BlkKnight

Mum got a letter off BT yesterday, offering discounted phone rental with bundled free evening and weekend calls, so long as she signed up to 18 months with them...

Funny that this coincided with the fact that Easynet/Sky have just LLU'd her exchange! How coincidental, eh?

Anyone who falls for this "special offer for selected customers" is basically blocked from switching to LLU services for the duration of the contract...

J

Mick

iTrader: (1)

What's LLU?

BlkKnight

Local Loop Unbundling - in a nutshell it allows third party providers to provide services (typically Phone, Broadband and Streaming media) without using BT hardware - and thus giving BT little or no money.

These services are (usually):
- better
- cheaper

PeterUK300

iTrader: (1)

Local Loop Unbundling. Other operators can now offer services to people on that exchange..

Why shouldn't BT make offers to keep it's customers. The other operators are doing the same when/if you switch offering 12 to 18 month deals.....

All part of a competitive market place.

PeterUK300

iTrader: (1)

Not always, but we won't go there...

It is designed to give the consumer choice, pure and simple.

BlkKnight

It was more of a warning to try and give people a heads up to the "potential" market out there.

cottonfoo

How exactly? It uses the same kit in the same place but in a different software domain and STILL runs over BT's network

That's the benefit

BlkKnight

24 meg broadband? Bulldog, Bethere, Sky?

mike1210

LLU's put their own kit in the exchanges, BT charge the LLU's for power bills

the other benefits being they don't have to play ball by BT's line rentals so they can offer unlimited services etc. I recently installed a computer for someone who was on Bulldogs LLU and the pings to the BBC and the like were 13ms!!!!!!. Even though he said the service was crap thats a crazy low ping

cottonfoo

Sure, but they use the exact same stuff as BT, and most importantly the last mile is always owned by BT no matter what

You can massage DSL quite a bit with regard to latency/reliability, ISPs set it to the most reliable they can at the fastest they can. A super low ping may have next to no capability for transmission control.

mike1210

ah i get ya,
I don't have any LLU's by me at the mo but the customer service by some of them is crap to say the least so i'd have to think long and hard on wheather to go down the LLU road or not. It's good for competition though and does force BT to lower prices etc

jaytc2003

iTrader: (1)

you can still switch to a LLU broadband though (assuming the new bt contract was voice only), which again is generally cheaper and better (mine was with sky anyway)