Kitz Forum
Broadband Related => ISPs => Topic started by: Chrysalis on March 27, 2022, 04:13:01 PM
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[This on-going discussion has been split off from the original news item (https://forum.kitz.co.uk/index.php/topic,26899.0.html).]
Fair play they continue to be the most attractive ISP to tenants (not the 2-3 year contracts).
Now awaiting news of cityfibre with AAISP.
Across all isp's VDSL prices are now effectively a tax for using old tech. This hasnt changed on AAISP, e.g. comparing that 115mbps package with 80/20 on VDSL, same upload speed, access speed is assured and lower price.
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Across all isp's VDSL prices are now effectively a tax for using old tech. This hasnt changed on AAISP, e.g. comparing that 115mbps package with 80/20 on VDSL, same upload speed, access speed is assured and lower price.
Doesn't that kinda make sense though? It costs more to maintain the older technology so its disproportionately expensive compared to fibre.
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Doesn't that kinda make sense though? It costs more to maintain the older technology so its disproportionately expensive compared to fibre.
It does it represents the cost. I meant more akin to a legacy cost tax rather than a profit tax.
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As Chrysalis says, AA over CityFibre would be a very good thing. Are you listening Andrew, Adrian?
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They've been looking at this for a while. In common with other smaller operators they've been waiting for the national product.
Be interesting to see if they pull the trigger. I can't say I really get the point of A&A over FTTP but obviously mileage will vary.
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The unlimited support with things like config of kit will be worth a lot to some people, such as me, not thee, who know enough to know that we don’t know what we’re doing when moving into more serious networking.
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They've been looking at this for a while. In common with other smaller operators they've been waiting for the national product.
Be interesting to see if they pull the trigger. I can't say I really get the point of A&A over FTTP but obviously mileage will vary.
"Hello you are through to Wendy at BT support"
"Hi I noticed my ipv6 prefix changed, I thought IPv6 addressing was enough to avoid this nonsense"
"Sorry can you repeat that"
"Sure ..."
"Ok please go to your home hub, and look for the button with this ... symbol, press it, then wait 5 seconds, and press it again, this should fix it."
After escalation.
"Yes sir, we cannot manage our network in a way to give static allocations, so your prefix will change from time to time, also please dont bother our agents with this, if you can reach google, the service is working to an adequate standard".
:blush:
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What’s the point? Ridiculous amount of money for limited broadband. Total con.
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I'm not going to belabour the point on this one :angel:
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@Gigabitethernet I refer you to a previous post of mine on the many whys. Now if I could only find it… The point is you and I aren’t the same. I don’t care about price and getting the cheapest offering.
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. . . a previous post of mine on the many whys. Now if I could only find it…
Is this (https://forum.kitz.co.uk/index.php/topic,26696.msg447641.html#msg447641) the post? :-\
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Thank you my friend. Once again the Black Cat triumphs. This is indeed the post:
https://forum.kitz.co.uk/index.php/topic,26696.msg447641.html#msg447641
Those are the reasons (https://forum.kitz.co.uk/index.php/topic,26696.msg447641.html#msg447641) (for me) that I love AA. You will have different opinions and some or all of those points won’t matter to you because you and I are possibly different creatures.
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I suppose the obvious would be to note that while A&A now offer this service no-one is forced to use them: other options are always available and will suit the vast majority better.
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Exactly. I just don’t understand the whining about AAs prices - AA isn’t the BBC - we aren’t forced to buy AA’s services and they aren’t a tax.
I’ve had two years of hell with the unexplained problems with my DSL lines. AA have always fixed problems patiently and effectively, as far as they can.
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Wha are AAISP possibly going to offer for FTTP that makes the cost worth it? They won’t be able to provide more tools for troubleshooting, they won’t be able to provide faster response times for repairs.
All this for a limited connection, I just don’t get it I’m afraid.
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They will offer a service less likely to suffer contention issues and also other services billed to the same account, which is useful to some people who might get confused having things billed from several different providers for different things. eg Weaver using them for domain registration. They also have a more robust 4G failover solution (eg on pfSense I've had 4G going down take out the whole connection more times than I've ever had DSL go down), however unlikely you are to need it.
Personally I'd rather keep things separate rather than put all my eggs in one basket, but not everyone is like that.
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I don't know anyone on FTTP who has contention issues.
How often does FTTP go down, really?
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Wha are AAISP possibly going to offer for FTTP that makes the cost worth it? They won’t be able to provide more tools for troubleshooting, they won’t be able to provide faster response times for repairs.
All this for a limited connection, I just don’t get it I’m afraid.
For me, there are various (some unique) features offered by AAISP, also applicable to FTTP:
1. Large blocks of static IPv4 addresses included in the price;
2. A single static block of IPv6 (/48) per customer, which you can then configure per service (I have a /56 at home over VDSL, and a /56 on a separate L2TP service), both taken from the same /48.
3. Ability to configure failover via L2TP, which routes your existing IP addresses over a third-party internet connection (e.g. 5G).
4. Unfiltered internet (no blocking, and they claim no logging)
5. Easy to access support with "real" (named) people via your own preferred mechanism - phone, email or IRC chat
Regarding their bandwidth caps, I would consider my household as a typical family with two adults and two children who all watch a lot of streaming video, and we average about 1.5TB-2TB per month. So the 5TB limit is not an issue (we've accumulated about 9TB now, via the roll-over).
And of course, with my current VDSL I have their ability to bond multiple connections (I have 2 x VDSL) and their fault detection/resolution skills.
I'm not trying to convince others that AAISP is right for them (it depends on your budget, monthly usage and feature requirements), I'm just saying what the features are that keep me paying for them.
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> Wha are AAISP possibly going to offer for FTTP that makes the cost worth it?
See my earlier post https://forum.kitz.co.uk/index.php/topic,26696.msg447641.html#msg447641
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I moved to FTTP with A&A last September. From the start, I experienced random PPP drops/reconnects maybe 2 or 3 times per week, each time the router re-connecting within 10 to 15 seconds. I was only aware of this due to the line down/line up emails from A&A.
After eliminating all I could locally (replacing ethernet cable between ONT & router, using my backup router, trying the A&A supplied DGA0122, replacing the ONT PSU) I had a chat with A&A about it. Within 3 days they had Openreach out. The OR engineer did a light test - all good, then rang the diagnostic centre to see if they could see anything. Diagnostic centre reported visibility of 11 "dying gasps" from the ONT over a couple of months.
Advised engineer to replace ONT which he did. That was 4 weeks ago and not one drop since.
I wonder how that situation would have been handled by BT/TalkTalk/Sky etc?
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I don't know anyone on FTTP who has contention issues.
It's far more likely to suffer contention issues than FTTC with the higher bandwidths at play
The average user uses nowhere near 5TB a month.
If that limit is an issue for your usage then that's fine. AAISP likely don't want you as a customer if you use that much data. It can be very detrimental to others.
How often does FTTP go down, really?
Mine has twice in the 1st couple months I had it.
More than my FTTC did in the previous 5 years.
ELF's (early life faults/failures) are on the increase.
Entire PON's go down everyday
They won’t be able to provide more tools for troubleshooting
Of course they do. They have 24/7 line monitoring that sends a PPP LCP echo to every single customer, every single second, showing latency, throughput, sync and packet loss on a second by second basis.
they won’t be able to provide faster response times for repairs.
They absolutely do, even on FTTP.
Their offerings don't attract you, that's fair enough.
Perhaps you don't need any of the technical features they offer and uptime/failover isn't critical to your business/work.
Those are important to other people.
There are just as many AAISP customers who wouldn't take an unlimited Talktalk connection for free. They couldn't imagine using a dynamic IPV4, no IPV6, no UK phone support, no failover to mobile data.
It's a competitive market. You're free to choose whatever provider you like.
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I think the main advantage of AA is being able to talk to a proper tech person rather than some first line numpty at most ISP's.
If you have a complicated problem with your connection it'll be faster to fix on AA.
I'd imagine AA is a small ISP compared to others. But that gives it the ability to be familiar with their customers and lines a lot better than the more popular ISP's.
As said by others it just depends what you are going for, or if you have a problem with your connection i.e. how long are you prepared to wait to get it fixed.
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The average user uses nowhere near 5TB a month.
If that limit is an issue for your usage then that's fine. AAISP likely don't want you as a customer if you use that much data. It can be very detrimental to others.
I'm far from an average user and still average around 2TB/month. It didn't really change when I got 5G as like has been said before, you don't download more its just what used to take hours now takes minutes.
If anything I'd expect to upload more.
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I wonder how that situation would have been handled by BT/TalkTalk/Sky etc?
A recent experience with BT on FTTC - called them up. They remotely connected to the Home Hub, could see the line dropping and booked an OR engineer..
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Why are we having this pointless and off-topic debate once again? Every time any mention of AA comes up.
What about doing this exercise with a different ISP next time, say BT Retail or Plusnet or TalkTalk?
I suggest acknowledging that everyone has different priorities and needs.
Another point that came to me. One reason that you might like to use AA is because you have a penguin in your life. All *nix / Linux / BSD fans might like to do business with an outfit that not only deeply understands Linux etc and can even help you with Linux config, but which is entirely run on Linux and open source internally. Can your BT Retail or even, say, TalkTalk for instance say the same? (Not that in my view that’s a criticism; I’m just starting some possible allegiances.)
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Weaver - the people complaining about unlimited would love one of my ISPs: they charge me based on 95th percentile. Not capped, literally metered.
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Well I have and have had metered services from AA. I currently have metered 4G.
Until last summer I used to have the AA metered ‘units’ AA tariff for my DSL lines; had that for over ten years. With that you pay for a certain amount of download. If you don’t use it all, then you have wasted your money. If you go over your units download allocation then nothing happens, you just get charged per additional byte downloaded at a slightly higher rate. So contrary to perception, that was unlimited, uncapped. But people complaining don’t understand all the obscure service offerings.
People keep moaning about caps but they have never been a required feature of AA. I found out that the ‘modern’ service offerings, whose pricing I didn’t understand in the case of a multi line setup such as mine, would work much better for me than the old units tariff so I switched to a new service type that has a 5TB cap or something ridiculous, so huge that I could never remotely use it all. I have a choice as to what I want to happen when I hit the cap, but since it’s never going to happen I can’t even remember what I’ve left it set to.
Amongst modern uncapped services there are several, ones that are aimed at business users, I’m not well up on the details though, but Office::1 comes to mind, and the dedicated line ethernet services are another example.
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What’s the point? Ridiculous amount of money for limited broadband. Total con.
Why is the fact that it is limited relevant?
One of my beefs with AAISP was that they kept increasing the allowances when I'd far preferred they'd cut the price for the existing allowances. Their entry package now has a totally ludicrous allowance of 500GB. How the **** does anyone use that much? Only once have I ever exceeded 150GB and that was because I downloaded multiple series of a programme off iPlayer with a long expiry - I could just as easily spread the downloads to multiple months when I actually watched them.
I used to use AAISP because an internet connection was essential for my work and needed to know that if there were issues I'd have experts on my side to get it sorted.
Do you have home and contents insurance? If so don't you also think that's a waste of money, paying out extra for the security that gives in case something goes wrong?
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As I said in the previous thread (https://forum.kitz.co.uk/index.php/topic,26696.msg447641.html#msg447641), the richness of services, of which there are so many, was one of the deciding factors for me. I got fed up with thick customer service people before and so that was one well-known advantage of AA : support who decidedly aren’t morons. But back when I was looking to change, and you can still see my posts from way back when concerning this, I decided to trial two ISPs at different sites. Zen was one and AA was the other. My requirements evolved into: decent IPv4 address block, IPv6, intelligent support and line bonding. So Zen was out because they kept delaying and delaying IPv6 and I wouldn’t wait any longer and Zen was out of the race. And by the time I got bitten by the line bonding bug that meant Zen was ‘even more out.’
BTW, AA is stupendous for domain registration because you can never screw things up by missing a renewal payment and so lose your domain - as happened to me before I went to AA.
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Outstanding this has been split. I can jump back in with a clear conscience.
A&A do not have their own access network, they don't even have a transport network, they have customers aggregated by others nationally and delivered to their core.
This means there are always options other than A&A. I stand by that FTTP reduces their niche but they still have one.
The limits seem a really strange thing to fixate over. They're rarely likely to be problematic and do roll over I believe.
They aren't for everyone. They aren't for most. Over FTTP they're for even fewer but I presume they'll be okay for a while yet. Their customers don't think they're expensive for what they provide, so they're good.
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Agrees with everything that Reformed just said.
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We’re having this argument because I will continue to make the case that shilling for an ISP doesn’t make it good. AAISP is ludicrously overpriced.
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For the home owners who dont care about long contract commits and geeky aspects of service A&A I guess serves no purpose, but there is a market, else they wouldnt exist. I was able to sign up to VDSL with a 1 month contract.
In regards to pricing, when I left sky, the difference in price to AAISP was within £1. The major ISPs when they were requiring landline services, if you wasnt on a artificially priced new customer or retentions deal they werent much dissimilar. Of course now they have moved on from voice finally the gap has widened again, but it will close again as every year we have circa 5-10% rises from the big boys.
Time will tell how well FTTP works on AAISP, will they have the same issues Zen has or will the price premium yield a better service.
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@GigabitEthernet
Care to answer these questions?
Do you have home and contents insurance? If so do you also think that's a waste of money, paying out extra for the security that gives in case something goes wrong?
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For the home owners who dont care about long contract commits and geeky aspects of service A&A I guess serves no purpose, but there is a market, else they wouldnt exist.
Time will tell how well FTTP works on AAISP, will they have the same issues Zen has or will the price premium yield a better service.
Thought you wrote under 'Hurray' on the other place.
It's pretty rare for a residential lease to be shorter than a year. Home ownership status not really an issue.
No place for those not of a geeky mindset indeed. Right now I'm not bothered about static v6 space especially let alone some random buying their WiFi.
Obviously a small market there. I'm not sure what these issues Zen apparently has with FTTP are? Neither my BT Wholesale or Plexus services have given cause for complaint?
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I think he's referring to all the "I'm not getting 900Mb/s 24/7" posts on TBB.
Zen seem to have more complaints than most other providers over there.
Although nobody is rushing out their way to post their positive experience so I'm not convinced Zen actually have a problem.
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TBB is quite the echo chamber sadly, you still see posts saying they wont go with Zen because they had a single-threaded performance issue years ago.
Although I will admit I have a bias against Origin Broadband because their network underperformed and they went through so many infrastructure changes that never seemed to improve it much. But then again, if they were dirt-cheap for a backup, I wouldn't completely discount them.
When you look at the positive Zen posts I think it says a lot that they are willing to move people from TTB backhaul to Openreach, if you have a performance issue in your area, despite it costing them more money.
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Thought you wrote under 'Hurray' on the other place.
It's pretty rare for a residential lease to be shorter than a year. Home ownership status not really an issue.
No place for those not of a geeky mindset indeed. Right now I'm not bothered about static v6 space especially let alone some random buying their WiFi.
Obviously a small market there. I'm not sure what these issues Zen apparently has with FTTP are? Neither my BT Wholesale or Plexus services have given cause for complaint?
A year isnt that bad, my point was AAISP dont seem to artifically extend their contract lengths longer than the wholesaler minimum.
On FTTP most contracts appear to be 2-3 years, I could only find one on BT retail that was 12 months which was better than other providers who had no 12 month FTTP contracts. (AAISP now also 12 months), Ofcom's response to my query on that one was they only require one package to be available at 12 months then the ISP is compliant. They didnt respond that 4 ISP's I gave them had zero FTTP 12 month packages available.
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We’re having this argument because I will continue to make the case that shilling for an ISP doesn’t make it good. AAISP is ludicrously overpriced.
When we moved to A&A it cost less than remaining with Plusnet, and much less than Zen. That was mainly due to being on 20CN from a "Market 1" exchange, meaning that none of the special offers were available. AA and BT seemed to be the only ISPs that didn't inflate their prices on that basis.
But as someone already commented, it would be nice if I could get a lower price in exchange for a lower data allowance. I don't need anything like 500Gig per month.