Just wanted to let people know that Homechoice does not currently support migration keys. Meaning, if you wish to leave Homechoice for another provider, you'd have to cancel and re-connect, resulting in an Internet outage of several days.

If an outage over several days is not acceptable, you (or I, as it were) are stuck with Homechoice. The perfect trap.

Frustrating.

To do them justice, though: The lady on the phone was nice and friendly and did actually inquire into my reasons for wishing to leave, and offered technical assistance to adress issues I am having with the service. I am now curious whether they ever call back at all. I shall call back once per month or so and ask for a migration key...

This is standard with LLU. Ofcom needs to sort it out, it seems they never thought past the unbundling phase to a procedure of switching between LLU operators or back to BT services.

That shouldn't be the customer's problem. HC expects other ISPs to provide a migration key to support a smooth transition to HC, but the reverse is not true. This is frustrating and feels like being tricked.

To do HC further justice, I can also confirm that the technical support people actually rung back and an engineer has now been booked to look at the line state and quality. At least they show commitment and try to hold on to their customers - I understand they need every one of us desperately.

only til the tiscali deal goes through at the end of the month

Tiscali are LLU and you will have exactly the same problem trying to switch providers from them.

i can foresee many problems with this integration ( or lack of )