MSE News: Hope for broadband price cuts in countryside

Former_MSE_Guy · 21 July 2011 at 11:53AM

This is the discussion thread for the following MSE News Story:

"Millions could get cheaper internet access after BT was told to slash the prices it charges rival firms in rural areas ..."

Read the full story:
Hope for broadband price cuts in countryside

kwikbreaks · 21 July 2011 at 12:05PM

This is an interesting concept....

the regulator wants the cut to encourage both internet providers and BT to invest more in upgrading their systems

So - reduce profitability to encourage investment - I'm glad I never took economics - it's all so counterintuitive.

Arthurian · 21 July 2011 at 12:06PM

As far as I'm concerned the problems they should be addressing with broadband are speed and coverage.

taxsaver · 21 July 2011 at 12:47PM

Living in a rural area myself, I consider this to be very good news. It's very frustrating that we are not able to enjoy any of the great deals we regularly see advertised or even talked about on MSE. In effect we cannot use anyone other than BT as all other providers are more expensive!

Ken68 · 21 July 2011 at 1:15PM

With Plusnet being part of BT, wonder if my £5.99 a month will come down.

brewerdave · 21 July 2011 at 4:52PM

Ken68 wrote: »

With Plusnet being part of BT, wonder if my £5.99 a month will come down.

I presume that you are joking :eek:

southerly · 21 July 2011 at 6:50PM

Ken68 wrote: »

With Plusnet being part of BT, wonder if my £5.99 a month will come down.

I am in a rural area and am with Plusnet and pay £11.99 a month, you are on their cheapest rate. It depends on whether your local exchange has been 'opened up' I think they call it, whether there is any provider apart from BT.

Dave_C_2 · 21 July 2011 at 10:52PM

Looks like I'll be getting the worst of both worlds. At only 2 miles from the exchange I'm urban as far as this deal goes but rural enough to get only 2M download on up to 8M service via copper wire.

And I can forget about BT infinity or virgin cable as that only goes to urban centres.

The only fair way is to price by download speed.
Up to 8M service and get 8M then pay 100%
Only get 4M then only pay half and so on.
A man can dream...

Dave

fredsnail · 22 July 2011 at 9:40PM

My exchange hasn't been opened up and the cheapest monthly "deal" I was offered was £18.99. Very few companies cover my area so we're stuck.

Anything that encourages things to change the status quo in my area is very welcome.

gdyr1945 · 22 July 2011 at 10:54PM

poor coverage where I live and no 'cheap' deals so not only do I have to pay BT top rate but my 'best' speed is .8M and if there are more people on line then it can go down to .2M. I can never watch (by streaming) tv and it can take up to 12hrs to download 30min programme!

I love Dave_C's idea of paying for the speed we actually get; mine would be virtually free!

The BT ad where the guy is looking for houses and the estate agent's broadband is too slow because he isn't with Bt REALLY annoys me as we all know it is BT's fault because of the old phone lines the broadband speed is poor.

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MSE News: Hope for broadband price cuts in countryside

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