That's UK Online mate - Sky bought Easynet and Easynet own UK Online. That's exactly what my exchange says and I got UKO no problems at allSky Broadband / Easynet LLU

Maybe ring back and ask someone different? LOL
That's UK Online mate - Sky bought Easynet and Easynet own UK Online. That's exactly what my exchange says and I got UKO no problems at allSky Broadband / Easynet LLU
Since the takeover, Nildram and Pipex have been getting more similar, and Tiscali owns Pipex, so you can see where that's going to go.
The difference between Max and Max Premium is an upstream of up to 832kbps instead of 448kbps.
Contention ratios disappeared from ADSL years ago - Max Premium gets priority over ordinary Max, but you're unlikely to ever see anything like 1/30 the headline speed...