Have sent you a PM.

Mixture,

O2 own Be.

Oh right.... sorry, hard to keep track of all this M&A activity. :ok:

In that case, I stand corrected and bow to your superior knowledge !

Cornish Jack - Virgin without cable:

Broadband wherever you live - Broadband - Virgin Media

Thank you, Background Noise.That completes the information set I was after. At first glance it looks promising - will have a chat with them and see what they can offer.

Further to my report of Plusnet, I would ask them what their contention ratio in your exchange is if you are thinking of them. Over this w/e my speed was terrible, 120k download, but their tech support would rather I stood on my head than admit that they had insufficient or inadequate equipment.

Don't waste your time doing that, particularly if you are only planning to sign up for a cheap residential product.

Not only will they probably be reluctant to tell you the answer, but also ISPs don't care much for residential customers, they are at the bottom of the foodchain. You get what you pay for.

If you want lower contention on DSL, you have to sign up for a business DSL service with someone who can offer you at least a contractual 5:1 commitment.

Contention occurs at more places than just the local exchange. Don't forget about the wonders of traffic shaping either. :cool:

If they are just reselling BT's whoesale DSL implementation then they are at the mercy of BT and BT no longer formally define specific contention ratios, they define acceptable performance ranges.

UPDATE:
For Plusnet, see :
Plusnet Broadband Download Speeds
and
Plusnet Traffic Management