I was recently sparked into action when AOL (TalkTalk) increased my broadband subscription costs by 40% in January 2011. After much to-ing and fro-ing, and talking BT, BTw, Ofcom, my MP, and complaining to AOL, I have discovered quite a few things of which I was previously (and blissfully) unaware.
In short, AOL's reasons for the increase are that they no longer wish to "subsidise" rural (market 1) customers, and were now charging cost price. They are also going to stop offering broadband-only packages. I've noticed quite a few other ISPs doing this too. This is great news if you want a cheap bundles, and don't care about quality - but rubbish if you care about speed and quality and want a dedicated broadband service.
I was thus previously unaware that we now have a two-tier pricing system in the UK. This not only depends on what sort of service you want, but also where you live - which is why I went to my MP - I find the latter situation to be unfair, and wanted to know what could be done about it. His assistant seemed to think that LLU was the answer to everything - but at an exchange as tiny as ours (~200 residencies), I very much doubt it! There was also a suggestion of using public funds to enable another provider via LLU at our exchange, but I feel this might be a retrograde step, and it would be unlikely to improve things. As far as I can tell, even if this were possible (and I suspect it is not), it would only benefit those who want a cheap and dirty BB connection bundled in with their phone, and it might even set back any future upgrades to the infrastructure (NGA) in our area. I very much doubt that it would encourage the likes of AOL TalkTalk to lower their prices, unless of course they were the ISP paid to become the LLU provider.
Just wondered what you guys thought...
Thanks
