I have abulldog package of line rental and braodband. its not that
reliable or cheap. I tried to move to talk talk, but they said that
they cannot take over accounts from my telecoms providr (which seems
pretty odd). will I have this problem with other ISPs? can anyone
reccommend a (non BT) supplier of line rental and broadband. Needs to
be reliable broadband as I work from home.


thanks

On 14 Jun 2006, matthew.weston@gmail.com wrote:

You're looking to switch from one LLU to another LLU where I suspect all
the current BT procedures allow for LLU to/from BT and there is probably
no provision for LLU #1 to/from LLU #2. While it's inconvenient for you
at this point (the only option appears to me to go LLU #1 > BT > LLU #2
which you appear unwilling to do), you might raise it initially with BT,
and then progress it to Ofcom (as it is sure to become more common with
the options increasing as time goes by).

Probably will be the case for any attempt to switch without using BT, at
least for the time being. You may end up being the "guinea pig" and the
first to go from LLU #1 to LLU #2 if you are patient enough to push this
issue through BT and then Ofcom and via them back to BT...

Is there a really strong reason not to touch BT ? It would seem easier,
unless they simply "won't have you" to go to BT and use one of many ISPs
but that's just "how I see it" without knowing your reasons, of course.

Then you could consider having services from alternative ISPs, one may
be BT-supplied, but at low cost (eg Metronet, 11.75/month is the bottom
end cost, keep as an emergency backup, has a 400 MB/month allowance and
is then PAYG per MB), or switch your Bulldog to PAYG 3/2/1p and be just
paying line rental most months (keep the router switched off completely
unless the other ISP service is down) and have some other ISP, on BT or
not, which you use for 99.9% of the time, Bulldog as backup with only
the cost of line rental most months... Peter M.

thanks

I havent really got a problem with BT, its just I moved from them as
(at the time) they were very expensive and slow compared to the bulldog
offering. I might have another lookat their offering. it seems abit of
waste of everybodies time to migrate to bt only to change to someone
else

thanks

matt




poster wrote:

On 15 Jun 2006 matthew.weston@gmail.com wrote:

Lots more choices, though, and whilst not everyone on DSL Max is getting
the data at the same speed as they sync with the exchange (ie the problem
of the BT network restricting to 2000 kbps, while sync speed may be 8000)
it depends what you are after.

You've not found Bulldog totally reliable and while there have been brief
disconnections since I went to DSL Max a few weeks back, I've had 4 years
on BT-served ISPs with 500 kbps, 1000 kbps, 2000 kbps and now DSL Max,
and hardly had more than a few hours offline (eg when migrating from
one ISP to another), so I'm not sure that reliability should be a big
problem. As for costs, 15/20/25/30/35 a month depending on ISP... or a
lot more if you really want specialist services, of course.


It's perhaps a little early in the life of LLU <-> BT switching, and will
eventually be easier to do LLU <-> but for now, it's them 'wasting your
time', as I think you have no option but to do it that way. Trouble
is, are any of the competitors that much better (where I am there's only
BT or Bulldog, no other options AFAIK, but you may have lots more choice)

I suppose it also makes it more costly for you, having chance of two lots
of fees to go from ISP A to ISP B, another reason to follow up on the BT/
Ofcom idea - why should the customer be disadvantaged because of a lack
of procedures to be able to achieve what you are after... Peter M.

just to update you, I've spoken to OFCOM, they said that "its entirely
down to talk talk to make a commercial decision as to whether they want
to deal with taking customers and migrating from Bulldog" the guy
pretty much told me to go back to BT on the shortest term contract
possible and then reevaluate it.

seems a bit odd. but I can understand that talk talk are so busy with
their existing customers not to want ones from bulldog as well


thanks for your advise

poster wrote:

On 15 Jun 2006 matthew.weston@gmail.com wrote:

I think you might have a cancellation fee of a little under 20 quid (assuming
you don't get stiffed with a 12 month contract for a BT line... check posts
on uk.telecom or look for "3 months" in both groups using Google groups)

By the time you have switched over from Bulldog and (presumably) considered a
BT-based service, you might as well stick with BT for a little while, and see
how the TalkTalk service settles down. It would be perhaps the last choice I
would use for broadband service (based on past comments about TT, and given a
contract for 18 months without any clear guarantees that other charges aren't
going to be locked down - having "free" broadband is only OK while the other
charges are limited... and there's no "refund" involved if broadband is bad
but your line and phone call package can be shown to be reliable... Peter.