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[Ixel]

First of all, apologies if this is the wrong section of the forum to post this thread on.

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Hi all,
I'm with Zen Internet at the moment, have had no issues with their service but I'm moving address soon and may need an option for bonded FTTC due to not so good speed estimate. I was going to go with Uno but it seems they don't have a line rental service yet. I tried doing this over the phone but that wasn't possible either. I've considered Andrews & Arnold but they seem rather pricey for Office::1, especially as neither of the two lines would support phone calls in and out as they are broadband only so would mean I'd need a third line just for phone calls.

So far, as I see it, my only options are to either:
- Order the phone lines from somewhere which has a line rental/phone only option at a reasonable price (maybe Pulse8 or ICUK?), then order bonded FTTC from Uno after they are active (presumably a potential of around 4 weeks, 2 for the phone lines and 2 for the FTTC activations?)
... or ...
- Order a single phone line and FTTC from a provider such as Zen and hope that the speed's at least around the higher end of the estimate that the BT checker says for the address I'm moving to soon (presumably could be simultaneously provided therefore around two weeks?)

Any ideas or suggestions? Thanks in advance.

[Weaver]

I use Andrews & Arnold's bonded DSL service. I use their VoIP service too, either redirected to a mobile phone or coming into a VoIP device on the house LAN which speaks DECT to a couple of wireless handsets.

[Ixel]

I see. Unfortunately A&A are just out of the question, the office::1 prices are beyond what I'd like to pay. My budget is ideally no more than £150/mo. At the moment it's looking like my options are limited. I wish Zen did MLPPP or otherwise some kind of bonding option but I'm fairly certain they don't . If I do go for a one line solution then I wonder if Zen perhaps do deals for existing customers or whether it's just the pricing as shown on the website, as I pay a much lower line rental monthly at the moment than the price shown on their website.

[Weaver]

I don't know if anyone offers MLPPP in this DSL era. I was surprised that it seemingly isn't in use any more, but AA suggest that MLPPP is only a good fit for services such as ISDN where the pipes are identical. IP-level load sharing across multiple DSL lines can be done right even if the lines are at different speeds.

I have three DSL lines, and I don't use Office::1, I just use the traditional pay-for-units tariff

[Ixel]

I don't know if anyone offers MLPPP in this DSL era. I was surprised that it seemingly isn't in use any more, but AA suggest that MLPPP is only a good fit for services such as ISDN where the pipes are identical. IP-level load sharing across multiple DSL lines can be done right even if the lines are at different speeds.

I have three DSL lines, and I don't use Office::1, I just use the traditional pay-for-units tariff

Oh I see. Fair enough. Well unfortunately load balancing isn't really an option either as I want aggregate bandwidth, thanks for the suggestion/idea though.

EDIT: I've been told somewhere else that Sharedband might be an option?

[Weaver]

I think we are at cross-purposes, I suspect that you and I are talking about the same thing. The AA system simply pours IP packets down the n pipes in, it seems, an intelligent speed-weighted round-robbin fashion so that you get the combined throughput of all the pipes as if they were aggregated into one pipe. (I didn't mean some system that assigns individual TCP connections to one pipe only -and how would non TCP traffic work?)

My Firebrick gives me full upstream bandwidth aggregation. The downstream numbers add up to 100%, pretty much no efficiency losses that I'm aware of, depending on how you measure the throughput. Same for upstream.

I don't think you'd be disappointed with A&A, just poor. :-)

[Ixel]

Too poor .

Well, I've just called Pulse8 this morning but they aren't sure if they do a routed block of 8 static IP addresses (which is important as I run a server here), so have been advised to email them the question.

I also called Zen Internet (my current ISP) this morning, most importantly to see if I could retain the existing line rental price of around £12 a month rather than pay the inflated price of around £17 a month, but it seems customer loyalty means nothing and I'd apparently get landed with the higher price for line rental. They did check whether the address I'm moving to has an active line however, apparently it does but they said something about they will need to either stop and then re-activate it, or I pay for a new line install (got slightly confused near the end of the call). I assume another provider has the line still.

If I do go for a bonded solution I think I'll try Sharedband over two different ISP's for resilience. For the moment I'm waiting for Pulse8 to reply to my question, if they do offer a routed block of 8 IP's then I'll go for them, though this won't be important if I do end up needing a second line as Sharedband will be allocating the IP's instead.

[guest]

AFAIK the only people in the UK who will do it in an aggregated fashion are AAISP. They'll even do it (IIRC) with two different backhauls (TT & BT) for resilience.

Edit - I'm sure there's some very niche players who can do it in certain regions but AAISP are the only ones I know of offering it UK-wide.

[Weaver]

Rizla is quite correct. They do suggest using a pairing of a BT line and a TalkTalk Business line.

[guest]

Been a while since I looked but I think it requires a Firebrick too - which I think they supply as part of the contract but like I said its been a fair while so that might not be the case now.

What AAISP do with aggregation isn't tremendously difficult but its sufficiently out of the ordinary that most ISPs wouldn't touch it due to support costs (ie having to actually train people to understand stuff rather than read a script ).

Edit - I gave up on Zen nearly 15 years ago when one of their employees was stealing customer credit card numbers for use on Steam & mine was one of them. I got point-blank denial after denial that it was anything to do with Zen (I knew it was) & so I went through their complaints procedure (which they totally ignored). Near the end of that process I said "its the ombudsman in the next 5 days" & I got a response (as per their complaints procedure of the time) from the MD himself. Basically it said "p00 happens, what do you want me to do about it, bye". Enough said.

[Weaver]

@Rizla - I don't see why you need a Firebrick specifically for d/s aggregation. You do of course need something that has two or more inputs. I was originally intending to do this with a horribly scary and horribly expensive Juniper device that had two DSL modules plugged into it (so no PPPoE, and no MTU issue).

I did give Zen a trial for a year, at another site, while considering AA, but AA just blew my mind and simply won out over Zen.

[guest]

Like I said its been a while but ISTR that the Firebrick used to be a prerequisite for aggregating different backhauls on FTTC. Better off asking RevK than me

[Ixel]

Thanks for the comments and feedback. Well, I spoke with Zen again today just to confirm their policy on retention and it's definitely a no. However, as I was preparing to end the call stating my intentions to choose another provider at the new address, the guy checked my account and found that I was infact paying slightly more compared to the same package and increased line rental. To get to the point, I stuck with Zen for the following reasons (at least for my first line):
- The new line install cost was reduced significantly
- Activation fee for FTTC was waived
- I downgraded my choice of plan to initially unlimited fibre 1, will check on attainable speed once it's live
- Simultaneous provide has been arranged

Install date, if I don't get an engineer no-show or a botched job from a subcontractor if one of them turns up instead, is Friday 9th October for both phone and FTTC. I've been told I'll keep my existing number but it'll have to be moved over after the line becomes available. I'll also keep my existing block of 8 routed static IP's.

I will likely try, and hopefully use, Sharedband (if I need a second line). The second line will be the one that is apparently currently active, hence why I opted for a new line install for sake of saving time despite a little more to pay for the setup. Maybe the previous tenants at the property were unable to cease the line or otherwise forgot to do so. I'm not sure who it's with but I imagine it'll either be Sky or TalkTalk.

One thing I'd like, which I don't know if it's possible, is for the existing master socket and new master socket to be located in the upstairs front bedroom rather than the living room. Is this possible to do if I ask the engineer and offer tea/coffee and biscuits ?

[AArdvark]

The Engineer should put the Socket where you want it.
I had the new socket moved upstairs to the Bedroom I use as my Study with no problems.
The Engineer was a BT OR man and not from one of the contractors. 

You may need the Tea/Biscuits if you draw a short straw, if you know what I mean 

Black Sheep will be able to say what the official line is for this.
What you get will probably depend on what the ISP is paying OR for, at the end of the day !!

[burakkucat]

One thing I'd like, which I don't know if it's possible, is for the existing master socket and new master socket to be located in the upstairs front bedroom rather than the living room. Is this possible to do if I ask the engineer and offer tea/coffee and biscuits ?

That should be possible and if you have an Openreach technician on the day, I would be surprised if it was refused.

Just wondering . . . Is it an aerial or underground service feed at your new property? If aerial, I would suspect that the job could be done by diverting the service feed as it wends its way to the ground floor.