o2 Broadband, I Got Excited For Nothing

mushypeaman

Read Martin's bit about o2 b/b in this week's email. Just the deal I'm looking for. Contacted o2 and was told I have to have a BT line.

Usually the term "BT line" is a pretty generic term meaning any non-cable line that comes from a BT exchange, but in this case it means exactly what it says; you have to pay your line rental to BT. If your line provider is, say, Talk-Talk or in my case Tesco, it's a no go.

Is this a conspiracy to get people back to BT? If so, it's failed with me; I wouldn't go back to that lot if they were the last line providers on earth, and there were no bean tins and string left.

Donniedodo

mushypeaman wrote: »

Usually the term "BT line" is a pretty generic term meaning any non-cable line that comes from a BT exchange, but in this case it means exactly what it says; you have to pay your line rental to BT. If your line provider is, say, Talk-Talk or in my case Tesco, it's a no go..

Our line rental & calls are with Toucan, we haven't been with BT for about 18 months and we had our O2 broadband activated last week and it's been fine.

DatabaseError

Not sure who provides tesco broadband (a quick google threw up ntl, now Virgin media...), if its one of the big nasties, who fully llu your line given half a chance (and no notice to you) then you are going to have to pay BT to take you back, may still be the cheaper (and much better) option in the long term.
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mushypeaman

Thanks Donnie, o2 flatly refused me because I wasn't with BT, but armed with what you said I can go back to them.

Thanks for the advice Tony, may the gods preserve me from LLU.

[Deleted User]

Have you tried signing up with Be* ? They're 14 a month (and are now owned by O2).. similar terms to O2 and even use identical wifi boxes

You can also migrate your contract to O2 (very good if you quidco both sign-ups)

mushypeaman

Can't do Be*, it's not available on my exchange. Thanks anyway Ringo.

JimBlizz

All non-LLU DSL products are provisioned by BT as they own the exchanges and equipment that make it all happen.

The only other way to get ADSL is from an LLU provider, where the ISP puts their own kit in BT's exchange. For obvious reasons they don't tend to have their, rather expensive, hardware in every exchange.

Woby_Tide

mushypeaman wrote: »

Can't do Be*, it's not available on my exchange. Thanks anyway Ringo.

Be* and O2 are the same company, if you were able to get as far as checking the line with O2 then Be will do the same.

Or are you talking about the O2 access product that uses the BT infrastructure rather than the O2/Be LLU offering?