Gigaclear
I was instrumental in getting Gigaclear into my area, after frustrated years with BT and their refusal to upgrade the (as low as) 128K lines in our village!
In those early days, I spoke to the Gigaclear CEO and the Sales Manager in person and over email. They were a genuine company, very clear on the sign up rate I had to achieve and what was involved. I converted that to non-technical language for the villagers and we achieved our sign up rate, despite BT offering free broadband to the residents of the most populated village!
The length from the Pot outside the premises to the house had about a 50/50 split between paid for and DIY installation.
Knowing their costs, the original price for the broadband was fair and the service excellent.
Then the CEO sold (more of a hostile takeover) to a company, who have now shipped it on to an Equity company. Guess what has happened to the prices?
If we had a decent mobile service (we do not!) the cheapest broadband for us would be 1 year on the introductory rate over mobile and 1 year on the Gigaclear introductory rate, repeated.
The introductory rate is roughly what we used to pay (when Gigaclear were recouping their (sunk into the ground) investment over 5 years). But now for us customers with no alternative (except 128K BT) we have to pay twice as much as this and it really rankles. I know their investment was recouped within the predicted 5 years and so this has been 8 years of nearly all profiteering.