Rob, Steve, Bill, Thanks for the info.

Steve, I did not list Pipex as they do not offer static ip addresses
which seems absolutely incredible to me. They seem to offer this as an
optional extra but this is only for businesses - Xtreme Business 500,
1000 and 2000 and Standard Home Office services only. Takes some
digging to find this on their website which is awful. It's a shame as
I noticed that they were awarded Best Consumer broadband ISP and offer
a modem+filters for only £17.50 inc vat.

Bill, glad to see F2S is working for you. I also do not intend to move
over the next year but if I find broadband does not work for me I want
to be able to cancel it.

Rob, some questions :

1. on adslguide.co.uk there is no activation fee for PlusNet but when
I looked at signing up (£21.99 no modem package) I see a charge of
£70.50! I appreciate the guide site is just that a guide site but am a
bit dissapointed. Or I have I got this wrong?

2. Regarding equipment I'm thinking of getting a wireless router with
built in modem - seems to be the hot item of the moment - but not sure
which one yet.

3. What if I place my order but my connection is poor? If I go to
http://www.bt.com/broadband/ and put in my phone number I see I get :

}Our initial test on your line suggests that you may be able to have a
}broadband ADSL service that provides up to 512Kbps download speed,
but the
}upstream bandwidth will vary according to the length of your
telephone line.
}If you decide to place an order, a further test will be performed to
confirm
}if your line is suitable, and if so for what speed of service.

Would I be right in thinking that if the subsequent test failed then
my order would be cancelled with no penalty? And if it passed the
test, well what does that mean? The connection is good? Or could it
still be that I never see good download speeds. Also can a poor
upstream impact the downstream?

In article <MPG.199eea3d371a95179899a3@news.clara.net>, Cb wrote:
And I can't understand why it takes so long. After being sent an email by
Plusnet to the effect that my local exchange has been enabled, a few weeks
ahead of schedule, and knowing that I am well within the 3.5km limit, I
ordered a modem/router from an online store, and the ADSL service from
Plusnet at around the same time. The box arrived in 24 hours, but after
more than a week I'm still waiting for BT to switch me on.

How is it that a physical object can be sent 50 miles in less time than it
takes to operate a switch in the same building?

Rod.

In article <VA.00000346.012d522f@abuse.plus.com>, Roderick Stewart
said......

engineer visit to an exchange has to be scheduled. It's a fair guess
that the people who schedule the visits are not the same people who give
the go ahead for your line to be connected to a DSLAM.
To co-ordinate this it probably takes at least 3 inter-departmental
memos (they haven't got the hang of emails yet), countersigned by at
least one supervisor and the manager of an unrelated department
(independent witness), routed via head office to achieve this.

This is why it takes so long
--
Mugwump

To reply, replace INVALID with pipex{dot}com

"CB" <see@reply.to.field> wrote in message
news:MPG.199eea3d371a95179899a3@news.clara.net...
Because BT Wholesale aren't allowed to make a loss on the process...

Regards
Sunil

"Roderick Stewart" <spamtrap@abuse.plus.com> wrote in message
news:VA.00000346.012d522f@abuse.plus.com...
Which exchange is this? - I haven't yet heard of BT enabling an exchange for
ADSL "early"...

Regards
Sunil

"Roderick Stewart" <spamtrap@abuse.plus.com> wrote in message
news:VA.00000348.00b0d142@abuse.plus.com...

Checking the "definate" public BT Wholesale Broadband checker at
http://www.bt.com/broadband/ using a number (0151924xxxx) on your exchange
still comes up with "Good news - Your exchange will have broadband ADSL by
29th August 2003"

Perhaps Plusnet meant they had checked and that since the exchange had been
issued a RFS date (on the 18th June) that meant they could now place advance
orders with BT...

As such, unfortunately, I don't think you are going to get ADSL until early
September...

If only that was the case - if it was I could have had cable 9 years ago but
I still can't get it, even though they advertise here..

As with all these services they are all "subject to availability" etc..

Regards
Sunil

"Colin Wilson" <btiruseless@btinternet.com> wrote in message
news:MPG.199fa367911a0b339899d5@news.cis.dfn.de...
I could be wrong as I am not from that area but I thought that Liverpool
and Southport were doing quite well in terms of ADSL coverage - this is
based information taken from http://www.liverpoolbroadband.com/ and
http://www.southport.gb.com/ainsdaleadsl/ which suggested that Ainsdale
was the only area in the Southport area without ADSL (and that exchange
reached its trigger in March 2003)

Regards
Sunil

Interesting - i`ll get him to check again !

Thanks for the heads up :-)

--
Please add "[newsgroup]" in the subject of any personal replies via email
or you are likely to be spam filtered :-}

What is going on here, seems as though postings are going to the wrong place!

The following postings seem to have nothing to do with
<Subject: Re: Which one : Freedom 2, Pipex, PlusNet?>

|-7 Roderick Stewart 9 Aug 2003
| | |-8 Mugwump 9 Aug 2003
| | \-9 Sunil Sood 9 Aug 2003
| | \-10 Roderick Stewart 9 Aug 2003
| | \-11 Sunil Sood 9 Aug 2003
| | \-12 Colin Wilson 9 Aug 2003
| | \-13 Sunil Sood 9 Aug 2003
| | \-14 Colin Wilson 9 Aug 2003
| \-15 Sunil Sood 9 Aug 2003

In article <bh3vqm$stov2$1@ID-20959.news.uni-berlin.de>, Sunil Sood wrote:
Interesting. Here is the text of the message I received from Plusnet on 28th
July-
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
No more wishing you could get ADSL, we've done some
checking for
you with BT and your local exchange has been enabled!

All you need now is a really straightforward way to get
connected with
Broadband, right?

We've got that for you too! We've created a simple, all-in-one Broadband
product
which we've called Broadband EasyStart.


href="http://www.plus.net/info2/residential/res_broadband_easystart_selfinstal
l.html" target="_blank"Broadband Easystart: Save over &pound;115! Only
&pound;27.99 a month.

Sign up today for your hassle-free access to Broadband and save £115!
href="http://www.plus.net/info2/residential/res_broadband_easystart_selfinstal
l.html"click here


© 2003 PlusNet Technologies Ltd. All Rights Reserved. E&OE
--------------------------------------------------------------------------

So who's right? On the strength of this I've ordered the service from Plusnet
(something I'd probably have done anyway as I'm already using their dial-up
service and am reasonably happy with it). They've taken the payment for the
connection fee but say it will be refunded if I'm not able to get the service,
and they won't take payments for the actual service until it starts. The
information on the Plusnet "ADSL Tracker" page shows that they have made the
application to BT and are waiting for a reply.

Is there anybody here from Plusnet or BT who would care to comment on the
activation date? Is it 29th August, or is it available now? Which of them is
telling the truth?

Rod.

"Zordiac" <zordiac@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:7744b29b.0308092144.7004c78e@posting.google.c om...
What has happened here, is something that often happening in
newsgroups - parts of the thread deviates from the original topic onto
other (normally related) topics that people are interested in... its
actually a "plus" point in favour of USENET in my view... in this case
Activation Charges and ADSL availability...

Regards
Sunil

In article <7744b29b.0308100928.52f5764c@posting.google.com>, Zordiac wrote:
That's very odd, because my newsreader (Virtual Access) shows all these
messages as belonging to the same thread, and with the same subject line.
Looking at the full headers also shows they are all posted to only one
newsgroup (uk.telecom.broadband), so it doesn't even seem to be a case of
crossposting, so you must be missing something (or perhaps I am?) but I'm not
sure what.

Rod.

In article <QQAZa.1137$z7.313077@wards.force9.net>, David Cherry wrote:
So how do you explain -

- sent to me by Plusnet on 28th July?

They appear to be saying, in fairly plain English, that my local exchange
*has* been enabled. How can this be right if it's wrong?

Rod.