High speed broadband

I am in North yorkshire and pay about £17 (excluding line rental) for BT Broadband and anytime calls per month. We now have the option of Fibre optic broadband which was going to cost £4 per month more + £30 to be connected + £6.95 postage for the new box. With no gaurantee that skype to China was going to be better (faults could be at the China end) I did not go for it. However the person I was talking to checked my usual speed and found that I COULD get 6 (whatever they are). My reply was that that only happened with a gale force wind blowing in every direction at once. She agreed and reduced my bill by about £3 per month. She also said that at the end of your contract to always tell them you are going elsewhere and they will come up with a better deal.

Just as a comparison, here in rural France we have no choice of provider and we are so rural we are the end of the telephone line and they had to do all sorts to enable us to get broadband, or ADSL as they refer to it here. Our package includes telephone calls etc and and TV box for the French free sat and costs us €42 a month - about £35. The modem box thing is rented as here they are in grave danger of being zapped during the storms.

I think ours is either £13.99 OR £16.99 including free phone calls ,anytime, 7 days a week. Obviously not Premium Rate nor Overseas calls. We live Leics/Warks border

My broadband does not come through the phone line, It is bounced from masts to my receiver outside. BT do broadband on an adjacent island only because of the army's early warning system there. I think it a scandal that rural areas are penalised both financially and for the service they receive, surely good broadband is most essential in areas where there are remote hill farms etc.

We are in rural France too and pay 29€ a month for 512k (half a megabyte) and another 14€ for telephone. When I complained, Mr Orange shrugged and said, "mais vous etes en campagne". So clearly living in the countryside makes you a second-class citizen. We could have satellite but the equipment is very expensive and there are limits on usage.

It seems so unfair hebrideanlady when most of our lifestyles depend on some sort of broadband connection,we pay £36.20 per month for BT Broadband fibre optic thingy,which includes phoneline with 24/7 free calls up to 60mins to UK numbers including 0845 no's also includes BT vision and BT sports although the sports is free for 1year only,I renegotiated our deal after our last contract term ended and told them I would move suppliers if they could not come up with a good deal for us,but I feel for you as you probably have no competitors with BT where you live ?

I have ADSL2+ from Demon : maximum rating is 17 Kbs (that's kilo-BITS per second - not BYTES!) and I often see over 16kbs downstream.

How deep in the countryside are you, feetlebaum?

Thank you glammanana Until I moved here (selfishly) I did not give it much thought, the fact that there are so many people, many of them living on their own, some with no transport are so isolated, what with family and friends moving away. Surely BT with all the profits they make could make life easier and safer. Why should it all be so complicated? most of the posts have said its an upward struggle to get any form of broadband let alone a faster one. I wonder how many people on GN live in a situation where their computer is a life line

hebrideanlady how right you are even though we live in a very small supported housing development (very modern I might add) you would be surprised how many of my immediate neighbours use the internet for the ordering of their shopping and e-bay purchases my oldest neighbour who is forever on line is the georgous Edna and she is 86yrs old and can be relied on if anyone has a problem with their lap-top or tablet she is quite a lady.

@Mamie - Sadly, not very. Many of the fields are now lakes, being worked out gravel pits, which helps (can't build on them!). We're on the other side of the Thames from Runnymede, and its meadow.

And our village telephone exchange is very close to my home, which makes a difference. The thing is my old ADSL service at maximum ("up to") 8Mbs was more expensive than what I have now.

Ah. We are 6.7km from the exchange, 8km to the nearest shop and on a ridge above cliffs between two rivers. Officially it is a "zone blanche", which causes all FT / Orange employees to scratch their heads and say, "oui c'est très difficile..."

Ah, poubelle..!

Did you know that the French dustbin was named after a Monsieur Poubelle? I'll bet he was pleased...