately nobody I know gets more than 8mb/s. It is luxury I guess, until last October we were lucky to get 1Mb/s. But now it is the data usage that is my bottleneck. I have decided to just move to BT if they are on the same hardware and then see how things ramp up in the summer.

I have decided to just move to BT if they are on the same hardware and then see how things ramp up in the summer

Ask about the options with them.

Thank b r, but I don’t think I can get your half-fibre option. Looking at your exchange you have FTTP and FTTC (Fibre to the cabinet). We don’t even have that, we are copper all the way..

I strongly suspect that even if you were to change providers it won’t make a jot of difference as it’ll be exactly the same product (re)sold by someone else.

If I were you I’d be focusing on making sure your internal wiring is up to scratch in the first instance. Are you plugged directly into the master socket or have you got loads of DIY extensions cabled up with bits of wet sting?

You seem to have Cable available? Can’t you get Virgin?

Im in the same struggle. At the extreme edge of a rural exchange and the village 1 mile away has just got Fibre to cabinets, however its not helping me due to the distance.

From samknows;

According to BT Wholesale, your line is very unlikely to be able to support ADSL, although a 256kbps service may be available.

Standard ADSL RAG results
You cannot receive 2Mbps ADSL
You cannot receive 1Mbps ADSL
You may be able to receive 512kbps ADSL
(Engineer visit likely)
You may be able to receive 256kbps ADSL
(Engineer visit likely)

Annoyingly im about 10 doors from the extreme edge of a city exchange who have all the mod cons, fibre etc. 😥

Also, why not BT? Our Fibre broadband is only fibre to the cabinet (same as yours) and has no usage cap or fair use policy.

Sorry Cougar and Daffy, but my original post said it is the download cap I do not like with Demon. I am happy with the speed I get. The cap is the only reason I am switching from Demon. They do not offer an unlimited broadband option for customers on exchanges that are not ADSL2-enabled so I have no upgrade option – it seems like they don’t want customers at all..

And no, Virgin Cable is not possible, it is only in the centre of the village.

Roll on 4th March!

Mart: I’m impressed you stuck it out with Demon for so long ….. I left them two years ago after nearly 16 years!
I’m with Zen now and, although they’re a little more expensive, the service is great and they have no issues with my monthly average of 230Gb downloads.

I should also point out that having done some research, it seems that a lot of the problems people have with BT is down to the router they supply for free – switching to something better like the recent ASUS routers seem to solve most people’s issues with poor wi-fi and connection issues. And as Cougar says, getting the internal wiring short and clean is key too. I raised my connection speed by 10 -15% just by using a shorter cable to the master socket.

I am keen to turn off the drive-by wifi offering from BT though, I want all of my line speed that I have paid for, thank you very much 🙂

sharkbait – I did look at zen, but for my exchange I only have 3 options and the only unlimited one was the Pro HCA at £42.50 or the Active HCA (200GB max) at £25.50

Oh. It must be different for fibre then as I’m ‘only’ paying £22/month.

Mart… I’m in a similar position to you with respects to my location to an exchange, and we are directly connected to the exchange so no local cabinet and apparently no chance of getting fibre either. The exchange is a couple of miles away and isn’t ADSL2 enabled.

We are with BT on an unlimited contract which all in is about £37 a month without any phone calls and usually get about 6-8mb/s.

No real issues with it so far apart from the BT Homehub 4 being a pile of *****.

funnynick – have you tried a different router? I looked at a few places – this one:
http://forums.digitalspy.co.uk/showthread.php?t=1994346
tells you the basics of how to set up an alternative router but Google had a number of other links.
The ASUS routers get very good write-ups. They are pricey but since I have had my old router for over 10 years, it doesn’t add up to much on a per-year basis

Sorry Cougar and Daffy, but my original post said it is the download cap I do not like with Demon. I am happy with the speed I get.

Mia culpa, I wasn’t paying attention. Fair enough.

Daffy – Member
Also, why not BT? Our Fibre broadband is only fibre to the cabinet (same as yours) and has no usage cap or fair use policy.

Erm…

Sorry Daffy, got my wires crossed 😆 To answer your original question, I was warned off BT by some non-techy neighbours, but I think it may be the router they were having issues with (dropouts, poor signal).
Unfortunately we don’t have fibre to cabinet yet on my exchange though, so I’ll only get whatever the copper can deliver, but that is the same as I have now, which seems fast enough. Demon are limiting me to 8Mb/s whereas BT say “up to 17Mb/s” so I may get a small speed improvement.

Yeah, but “up to” is meaningless bullshit marketing. It could be “up to” 1Gbps and still be the same speed, it’s the copper that’s the bottleneck not the capability of the service at the exchange.

EDIT – scratch that. 8Mbps is the limit of ADSL. “Up to” something higher must be ADSL2 (or ADSL2+) which could well give you an increase depending how far you are from the exchange. Though that’s at odds with your OP where you said they didn’t have ADSL2 at the exchange. Curious. Either there’s something I’m not aware of (which is entirely possible), or they’re mistaken.

The latter I think – either that or the Samknows entry is wrong (unless I’m misunderstanding). I’m fairly sure the 21CN WBC bit is ADSL2 – certainly with my exchange when that was enabled my speed jumped from 8Mbps to 16MBps (and I really do get that – just checked at what must be close to peak usage time and I get 16.67Mbps, hence with my usage I feel no need at all to switch to fibre).

Just as another option, have you tried Plusnet? Will they not offer a service on your exchange – they’re who I’m with on an exchange which until recently had no LLU suppliers. We now have TalkTalk, but to go slightly OT, I presume it’s not worth the cost saving of switching to them given their reputation?

Edit: actually a quick google suggests 21CN WBC is ADSL2+, so it is still possible you could have ADSL2, I guess we went from ADSL to ADSL2+.

I’m fairly sure the 21CN WBC bit is ADSL2

AFAIK (and I’m not an expert), 21CN is a prerequisite for ADSL2 / ADSL2+.

I’ve no idea what the “WBC” bit means.

certainly with my exchange when that was enabled my speed jumped from 8Mbps to 16MBps

21CN is “up to” 20Mbps IIRC. Before I went FTTC I was getting about 14Mbps. Again, it’s not my area of expertise so I may be misunderstanding, it’s a complex topic.

It certainly is. The “up to 17Mb/s” is probably marketing b/s. It says it on the website when you choose a package against my postcode, but I suspect unless I actually have the exchange in my house it is unachievable.
As I said earlier I did try to find out from BT/Openreach what the proposed exchange upgrade was but nobody could tell me. So despite the Superfast Northamptonshire website stating my exchange will be “upgraded” by the Summer 2016, I don’t know if that is LLU, ADSL2, ADSL2+ or whatever. I did read that ADSL2 is not as good as ADSL over longer distances, but I am only 0.4miles from the exchange so hopefully the speed will be quite good.
TBH, I am happ ywith my speed and once I get my unlimited broadband on 4th March (I’ve signed up to BT now) I’ll be a happy bunny. I’ll finally be able to watch some of the Singletrack News videos without worrying if I am going over my download cap limit (as I sit here, my downloads are at 57GB over the last 30 days, with my cap at 60Gb, it is half term so the kids are at home and I am working form home for the next week..)

There was a 21CN upgrade date on Samknows for about 6 months before our upgrade – and the date kept slipping – so not good news on that front I’m afraid. I would say that when I had 8Mbps I felt that was enough for everything, but now I have faster I appreciate the difference – I guess I’m much more inclined to download an ISO or something similar. Though you’re stuck with what you’ve got until they get round to the upgrade.

So to update for those interested.
I have upgraded to BT Broadband on the basis that the hardware is the same as for my old Demon connection.
Sometimes it is great. Unlimited downloads, 8Mb/s. Lovely.
Sometimes it is rubbish. Just no response at all from web requests. My skype calls freeze.

Add me to the list of BT customers who are disappointed.