Confused by jargon.....

We are looking to move and will be in the Ewell area.

http://www.samknows.com/broadband/ex...hp?ecode=LSEWE

What does local loop unbundling mean?

I see that Be, Bulldog, Easynet/Sky and Orange are enabled.

Does that mean the those ISPs provide faster broadband than other ISPs?

Where I am at the moment
(http://www.samknows.com/broadband/ex...p?ecode=LSBURH ) it's a
similar picture.

I am currently with Zen and suffer variable speeds, up to 3500kb/s but
sometimes painfully slow albeit a supposed 8MB connection.

I'm keen to make the best possible choice when we move. Speed and quality
more important than cost.

Any info or advice much appreciated.

"News" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed)...
> We are looking to move and will be in the Ewell area.
>
> http://www.samknows.com/broadband/ex...hp?ecode=LSEWE
>
> What does local loop unbundling mean?
>
> I see that Be, Bulldog, Easynet/Sky and Orange are enabled.
>
> Does that mean the those ISPs provide faster broadband than other ISPs?
>
> Where I am at the moment
> (http://www.samknows.com/broadband/ex...p?ecode=LSBURH ) it's a
> similar picture.
>
> I am currently with Zen and suffer variable speeds, up to 3500kb/s but
> sometimes painfully slow albeit a supposed 8MB connection.
>
> I'm keen to make the best possible choice when we move. Speed and quality
> more important than cost.
>
> Any info or advice much appreciated.

The part of the telephone network that comes from the exchange into your
house is called the "Local Loop". At one time, there was only Post Office
Telephones/BT who could supply you with a telephone line and so telephone
exchanges only had PO/BT equipment in there.

These days, BT have been forced to open up their buildings and provide rooms
where other companies such as Be, Bulldog, Sky, etc., etc., can install
their own exchange equipment and, if you so wish, you can become a customer
of one of these companies. They will then make arrangements to have your
pair of wires taken off the BT equipment and moved onto their own and you
would then pay your line rental, call charges etc., etc., to them instead of
BT.

This process is called Local Loop Unbundling.

Unless you go for a "fixed" broadband product of, say, 1 or 2Mb, the ADSL
MAX product is only *up to* 8Mb (or whatever) - it completely depends on the
condition and quality of the line (amongst other things). I'm on the *up to*
8Mb product but my line achieves between 4.5 and 6.5Mb.

Some of the BT exchanges were converted for broadband 4, 5, 6 years ago or
maybe even longer so the LLU companies often can offer higher speeds because
they are installing newer exchange equipment - but they won't renew the
copper line to your house, so whilst they may be able to offer 16Mb or even
(I think, for ADSL2+) 24Mb, it's still the same bit of wet string connecting
you to the exchange so you may not get anywhere near those speeds.

John.

"John" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed)...
>
> "News" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
> news:(E-Mail Removed)...
>> We are looking to move and will be in the Ewell area.
>>
>> http://www.samknows.com/broadband/ex...hp?ecode=LSEWE
>>
>> What does local loop unbundling mean?
>>
>> I see that Be, Bulldog, Easynet/Sky and Orange are enabled.
>>
>> Does that mean the those ISPs provide faster broadband than other ISPs?
>>
>> Where I am at the moment
>> (http://www.samknows.com/broadband/ex...p?ecode=LSBURH ) it's a
>> similar picture.
>>
>> I am currently with Zen and suffer variable speeds, up to 3500kb/s but
>> sometimes painfully slow albeit a supposed 8MB connection.
>>
>> I'm keen to make the best possible choice when we move. Speed and quality
>> more important than cost.
>>
>> Any info or advice much appreciated.
>
> The part of the telephone network that comes from the exchange into your
> house is called the "Local Loop". At one time, there was only Post Office
> Telephones/BT who could supply you with a telephone line and so telephone
> exchanges only had PO/BT equipment in there.
>
> These days, BT have been forced to open up their buildings and provide
> rooms where other companies such as Be, Bulldog, Sky, etc., etc., can
> install their own exchange equipment and, if you so wish, you can become a
> customer of one of these companies. They will then make arrangements to
> have your pair of wires taken off the BT equipment and moved onto their
> own and you would then pay your line rental, call charges etc., etc., to
> them instead of BT.
>
> This process is called Local Loop Unbundling.
>
> Unless you go for a "fixed" broadband product of, say, 1 or 2Mb, the ADSL
> MAX product is only *up to* 8Mb (or whatever) - it completely depends on
> the condition and quality of the line (amongst other things). I'm on the
> *up to* 8Mb product but my line achieves between 4.5 and 6.5Mb.
>
> Some of the BT exchanges were converted for broadband 4, 5, 6 years ago or
> maybe even longer so the LLU companies often can offer higher speeds
> because they are installing newer exchange equipment - but they won't
> renew the copper line to your house, so whilst they may be able to offer
> 16Mb or even (I think, for ADSL2+) 24Mb, it's still the same bit of wet
> string connecting you to the exchange so you may not get anywhere near
> those speeds.
>
> John.
>

Thanks for that John

"News" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed)...
> We are looking to move and will be in the Ewell area.
>
> http://www.samknows.com/broadband/ex...hp?ecode=LSEWE
>
> What does local loop unbundling mean?
>
> I see that Be, Bulldog, Easynet/Sky and Orange are enabled.
>
> Does that mean the those ISPs provide faster broadband than other ISPs?
>
> Where I am at the moment
> (http://www.samknows.com/broadband/ex...p?ecode=LSBURH ) it's a
> similar picture.
>
> I am currently with Zen and suffer variable speeds, up to 3500kb/s but
> sometimes painfully slow albeit a supposed 8MB connection.
>
> I'm keen to make the best possible choice when we move. Speed and quality
> more important than cost.
>
> Any info or advice much appreciated.

Have you asked Zen technical support about this? Since you are with one of
the very few ISPs who offer good technical support, you should at least ask
them.

The next issue is that the quality of the phone line from the exchange to
your property is very important. Since this will be the copper pair
installed (many years ago, probably) by BT, then no amount of LLU will help
UNLESS you see the other ISPs (e.g Be, Bulldog, Easynet/Sky and Orange)
digging up the road and installing new cable.

--
Graham J

In an earlier contribution to this discussion,
John <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

>
> These days, BT have been forced to open up their buildings and
> provide rooms where other companies such as Be, Bulldog, Sky, etc.,
> etc., can install their own exchange equipment and, if you so wish,
> you can become a customer of one of these companies. They will then
> make arrangements to have your pair of wires taken off the BT
> equipment and moved onto their own and you would then pay your line
> rental, call charges etc., etc., to them instead of BT.
>
> This process is called Local Loop Unbundling.
>
That was certainly the original concept of LLU for analog voice circuits.
But I don't think it works quite that way for ADSL.

AIUI, your physical line is connected to two separate pieces of kit at the
exchange - one for voice and one for broadband. If your broadband is
provided by an ISP using LLU, your connection from the exchange to the
internet is made via non-BT kit. But that doesn't stop you from continuing
to use BT for the voice service, and paying your basic line rental to them.

For example, some PlusNet customers are LLU'd via Tiscali[1] but, by
default, their line rental will still go to BT.

[1] That may, of course, change - now that PN have been taken over by BT.
--
Cheers,
Roger
______
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PLEASE REPLY TO NEWSGROUP!

News wrote:
> We are looking to move and will be in the Ewell area.
>
> http://www.samknows.com/broadband/ex...hp?ecode=LSEWE
>
> What does local loop unbundling mean?
>
> I see that Be, Bulldog, Easynet/Sky and Orange are enabled.
>
> Does that mean the those ISPs provide faster broadband than other
> ISPs?
> Where I am at the moment
> (http://www.samknows.com/broadband/ex...p?ecode=LSBURH ) it's a
> similar picture.
>
> I am currently with Zen and suffer variable speeds, up to 3500kb/s but
> sometimes painfully slow albeit a supposed 8MB connection.
>
> I'm keen to make the best possible choice when we move. Speed and
> quality more important than cost.
>
> Any info or advice much appreciated.

Start here

http://www.thinkbroadband.com/guide/howitworks/

Peter Crosland

John wrote:
>
> Unless you go for a "fixed" broadband product of, say, 1 or 2Mb, the ADSL
> MAX product is only *up to* 8Mb (or whatever) - it completely depends on the
> condition and quality of the line (amongst other things). I'm on the *up to*
> 8Mb product but my line achieves between 4.5 and 6.5Mb.
>
> Some of the BT exchanges were converted for broadband 4, 5, 6 years ago or
> maybe even longer so the LLU companies often can offer higher speeds because
> they are installing newer exchange equipment - but they won't renew the
> copper line to your house, so whilst they may be able to offer 16Mb or even
> (I think, for ADSL2+) 24Mb, it's still the same bit of wet string connecting
> you to the exchange so you may not get anywhere near those speeds.
>
> John.
>

If you're a reasonable distance from the exchange then LLU from an ISP
providing ADSL2+ is likely to give you a higher line rate -- I used to
be on ADSL MAX (8Mb/s maximum possible rate) with Newnet and my line
sync rate was about 6.5Mb/s, when I switched to Be (24Mb/s maximum
possible rate) this went up to 10Mb/s (I'm about 3km from the exchange).

LLU ISPs may also have a less congested network (more stable download
rates -- I've certainly seen this with Be) and more liberal maximum
download limits per month because they don't have to pay BT a fixed fee
per gigabyte for network capacity -- Be have a "fair use policy" but I
don't think anyone has ever had it enforced, even people who download
several hundred gigabytes per month.

Ian