Off Topic Kcom lightspeed fibre has done one...

PLT used to be a good go to on here. I'm surprised he's not given his input on this thread.

He used to work for KC. He was ITK...

 

Thing is, that's always been possible with KCOM. They have to allow other providers to use their lines the same as BT do, but for whatever reason the big ISPs don't want to. People will say it's because KCOM overcharge for wholesale, but KCOM says that isn't the case and the regulator prevents wholesalers from doing that anyway. It'll be interesting to see how many providers actually do come in and use these MS3 lines and how much success they have convincing people to move over from KCOM.

 

Yep, I used to work there. Just haven't had anything to say on this thread til now. Happy to answer any specific questions, I am still a bit of a geek on ISP matters...

 

Sorry to bother you mate. I just thought you'd be of use here.

 

No problem at all

 

Has anybody subscribed to Connexion?What is the service like?
They have installed poles in our area with wires between poles but nothing to individual houses.
Are the boxes on the poles acting as routers which means individual wires are not needed.

 

Most of this thread, ISP, MS3 has gone over my head... I understood the Bastard comment a few pages back...

 

MS3 have installed the cabling in our street with an individual box in the pavement for each house.
As has been said they then allow other companies to use their cables if you want to pay for that.
Seems cheaper than KCOM but not so cheap I’m desperate to rush into changing. I’ll probably sit tight and pay the extra £3 a month for a few months and wait to see what reviews are like.
Read all the stuff they provided and if you do go with them they then run a cable to your house. Preferred route is underground, but they can’t do that to ours without disturbing a drive. 2nd one is using an existing telegraph pole, if they’re able to. That would be ok for me, but I do wonder whether they belong to KCOM who’d just tell them to get ****ed and put their own in?
3rd option is just that. They’ll put you a new pole in and run it to you that way. That seems like a **** option to me as I don’t want a pole in front of my house.

That’s as much as I know

Slight aside but I did a speed test and realised it was crap. Rang them and they sent me a new router. I pay KCOM for 400 pieces of download speed (what ever it is…you know what I mean) and I get 398 wirelessly which seems good to me

 

Yeah, I have been the first to slag off KC about lack of choice, speed, forced into having a landline, price etc. But I suspect they are probably well ahead of competitors?
I let them know that I was considering other companies, and they offered me a discount of around £15 pm(?). Odd that you have to ask. Maybe everyone’s paying a reduced rate now, but if not just ask. Think I’m paying around £45, but I also pay an extra fiver pm for a mesh extender thingy which increases the speed. My daughter was temporarily living here and needed a fast speed for working from home, plus we have a ridiculous amount of devices across two stories and I use it mainly in the conservatory which is at the back of an extension to a traditional semi (so a long way from where the cable comes in). I added an extension cable around the outside of the house so I could move the router into the conservatory, which at the time was where I used it the most. I did a lot of experimenting where best to put router and the plug in mesh extender thingy to ensure we had decent speeds in all four corners.
I’ve just done a speed test and getting 380 thingies (pay for 400), but with a few devices switched on.
I don’t think that’s bad. As DBT says, could probably save a little with another untried company (I am HU4), but will it be any faster, as reliable etc? Maybe better the devil you know. It still irks me that I have to pay for a landline, when I don’t even have a phone plugged in, but maybe a small price to pay.

 

I think they gave you a discount now because they are obviously worried about the competition

MS3 have installed cabling near me as well and made a right mess of the pavements

 

MS3 have just installed cabling down my street last week, what a mess, then we are told another internet provider is coming next week to dig up the pavement again to lay there cables, madness.

 

You don't have to pay for a landline. Arguably you never did, it was just that broadband required a "line rental" charge and they threw in free local calls. Nowadays they do a price that's just your Internet and you can have no included calls at all if you don't need them. Won't save you much though because it's the internet connection that's the real cost.

Also, that £5/month extra for an extender sounds a bit sketchy to me. It probably suits them but personally I wouldn't want to pay a monthly fee indefinitely for a piece of hardware you that could buy outright from Amazon or wherever.

 

Boxes on top of poles, no wires?! Sure they're not cameras looking through windows?

 

Ok, I’ll check these out but under contract now. When. I mentioned about not wanting to pay for landline, they never told me about the reduced rate for no calls, which is a bit naughty. I was actually paying a few quid for a service (think it was to withhold number?) despite not having a phone plugged in for years!
Do you have a link to the piece of hardware? Presumably it’s a plug in piece?

 

Someone you play golf with doesn’t have a landline on his KCOM package (not me, and not the person we’ll see in pub today either)

 

I don't know what the hardware you're currently paying monthly for is exactly, but it sounds like a common wifi extender and there are loads of them. I haven't used any myself so wouldn't want to recommend one specifically.

 

Ok I did use a plug in thing before and it didn’t seem to make a lot of difference (before you could do speed tests).
With just myself and Mrs A now living here, I probably don’t actually need any.
I need to test speeds with/withou

 

Hope you don't mind if I sound a note of caution here.
A wifi mesh extender isn't the same as a wifi extender so if you were going solo you'd need to be sure what you were buying.
Then you'd need to buy something which was compatible with your router, as long as you know what brand and type your router is. Some providers will supply a branded router so it isn't always clear if it's like Netgear, TP-Link, whatever.
Then if what you buy doesn't work you're a bit stuffed for getting help.
People who are tech-confident will probably poo-poo this and say it's dead easy, plug and play stuff. It might be but I don't know and I've worked in tech for 50 years.
For £5/month you're getting something which is supported and if it conks out you know who to call.
If you really need the service the mesh system provides £5/month might seem worth paying for peace of mind and having someone else fix any problems you have.
Also have you tried your wifi without the mesh system? Is the performance degraded significantly? Maybe not...

Sorry for butting in...

 

No appreciate you butting in.
Circumstances have changed since my previous tests, which were basically to accommodate daughter temporarily working from (our) home.
I’m probably tied to whatever I’ve agreed to, but need to review

 

I’ve no complaints about kcom. They’ve been promising full fibre for a while, and I rang last year to ask when we’d get it. Beauty of a local company is that the lass I spoke to knew exactly where I live and couldn’t understand why computer kept saying no for our address as she said they cover all our area. She said she’d investigate and call back, was a bit skeptical but the next day two telecoms vans turned up at the green box over the road and a couple of engineers did some rummaging for half an hour. An hour later she called back and said she was now in a position to order us full fibre and did we want to proceed. There’s no way we’d get that service with any of the big companies. My completely non-tech thinking is that I suspect the green box was designated for commercial services (lots of businesses nearby) and they threw some switches that allowed a domestic supply to be pulled off for us. Some kind of non-standard procedure anyway. Bloody fast speeds now.