Kitz Forum
Broadband Related => ISPs => Topic started by: aesmith on November 29, 2015, 06:50:53 AM
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Hi,
We're in the market for a new broadband and phone provider. Currently both BB and phone are with the same outfit, so need to move both even if they end up in different places. I was thinking of A&A for broadband, but don't know where that would leave us with the phone - possible cut off when our existing provider gets the BB moved away from them?
Any other decent ISPs offering service to bog standard 20CN customers without stupid price rises?
I'm fed up with ISP and comparison web sites that offer loads of deals, but then only late on in the process suddenly withdraw the service as unavailable at our address, or drastically change the price. For example Zen - put in phone number and postcode, hit "check availability" and a list of options comes up with my number and postcode at the top of the page, however there's another "check my line" option and when you select that the price nearly triples.
Thanks,
Tony S
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Tony
A and A are of course one option (if you can afford them); I have moved and tried several ISP's over the years on my 20C exchange and my only advise is don't stray too far from BT.
Plusnet throughput was good but I can no longer recommend them due to call waiting times for support/line faults.
All others I have tried over the years always seem to have insuffient backhaul with peak time slowdows to about 1Mbps (post office, zen and vodafone); things may have changes since I was with these providers but may have not.
I am currently with BT business (£24/month broadband only) with care level 2, which is a 48 hour fix and pulse8 for line and calls (about £15/month inc caller display) again this is care level 2.
When compared to the non-discounted prices of BT and plusnet they are very similar, but with quicker fixes if problems do occur.
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Have a look at Pulse8 (https://pulse8broadband.co.uk/line-packages) for the phone.
Line rental £13 (inc.VAT). 1p per minute peak, 0.8p per minute off-peak. All calls charged to the nearest second with no minimum call connection fees.
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Thanks for the comments. Pulse8 sound good for the phone line. Regarding A&A, yes they're expensive compared to some, but only £1/month more than BT, and less than Zen. I have a specific concern which is that BT's DSL checker always comes up with an estimated figure of 1meg for us, even though we've synched at over 4 for just about all of the last four years. A&A are probably the only ISP where there'd be the slightest chance of sending by DSL figures and asking to give a sensible speed estimate for my actual line. I don't want another ISP like Plusnet who keep raking up that estimated figure and making out as if I was trying it on to expect better.
Cutting to the chase, I'm with Plusnet for both BB and Phone. Would I be better transferring Broadband first, then moving the phone line? I'm still within the promotional period with PN, and although I have it in writing that I can move away without penalty I don't want to unnecessarily rock the boat. I still expect a fight but want to smooth the way as soon as possible. Obviously if I was moving Phone and BB to the same provider I'd just let them sort out the sequence.
Thank,
Tony S
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A&A..£25 for 100Gb....not quite enough for my family when all in residence..plenty for my wife and I.
An estimate is just that an estimate...The figure an isp should look at is the fault threshold rate...http://www.kitz.co.uk/adsl/maxdsl2.htm (http://www.kitz.co.uk/adsl/maxdsl2.htm)
I just left plusnet, moved dsl first (10 working days) then phone....it takes 28 days to move both.
Good luck with the move.
Ian
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I have been an A & A user for five years or thereabouts. I use AA’s VoIP service for fixed phone line. This means that my copper lines have no POTS on them at all, they are DSL-only.
Highly delighted with their service. Notorious for proselytising. :-[ Understandably you hear a lot from users when they have problems, so why not when they have good experiences too.
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The figure an isp should look at is the fault threshold rate...http://www.kitz.co.uk/adsl/maxdsl2.htm (http://www.kitz.co.uk/adsl/maxdsl2.htm)
Yes that's another oddity - our MSR and FTR are dated a couple of weeks before we first had DSL, so equally unrelated to reality
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I just left plusnet, moved dsl first (10 working days) then phone....it takes 28 days to move both.
Who did you move to, if you don't mind me asking?
Thanks, Tony S
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Who did you move to
I refer the right honourable gentleman to my previou reply :P
I am currently with BT business (£24/month broadband only) with care level 2, which is a 48 hour fix and pulse8 for line and calls
;D
Ian
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Sorry, I was being a dumb ass.
Anyway, just had a knock back from A&A. I sent them a screenshot of the line data with attenuation, noise margin, synch rate etc. However as far as they're concerned the BT estimate is 1meg so that's all I can expect. Followed by a brief sales pitch for multiple bonded lines. I've gone back to them in the hope that I've misunderstood, but as it stands I'd be paying a premium price to get only a quarter of my current speed.
Back to the drawing board I guess. Based purely on price (which is what it might come down to if A&A don't offer any particular benefit), it's looking like Post Office may be an option. Does anyone know who operates their network?
Tony S
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I don't understand why you think you would be getting 1 Mbps instead of 4. With a better modem, and other hardware bits and bobs improved you might even see an increased d/s sync rate.
You should ask for the line to be put back into the training phase once you get your chosen modem installed, plus top quality modem cable and microfilter if you need one. The training phase will establish your MSR and from that your FTR (do I have that right Burakkucat?). Then you will have a proper estimate of what "ok" means.
You can't expect AA or anyone else to make predictions, I'm afraid. It all depends in modems cables and siting in a clean location in the premises.
Stick with it, if you do all the right things, standard recipes for improving sync rate,mother uouneill see improved results.
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I think you should ignore the BT estimated speed, if you have achieved 4Mbps previously there should be no reason why you could not achieve the same with a different ISP. This is particularly relevant to a 20CN exchange where all consumers use the same BT equipment. My BT wholesale estimate is up to 2Mbps and my actual sync speed is the full rate of 8128Mbps down and 448Kbps up so it just shows that the estimates are not to be relied on. You will be OK to go with A&A if you are happy with their usage charges, they can get a bit pricey for heavy usage. I don't think you will reduced to a quarter of your current speed.
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What RealAleMadrid said. ;D
Sync rate is all down to your modem, cabling and the DSLAMs in the exchange which will be the same for whichever ISP you are using.
The DLink DSL-320B modem (available to non-customers from the AAISP shop
http://aaisp.net.uk/broadband-accessories.html (http://aaisp.net.uk/broadband-accessories.html)
) might well be faster than your current modem. Give it a treat and put it with a top quality faceplate-type microfilter (again AA shop) if you need one, and a Tandy RJ45 / RJ11 cable ( http://www.tandyonline.co.uk/high-speed-rj11-dsl-cable-0-5m.html (http://www.tandyonline.co.uk/high-speed-rj11-dsl-cable-0-5m.html) - various lengths available).
You can do all of these good things without signing your life away to AA or anyone else. Whatever you get at L2/L1 is all down to your hardware + BTOr anyway, as RealAleMadrid said.
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I don't work for AAISP, and I have no connection with them at all except for being an overly delighted customer who finds it a relief to talk to people who really know what they are on about.
And I'm still waiting for my commission cheque (due exactly 0 × p = £0.00, so I've probably been sacked).
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Thanks, A&A are worth pursuing, but I think I need to get on the phone to them. I was pretty disheartened by their email "I can see from the BT line checker that you can't expect to get more than 1Mbps on your line." in spite of the fact that I sent them actual line measurements showing the connection parameters right at that moment. I was hoping for something more constructive along the lines of them agreeing that I should get more or less the same speed as from my current provider. (Actually my two previous suppliers, I was with a company provided Demon service for three years, and it was only the loss of that benefit that led to the ill advised choice of Plusnet.)
I've put quite a bit of work into getting my line up to scratch starting off by getting rid of rubbish internal extension wiring, then latterly adding VDSL faceplate and minimising cable lengths and using screened cable. Also reporting any sort of noise on the line helps as well. I'm fed up with Plusnet claiming that my higher speed (higher than 1meg) is contributing to their problems, although that's far from the only reason for wanting shot of them.
I'm kind of on the fence at the moment, between just going with A&A on trust, vs trying to get something more encouraging from them before committing.
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> between just going with A&A on trust, vs trying to get something more encouraging from them before committing.
I don't think that the sales staff shouldn't be allowed give you any kind of guarantees, they probably aren't allowed to. The FTR is your guarantee, and you can effectively get that set for you by asking support, as I mentioned earlier. Pick your excellent modem and choice of router. (Such as the DLink I mentioned earlier.)
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You can also talk to real humans, actual users, on IRC, to get the truth. See
http://aa.net.uk/kb-irc.html (http://aa.net.uk/kb-irc.html)
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The training phase will establish your MSR and from that your FTR (do I have that right Burakkucat?).
Yes, indeed. :) Kitz describes the process on the How DSL Max works (http://www.kitz.co.uk/adsl/maxdsl2.htm) page of the main site.
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Cheers, getting MSR and FTR reset is on my list, at the moment they're shown as 2272/1817, figures which are dated prior to broadband even being provisioned on our line. Originally I was going to ask Plusnet to reset the training period, but at this stage I can't face trying get them to understand the request.
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Best of luck, and let us know how you get on.
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Haven't managed to phone A&A, but I just received the most discouraging email after the sales guy consulted with the bigwigs in A&A. The written word can be misinterpreted of course, but it reads as if they treat that BT line estimate as gospel. They say it might run a little faster it will only be by a small fraction. He finished up by recommending that I stay with Plusnet. To be honest that last comment was quite annoying, it certainly implies that I'm not the sort of customer they want. I will have a chance to phone them tomorrow, but honestly am I just going to be wasting my time?
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I wish I could find out where that "Estimated Speed" comes from and whether it can be corrected. I've just checked an address where we lived a few years ago, with a line length of over 6km, and it comes up with an estimate of 3 on the Kitz checker with number and postcode, or up to 3, range 2-4 on the BT one that takes number only. We got around 3.5 when we lived there, so in that case it's not a million miles out. Even our neighbour's number here comes up with a higher figure than ours, although only 1.5 in his case.
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Have a chat with RevK, the MD. You can find him on IRC, Twitter (@TheRealRevK), every medium. He's a really nice guy. I think some of their salesmen aren't especially smooth by the sound of it.
You won't be making a mistake if you simply go for it, but you don't have to do so on faith, talk to some of the other users on IRC and ask them straight "Is A&A rubbish or what?". ;D
See : http://aa.net.uk/kb-irc.html (http://aa.net.uk/kb-irc.html)
You can also take a look at http://ispreview.co.uk (http://ispreview.co.uk) too, lots and lots of A & A users' detailed reviews there.
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Re estimated speed - remember it's all a fiction anyway, as it depends on what modem you are using and the quality of cables and umpteen other things. They would have to out a load of qualifiers onto it to make it at all meaningful.
The difference between an aggressive modem (DLink DSL-320B) and a snoozy modem (Draytek Vigor 130) is around 30% here, more when the effect of the BT sync rate bands are taken into account.
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Sorry to bump this one, but just wondered if there were any other ISPs I should check out, I'm looking for one with decent support who will takeover both DSL and phone line so I have only a single point of contact. I've been put off separating the two after this last fault where it took six OR visits more or less alternating between BB and PSTN engineers - I imagine that would never have got resolved if the two had been via separate suppliers.
A&A would require me to lose our phone number, not ideal. I'm ruling out Zen and Pulse 8 on their DSL pricing for 20CN, quite a few others won't provide at all, and obviously Origin and John Lewis is ruled out since they use Plusnet anyway.
I think that's left me with ..
BT retail
Post Office (don't know whose network they use)
Sky (although last time I checked they wouldn't provide to a non-subscriber at our location, so order might fail anyway)
SSE
However none of those stand out to me as "quality" providers, these are just the ones that come up on the comparison web sites. Most of the old school ISPs that I used to know seem to have disappeared or now only do business lines.
Thanks, Tony S
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It's a shame that the conversations with AA sales didn't go well. Nevertheless, none of that affects the fact that they remain an excellent ISP, and they are the one for you. You should just go with them, having talked to AA customers if you wish, so you can assure yourself. You can also read the reviews on ispreview.
Other things can be fixed separately, once the critical decision has been made.
BT Retail or Andrews and Arnold? ;D
I'll be happy to help in any way I can.
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Sorry to bump this one, but just wondered if there were any other ISPs I should check out, I'm looking for one with decent support who will takeover both DSL and phone line so I have only a single point of contact.
Do you have a telephone number of a public building (pub, church etc.) that I could use in ISP checkers to see what they offer 20CN customers?
And perhaps one line over why you want to leave Plusnet (end of promo offer?)
I think that's left me with ..
BT retail
Post Office (don't know whose network they use)
Sky (although last time I checked they wouldn't provide to a non-subscriber at our location, so order might fail anyway)
SSE
Of those:
- Sky have a long standing issue of under-provisioning backhaul from non LLU exchanges;
- The Post Office used to use BT Wholesale white label service - but switched to Talktalk (http://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2012/05/postoffice-moves-broadband-platform-from-bt-to-fujitsu-and-talktalk-uk.html) with Capita providing the CS in 2013 (the less said about this the better)
- SSE use Daisy Comms for backhaul. There is a question mark over how well some exchanges are provisioned (aka Sky)
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... the fact that they remain an excellent ISP, and they are the one for you....
If they'd leave the line accepting incoming calls I'd already have my order in progress, but as it stands the options with A&A are ..
1. Lose our existing phone number (vetoed by family)
2. Keep our phone line with someone else. In my mind that removes the point of a high quality support service if they don't support the troublesome bit which is the copper line.
3. Port our number into SIP, which I think is going to be the only viable A&A option, though there's an element of burning boats because there's no way back from that once it's done. Also, number ports are always an iffy process, subject to delays and uncertainty.
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Just seen this, couple of points:
AIUI 2272/1817 are the default figures used if for some reason the line didnt go through the full training period.
If you move between WBC/WMBC then records such as MTR and IPprofiles should follow and dont get reset. Although saying that the ISP should be able to ask for a reset.
Did you try phoning up Zen btw about market differential. I asked Azzaka last week, but he's in Oz atm which is why he wasnt able to respond direct.
The other thing, unless Ive missed something why would A&A require you to lose your phone number?
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Do you have a telephone number of a public building (pub, church etc.) that I could use in ISP checkers to see what they offer 20CN customers?
Here's a local takeaway on the same exchange, 01464 831181 AB54 4NP. They're much closer than us, but that shouldn't matter for these purposes.
And perhaps one line over why you want to leave Plusnet (end of promo offer?)
I want rid of Plusnet because their support service stinks, and the amount of time I have had to devote to chasing them is just sickening.
By the way, to what extent do Post Office use Talk Talk? I though TT were only LLU, and for example they don't provide service to our address. Surely anyone who does offer service must by definition be using BT Wholesale?
Thanks, Tony S
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@gt94sss2
afaik Daisy also use quite a lot of BTw for residential provisioning backhaul. They have their own core, but use WBC for many exchanges and also some IPSC for 20cn exchanges.
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By the way, to what extent do Post Office use Talk Talk? I though TT were only LLU, and for example they don't provide service to our address. Surely anyone who does offer service must by definition be using BT Wholesale?
Yes,Talktalk (like Sky etc.)would need to buy some capacity from BT to carry the traffic until it hits its own network. The question is do they buy enough to support their customer base..
Though with TT having Capita doing the CS would also not fill me with confidence..
@gt94sss2
afaik Daisy also use quite a lot of BTw for residential provisioning backhaul. They have their own core, but use WBC for many exchanges and also some IPSC for 20cn exchanges.
Yes, as above its just whether they have enough capacity. I know many SSE users complained when their fibre products showed severe contention previously.. but there tends to be less feedback about Daisy compared to the others.
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Just seen this, couple of points:
Cheers. Currently Plusnet show 2272/1817 for our line. Scrolling through the 83 pages of the fault ticket it's been 2272/1817 at all times except for a week or so when they showed 288/288, then another few days when it was shown as 3432/2739 before reverting to 2272/1817. From all that I conclude that Plusnet have neither carried through the previous figures, not properly recorded their own. I can't see that any constructive would come of asking them to explain, especially not at this stage.
I didn't phone Zen, the answers I got were by email ..
Unfortunately the prices for ADSL Broadband do go off the area whether its low cost or high cost. We was swallowing the cost previously on connections in this area but are unable to do this anymore. The High cost areas are rural areas We have around 5 % of our whole customer base in these areas.
Re A&A, if they take over the phone line it is for DSL only with no incoming calls permitted. On the web site they say that sometimes they'll allow incoming calls, but when I spoke to them their sales manager confirmed they wouldn't do so in this case.
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The Post Office used to use BT Wholesale white label service - but switched to Talktalk with Capita providing the CS in 2013 (the less said about this the better)
I was a little confused about that article and thinking what have fujitsu got to do with it. Reading between the lines, when using the white label service, then they are buying lock stock and barrel provision from BTw without any of their own gateway equipment. AIUI (please correct me if Im wrong), white label is for those ISPs who dont want to invest in things such as host links, MSILs, RADIUS authentication, IP allocation etc etc. BT does absolutely everything up to the point where traffic joins the internet and the white label SP pays on a per customer basis.
Therefore if they started using TT wholesale then they'd need to invest in some of their own gateways and other network equipment.. which is possibly where fujitsu comes in. The old junipers which Plusnet use could easily take up a good chuck of a £million, no idea how much the new BNGs cost.
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Did AA show willingness to port your existing number into VoIP ?
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Just checking on that at the moment. I believe that you can't port a number from a line that you don't own, otherwise the line gets ceased. If that's the case then there'll be a period from when A&A take over, until the port completes and during that time the number will be unreachable for incoming calls. However I've asked for these details and we'll see what they say.
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Did AA show willingness to port your existing number into VoIP ?
So the answer to that is yes they will, and can do at any time, before they "own" the line. It's not clear what happens to the line if I do that though. Talk about getting blood out of a stone, every answer they give seems to leave more questions. Things like that need to be properly managed, at work we've seem plenty of cases where lines have been accidentally ceased by doing these things in the wrong order.
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I use AA's VoIP service. It redirects either to a VoIP device of your choosing (I have a Siemens N300 device), or to another phone number such as a mobile phone, or to both (whoever picks up first). I've found the mobile phone thing very useful, and in fact then you don't even need a VoIP device at all!
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STILL no straight and complete answer from A&A. They've come back to confirm that the number port will cease the line, which will then have to be reactivated. I don't know costs for that, and although they estimate only 24-48 hour outage to reactivate I'm concerned because they haven't really spelled out the exact process. I've known plenty of cases where lines have been out for 5-10 working days if ceased by mistake, or by carrying out number port operations in the wrong order.
Still there seem to be no other decent ISPs offering service on 20CN, so it looks like either try and pick my way through the obstacles that A&A put in the way of potential customers, or give up on them and just sign up with whoever's cheapest.
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It will all turn out well, they are very on the ball. And you can always talk to RevK if you get any problems.
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I think I now have the full answer from A&A. Their proposal is that I carry out the number port first, this will kill off the telephone line and associated DSL. If all goes well then A&A will be able to re-activate within one to two working days. Then finally they'll place a new DSL order with a five working day lead time. So it looks like going with them for line and broadband will mean at least a 7 working day blackout for both phone and Internet. I don't think we can live with that. It will also mean cancellation charge from Plusnet (I think), since it's a cancelation rather than a migration, and probably a new install charge from A&A.
So the options seem to be either go with them just for DSL, moving the line to someone else (Pulse 8), or to forget A&A altogether and try to find another provider offering decent service on 20CN. I can't think that A&A will really deliver if someone else has the phone line, but I think it's only a six month contract so if it ends up a bag of worms at least that's not too long.
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Sorry to dig up an old thread. I'm now looking to a 20CN ISP and it looks like AAISP aren't taking connections from 20CN customers anymore.
Are there any recommendations that don't break the bank?
Thanks
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If you would be able to tell us which exchange you are connected to, that would be good, as you may have LLU service from TalkTalk or Sky. In this case, that means that the fact your exchange is 20CN doesn't matter, as LLU service providers provide their own equipment.
If they aren't present however, it may be work looking at Zen Internet. I am with them at the moment, and their performance and customer service are impeccable. I have had some long wait times on their customer service, however this was immediately after a lot of thunderstorms, so they were getting a lot of calls.
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If they aren't present however, it may be work looking at Zen Internet. I am with them at the moment, and their performance and customer service are impeccable.
Last time I checked they appeared to charge a premium for 20CN, although according to Zen that's not the case. Best thing to do is punch in their number and see what they offer. Checking mine just now it looks like they're more competitive than they used to be, although still more expensive than A&A.
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Last time I checked they appeared to charge a premium for 20CN, although according to Zen that's not the case. Best thing to do is punch in their number and see what they offer. Checking mine just now it looks like they're more competitive than they used to be, although still more expensive than A&A.
To be honest, I understand why Zen are charging more for 20CN, as RevK of A&A said in a blog post that 20CN is something like almost 2x the cost per GB on BTWholesale.
My main reason for loving Zen is that from my experience I have never seen congestion on their core network, and their core network has amazingly low pings. I am getting lower pings than people on FTTC with BT even though I am on ADSL2+. Plus I have never had issues with any sites being blocked, nor any issues with their board making stupid decisions (unlike KCOM...).
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No LLU im affraid.
https://www.samknows.com/broadband/exchange/SMBEN
Feels like stepping back in time after having FTTC for the last 4 years!
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Yeah, looking at that your options are restricted to those who offer 20CN through BT Wholesale. According to BT Wholesale, there are currently no plans to upgrade your exchange within the next 3 months.
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Could perhaps try Origin. It doesn't say anything on their website that I can see,, regarding additional charges for 20CN exchanges.
They use various suppliers depending upon location. It may be worth giving them a call or use their online chat just to check if they do or don't. Support is 24/7.
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Keep us posted on what you find, I'm working on the assumption that I will have to leave A&A within at most the medium term, as like you there's no plan for our exchange to go 21CN.
Quick check just now looks as if Origin not only don't charge a premium, but even preserve their special offer. It's possible that if I'd hit the "order" button it would have changed I suppose. When I checked them out at the start of the year their delivery outside Yorkshire was all provided by Plusnet, so I'm not sure what if any benefit they would provide over Plusnet direct.
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To be honest, I understand why Zen are charging more for 20CN, as RevK of A&A said in a blog post that 20CN is something like almost 2x the cost per GB on BTWholesale.
I'm not so sure about that. OFCOM did a review a couple of years ago and decided that LLU had basically reached saturation to all but the most remote exchanges which were viewed as unprofitable. I think they finally saw sense that the LLU's didnt want to enter those exchanges, so they rejigged things so that BTw could provide cheaper 'alternative' access for the LLUs if they wanted to use BTw.. so capped the max amount that BTw could charge at those exchanges.
The pricing got all confusing for a while and even BTw muxed up Market A and Market B on one of their price lists. I think RevK also got confused (I know I did!) and theres a discussion somewhere on these forums about it. RevK went quiet as he later realised that those exchanges do indeed now qualify for discounts and caps on pricing. Strictly speaking I cant see any reason why now the likes of Plusnet should be charging more.
iirc ejs found a document showing the WMBC charges, but here are the new WBC charges, which are just the same barring core transit as WBC only goes up to the Internodes. Access and backhaul should be similar for both WBC and WBMC.
Link to WBC price list 01/10/22016 (https://www.btwholesale.com/assets/documents/Service_Provider_Price_List/WBC_Price_List_Entry_01_Oct_a_2016.xls)
As long as the ISP is using IPSC (IPStream / DataStream are dead ducks).... I cant see why they are now charging more
Access Ports (DSLAM)
Standard End User Access Rental – ADSL (up to 8Mb) 1 Month 01/10/2016 Month {market B} £5.88 {market A} £5.59
Standard End User Access Rental – ADSL2+ (up to 24Mb) 1 Month 01/01/2010 Month {market B} £5.88 {market A} £5.88
Backhaul Access
AP national coverage (combined with IPsC CP Handover option) - Market A 12 Months 01/07/2014 Month £6,532.00
AP national coverage (combined with IPsC CP Handover option) - Market B 12 Months 01/07/2014 Month £20,968.00
Note - AP national coverage charges specific to a Market will be deducted where nil IPstream Connect or WBC end user accesses exist in that Market.
Extension Paths (which is bandwidth) is same regardless of Market A or B.
Interconnect links are the same regardless if they are 20CN or 21CN
In fact just found this which shows the breakdown of the discounts now applied to Market A exchanges for those ISPs using IPSC, showing that Market A is cheaper. - Link IPStream Connect Price List 01/10/2016 (https://www.btwholesale.com/assets/documents/Service_Provider_Price_List/IPstream_Connect_Section44_Part9_01_Effective_011016_v1.docx)
• The per Mbit/s deduction will be based on the proportion of contracted bandwidth measured in Market A in total across all 10 nodes. Each month we will estimate the amount of IPstream Connect Market A bandwidth a CP is expected to use based on the peak actual usage data from two months prior and apply an adjustment to the invoice. Two months later a second adjustment will be made reflecting the actual Market A bandwidth consumed.
I can fully understand why years ago, they had to charge more. But unless Im missing something surely it should no longer be the case?
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Isn't part of the problem that 20CN use separate back haul, so as the 20CN customer base shrinks it loses the economy of scale? I wouldn't be surprised if it's not quite that simple, I'm going from the comments on Plusnet that their "new" network wouldn't affect 20CN customers as their traffic was carried separately anyway.
Rev K posted an update to his first 20CN post in which he commented that the high prices he originally was looking at applied to 20CN customer on exchanges where 21CN was available. In the update he said (if I understand correctly) that there are rebates off these prices where customers are on 20CN only exchanges, but that he still felt something would need to be done by the end of this year.
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Hi
Thanks for the suggestion of Origin broadband. I found them the other day and they look cheap but a lot of the smaller providers online checkers can't deal with 20CN exchanges anymore and when you contact them they give you a higher price. I will look at them again though. Anyone have any experience with them?
I'm currently trying to online chat to them - not getting a reply!
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@kitz
The problem is that the WBMC contracted bandwidth has to be allocated separately for the WBC and IPSC customers, and that the IPSC bandwidth is more expensive.
WBMC (WBC) Total Best Efforts Contracted Bandwidth: £48.55 per Mbit/s per month
WBMC (IPsC) Best Efforts Contracted Bandwidth charge (Market A): £63.56 per Mbit/s per month
So on WBMC Shared, 20CN bandwidth is about 30% more expensive than 21CN bandwidth.
The IPSC end user access rental is in the IPSC price list, £5.00 per month for Market A, possibly plus that £1.085 "IPstream Connect EU bandwidth charge" which I hadn't noticed before, which might make the EU access rental slightly more expensive than WBC ADSLx.
The RevK problem is that it becomes difficult to divide that £63.56 per month for 1 Mbit between an ever decreasing number of customers, plus people don't expect to pay £40+ or £60+ per month multiplied by their line speed in Mb.
An ISP using WBMC Shared wouldn't be paying for WBC elements separately like the AP national coverage or Extension Paths, nor paying for IPSC elements separately. They would be paying for MSILs and host links, and that per Mb per month figure for the contracted bandwidth. They don't pay the tens of thousands for a 10Gb host link and then get to have 10Gb of bandwidth for free. They'd pay the £78,000 annual rental for the 10Gb host link, then if they wanted to fully use it (up to the 90% allowed), it would be an additional 9000 x £48.55 = £436,950.00 for 9Gb/s of WBC bandwidth.
The real nonsense is that Plusnet continue to charge more for WBC ADSL and WBC FTTC end users outside of their "low cost area", because they figure those customers must be used to it by now.
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WBMC Shared ISPs do not pay separately for the exchange backhaul nor MSILs. BTw does all the management and buying the MSILs. - They take WBC pricing then bundle it as a package to resell to the ISP.
IPSC is a consolidation product so that 20CN can join the 21CN network at the core nodes (MSILs) rather than having separate centrals.
Whilst the IPSC price list shows pricing for WBC, not all of them are applicable to shared WMBC, and primarily aimed at ISPs who use WBC.
With Shared WMBC, pricing consists of 3 main elements
- DSLAM port costs (Access)
- Rental cost of the Host Link (CP 1Gb/10Gb Connectivity)
- Bandwidth from the Core through the Host Link (Contracted Bandwidth)
This pricing structure is similar to the old centrals, but the difference being is the Host link can be comprised of both 20CN (IPSC) and 21CN traffic. However bandwidth for the 2 elements are separate and as such the ISP is billed separately for IPSC bandwidth and 21CN bandwidth, adjusting the size of the segmentations as they see fit.
What they describe as 'Handover' is specific to WBC IPSC and the equivalent to an AP for WBC 21CN. In the case of shared WMBC these will be bought and managed by BTw. BTw also buys and manages the interconnect MSILs which can consist of both 21CN and IPSC traffic... and finally uses the MPLS core for traffic onwards to the ISP's PoP.
The "Host links" are basically either EAD (Ethernet Access) or WES (Wholesale Extension) depending on location and or the size of the pipe.... then obviously they have to pay for the bandwidth on top of that. I think with WES there's an additional charge based on the distance from the BT node.
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I'd also not noticed the separate £1.085 charge before. It will be added on as the other price in the list is £4.51. {£4.51. + 1.085 = £5.59} which is what I quoted in my above post which was taken from the WBC price list
This could be something to do with OFCOM breaking down the charges so that certain elements didnt rise above 'x' amount per year. From memory there was some mention that it was anticipated bandwidth requirements (connectivity to the DSLAM?) would rise and therefore costs in this area could rise more. Id have to find the OFCOM doc and read it though, which I dont particularly want to nor have time or patience. If you want to look in that area though Id start with OFCOM and them breaking down the access costs for the relevant markets and how much BT could raise charges in those 2 areas each year.
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Re pricing
WBMC (WBC) Total Best Efforts Contracted Bandwidth: £48.55 per Mbit/s per month
WBMC (IPsC) Best Efforts Contracted Bandwidth charge (Market A): £63.56 per Mbit/s per month
On reflection, Im not surprised it is a bit dearer. We all know that the 21CN backhauls are larger and more efficient. The old MiSP backhauls were never designed to cope with such high volumes of traffic. 21CN also uses QoS and its a known fact that 21CN is mostly what helped bring down the price of bandwidth from the days when it really did cost the ISPs £1 per GB on MiSP.
TBH I'd forgotten that the IPSC contracted bandwidth for WBMC shared was so much dearer [memory->seive for info over the past year] ... especially since the contracted bandwidth price list for shared WBMC isnt readily available on the internet. For that reason I can now see why some ISP's are having to charge more. Other prices like port costs may be cheaper... but it will be bandwidth that is keeping the price high.
That said, it does seem rather unfair that it appears to be only WBMC shared that are targetted with the higher IPSC pricing.
Any ISP that purchases their own MSILs gets it at a far cheaper price (£40 per Mbit/s per month) plus the discounted handover link, which is exactly the same price as normal WBC 21CN backhaul transit.
The other difference is an IPSC handover link is £6,532.00.... compared to £1528 for a WBC regional AP or £6532 for a WBC national AP.
The RevK problem is that it becomes difficult to divide that £63.56 per month for 1 Mbit between an ever decreasing number of customers, plus people don't expect to pay £40+ or £60+ per month multiplied by their line speed in Mb.
Yup. It may not affect him yet, but it will do at some point. With him being shared WBMC, he may be able to do some careful jigging around so that all 'national' IPSC links come through to just one host link. I'm not certain on that though, but at very least he should be able to make use of session steering to direct 20cn accounts to a specific gateway thus reducing the no of host links with IPSC traffic.
In the case of Plusnet, they are winding down the host links and moving to 'regional' dedicated, but it will be in plusnets interests in due time to retain IPSC as national and have all 20cn users coming through one link regardless of where in the UK they are. I think even Dedicated can designate a national MSIL as they supposedly can mix and match what they like.. but since they already have hostlinks with national IPSC they may retain them where they already are, giving those best part of a £mill Junipers something to do. With purchasing their own MSILs, they could even take a separate national IPSC Handover from where ever they want and hook it into one of their MSILs.
Plusnet will also have an additional & separate BT for cost for Core Transit. I dont know how much that will be and cant recall ever seeing a price list for it. But Core transit is relatively cheap and no where near the costs involved in backhaul transit.
WBC and Dedicated WBMC products are actually very similar. The difference is that WBC uses a third party for Core Transit, whilst Dedicated uses the BT Core network.
For this element there should be no pricing differential between 20cn and 21cn, as 20cn will have already been handed over at the MSIL and before CORE. This point though is irreverent at present as they are still using Shared WBMC for IPSC.
The real nonsense is that Plusnet continue to charge more for WBC ADSL and WBC FTTC end users outside of their "low cost area", because they figure those customers must be used to it by now.
Agreed. Even more so in the case of FTTC which has to go over 21CN and will be via a headend exchange rather than the local exchange. They will not be incurring the higher bandwidth charges, nor being charged any more by BTw/Openreach.
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Yes, I've just found the £4.51 IPSC EU rental in a more recent IPSC price list. WBC never used to have different prices for ADSL and ADSL2+, but I suppose it's because IPSC gets withdrawn wherever WBC is, and the Ofcom controls might have something about customers not being made worse off when their exchange gets upgraded. But now we'll have to see if any ISPs are going to save a few pence per customer per month by putting all their customers with WBC available, but on long lines, onto ADSL1.
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I've finally had a reply from my MP's office, indicating that in terms of the exchanges I named within Aberdeenshire BT claims they still to upgrade them, but it will not be soon. I assume no indication of timescale was given as none was passed on to me.
Do we have any idea or how many or which ISPs penalise or refuse to supply to 20CN? I did some checks comparing prices to ourselves compared to our previous address which was on a 21CN high-cost exchange. As far as I can see I've only found Zen charging extra, and EE refusing to supply. The others I've checked are either the same price, or must be LLU or similar because they won't supply to either address.
I'm sure I saw comments on RevKs blog about ISPs abandoning 20CN, but was just wondering how many.
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TalkTalk offloaded all their non LLU lines a year or so ago to Daisy.
Sky charge extra for non LLU lines.
Plusnet also charge extra for 20cn.
Not sure about Vodafone - Ive seen comments whereby they don't offer products from exchanges where they don't have a presence.
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I was on 20CN until the end of last year. As best I recall, I was charged double by Andrews & Arnold for office-hours / peak rate traffic as a 20CN user compared with 21CN or TalkTalk LLU. This is in the sense that I only got half as many MBs of download per charging unit on the traditional ‘units-based’ tariff that I am on.
However, it seems that AA have got rid of the higher 20CN charging rate, during the last year or so, not at all sure when. I believe there's now no difference now since I can't see any mention of 20CN in the relevant tariff calculator page.
So this is obviously the opposite message to that conveyed in RevK’s originally blog post, one which he semi-retracted / corrected - can't remember without re-reading it.
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Plusnet also charge extra for 20cn.
I hesitate to question, but the Plusnet higher pricing (their "non low cost areas") appears to apply on 21CN as well.
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Youre correct. Im aware of this, but I was just trying to quickly answer re 20cn.
In additional to the Market Band, theres a pricing band of which exchanges are listed on each pricing band. The list used to be available from BT. Sometimes the lists are slow in updating but that doesnt excuse what PN are doing.
Jelv will probably remember and confirm this... I shook PN up in about 2006/2007 as they were using an old list of exchanges. I added the OFCOM list to my adslchecker and suddenly a LOT of people were asking why they were being wrongly priced. It was one of those "PN forum on TBB exploded" moments and Mandy who at the time was one of their CS reps looked into it properly. I passed the database list on to Sam, and he too started showing it. Within a few weeks people were being charged correctly. Something like that needs to be done again. However I dont have a recent list to check... there probably will still be one somewhere on the BT website if someone wants to dig.
However, there is only one of me.. I struggle to do what I do and maintain the site these days.
I have plenty of battle scars from my time in the usergroup. Im afraid I just cant cover everything. If someone wants an unpaid job... then theres several vacancies going spare. :)
PS.. I'm not doing the sympathy vote.. just saying that I really do struggle to keep on top of stuff that no-one sees. There's lots of things I'd like to take up but physically I cant. I've just tonight stumbled across something else new going on in the industry that is IMHO wrong and I'd love to find the time to take that up too.. but.......
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I remember it!
The best advice these days is to find the price of TT or Sky if it is available to you and then contact Plusnet and get them to match it which they seem to do irrespective of which market the exchange is in.
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Just had a chat with TT and it looks like they no longer supply to exchanges that aren't TalkTalk LLU. So add them to AAISP on the list of ISP's you won't get on 20CN.
Side question: Are TalkTalk still unbundling exchanges?