Sadly I am going as well

.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