Thinking of joining IDNET

[jez9999]

Hello,

I'm a BE user thinking of switching to IDNET (obviously I don't want to put up with Sky).  I like IDNET because of the IPv6 offering but I have a few questions:
- Is IDNET just a BT reseller - if not, what provider do they user for their underlying backbone?
- Are the prices ever likely to drop?  They're pretty hefty at the moment.  I think £50 for a FTTC 500gb cap would be reasonable...
- If I join, do I get a free modem?  How much help do I get with IPv6 setup in general?
- What happens if you go over the download cap?  Do you start getting charged extra?
- Do IDNET provide some kind of monitoring to tell you how much data transfer you've used? (things are soooo much simpler with unlimited transfer...)
- Zen are now offering competitively-priced FTTC packages with unlimited data transfer (admittedly without IPv6).  Any plans for IDNET to do this?

[andrue]

I'm a BE user thinking of switching to IDNET (obviously I don't want to put up with Sky).

I came here over a year ago (you might remember me from the forums). I'm still here and don't intend to leave so that should tell you something

I like IDNET because of the IPv6 offering but I have a few questions:

Yup, it works. Only thing is finding a router that works. That can be a bit of a trial.

- Is IDNET just a BT reseller - if not, what provider do they user for their underlying backbone?

Well it's not just a BT reseller. It's a bloody good BT reseller

- Are the prices ever likely to drop?  They're pretty hefty at the moment.  I think £50 for a FTTC 500gb cap would be reasonable...

Sigh. The reason you are having to leave BE is because they didn't charge enough for what they were offering. Sometimes you have to accept that if you want the best you have to pay a premium.

- If I join, do I get a free modem?  How much help do I get with IPv6 setup in general?

BT provide the modem. You will need to supply a router. That's the normal arrangement with FTTC in the UK. You can buy a router off them that will do the job but it won't support IPv6. I know one router that does but I had other issues with it (firmware bug - it was unstable when I used VPN to access my work WAN) so am currently not using IPv6. I haven't heard or seen much support from IDNet as regards IPv6. I can tell you that if you use Windows as your router it will connect and pick up the IPv6 support without batting an eyelid. It uses 'dual-stack PPP' which one of my router manufacturers referred to as 'RADVD'.

- What happens if you go over the download cap?  Do you start getting charged extra?

Yup. Could be very expensive if you get truly carried away - I could run up something like £1 a minute if I went over my allowance 

- Do IDNET provide some kind of monitoring to tell you how much data transfer you've used? (things are soooo much simpler with unlimited transfer...)

Not until the day after so not much use for real-time monitoring. There's also an email alert based on predictions but it only fires twice a month.

[jez9999]

Thanks for the reply.  I do have one quibble though:

Sigh. The reason you are having to leave BE is because they didn't charge enough for what they were offering. Sometimes you have to accept that if you want the best you have to pay a premium.

As I mentioned at the end of my post, Zen are now offering unlimited data transfer FTTC for maybe £45/mo all in (including their line rental), so unlimited transfer shouldn't really be that much of a premium nowadays.  If Zen start offering IPv6 then they will have a better offering than IDNET, especially if IDNET don't have proper data usage monitoring (that's pretty lame; if they can measure your usage to cap and charge you, they can provide that monitoring information to you).

And surely BE didn't die because they offered unlimited transfer; they died because they sold out to Sky.  That sucks but it's not the same as going bankrupt because you're offering too much data transfer.

BT provide the modem. You will need to supply a router. That's the normal arrangement with FTTC in the UK. You can buy a router off them that will do the job but it won't support IPv6. I know one router that does but I had other issues with it (firmware bug - it was unstable when I used VPN to access my work WAN) so am currently not using IPv6.

Hum, kind of annoying that there isn't a modem-and-IPv6-router-in-one.  What I'd probably do is bridge the modem to my Linux box and use that as an IPv6 router for my home network.

[Simon]

I'm not great on the tech stuff, but I'm pretty sure there is a usage monitor that updates daily, and there's also an RSS feed.  At least, there is on ADSL.  Is this not the case for FTTC?

[Bill]

- What happens if you go over the download cap?  Do you start getting charged extra?

Yes- £1/GB or part thereof.

- Zen are now offering competitively-priced FTTC packages with unlimited data transfer (admittedly without IPv6).  Any plans for IDNET to do this?

Depends what you mean by "competitively-priced"- ~£100/month, including IPv6, business traffic priority and a 24-hour respond-and-fix SLA. Fibre Premium.

[colirv]

The Netgear WNR2200, which I use, is IPv6 compatible with the latest firmware.

As for competitive pricing, for what I now pay IDNet for a 40/2 service with 25GB allowance Zen will give me a 40/10 service with 50 GB allowance providing I take their telephone line as well.

[andrue]

And surely BE didn't die because they offered unlimited transfer; they died because they sold out to Sky.  That sucks but it's not the same as going bankrupt because you're offering too much data transfer.

No. BE/O2 are owned by Telefonica and Telefonica is in financial difficulty. It's unlikely that BE ever actually made a profit. O2 might have done but probably due to the bundling with mobile deals and overselling the network. I'll agree there was more to BE's demise than undercharging. The other part of the equation is that they were offering a service that very few people actually wanted. If there'd been enough interest they might have been able to make it pay (although from what I'm hearing since the takeover I'm now amazed their network worked at all).

So perhaps a combination of the two factors but in simple terms BE was making a loss. Probably always has made a loss. It's owners decided they had to offload it and only Sky stepped up. If Sky hadn't bought it it'd probably have been closed down anyway.

[jez9999]

Yes- £1/GB or part thereof.

Depends what you mean by "competitively-priced"- ~£100/month, including IPv6, business traffic priority and a 24-hour respond-and-fix SLA. Fibre Premium.

£100/mo is more than double what Zen are charging.  I'd say that's uncompetitive.

[jez9999]

So perhaps a combination of the two factors but in simple terms BE was making a loss. Probably always has made a loss. It's owners decided they had to offload it and only Sky stepped up. If Sky hadn't bought it it'd probably have been closed down anyway.

Funny that in other countries people can get fibre to the premises with no data caps whatsoever; it can't be fundamentally unviable to offer uncapped connections.

[andrue]

Funny that in other countries people can get fibre to the premises with no data caps whatsoever; it can't be fundamentally unviable to offer uncapped connections.

There's a lot of things people in other countries can do that we can't (and vice versa). All that proves is that different countries are..um..different

I would never suggest that it's fundamentally unviable however in the specific case of the UK history suggests that almost no-one has made it work here yet. The only ISP that seems to have got away with it is Sky and that's probably because they can bundle telephony and probably TV services with it. Owning the best bits of one of the UK's few telcos(*) probably helps.

If Telefonica had put proper funds into the business and built up their network they might have stood a chance. But they never did. In the early days BE used BT's BES/WES service as it was known then to link DSLAMs in exchanges. In later years they might have become more pragmatic and used other leased line providers but it still meant they were always paying a third party for everything except their own servers. It always surprised me how BE became as good as it was - it sounds like such a bargain basement arrangement. This wasn't some high tech expensive network - it was just a bunch of DSLAMs daisy changed together using leased lines. I think the problems we're seeing now (the big network upgrade fiasco) are evidence that it really was cobbled together.

Anyway the UK internet market has always been about two things:

• Low price
• Widespread availability (of something).

For a long time that was a big advantage (and may still be). We might not be able to set speed records nor download at full speed 24/7 but you have to live somewhere really remote to be stuck on an analogue modem and/or really poor not to be able to afford a connection. When all's said and done internet takeup and usage in the UK is amongst the highest in the world so we got something right there at least

Unfortunately that model is never going to deliver world quality services to large numbers of people. And that's why the UK residential scene is what it is. Somehow BT are managing to make enough money to fund an FTTC roll-out but I suspect a large part of that is (as it likely was with ADSL) about protecting the value in their local loop. They've been running slightly scared of mobile telephony for a while now. They have to keep people wanting their local loop because without it BT's value drops through the floor. I don't think FTTC is about making money - it's about BT trying to stay relevant.

Anyhoo the important point here is that IDNet are amongst the best ISPs you're likely to find. They aren't perfect but the small price premium is there for a reason and in my opinion worth paying

(*)They bought Easynet then sold off the customer service bits but kept the physical network.

[jez9999]

That still doesn't explain how Zen are planning to offer unlimited FTTC.     Maybe it's viable for them (and hopefully many more afterwards).

[andrue]

That still doesn't explain how Zen are planning to offer unlimited FTTC.     Maybe it's viable for them (and hopefully many more afterwards).

There's an explanation on TBB. Apparently Zen are using GEA and MPLS so in effect they are bypassing BT's wholesale service (for some exchanges at any rate). That cuts out the middle man which will help the financials make sense. Whether or not they can keep it going is another matter. In my experience <possible prejudice warning here > the kind of people who run their connections flat out and actually need an unlimited service are:

a) In the minority (which is a relief to all)
b) Tightwads who don't want to have to pay the full price for anything.


<End of prejudice>

This situation would put a nasty strain on ISPs that dare to try and offer an unlimited service. I can see how Sky can keep it going (thanks to bundling and sheer number of customers) but I'll be impressed if Zen can keep it going.

[mervl]

  Excellent analysis Andrue, the best I've read.

From what I can gather the QoS is IDNet's selling point, so they don't have slowdowns or restrict throughputs on their network. You place that against the caps, which is their way of ensuring the network and the capacity they buy from Wholesale, doesn't become overloaded. Zen are, I think, taking more of a risk but they are mitigating that by by passing part of the Wholesale network (reducing costs, but increasing them too by their own investment - which they are able to undertake with a larger customer base than IDNet), and I too think it looks very much like a toe in the water rather than a full market offer a la Sky. I suspect if it becomes too popular (and that's a question as Zen are not yet a major player) then it can be restricted (at least for new customers), although (at least after the initial burst of enthusiasm) most customers' demands on loading are relatively modest.

You can do anything if you ignore the economics and the history (or background) - except, of course you can't. Countries - and companies - are not the same. IDNet don't have the scale so they're rather like the quality organic grocer, Zen are rather larger and a bit better off to be able to take more risk. BT and Sky have the scale to cross-subsidise which the specialists don't, which is which is why BT need to protect their line rental income; and Sky their commercial Rights, so they need to maintain their customer base - not just the subscriptions but the advertising income - and which BT are so anxious to take a bite out off hence the sports rights bidding wars. And TT moan as they have the scale but not the scope for cross-subsidy. Life is all so unfair. And the customer is a pawn in this game.

[Lance]

Just to answer a couple of the questions in the OP more fully, Idnet also have a Telefonica hostlink as well as the BT one.

As for data monitoring, you can get a RSS feed with 24 hour updates, I seem to recall you can get daily emails with usage (not sure on this though), you get emails when your pattern of usage when extrapolated show you going over your limit and finally you can get the most up to date information from the website at anytime. I say most up to date because it is dependant on updates from the BT and Telefonica radius servers so is the most real time data available.

[jez9999]

Decided to go with Zen Unlimited Fibre 2.    I understand that Zen can do it because they're bigger and invested in more of a network, but still, I hope truly unlimited becomes the norm.  With people using more and more bandwidth for stuff on the internet, it's just nice not to have the hassle of worrying about data usage.

It's actually Zen getting back to their roots.  I remember way back in the day I was with them because they offered unlimited data transfer (like 10 years ago - actually looking at archive.org it was more like 5 years ago).  Then for a while they imposed some rather strict data caps and I went elsewhere.  Now that the caps are gone, I'm back.....

[psp83]

Hopefully with the other "better" ISP's changing bandwidth for the same price, we will see IDnet doing something the same in the future...

Or give loyal customers a "bonus"  *hint* *hint* 

[mervl]

  Well, as increasingly my useage falls further and further short of (even) my "old" package caps, you can have some of mine.

[andrue]

Well, as increasingly my useage falls further and further short of (even) my "old" package caps, you can have some of mine.

Mine's hovering around 30GB which rather surprises me. I don't even have any machines running Windows Update at the moment (they both get corrupted if allowed to update  ). I've used Sky's On Demand service once or twice but not very often.

Must be all the speedtests I'm running 

[Gary]

I seem to get quite close to my 100GB some months others its about 67-70GB but we have a lot of connected equipment and the Sky on demand is a bandwidth hog, I have to have it on the 5Ghz spectrum to get the best out of it. Its amazing that four years ago 5GB seemed like more than enough.

[colirv]

I used to manage on 10GB, until I got a HD TV and the ability to stream! Now I struggle, not always successfully, to stay within my 25GB FTTC limit, which is why I too will be watching IDNet's response to recent bandwidth offers elsewhere closely.

[mervl]

Just out of interest what's worth watching on Sky catch-up? I'm bored of seventies repeats (didn't think it was a good decade first time round), not a footie fanatic and forumulaic "drama" and even Sky Arts seems stuck in a time warp. And most commentaries on live sport seem to come out in a rotating tape of machine speak. I seem to have retired but the brain hasn't realised yet, perhaps, or may be hasn't woken up. Clearly I'm suffering from subscription inertia. Terresterial TV (and radio increasingly) seems to be suffering the Sky disease too. Telling you how wonderful it is with increasing desperation as the creative content evaporates. 

[Steve]

I think once you've caught up that's it, bandwidth usage falls and then I suppose don't watch telly for another 10 years and then catch up again.

[psp83]

I think once you've caught up that's it, bandwidth usage falls and then I suppose don't watch telly for another 10 years and then catch up again.

What's TV ? haven't watched it in ages... spend any of my spare time out on my mountain bike or doing other exercises...

Much better things to do than to sit on your arse watching tv 

[andrue]

Just out of interest what's worth watching on Sky catch-up?

Very little

The only reason I've had to use it is when there has been a screw up. On one occasion I missed the first episode of something and on another occasion series link went wrong (prolly the broadcaster rather than the box) and I missed something that way.

Having written that though my box is currently very busy and I'm struggling to find free tuners for all that I want. Given the quality of the HD offerings on demand I might consider watching some things from there if I can't find tuner space. The only problem is that they don't have series link and most are time limited. If I knew a series would be available as a box set I'd happily go that route.

But 9.9 times out of 10 my own perusal of the EPG and careful planning means I don't need On Demand. And you're right it's mostly repeats (ignoring the films). I hate watching repeats. There's currently more original material available across the Sky platform than I can watch - at the moment every week the free space of my 1.5TB disk drops by 1.5%