Alternatives to BT

[Tacitus]

I sometimes hang out over on TB and I begin to wonder whether more ISPs are contemplating dumping BT for alternatives such as Be or C&W.  

My reason for thinking this is the number of posts that have started to pop up on various forums from BT_Care.  OK the majority are on the BT Broadband forum but an increasing number appear on BB unhappiness or the general chat, as if they have a roving brief to try and keep the level of complaints to a minimum.

The only ISP to offer a move, in their case to Be albeit at a fancy price, is AAISP.  Going by some of the stuff on their blog I can't say I blame them, but I wonder if they are not the only one to be making noises and BT are coming under pressure as other networks position themselves as alternatives.  

[Rik]

I've also noticed a sudden proliferation of BT reps, Tac, and, like you, I question why. A&A are actively doing something about hooking up with Be, but I know that other ISPs have been approached by Be, and I'm sure that events of the past few months with those running WBC will be making them look very seriously at alternatives. The small ISP who is reliant on a single supplier is going to be increasingly vulnerable, especially in a recession, and I can see more looking very hard at adding some resiliency to their networks by having a second, or even third, wholesale carrier. The limitation is, as always, going to be one of cost. From what we've seen of A&A's Be pricing, it's not going to be an easy service to sell.

[Tacitus]

Interesting that you've noticed as well - I did wonder if it was me jumping to conclusions!

I agree over A&As Be pricing.  If they are going to be typical I can't see that BT have much to worry about.  In fact if others are going to have charge those sort of prices, it will give them pause for thought before they jump ship. 

[Rik]

No, BT reps have been appearing all over TB like a rash, Tac. I half wondered whether it had anything to do with me explaining to Ian Livingstone that I knew so much about BT's terminology because of forums like TB (I kept us out of it ).

If the pricing that A&A are passing on truly reflects the Be costs, I can't see many people going for the service, customers or ISPs. OTOH, when you look at what Be charge for excess bandwidth, I suspect the pricing from Be is not as bad as it might otherwise seem.

[plugwash]

From what we've seen of A&A's Be pricing, it's not going to be an easy service to sell.

But then A&A were insanely expensive even on BT (at least if you had any daytime use) so I wouldn't read too much into that.

[Rik]

I think, though, that they want about £20pm over their BT pricing. 

[Sebby]

I think a lot of ISPs would like to move away from BT where possible, but unfortunately, it's too expensive for them to do so.

[dujas]

Are AAISP just using the 02/BE LLU network for transit (from the customer's exchange to their gateway)? Might explain the unexpectedly higher price than the standard resellers.

I wonder what Telefónica's longer term plans are; currently 02 broadband just seem to be a way to reduce 'churn' with their UK mobile phone customers. How long can they maintain current pricing with no enforced FUP? It must be somewhat awkward for another ISP to use them, when most likely they'll be noticeably undercut on retail price.

[Rik]

We don't have any details as yet.

[Technical Ben]

Are AAISP just using the 02/BE LLU network for transit (from the customer's exchange to their gateway)? Might explain the unexpectedly higher price than the standard resellers.

I wonder what Telefónica's longer term plans are; currently 02 broadband just seem to be a way to reduce 'churn' with their UK mobile phone customers. How long can they maintain current pricing with no enforced FUP? It must be somewhat awkward for another ISP to use them, when most likely they'll be noticeably undercut on retail price.

Oh, that's easy. If they are extremely congested due to everyone trying to use the unlimited download allowance, they everyone's connection will crawl to a halt. At 56k, your not going to break o2's budget for bandwidth

[Gary]

Oh, that's easy. If they are extremely congested due to everyone trying to use the unlimited download allowance, they everyone's connection will crawl to a halt. At 56k, your not going to break o2's budget for bandwidth

True, that happened with their BT access tariff, but I would still go to Be if I could get LLU here in a heartbeat.

[Technical Ben]

Oh I did. I went to O2, knowing they did not have LLU here, but on the hopes that one day they would. Then they gave me a sub par service, blatantly lied, and fobbed me off with excuses. So I probably will never go back to them again. 

[Gary]

Oh I did. I went to O2, knowing they did not have LLU here, but on the hopes that one day they would. Then they gave me a sub par service, blatantly lied, and fobbed me off with excuses. So I probably will never go back to them again. 

I had O2 LLU at my old house, moved and was put on access as no LLU, then came back here 

[Sebby]

That I can understand. Access is supposed to be terrible!

[Gary]

That I can understand. Access is supposed to be terrible!

It was Sebby with a full sync of 8128 and no interleaving with a snr of 13db I have a good line, yet I was getting less than 1meg after six sometimes down to 512 it was appalling, the web was not usable, all because its an all you can eat on a BT network and they cannot possibly support that kind of download capacity. O2 Access is awful but there LLU was great.

[glen]

I was on access myself Gary and only lasted 3 weeks then shifted to IDnet. O2's speed in the evening was disgusting, so had my mac sorted before I got locked into the 12 month contract.

[dujas]

They've brought in traffic management on 02 Access, as it seems they've attracted too many heavy downloaders:

The internet is busiest in the evening, when more people are at home and online. This can slow it down for everyone.
To stop that happening, we've introduced a traffic management policy for our Access package on O2 Home Broadband.
From around 8pm to 11pm, we'll give first priority to those things most people want to do in the evening – like emailing, looking at websites, watching things on sites like BBC iPlayer or YouTube, or using programs like Skype or Messenger.
We'll give lower priority to peer to peer programs and newsgroup services. So you'll notice them running slower when our network gets busy. We've done this because some people use them to download large files (like films and TV shows) all day long. And that slows everything else down.

[dujas]

Informative post from Adrian Kennard's blog:

...basically AAISP are looking at new tariffs.

However, we have a slight difficulty because we have so many choices. I am not sure of the best way to offer simple clear and understandable tariffs which are fair.

We have three types of line:-

1. BT 20CN, and these are gradually being moved to 21CN over several years
2. BT 21CN
3. BE

The lines have different base costs, with 21CN being lowest, 20CN costing maybe 30% more, and BE costing a lot more (about 4 times a 21CN line).

The lines have different usage costs now, and this will be even more the case from January. BE lines are the lowest. From Jan 21CN lines will be around 6 times as much as BE line and 20CN lines around 15 times as much as BE line.

So we need to dream up tariffs and options that fit and handle people with multiple different types of lines, but are understandable.

For a start, I am thinking we separate line cost and usage. This also helps with min terms on BE lines (6 months) as that could be line cost only with usage stopping when the line is stopped.

However, usage is complicated. Current ideas include :-

1. Charging as now, based on GB, based on time of day, and preset usage levels and excess charging, but different rates for different types of line.
2. Having usage levels, e.g. 1Mb/s committed with bursting but with automatic limiting after an hour or two to ensure usage never averages more than committed rate and so no risk of excess usage charged
3. 95th percentile billing with a base commit level and higher rate over charges.

All are possible, but we don't know what people want to do.

[Rik]

An insight into the issues confronting all ISPs, and an explanation f why IDNet can offer larger bandwidth allowances for WBC/21CN customers than Max/20CN. I suspect tariffs are going to become as complex as those for mobile phones.

[dujas]

As BT is only committing to extend the reach of the 24Mbps services to 75% of UK homes and businesses by the spring of 2011, what happens to the other 25%? Are their exchanges deemed not financially viable to be upgraded?

BT Wholesale, in their press statement, kept calling ADSL2+ a 'Next Generation' technology, I fear the telephone tax could be spent to take its coverage to 90%+ 


ISPreview has more on the January 21CN price cut:

The Details:

    * WBC bandwidth charges will reduce from £79.34 (excluding VAT) to £40.00 (excluding VAT) per Mbits/s per month.

    * WBC rental is being standardised at £5.88 (excluding VAT) per line per month across the enlarged WBC footprint, a reduction from £7.66 (excluding VAT) in some areas.

BT believes that together these pricing changes will, for typical customers, result in an overall 14% WBC price reduction in Market 3 (WBC Geographic Tier A) and 29% WBC price reduction in Markets 2 and 1 (WBC Geographic Tiers C and E) on the exchanges in the enlarged WBC footprint by Spring 2011.

For those unfamiliar with some of that, there are 3 different categories for UK telephone exchanges and their coverage - Market 1, 2 and 3 (Hull is separate). These represent definitions of competition, thus Market 3 represents locations with a large amount of available competition from rival ISPs, while Market 1 may only be covered by BT.

Naturally Market 3 services are likely to be cheaper because of the added competition, which in turn is frequently the result of related areas being busy urban environments with plenty of people and opportunity. Some UK ISPs , such as PlusNet , already charge roughly £5 per month less for broadband services in Market 3 than those provided to 1 and 2. Most other ISPs prefer to split the cost evenly and offer a single standard package price to all.

BT informs us that the reduction does not apply to the Managed version of its WBC product (WBMC).

[Rik]

As BT is only committing to extend the reach of the 24Mbps services to 75% of UK homes and businesses by the spring of 2011, what happens to the other 25%? Are their exchanges deemed not financially viable to be upgraded?

I suspect BT will use the same blackmail techniques that they used with Max, getting local authorities to subsidise the cost.

BT Wholesale, in their press statement, kept calling ADSL2+ a 'Next Generation' technology, I fear the telephone tax could be spent to take its coverage to 90%+ 

I fear you may well be right.