Very very confused re free broadband

ImADeity

When I moved into my house 3 years ago, we had telewest telephone lines. I soon changed these back to BT, as we had been using talk talks phone package at my previous address and found it competitive.
However, I now get my broadband from talk talk as well, and am paying 15.00 a month, on top of my phone bill. Naturally, I wanted to change to the new free broadband offer which would save me 10.00 a month.
I tried to apply on line, and it told me that I did not have a BT line - ludicrous, seeing as I have been a talk talk customer for nearly 3 years and cant have had service without being with BT!
I called them on several occaisions, but because the call centre is overseas, they are not equipped to answer my query, and are fobbing me off with rubbish. The nearest I have had to an explanation is that they dont have the equipment in my exchange (I live in essex - romford postcode)
SO I decided to go with free sky broadband instead. Guess what - apparently I dont have a BT line!!!!!
I called BT in the end, and they told me that in both companies cases the fre broadband thing was a scam. Apparently they only have to offer it in a very small catchment area, and then when you try and take it up, you are told it isnt available in your area, but that there is another (chargeable) deal that they can offer you.
Is this right? Has anyone else had the same problems as me???
We did have probs initially when Telewest gave our number to BT and also gave it to a new telewest customer as well (!) so I wonder if it has not been ported properly- but both BT and telewest seem to think all is OK.
Am I being mugged off here???

djohn2002uk

The "free" broadband from TalkTalk is only going to reach, I think, 37% of the population and similar from Sky. This will only be where they put their own equipment in exchanges and those will be where it is most densely populated like major cities. If you don't live in those areas then what the BT man told you is correct, except that I wouldn't go so far as to call it a scam, but only a slightly strong description I think.
And, even if you are in the catchment area you have to take the line rental and calls package with TalkTalk (or a premier subscription with Sky) which works out dearer than you can get with the BT, 1899, Primus combination. So in fact "It aint FREE"

normanmark

If you're not in a Talk Talk LLU enabled area then they will charge an extra £9.99 a month for the broadband, thus not making it 'free'

Jason_Lloyd

It's not scam per se, because as has been rightly pointed out they are working as hard as possible to unbundle as many local telephone exchanges as possible to offer the service to everyone.

There are some people who believe that they are being selective when it comes to which exchanges they are rolling out the service to but I believe they are at the mercy of BT's engineers more than anything.

ImADeity

Thanks - so it seems that Im best off keeping my mouth shut and carrying on with my current deal which is 15.00 for the broadband, and free phone calls.
Frustrating, isnt it!
Brings me out in a rash when I see the word FREE and it doesnt apply to me!!!

speedy_gonzalez

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

Will tell you when your exchange is unbundled. Put in your exchange and then select it.

normanmark

Nothing in the broadband industry is 'free' you'll have to pay some costs to cover the bill. Broadband is definitely 'you get what you pay for'

djohn2002uk

Jason_Lloyd wrote:

It's not scam per se, because as has been rightly pointed out they are working as hard as possible to unbundle as many local telephone exchanges as possible to offer the service to everyone.

There are some people who believe that they are being selective when it comes to which exchanges they are rolling out the service to but I believe they are at the mercy of BT's engineers more than anything.

It is not true that they will offer it to "everyone".
TalkTalk themselves have been quoted as going to cover 37% of the population with "free" broadband. It just wouldn't be profitable for them to cover every exchange.

espresso

djohn2002uk wrote:

It is not true that they will offer it to "everyone".
TalkTalk themselves have been quoted as going to cover 37% of the population with "free" broadband. It just wouldn't be profitable for them to cover every exchange.

If you are going to quote figures, quote the correct ones!

Announcement 11 April 2006 see here
"The calls/broadband bundle is available from today on 1000 exchanges, which gives a coverage of around 70% of the UK. This does not mean Carphone Warehouse has unbundled 1000 exchanges in a matter of weeks, rather that initially people will be connected to broadband via a BT Wholesale IPstream service, and then migrated onto the LLU service as Carphone Warehouse unbundle each exchange. The first LLU exchange is scheduled to go live in July 2006."

:eek:

djohn2002uk

espresso wrote:

If you are going to quote figures, quote the correct ones!

Announcement 11 April 2006 see here
"The calls/broadband bundle is available from today on 1000 exchanges, which gives a coverage of around 70% of the UK. This does not mean Carphone Warehouse has unbundled 1000 exchanges in a matter of weeks, rather that initially people will be connected to broadband via a BT Wholesale IPstream service, and then migrated onto the LLU service as Carphone Warehouse unbundle each exchange. The first LLU exchange is scheduled to go live in July 2006."

:eek:

I think you are the one who ought to get it right.
The 70% relates only to the package in your quote and not the free broadband using LLU, which although my figure may not be 100% accurate, the figure is well below 50%.

Quote from Carphone Warehouse: Carphone Warehouse claims to currently have around 2.6 million residential voice customers in the UK under the TalkTalk brand and says it aims to increase that figure to 3.5 million by March 2009, half of them with combined voice and broadband accounts.
So, 1.75 million in 3 yrs time. Doesn't sound a very high %age to me.

espresso

djohn2002uk wrote:

I think you are the one who ought to get it right.
The 70% relates only to the package in your quote and not the free broadband using LLU, which although my figure may not be 100% accurate, the figure is well below 50%.

Quote from Carphone Warehouse: Carphone Warehouse claims to currently have around 2.6 million residential voice customers in the UK under the TalkTalk brand and says it aims to increase that figure to 3.5 million by March 2009, half of them with combined voice and broadband accounts.
So, 1.75 million in 3 yrs time. Doesn't sound a very high %age to me.

I post #2 you said:

djohn2002uk wrote:

The "free" broadband from TalkTalk is only going to reach, I think, 37% of the population and similar from Sky.

Which contradicts the launch statement which says that 1000 exchanges gives a coverage of around 70% of the UK. You are also saying that it's a similar situation with Sky. Figures show that Sky (Easynet) currently have 399 LLU enabled exchanges and that TalkTalk have 1018 planned to be operational by 31/07/06, which is enough to give the 70% coverage! It may be that these figures are like those often used by mobile operators, i.e. are they population coverage or land coverage? Either way over 1000 exchanges enabled is a lot of potential customers.