Best broadband for non LLU exchange?

Sucker_for_sweeties

Please be gentle, it's my first post.......and I'm anything BUT techie.:rolleyes:

Looking into moving from Virgin, but suspect my choices may be quite limited for bb, as my exhange has an ofcom classification of Market 1.

Does this mean BT is my only real other option ?

We had fansied O2, but from reading some posts here I suspect we'd only be able to get the 'access' version not 'llu' ?

Thanks for any help

penrhyn

If you have cable broadband, and only have a Non LLU BT exchange I'd stick with Virgin. This is because you would probably find the ADSL performance poor compared with cable.

macman

Do you already have a BT line or are you on Virgin Media (cable)? Without a BT line you can't move from Virgin.
If you are going to get, or have already got a BT line, then with no LLU options on your exchange I would look at Plusnet Value, however penryhn's comments should be taken into account. Plusnet is £11.99 a month on a Market 1 exchange, it is capped at 10GB a month and they traffic shape, that may or may not be important to you.
It would help if you said why your are contemplating moving from Virgin-cost, service?
If you are on a market 1 exchange then you will only be able to get 02 Access-don't!

Sucker_for_sweeties

Thanks for the replies

We're pretty rural, so no cable, we live about 1/2 mile from exchange

Price was probably the main issue, but also got throttled (managed?) for over use last week, didn't like the fact I didn't get an email/some sore of warning, though I suspect this is probably standard.

Line rental is BT

Calls & bb with virgin, but always seem to be expensive each month, around £35/40

thanks for all your time peeps

macman

Right, so you're on Virgin National (ADSL). Then look at Plusnet Value and consider bundling calls and line rental with that, should be £22.94 for all 3 with basic W+E calls package. A fiver more for Anytime calls.
If you bundle both, Quidco cashback is £38, otherwsie £28 for broadband only.

slipthru

For cheap broadband plusnet. But you can take a look at IDnet, Zen and Newnet.

All depends on what you do online and how reliable a service you want.

kwikbreaks

With BTw based ADSL you will be faced with a choice between high speeds and high download limits. Nobody can afford to give both because of the extortionate pricing of BTw capacity.

Any all-you-can-eat product is going to be limited by contention so speeds will be poor at peak times.

Any service giving high speeds at peak times will employ download limits and probably traffic shaping (at least at peak times).

If you choose based on price only you'll probably end up with something dire.

You need to decide whether you want high speeds or high download before researching ISPs. Then check on specialist sites such as http://forums.thinkbroadband.com/ for current info on ISPs as they can go downhill fast.

TEDDYRUKSPIN

Look at thinkbroadband! They review quite alot of decent ISP's at the moment. You will get a feel of all the complaints and positives happening now.

Sucker_for_sweeties

Thanks peeps, here was me thinking it would be straightforward.

Quality is an issue, and I think I'll sit with Virgin for a while, mainly as we have no download limit, even if they do 'manage' our speed occasionally if we've been downloading a lot....gotta leave that iplayer alone !

I've also bookmarked thinkbroadband for future use

kwikbreaks

The link I posted is to the forums where you can look at what sort of moans there are about the ISP you are thinking about. There are also some good sections where you can get help with problems. If you click the TBB banner at the top you'll be taken to the main site where there is a lot more info on ISPs and broadband technologies.

A simple rating page can be found at ..

http://www.dslzoneuk.net/isp_ratings.php

.. although there is sometimes some abuse of the system so don't take everything there as gospel. That site also has a useful forum.