Sadly I am going as well

gwidnet · May 02, 2012, 18:49:41

Hi, I just wanted to say that sadly, after 6 years, I am just on the verge of signing with that evil conglomerate BT with their infinity package.

My exchange has just been enabled for fibre. Their unlimited package for £26 with no connection fee is too low to resist.
I feel a bit guilty as I have usually posted on here in not best humour when things have gone wrong, but I have really appreciated the support from Rik and Steve, Simon, and Glenn, and others, and the customer service has of course been better than fabulous.

Even today, a credit has appeared on my invoice for my next years subscription, due on the 8th of this month, which is totally unbelievable administration

I feel it's a bit of an unfair playing field for the small independent ISPs at the moment, and if idnet could come close I would unhesitatingly stay. I have always recommended idnet, always accepting I was paying a little extra for the premium service.

I never exceed my existing bandwidth, but the availability of sky anytime on any provider and the general trend towards streaming make the migration difficult to resist.

Rik - how do you help so many people and not appear on idnet's payroll?

Anyway I still haven't got a MAC number (after 28 hours cough cough), but unless a miracle happens, I will have to bid you all farewell

Simon · May 02, 2012, 18:58:38

Good luck, and sorry to see you go, but you're always welcome here on the forum.

Glenn · May 02, 2012, 19:05:36

As Simon says, no need to be a stranger.

Steve · May 02, 2012, 19:38:15

Although forum members may not be a representative sample of IDNet's customer base, one can't fail to deduce that FTTC and a limited bandwidth allowance just don't fit comfortably together. I hope BT and Sky can cope with their 'everything you can eat' allowances otherwise there's going to be some unhappy customers on even longer long term contracts than BTw fibre. Good luck with BT lets us know how you get on!

gwidnet · May 02, 2012, 20:18:41

Absolutely, as idnet has been my spiritual home since downloads were either 9.6 or 14.4 home I definitely will.
If BT don't deliver, I will be back to idnet and pay the premium
I wouldn't sign up with any other ISP as it stands.

Lance · May 02, 2012, 22:15:52

If you've not got your mac soon I'd give support a prod. It's normally near instantaneous.

Simon_idnet · May 03, 2012, 02:57:38

Quote from: Lance on May 02, 2012, 22:15:52
If you've not got your mac soon I'd give support a prod. It's normally near instantaneous.

It can take a couple of days to get a MAC code for an LLU circuit (Telefonica).

Lance · May 03, 2012, 08:34:56

Ah thanks Simon.

Gary · May 03, 2012, 09:03:50

Quote from: Steve on May 02, 2012, 19:38:15
Although forum members may not be a representative sample of IDNet's customer base, one can't fail to deduce that FTTC and a limited bandwidth allowance just don't fit comfortably together. I hope BT and Sky can cope with their 'everything you can eat' allowances otherwise there's going to be some unhappy customers on even longer long term contracts than BTw fibre. Good luck with BT lets us know how you get on!

Sky's LLU all you can eat seems to have good reviews, I think FTTC will work well too, its redefining how people use the net, mostly for high quality entertainment, Sky especially with anytime+ and iPlayer coming this year want people to have a seamless experience, even Apple TV now plays 1080P movies that's going to eat a hell of a lot of bandwidth. Reasonable off peak times are really needed too so you can use your monthly allowance. All you can eat if done well does allow that, Idnets model is pretty restrictive, I have 150GB off peak I never use really because Justina and I are not going to watch a film at 1am when we want to at say 7pm. I think more people will migrate from smaller ISP's as they cannot afford to offer the kind of packages people are going to need. Zen seem to be the next best bet for me, but when FTTC comes to my village if infinity/Sky are still performing well that would be the way to go, along with phone line because the packages they offer are such good value, and above all allow the use of the net for something more than browsing and email. Things are changing fast with online media and some companies are slipping behind.

Simon_idnet · May 03, 2012, 10:13:11

There are two ways to build a network: to an acceptable performance target or to a price point. To hit a low price point the network operator has to fill the network with paying customers. BT Retail have sized their network and are now setting about filling it up. The other mass-market operators such as Sky are following suit by promising unlimited everything for too-good-to-be-true prices. That is a race to the bottom and IDNet firmly intends to maintain our goal of providing a high performance service. The only way that they can deliver the cheap service is to outsource support overseas, over-subscribe the network and use heavy traffic shaping. IDNet will do none of that.

The old maxim for ISPs is true: cheap, fast, reliable - pick any two!

Simon · May 03, 2012, 11:41:31

I like that!

jezuk1 · May 03, 2012, 12:52:16

I would personally never touch an "all you can eat" service, even if it was FTTC. Just imagine all the people downloading 24/7 and over-contending the service. Ultimately you get what you pay for in my opinion. Quality of service day or night is most important to me and I'm prepared to pay extra for that!

pctech · May 03, 2012, 13:11:54

You do get what you are prepared to pay for.

john · May 03, 2012, 13:31:44

Quote from: jezuk1 on May 03, 2012, 12:52:16
.... Just imagine all the people downloading 24/7 and over-contending the service. Ultimately you get what you pay for in my opinion. Quality of service day or night is most important to me and I'm prepared to pay extra for that!

Whilst it's possible that everyone on the network could be downloading 24/7 it would be interesting to know just how many actually are. Quality of service during the night is not very important to me as I rarely use it and even when I do I'm usually only browsing the BBC News, checking my e-mails or catching up with the posts on Idnetters. What is important is any traffic management during peak hours that might affect how I'm using it. I'd be interested in watching films from Netflix or LoveFilm and listening to Internet Radio stations but would not be happy if Traffic Management caused them to buffer.

pctech · May 03, 2012, 13:38:59

Traffic such as Netflix is suppoedly prioritised but when I was on a traffic managed ISP supposedly so were DNS lookups but in peak periods these would slow to a crawl too.

.Griff. · May 03, 2012, 13:57:13

Quote from: jezuk1 on May 03, 2012, 12:52:16
I would personally never touch an "all you can eat" service, even if it was FTTC. Just imagine all the people downloading 24/7 and over-contending the service.

This isn't a criticism of IDNet in any way, merely an observation after my 18 months with them, but one of the problems with a "you can only eat so much" service is that as soon as "off peak" hours start then everyone starts their downloads at exactly the same time and as an ironic result the network becomes heavily contended for a few hours at least. This was demonstrated in my time with IDNet when as soon as the clock struck midnight my connection would slow and people all started their downloads the second peak hours stopped and off peak began.

At least with unrestricted services people don't stack up their downloads and all start them at the same time. I know there's lots of concern about BT, SKY, Virgin etc all filling their networks to capacity and certainly in the case of Virgin evidence of this is available but it's a little too soon to state it's going to happen as if it's a fact. It's more a concern that people should take into account when choosing an ISP.

Technical Ben · May 03, 2012, 14:52:07

It's also not entirely the ISPs fault. If media industries were not so scared of "downloads" they could swap "streaming on demand" services over to reduce peak time bandwidth. If people could set up a list of movies to download before going to bed or work, they would be ready for them later. But "streaming on demand" means the entire network gets clogged up at 7pm when everyone sits down to watch a movie.

Not sure how ISPs are suppose to support the business model the media giants are pushing.

mervl · May 03, 2012, 15:18:22

As I see it the only point of the UK's competitive framework is to allow you to choose between competing marketing packages, as it's always the same BTOR local loop and, with two exceptions, the same BTw links back from the exchange to the PoP. For most people, and most of the time, the network isn't an issue. So if you don't like your ISP package offer you move, that's the way the system works. It's called competition and it's about time we were used to it. Too much of the modern western world, in my view, is made up of (the adult) babies screaming out to be fed (by someone else, always). Don't blame IDNet or shed crocodile tears.

Some of us (unbelievably to some people, no doubt) don't find it the end of the world to modify our habits to make the best of what we've got. It's old-fashioned economising (or sustainability in modern mumbo-jumbo) and it's good for the soul, and the planet. I appreciate IDNet's sticking to their principles and concentrating their attention on those matters I can't control namely their own part of the network and QoS, and I'm quite happy and capable of doing my part and managing my side of the equation which is my consumption. I never find slowdowns at the start, end or during off-peak hours, nor am I so addicted that I have to download for the sake of it, but then I think perhaps I live on a different (but happier) planet

! I'm really happy I don't have to deal with some of these miseries on the roads or in any queue, where it must be intolerable for them to deal with speed limits or not to have their every desire fulfilled instantly!!

Technical Ben · May 03, 2012, 15:45:04

True. But you can also manage your provider, and swap to one that offers the GBs you want.

pctech · May 03, 2012, 18:37:29

At the time I was with a traffic managed service owned by BT my line was running about 1.9 MB and at peak times the connection became unusable thanks to the traffic management even for basic browsing, I kept getting fobbed off by being told 'it was my line'.

Shorly before I left as a test I switched to their pro package (no traffic management) voila! the slowdowns disappeared.

By this time I'd had it with their lies so moved to a provider that had no traffic management at all.

Technical Ben · May 03, 2012, 22:24:14

Same here. Although with O2. Even their near perfect 5 year record in serving me on the mobile did not keep my custom when they started fobbing me off.
I guess it's the only thing keeping me here. Although I've now stopped playing online games. So I've got less reasons to need the higher ping times and consistent speeds.

pctech · May 03, 2012, 23:59:09

I've been with O2's mobile phone service on and off for about 6 years now, mainly because they seem to give the best coverage round here.

Whenever I've contacted them the customer service has been superb.

I did try their ADSL a few years back and the connection frequently resynched, I qeried this with them and all they wanted to do was send a BT engineer round, no other diagnostics from their end.

Gary · May 04, 2012, 07:52:58

There was me thinking idnet outsourced its out of hours service, which is why people complain about it

Users will choose what's best for their needs, my usage pattern is changing and I may need at a point to go with a product without the peak/off peak restrictions Idnet has, I have anytime+ and to make use of that I need to watch a TV show or film after midnight same problem using Netflix/Lovefilm. It's a real pain.

Gary · May 04, 2012, 08:03:24

Quote from: Technical Ben on May 03, 2012, 14:52:07
It's also not entirely the ISPs fault. If media industries were not so scared of "downloads" they could swap "streaming on demand" services over to reduce peak time bandwidth. If people could set up a list of movies to download before going to bed or work, they would be ready for them later. But "streaming on demand" means the entire network gets clogged up at 7pm when everyone sits down to watch a movie.

Not sure how ISPs are suppose to support the business model the media giants are pushing.

I agree, if I could choose a weeks worth of say films and back catalogue TV and plan it out over seven days and record after midnight that would be great, but people want to be able to just use it there and then, not plan it. This kind of media is not planned usage its a off the cuff moment 'lets watch a film' or 'I really liked that show, I'll watch some old episodes' planning that doesn't work but being able to just press a button and watch it on whim is what most people want. It is going to cause problems, but Sky seemed to manage for a few years on LLU doing that and people were happy, maybe because they knew nothing better was out there, or maybe because the difference isn't that huge after all and we just assume it is. $:-\$

Technical Ben · May 04, 2012, 10:25:51

BBC iplayer does allow you to do that to some degree. But even that does not allow an entire series download.
I agree it's not a complete solution Gary, but it would help. They could even add the option to their download services! IE, Series link that downloads at 7 in the morning so when you get up/back from work it's waiting on the pc.
Even Spotify could cache some songs to play later in the day. But noooooooo... it has to be streamed.

.Griff. · May 04, 2012, 10:45:18

Quote from: Technical Ben on May 04, 2012, 10:25:51
Even Spotify could cache some songs to play later in the day. But noooooooo... it has to be streamed.

Considering it's a "music streaming service" then it's not really surprising that "it has to be streamed".

If you're really that concerned about caching songs then surely you'd just purchase the songs and download them?

Quote from: Technical Ben on May 03, 2012, 14:52:07
But "streaming on demand" means the entire network gets clogged up at 7pm when everyone sits down to watch a movie.

Really? Any evidence for this?

What would you do? Ban iPlayer, 4OD, demand5, Netflix, Lovefilm, etc etc?

The whole purpose of on demand services is to give freedom to the user and remove time constraints. What's the alternative? Force people to decide hours in advance what they might watch that night and download the content in advance?

PS - I didn't mean to pick on your personally Ben it's just the two examples that stood out for me.

Technical Ben · May 04, 2012, 11:31:50

The proof is in the puffing Griff. If we could all download at 7pm, why is there such a low peak time cap right now? I was with O2, the service died at 5pm onwards. This was due to the service being saturated. It was a cost problem, but the bandwidth was not there to supply the demand. I don't think many places can cope with everyone watching HD at peak times and not overload the exchange. However the push is to streaming services, not to download services. Perhaps the network will progress and be able to cope, currently I don't think it can.

Besides, it misses the point. Why can't Spotify use a cache? If I decide to put a song on loop, it's a waste to keep it streaming from the server. It's crazy not to make the most of the resources on the consumers end IMO.

andrue · May 04, 2012, 11:55:37

Quote from: jezuk1 on May 03, 2012, 12:52:16
I would personally never touch an "all you can eat" service, even if it was FTTC. Just imagine all the people downloading 24/7 and over-contending the service.

Be managed until very recently and it's likely that their current problems are due to network upgrading rather than over contention. Unfortunately I don't think they ever made any money and their inability to create an FTTC product rather shows that. Unlimited is not a sustainable model unless you do it badly (which Be didn't) or can cross subsidise from other services.

Oh and for the record Be has an overseas support centre - in Bulgaria - and has some of the best liked and capable support staff I've ever known. They even chat on the forums and IRC. To be honest that's something I miss already. Not that I ever had many problems but they were great guys to chat to.

But ironically the faster my connection goes the less it seems I want to do with it. I hardly ever stream stuff. I never watch anything live but I use my PVRs rather than a catch-up service. If/when catch-up services can offer me broadcast quality and guarantee access to everything being transmitted I might be interested. Then again what's the point? My Sky HD box and Humax Freeset recorder are already doing a perfectly good job

cavillas · May 04, 2012, 12:08:17

Considering the Internet in this country is sent over the top of telphone lines that have been around since the early 1910-20's it's a miracle that we get connections at all. Let alone having films and tv played over a system that was designed for email and document display.

The latest fibre is gong some way to make the internet a better experience but the companies involved want massive profits without paying out for the solid infrastructure to be put in place quickly. They also charge far more then is reasonable for these services which are often over subscribed and shouldn't be because more infrastrtructure should be put in place as demand increases.

andrue · May 04, 2012, 14:02:02

Quote from: cavillas on May 04, 2012, 12:08:17The latest fibre is gong some way to make the internet a better experience but the companies involved want massive profits without paying out for the solid infrastructure to be put in place quickly. They also charge far more then is reasonable for these services which are often over subscribed and shouldn't be because more infrastrtructure should be put in place as demand increases.

You see that I'd disagree with. I don't think any company is making huge profits of internet access. Most are probably running it at a loss. I think internet access (residential at least) is far too cheap. Prices have been driven down to the point where it's nearly impossible to make a profit, let alone invest. And the investment needed is huge.

All the big players are almost certainly subsidising their broadband offerings from other services - the rise of the infamous 'bundle'. I bet if you looked at their books you'd find that Sky, Talk Talk and BT are all losing money on the broadband package. VM also of course but then until this year they'd never made a profit on anything so that's a really special case

So basically I don't accept the idea that we're being overcharged for cr*p. We're being undercharged and it's a damn' miracle that we have what we have and that it keeps getting better.

Technical Ben · May 04, 2012, 14:16:42

I was never complaining about being overcharged, hope it did not sound like it. Just that there is much room for better management of the system on the business side. Lets just say, bakers get up at 3 in the morning to make bread ready for their customers. The bakers don't tell their customers to "adjust your eating habits". I don't think an ISP should tell it's customers to "adjust your internet usage".

Simon_idnet · May 04, 2012, 14:22:47

I fully agree with you Andrue: for around £1 per day the Internet is astonishing value for money.

pctech · May 04, 2012, 15:34:05

Point is though if you want super cheap access that is available, just expect the network to be clogged.

andrue · May 04, 2012, 15:38:22

Quote from: Technical Ben on May 04, 2012, 14:16:42The bakers don't tell their customers to "adjust your eating habits". I don't think an ISP should tell it's customers to "adjust your internet usage".

Fair enough, sorry if I appeared to be having a bit of a go at you.

Be have something in FUP about affecting other users but I don't think anyone ever got told off other than the pillock who spammed the DNS server. There were people on their forums talking about downloading several hundred gigabytes a month and the support/mod staff would just laugh and congratulate them. Personally I don't see how anyone could find that much stuff to download in the first place. I'm averaging about 500MB a day at the moment and most of that is because as a new FTTC customer I'm running speed tests

I'm pretty sure my normal use will be well below the peak time 15GB once things settle down

pctech · May 04, 2012, 15:41:10

A colleague on O2 regularly got a 'friendly call' about his usage.

He has now moved to Sky.

Technical Ben · May 04, 2012, 16:10:16

Quote from: Simon_idnet on May 04, 2012, 14:22:47
I fully agree with you Andrue: for around £1 per day the Internet is astonishing value for money.

I agree! It's just we are use to "broadcast" services which is cheap, and many users for low bandwidth. As suppose to "contended" services which are expensive, and few users for large bandwidth.

IMO pay as you go seems to be the answer. You can "eat as much as you want". You just have to pay for what you eat.

Simon · May 04, 2012, 16:41:13

Quote from: andrue on May 04, 2012, 14:02:02
You see that I'd disagree with. I don't think any company is making huge profits of internet access. Most are probably running it at a loss. I think internet access (residential at least) is far too cheap. Prices have been driven down to the point where it's nearly impossible to make a profit, let alone invest. And the investment needed is huge.

All the big players are almost certainly subsidising their broadband offerings from other services - the rise of the infamous 'bundle'. I bet if you looked at their books you'd find that Sky, Talk Talk and BT are all losing money on the broadband package. VM also of course but then until this year they'd never made a profit on anything so that's a really special case

So basically I don't accept the idea that we're being overcharged for cr*p. We're being undercharged and it's a damn' miracle that we have what we have and that it keeps getting better.

Quote from: Simon_idnet on May 04, 2012, 14:22:47
I fully agree with you Andrue: for around £1 per day the Internet is astonishing value for money.

We'll know who to blame if IDNet suddenly double their charges, Andrue.

Technical Ben · May 04, 2012, 17:21:58

We could always tell Andrue they accept donations.

PS, I don't think you can put a price on honesty and hard work. It's priceless!

andrue · May 04, 2012, 17:27:19

Quote from: pctech on May 04, 2012, 15:41:10
A colleague on O2 regularly got a 'friendly call' about his usage.

Yeah well O2 is not Be even though it's the same parent company. Be is more expensive and better as a result

wecpcs · May 09, 2012, 20:12:41

Quote from: gwidnet on May 02, 2012, 18:49:41
Hi, I just wanted to say that sadly, after 6 years, I am just on the verge of signing with that evil conglomerate BT with their infinity package.

I never exceed my existing bandwidth, but the availability of sky anytime on any provider and the general trend towards streaming make the migration difficult to resist.

I have also just asked for my MAC and received and applied it within a few minutes to migrate to ZEN for their 100Gb download allowance as I want to use Sky Anytime+ and I feel the 30Gb peak allowance will not be sufficient. I have never exceeded my allowance and only ever use between 10-15Gb peak apart from about 80Gb one time (peak & non peak) when I had to do several installs of Windows 7 and Home Server with all the updates including all the STEAM games.

I am keeping my telephone account with Idnet, as their calls are slightly cheaper and the fact that if I find I get low peak time download speeds with Zen, which would defeat the whole object of the migration, then I would return cap in hand.

Bye folks (I will pop in occasionally)

Colin

Simon · May 09, 2012, 20:17:39

Good luck, Colin. Don't be a stranger here.

JB · May 10, 2012, 08:51:51

Quote from: wecpcs on May 09, 2012, 20:12:41
I have also just asked for my MAC and received and applied it within a few minutes to migrate to ZEN

Let us know how you get on. I moved from IDNet to Zen two months ago and so far all 100%

IDNet would still be my first choice if I contemplated a further change in the future. We live in the sticks, so no FTTP/FTTC for us. Just a steady 8 meg connection with a good noise margin.

wecpcs · May 15, 2012, 13:48:10

Quote from: 6jb on May 10, 2012, 08:51:51
Let us know how you get on. I moved from IDNet to Zen two months ago and so far all 100%

IDNet would still be my first choice if I contemplated a further change in the future. We live in the sticks, so no FTTP/FTTC for us. Just a steady 8 meg connection with a good noise margin.

I successfully migrated to Zen today and so far no change in download or upload speeds as expected as I sync at the maximum 8128/448. My latency though is now 50% higher around 38ms where as Idnet was around 24ms, not that I do online gaming, so no problem.

Colin