Kitz Forum
Broadband Related => ISPs => Topic started by: Weaver on October 05, 2009, 01:11:03 PM
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I've just noticed that Demon seem to have cut their prices in half [!] for Business users. Their Business 2000 (2MBps capped DS) and Business 8000 services were priced at roughly £34+VAT and £40+VAT respectively. These services seem to have disappeared from their website and Demon now offers something called "Business 2+" or "Business 2+ Pro" for £19+VAT and £23+VAT respectively.
The old "Business 2000"/"Business 8000" services were, I presume, rebadged BT Wholesale IPStream Max Premium, since they were advertised as offering "prioritised" traffic, and did offer an upstream sync rate cap of 832kbps as opposed to the 448kbps cap imposed on 'home' users. The new "2+" services seem to follow suit.
The older services were completely uncapped and unmetered. I haven't seen the small print for the new 2+ services.
I can't see any difference between "2+" and "2+ Pro" apart from the "2+" service being downstream sync rate-capped at the notional 8MBps sync rate whereas "2+ Pro" is advertised as "up to 16MBps". I'm assuming that if you are lucky enough to be on an ADSL2+ exchange then you are allowed to connect at the faster speeds.
Can anyone tell me if BT Wholesale have now renamed their products too? Are terms like "IPStream Max Premium" still current?
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It appears that there is a catch, unfortunately. If you try to sign up for these new deals but are not on a 21CN exchange, then Demon won't give you these new prices.
This might suggest that BT Wholesale will now offer better deals to ISPs in respect of 21CN customers. Is that the case?
Are other ISPs offering lower cost deals at 21CN exchanges?
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A further correction to what I wrote earlier. It seems that Cable and Wireless, which owns Thus/Demon, is intending to start a LLU programme. So I would assume that the new prices are only for LLU users, it's just that they can't manage to bring themselves to be straightforward and honest and come out and say so in their marketing.