Private jet,
are there any ISP's that will give me what the line is capable of for a premium tariff? Or has it all gone the way of the loco airline? People will put up with any cr@p as long as its cheap??
Yes, there are still premium ISPs. You have to be prepared to pay though, because their prices are set realistically rather than the "race to the bottom" that everyone else is hellbent on.
BT Network Based you've got Zen and A&A (Andrews & Arnold) as two fine specimens. Never had any direct A&A experience myself, but have heard good things. Have had direct experience of Zen and would thoroughly recommend them (infact I've still got a small number of legacy contracts left over with them that I'm using for backup lines in various places).
Some people might say Plusnet, but Plusnet were acquired by BT Retail, so I wouldn't touch them with a bargepole as the long term strategy is probably uncertain (i.e. their customers will probably eventually at some point be swallowed up into BT and the Plusnet brand left to perish).
Claranet and Entanet might be worth a look, but don't know much about them other than I've heard of them and have heard the odd positive story here and there.
LLU based you've got Easynet (I don't know what the Sky branded residential product is like (Sky bought Easynet in 2005, so I assume they're running off LLU by now, but don't know for sure.... probably not if they're requiring an existing phone line) , but the Easynet Business Broadband -
which, despite the name of the contract, you can get connected at non-business premises without problem - is certainly something I would happily vouch for any day of the week .... its near enough the Rolls-Royce of the ADSL world ... tiptop both in terms of service and support ).
Don't know much about Be and their LLU product, but I've heard mixed reviews.
LLU would be my first preference, just because you avoid as many of BT's sticky fingers as possible !
I know also that TalkTalk and the rest have to hire BT's lines (but i still pay line rental to Talktalk) is this one of BT's ploys to lever people back to them?
Yes, BT have their fingers in all the pies and the regulator has no teeth (even forgot to put their dentures in !).
If you go with an LLU ISP such as Easynet, then the only role BT have is providing the physical copper cable between your house and the local exchange. The copper cable is pretty much plugged straight into Easynet equipment at the Exchange, it does not touch any BT active equipment.
However, BT based ISPs such as Zen (or another good name) are just selling a rebranded BT Wholesale ADSL service. The benefit you get with going with Zen (or another good name) rather than BT is that they have intelligent human beings in an in-country call centre who know how to bash heads together at BT when things go wrong (albeit you are still at the mercy of BT for things going wrong in the first place !!).