Sky To Hike Line Rental By 18% - And Call Charges Go Up For The Second Time This Year

[@contradevian]

I was about to cancel Sky and switch to TalkTalk, but they say they can't take over a Sky line (although Sky took it over from BT), and I'd need a new number, which BT will install, despite my master socket having the words BT on it.

Can anyone explain why?

On my phone line I switched from BT to Sky. I think the number changed, not sure (I never use it).

[R K]

I am seriously considering just cancelling the whole 'phone/broadband/telly thing and sitting in the dark with a candle.

With blackouts starting in 2015 you may as well

Though the candle seems like an extravagance. Just go to bed at dusk.

[@contradevian]

Thanks BTW, DTMark and all - that's seriously helpful. I bet if I went back to BT they could keep my number - the blighters.

Its why I tend to use VOIP. I've still got my London and Romford numbers and I live ooop North. I can pretend to be a sleezy London financier in the land of flat caps and whippets.

[mjhodgson]

I am seriously considering just cancelling the whole 'phone/broadband/telly thing and sitting in the dark with a candle.

The communist, sorry green party will be round to give you some sort of medal later. You sound like their kind of model citizen.

[@contradevian]

Alas, after all this time you do not know me. I actually traded up to that superfast fibre thing. (To keep my number, I had to take back those ingrates at BT.)

You'll still find HPC servers as slow as ever.

Edited October 12, 2012 by Socially Housed

[R K]

Alas, after all this time you do not know me. I actually traded up to that superfast fibre thing. (To keep my number, I had to take back those ingrates at BT.)

I'm quite excited.

(If I'm going to be extracted from by rentiers. I think I'd rather be paying for BT's pensioners than a billionaire's bank account's zero-adding ambitions.)

That gave me a warm fuzzy feeling inside.

[LeeManc]

There are two types of phone line service - BT Wholesale and MFP (I think it's called)

For the former the operator of your choice resells BT's phone services.

For the latter the other end of your line is plugged into the operator's kit - this is what you have, and it's plugged into Sky's kit.

To change it needs a man/woman with a screwdriver to go to the exchange and physically move the wires from one piece of kit to another. Here, from Sky's kit, to Talk Talk's kit.

For which BT then charge the operator. Who then charge you.

They are incorrect to say that they can't take over a Sky line, they certainly can. They just can't be bothered, it's easier for them to have you cancel with Sky and start afresh.

TalkTalk has issues porting from Sky, it's nothing to do with them not wanting to bother, as in the case of this customer, who would rather stick with their current number meaning TalkTalk lose a potential customer - It is also cheaper to do a takeover/migration than it is to do a new provide. A takeover/migration is quicker as it involves an exchange visit only, whereas a new provide would involve booking a customer premises visit which would be weeks in advance, only for the order to be changed to a reuse stopped line once the engineer changes the exchange equipment and the premises visit would be cancelled(unless of course there was a fault showing on the Openreach test)

TalkTalk are not a bad provider and I would recommend them, I joined them myself about 6 months ago after cancelling my virgin media service and have had no problems, the main issue is the fact it involves being on an Openreach 'maintained' line, Openreach cause far more problems for customers than many realise.

[mrtickle]

TalkTalk are not a bad provider and I would recommend them,

I don't agree, forcing someone to change their number held for 30 years, instead of telling them that a cease-and-reprovide would let them keep their number. is despicable.

[Liquid Goldfish]

This may be a really stupid question but it's something I've wanted to know for ages - and people on here seem to know about these things!

When I lived in South Yorkshire in the 1990s cable was put in by a firm called Yorkshire Cable - and I think there were other smallish firms across the county doing the same - and then gardually I think Telewest and NTL bought them all out - and then NTL and Telewest merged - and then Virgin bough NTL/Telewest - anyway that's what I think hapopened.

So, basically my question is; is fibre optic cable all the same, irrespective of who originally put it in - or does it have higher speeds in some parts of the country depending on who put it in? - and is it all compatible with each other? (I'm sure you know what I mean)

[DTMark]

This may be a really stupid question but it's something I've wanted to know for ages - and people on here seem to know about these things!

When I lived in South Yorkshire in the 1990s cable was put in by a firm called Yorkshire Cable - and I think there were other smallish firms across the county doing the same - and then gardually I think Telewest and NTL bought them all out - and then NTL and Telewest merged - and then Virgin bough NTL/Telewest - anyway that's what I think hapopened.

So, basically my question is; is fibre optic cable all the same, irrespective of who originally put it in - or does it have higher speeds in some parts of the country depending on who put it in? - and is it all compatible with each other? (I'm sure you know what I mean)

You're right, Virgin Media is a collection of companies that have been joined together which themselves were a collection of franchises.

One qualification: the cable in "cable" is the copper co-axial cable (TV lead type stuff) that comes from the street cabinet to the home, whereas fibre is light based.

The network has a "head end" cabinet in a given area which then feeds street cabinets which feed homes.

However the cabinet specifications are different, the kit inside them is different, and the cable type connecting them together can also be different depending on your ex-franchise area.

One of the challenges for Virgin Media is the total cost of ownership of that disparate network and the need to standardise the kit.

Although coax cable is still old fashioned copper, it is much more performant than BT's telephone lines, not all of which are copper anyway, some are wholly or partly aluminium which performs even more appallingly for data.

The network design is such that regardless of area, the cabinets are close enough to homes to be able to offer all the services (with only a few exceptions - areas which have "analogue cable", like Milton Keynes), you don't get told "you can't have the broadband, because you're too far from the cabinet".

The key differences a user would experiences are to do with the interlinks between the head and street cabinets, as cable speeds go up to 100Mbps and shortly, 200Mbps, the interconnects get put under strain if they are the old coax cable type. Enough 100Mbps users in one street can suck up all the bandwidth available on old parts of the network. This is why the "speed doubling" programme is being rolled out in stages as the interlinks and some other kit are upgraded.

[Liquid Goldfish]

You're right, Virgin Media is a collection of companies that have been joined together which themselves were a collection of franchises.

One qualification: the cable in "cable" is the copper co-axial cable (TV lead type stuff) that comes from the street cabinet to the home, whereas fibre is light based.

The network has a "head end" cabinet in a given area which then feeds street cabinets which feed homes.

However the cabinet specifications are different, the kit inside them is different, and the cable type connecting them together can also be different depending on your ex-franchise area.

One of the challenges for Virgin Media is the total cost of ownership of that disparate network and the need to standardise the kit.

Although coax cable is still old fashioned copper, it is much more performant than BT's telephone lines, not all of which are copper anyway, some are wholly or partly aluminium which performs even more appallingly for data.

The network design is such that regardless of area, the cabinets are close enough to homes to be able to offer all the services (with only a few exceptions - areas which have "analogue cable", like Milton Keynes), you don't get told "you can't have the broadband, because you're too far from the cabinet".

The key differences a user would experiences are to do with the interlinks between the head and street cabinets, as cable speeds go up to 100Mbps and shortly, 200Mbps, the interconnects get put under strain if they are the old coax cable type. Enough 100Mbps users in one street can suck up all the bandwidth available on old parts of the network. This is why the "speed doubling" programme is being rolled out in stages as the interlinks and some other kit are upgraded.

Wow - great answer - thank you so much!!

So, what sort of cable links the head cabinets and street cabinets - is that also copper co-ax or is that fibre optic? Also, when they upgrade do they need to dig up the roads/footpaths again or do they use those mole things etc.?

Edited October 13, 2012 by oldsport

[DTMark]

Wow - great answer - thank you so much!!

So, what sort of cable links the head cabinets and street cabinets - is that also copper co-ax or is that fibre optic? Also, when they upgrade do they need to dig up the roads/footpaths again or do they use those mole things etc.?

On your first question, this depends on the area, I believe it's fibre to the head end (bearing in mind that could be servicing say 60 cabinets in a single loop) and then largely fibre to the street cab, sometimes co-ax.

Where my knowledge of this runs out is - although there are theoretical charts showing how much bandwidth can be shoved down a copper phone line over varying distances (they generally become useless for ADSL once they're more than about 3000m long, for VDSL2 Fibre to the Cabinet the maximum limit of usefulness is about 1500m and if they contain aluminium, they're even worse) I don't know of such a "chart" for co-axial cable.

What suffices is a question of distance (if coax) and the capacity it needs to have (the number of people connected to the cabinet it goes to and the aggregate speed needed there) - that, very specifically, is where cable falls down in specific areas. Parents cable is 30meg and always runs at 31Meg, others aren't so lucky (a loop which also passes a Uni campus for instance with a hundred students all using it..)

The upgrade plan addresses these interlinks and in general the fibre is pulled through the existing ducting - since cable is a lot newer that the phone network is, the ducts are probably in better condition and not collapsed in so many areas requiring digging.

[Liquid Goldfish]

On your first question, this depends on the area, I believe it's fibre to the head end (bearing in mind that could be servicing say 60 cabinets in a single loop) and then largely fibre to the street cab, sometimes co-ax.

Where my knowledge of this runs out is - although there are theoretical charts showing how much bandwidth can be shoved down a copper phone line over varying distances (they generally become useless for ADSL once they're more than about 3000m long, for VDSL2 Fibre to the Cabinet the maximum limit of usefulness is about 1500m and if they contain aluminium, they're even worse) I don't know of such a "chart" for co-axial cable.

What suffices is a question of distance (if coax) and the capacity it needs to have (the number of people connected to the cabinet it goes to and the aggregate speed needed there) - that, very specifically, is where cable falls down in specific areas. Parents cable is 30meg and always runs at 31Meg, others aren't so lucky (a loop which also passes a Uni campus for instance with a hundred students all using it..)

The upgrade plan addresses these interlinks and in general the fibre is pulled through the existing ducting - since cable is a lot newer that the phone network is, the ducts are probably in better condition and not collapsed in so many areas requiring digging.

excellent, thanks again - it's amazing the varierty of knowledge people have on here!

[@contradevian]

This may be a really stupid question but it's something I've wanted to know for ages - and people on here seem to know about these things!

When I lived in South Yorkshire in the 1990s cable was put in by a firm called Yorkshire Cable - and I think there were other smallish firms across the county doing the same - and then gardually I think Telewest and NTL bought them all out - and then NTL and Telewest merged - and then Virgin bough NTL/Telewest - anyway that's what I think hapopened.

So, basically my question is; is fibre optic cable all the same, irrespective of who originally put it in - or does it have higher speeds in some parts of the country depending on who put it in? - and is it all compatible with each other? (I'm sure you know what I mean)

Yes I lived briefly in a council flat in Leicester during the 1990's. It still had "cable television" provided by Rediffusion, indeed there were still two large rotary knobs on the wall for switching channels (two were required so people could record video). The quality was poor.

However at about that time Diamond Cable were re-wiring the town with fibre (can recall them doing it) and my phone line was with them. Diamond inherited Rediffusions TV service and so I eventually I got a new cable tv box. Internet was starting to come in and I was connected using a 56k modem.

Diamond eventually became NTL and then Virgin

2001

ntl launched two broadband services, 512 kbps and 128 kbps.

http://www.virginmed...tl-inc-history/

Edited October 13, 2012 by Socially Housed

[Bootsox]

On your first question, this depends on the area, I believe it's fibre to the head end (bearing in mind that could be servicing say 60 cabinets in a single loop) and then largely fibre to the street cab, sometimes co.......

DT, a little off topic but, if you can help, a question from myself please?

We have video conferencing at work fed by 8 x 64k ISDN channels giving a max 512k connection. Does this sound like an "old hat" arrangement to you (the video quality is not brilliant, even though we have newish Polycom kit)?

[DTMark]

DT, a little off topic but, if you can help, a question from myself please?

We have video conferencing at work fed by 8 x 64k ISDN channels giving a max 512k connection. Does this sound like an "old hat" arrangement to you (the video quality is not brilliant, even though we have newish Polycom kit)?

ISDN is old. But for what you want, the most important factors are latency and guaranteed throughput so as to avoid glitching/buffering/dropped frames - which you still frequently see on TV when people are interviewed over "broadband" connections.

In this respect it's probably suitable, a 2Meg or better symmetrical connection (same speed in both directions) would provide fair quality, a 6Meg symmetric connection would provide good quality.

So in terms of alternatives, there is only really one, which is called a leased line. Because of BT's stranglehold on the infrastructure, leased lines are a complete price rip-off and the costs can be staggering (sometimes tens of thousands to install, and thousands a month) - there's no competition to bring prices down to a level that reflects the actual costs.

If you live within touching distance of the exchange (or near as) several old copper lines can be bonded together with something called "Ethernet in the first mile" which is a cheaper non fibre leased line. Both offer symmetrical higher speeds than you have now, but the availability of EFM is pretty limited as its name suggests.

[@contradevian]

ISDN is old. But for what you want, the most important factors are latency and guaranteed throughput so as to avoid glitching/buffering/dropped frames - which you still frequently see on TV when people are interviewed over "broadband" connections.

ISDN can be uncontended, similar to a leased line.

[RufflesTheGuineaPig]

TalkTalk are not a bad provider and I would recommend them, I joined them myself about 6 months ago after cancelling my virgin media service and have had no problems

I did the same however the trick is to sign up with TalkTalk BUSINESS not home. You get traffic priority, a freephone UK manned helpline and a fixed IP address. It's more expensive but not by much. Worth every penny.