North Yorkshire village - broadband?

travel_freak

Hi,

My brother has recently moved to a small village in North Yorkshire.

He tried to move his BT broadband with him but apparently BT have said they can't offer broadband to him in that village as the speeds are too low or something.

Please does anyone live that way and know what the alternative options might be?

Apparently one villager has said that "plusnet" is the only option but I would just like to know if there are any others so we can compare what's on offer.

He needs to get a digital TV service as there will soon be no aerial and is thinking of Sky for that so I thought it would make sense to get broadband from them too but he thinks that won't work because Sky depends on a BT phone line?

Many thanks in advance.

Regards,

espresso

Check out samknows to see exactly what's available.

"Sky depends on a BT phone line" Surely BT can provide that!

pepsi_max2k

The BT problem is that all internet connections via BT phone lines are ADSL, and the signal for this degrades the further you are from the nearest BT phone exchange. I don't know the exact maximum distance, but can quite imagine that some small villages are too far away from the exchange to receive a usable ADSL signal.

Checking the above site should tell you where the nearest exchange to your new address would be, and whether any of the ADSL services would work.

And afaik, PlusNet only provice ADSL connections so they wouldn't work either.

Stuart_W

Useful tip if you find you can get ADSL but only at slow speeds -

Make sure you sign up to someone offering a slow speed, and therefore low price package - eg www.breatheinternet.com offer 512k broadband for £9.99 per month. If this is the fastest speed you're able to get then it makes sense to sign up for that speed rather than "upto 8meg" for a higher price but still only receive your maximum speed. This helped a friend, thought it may help here too.

Also, this may sound daft, but it is worth checking the mobile networks to see if their mobile broadband would work, if there is a motorway nearby sometimes these are covered and some seemingly remote areas have access to mobile broadband. 3 have deals starting from £10/month, t-mobile start at £20/month

travel_freak

Hi, me again,

Thanks for the replies and the helpful link.

This shows that the address is in an area enabled for "BT wholesale ADSL" and gives the blurb below.

Please excuse my complete dimness, but my reading of this is that brother can get ADSL but just not with BT broadband directly but only with one of the ISPs that BT Wholesale sells its connections to and which operate in the area of the address?

Does being able to get ADSL mean that my brother can get broadband or are they two separate things?

Also, of the ISPs listed below which would people recommend for reliability and affordability?

Again, please excuse dimness but would this mean that my brother could get his broadband with Sky if he has just the normal BT phone line? I'm just thinking that a package with them for TV and broadband would be a cheaper option than TV with Sky and broadband elsewhere.

Many thanks.


(from the Sam Knows website)
BT Wholesale
BT Wholesale provide the vast majority of the nations ADSL connections. Achieving some 60,000 new connections per week at one point, BT Wholesale sell ADSL connections to ISPs such as Pipex, PlusNet, Eclipse, Demon, BT Yahoo/Broadband and many, many others. A range of different pricing models exist (Standard, usage and capacity based charging), and this is part of the reason why we see such a vast range of different and very competitive offers from ISPs nowadays. Many of the smaller ISPs offering ADSL (such as ADSL24 and UKFSN) do not purchase from BT directly due to the high cost of the BT Central product. Instead, these ISPs will purchase services from other wholesalers such as Entanet, Net Services and MurphX (who have sufficient buying power to buy from BT directly).

It should be noted that BT Wholesale, unlike BT Retail (BT Yahoo! and BT Broadband), are not customer facing. So if you order broadband from a BT Wholesale reseller, you will never speak to BT Wholesale directly (but your ISP will).

It is BT Wholesale that operate the network of 5500 ADSL enabled exchanges and 800-odd SDSL enabled exchanges. Until April 2006 BT Wholesale only offered fixed-rate ADSL at up to 2Mbps and SDSL. Since then they have begun offering a highly rate-adaptive product called IPStream Max (commonly known as ADSL Max), which operates at up to 8Mpbs downstream. 2008 will see the launch of wBC (Wholesale Broadband Connect) and wBMC (Wholesale Broadband Managed Connect), both of which offer up to 24Mbps via ADSL2+.

pepsi_max2k

BT Wholesale handle BT controled services such as ADSL and ADSL max (the main technologies to deliver internet data over the phone line, ie. "broadband"), as opposed to LLU connections where another company has added their hardware in to the exchange.

So in a word, yes, your brother should be able to use any ADSL or DSL Max connections for broadband, though the speeds may be limited if you're far from the exchange.

The thing about other providers just means BT allow seperate companies (pipex, plusnet, eclipse....) to use BT's hardware to transfer data. I'm not sure about sky, they may offer a phone based connection but it may be LLU only so you'd have to look at the sam knows site again and see if sky are listed.