BE's new pricing

[Tacitus]

It is not clear to me that any of the large ISPs can provide a good quality congestion free ADSL service. You would think that economies of scale would make this possible. This made we wonder how IDNET manage to deliver the quality of service they do?

I think it's down to two, possibly three things.  One is they make sure, BT notwithstanding, that the investment in their network stays ahead of demand.  The second is their pricing model deters the 'all-you-can-eat' brigade - note they're not alone in this since Zen/Newnet/AAISP do much the same.

The third and, possibly most important, is they cater to the sort of customers who are prepared and able, to pay a little more for quality.  This group don't regard value as synonymous with price.  Again, the other smaller BT based ISPs follow the same type of model, so it isn't that competition is non-existent.  However, how long this model is sustainable in what we are told is the coming age of austerity, remains to be seen.  It works for me, so unless they do something completely out of character I can't see me changing any time soon.  YMMV of course...

Be interesting to see how they re-jig the price/allowances.

[Rik]

They have more capacity than their contracted customers require, Dave. That's why there's a premium on the service.

[dujas]

It is not clear to me that any of the large ISPs can provide a good quality congestion free ADSL service

I think that's a silly comment to make. LLU has been an overwhelming success for the customer. Providing much higher usage limits and reduced monthly charges, as well as protecting the home user from the quirks of BT Wholesale i.e. IP Profiles and 'under dimensioned' exchanges.

As demonstrated by Thinkbroadband's survey, the main failure of the large ISPs is in customer service.

[davej99]

I think that's a silly comment to make. LLU has been an overwhelming success for the customer. Providing much higher usage limits and reduced monthly charges, as well as protecting the home user from the quirks of BT Wholesale i.e. IP Profiles and 'under dimensioned' exchanges.

As demonstrated by Thinkbroadband's survey, the main failure of the large ISPs is in customer service.

I am not sure it is helpfull or courteous to describe my observations as silly. Nor am I sure how the provision of an LLU service relates to the performance of an ADSL service in areas that do not have it; the context of the thread when I made my comment. I said that, "It is not clear to me that any of the large ISPs can provide a good quality congestion free ADSL service."

The survey you mention does not distinguish between LLU and ADSL (BTW resale) service performance and therefore it is not relevent to a discussion about ADSL performance by the large ISPs. The weight of opinion seems to support the view that large ISPs do not provide an uncongested ADSL service and that they are outperformed by ISPs like IDNET/Zen/Newnet/AAISP, which is the point I was making.

[Ann]

LLU is ADSL.  The terms are not mutually exclusive.  That, I suggest, is where the confusion has arisen.

[dujas]

My reply wasn't meant to cause offence, it was regarding the "It is not clear to me that any of the large ISPs can provide a good quality congestion free" part of your statement, which I feel some of the LLU providers have offered for several years now. I don't see how not having 100% availability to the UK population (when there's no state support) changes that fact.

The second part was acknowledgement that the larger ISPs continue to underperform compared to the niche ISPs in customer service. I don't understand what you mean by ADSL service, as that's a common standard for data transmission. Largely dependant on the quality and length of the wiring between the home and exchange, you're completely at the mercy of physics and BT Openreach, regardless of your ISP. My focus was on the backhaul from the exchange onwards in terms of capacity.

[davej99]

IDNETTERS discussions sometimes use the terms LLU, ADSL (over BT) and ADSL+ (over BT) to distinguish three types of service. Other terms are used but it is usually clear from the context of the thread what is being talked about. I thought the general point when I posted was that large ISPs are very poor at reselling BTW services whereas ISPs like IDNET/Zen/Newnet/AAISP are very good. When I said, "It is not clear to me that any of the large ISPs can provide a good quality congestion free ADSL service," this is what I has in mind. Please forgive me if my post was ambiguous, but I think the context is clear.

[troesma]

Anyway, just to add to the debate... in 1 place I have ADSL2+ with IDnet and on the other VM. I do get circa 5 Mb DL speeds on the IDnet line, thanks to distance to exchange, poor BT infrastructure (and I'm in London) and whatever. Compensated by fantastic customer service/support.

Site 2 has fiber optic available and I'm with VM. After some initial misery resulting from surly customer service, engineering troopers who were clueless, complete lack of touch and giving you (a customer) 2 fingers, it's now working fine (touch wood). On the balance, well...



and it works. I have not tested this up to see how their throttling operates. Fortunately I'm in front of the bloody VM cabinet and not many people around hooked to the service. Price-wise..? Same as IDnet. The Q here is how much you value customer service and support, because it's clear on price per Mb who wins... If you ask me, I'd rather pay a premium for customer service. Better 5 Mb with back-up than 50 Mb breaking down. OK, VM has not broken down in about 3 weeks... will see if it stand the passage of time, once they get more people into their 50 Mb package.

Just my 2c.

[dujas]

AFAIK there currently isn't any traffic management/throttling on the 50Mbps service. However that will probably change later this year, albeit with higher allowances than the 20Mbps service before they kick in.