Best Deals for Rural type exchanges?

oliveoil54

Wish this web site would do an article on the best Phone/Boradband package deals for people with local exchanges which dont have access to Superfast Broadband.

I regularly check all the deals suggested on the Phone/Broadband section, but every time I go to the websites suggested and key in my postcode & phone number the price originaly advertised jumps up - usually by more than £10 per month!

Why should customers with rural exchanges be penalised?

Mark_In_Hampshire

You're confusing two things: the so called "superfast broadband" is about the archaic copper phone lines being partially replaced with fibre so that a certain length - usually the majority - of the wiring to your house is fibre, not copper. That enables the higher speeds because copper degrades over distance and fibre does not.

What you're experiencing is a lack of access to LLU "Local Loop Unbundling" - in other words, the only supplier with kit at the exchange is BT and so the only options you have all involve "WLR" - that is to say that your phone line remains plugged into BT based equipment at the exchange. Because any other provider has to use that equipment and not their own, their flexibility on pricing is limited or lost.

Sadly, as it stands, neither fibre based broadband nor LLU are likely to make it to exchanges in areas serving small numbers of people (not simply a rural issue, though it is the majority) because it is simply not commercially worth it. The cost of putting the kit in the exchange would take too long to recoup based on the number of people it is serving.

Heinz

You can always check samknows.com to see what is available at your particular exchange.

I was surprised (but not tempted) to find that Talk Talk had LLU'd my rural exchange.

http://www.samknows.com/broadband/search.php

oliveoil54

Good website - just checked but the only line available on our exchange is a standard ASDL.

Thanks also for the explanation.

brewerdave

As a matter of interest - Anyone know what sort of figure (no. of potential customers) a supplier needs to unbundle an exchange?? I'm served by an exchange which has ~ 1350 total subscribers (business and residential) and there is absolutely no sign of an LLU operation to come.

macman

oliveoil54 wrote: »

Good website - just checked but the only line available on our exchange is a standard ASDL.

Thanks also for the explanation.

Are you looking under the right section?-do an exchange search and then go to the column headed 'LLU Operator Presence'.

Mark_In_Hampshire

brewerdave wrote: »

As a matter of interest - Anyone know what sort of figure (no. of potential customers) a supplier needs to unbundle an exchange?? I'm served by an exchange which has ~ 1350 total subscribers (business and residential) and there is absolutely no sign of an LLU operation to come.

There is no specific number; a secondary factor is that rural areas tend to have more lines comprised partly of aliminium instead of copper. That degrades a broadband signal still further and to top that, the percentage of "long lines" - those which are too long to support decent broadband speeds, or support broadband at all, is higher in rural areas as the population density is lower.

However some rural areas have LLU. For instance, the one where the CEO (?) of Talk Talk lives has Talk Talk LLU.

brewerdave

Mark_In_Hampshire wrote: »

There is no specific number; a secondary factor is that rural areas tend to have more lines comprised partly of aliminium instead of copper. That degrades a broadband signal still further and to top that, the percentage of "long lines" - those which are too long to support decent broadband speeds, or support broadband at all, is higher in rural areas as the population density is lower.

However some rural areas have LLU. For instance, the one where the CEO (?) of Talk Talk lives has Talk Talk LLU.

:rotfl::rotfl:

Serious point tho', my exchange is not rural - its a satellite "village" just outside a major city which has expanded largely over the past 25 years, so the average line runs are not very long.
Would they have installed aluminium in such an expansion area??

Mark_In_Hampshire

Probably not. It was used for a period because it was cheaper than copper. So you can have a line which is part copper and part aliminium where a repair has been done. Bear in mind that then, broadband hadn't even been thought of.