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Author Topic: BT Business  (Read 6357 times)

sotonsam

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Re: BT Business
« Reply #15 on: May 14, 2018, 03:21:42 PM »

The thing is they've said to me that they want to pay for 'premium' - so who am I to argue with them! AAISP is what I think they'll go for.....I sent the guy the reviews from here and also ISPReview and as you know, they're all 5 stars pretty much.

and whilst researching up on them, I decided to go with them as well at Home on a second line whilst by BT contract winds down......! Will allow me to have a play with load ballancing and other policy based routing techniques from my Pfsense box.
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Clivers

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Re: BT Business
« Reply #16 on: July 17, 2018, 10:05:38 PM »

Intertesting thread.

We have 5 AAISP lines and after the last fiasco with the DDos ordered 5x Bt business lines with 4g Assure.

So far 2 are using BT full time with the others pending. All have elevated support for line faults as well. Over the years (10+) with AAISP we have put up with the excuses about blips and downtime which has caused major disruption to us! 4g Assure works well and if you failover to 4g frequently BT are on it! we have already had a line fault fixed automatically.

We do have a Zen ADSL line (30 day rolling contract) as a failover for a microwave link supplied managed office. This will be going soon when FTTP is installed. BT business will be getting the contract and not Zen or AAISP.

For info i use AAISP as my home connection with Vermin as backup.

 
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Weaver

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Re: BT Business
« Reply #17 on: July 19, 2018, 02:25:38 AM »

Fyi I use AA and have a Firebrick router that offers automatic switchover to 4G supported by AA.
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kitz

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Re: BT Business
« Reply #18 on: July 20, 2018, 06:28:33 AM »

Just spotted this

Am I right in thinking that the people behind Hyperoptic are former ‘BE’ folk? I’d be all over that myself if they did single residential dwellings…!

Yes they are the same people who founded BE*.
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Weaver

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Re: BT Business
« Reply #19 on: July 21, 2018, 01:56:14 AM »

Oh and welcome to the forum, Clivers! :-)
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Chrysalis

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Re: BT Business
« Reply #20 on: July 21, 2018, 07:08:26 AM »

The problem with BE was their network, it was great whilst it was under utilised, sort of like how VM always was great in areas that have barely any customers.

When the network started getting loaded up and especially when O2 started using it, the cracks appeared, and they even got into a spot of legal bother when they started trying to apply a FUP on a service advertised as unlimited.

So I hope these guys learnt that lesson on the network build and scalability of network to handle customer growth.
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Weaver

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Re: BT Business
« Reply #21 on: July 21, 2018, 10:44:35 AM »

AA used to use BE lines too before they got wed to TalkTalk.
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kitz

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Re: BT Business
« Reply #22 on: July 22, 2018, 09:22:37 PM »

I don't think you can any way compare BE to VM.    Fair enough there was a period whereby some of the busier exchanges were waiting to be upgraded but at least they would do so within weeks/couple of months.   As regards to the 'FUP' if memory serves me correct it was either 3 or 5 people who they warned and I can't recall them getting into legal bother over it.   Especially when just about every other ISP was using much harsher CAP/FUPs.  BE were extremely relaxed even at people downloading 100's of GB back in the days when that was a heck of a lot.   

I think you will find that the vast majority of BE users were a happy bunch and most were sad to see them go.   On the whole they were fair and their CS were excellent because the staff knew what they were talking about.   There was an OFCOM report in iirc 2012 (just before Sky bought them out) and of all the ISPs BE's network performed the best with least slow downs during peak time. 

>> So I hope these guys learnt that lesson on the network build and scalability of network to handle customer growth.

The problems started after they were bought out by Telefonica who had their own issues and BE were no longer at the cutting edge, they were slow to roll out phone packages and never really got off the ground with FTTC at a time when people were wanting it and the BE guys had little say about the network.   So if they have learnt anything it may well be not to pass control over to a larger organisation who were more concerned about cheap dsl for O2 users.
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Chrysalis

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Re: BT Business
« Reply #23 on: July 23, 2018, 03:31:49 PM »

Ignition and a few others reported BE to the ASA, the ASA decided BE were in the wrong and were told to change their website, then not long after BE closed up as an isp and stopped trading.

There was performance complaints prior to the O2 takeover, typically outside of the london part fo the network where there was issues not been resolved, when O2 tookover they provided funding to upgrade the network and things temporarily improved, but then they started loading up the network and more cracks appeared, now you can say its O2's fault for not investing on enough upgrades thats true, but the bit I am pointing out i the BE network in place at the time was not really capable of hosting large numbers of customers.

BE if not taken over were not capable if I remember correctly of even considering rolling out FTTC, they simply didnt have the funds/means to upgrade their infrastructure to support it, and O2 were the only way they could even attempt it. 
« Last Edit: July 23, 2018, 03:34:04 PM by Chrysalis »
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kitz

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Re: BT Business
« Reply #24 on: July 23, 2018, 11:26:12 PM »

True they advertised Unlimited and had a very vague FUP

Quote
“If it’s felt that any Be member’s Internet activities are so excessive that other members are detrimentally affected, Be may give the member generating the excessive web traffic a written warning (by email or otherwise). In extreme circumstances, should the levels of activity not immediately decrease after the warning, Be may terminate that member’s services.”

TBH hidden FUPs were a bug bear of mine and they were far from the only ISP that did this which is why I wrote the following page here   You can see they were from far the worst culprit and not the only ISP who had hidden FUPs.   I'm not saying it was right - far from it and I'm glad that practice changed.    It's just unfair to say that BE were the only ISP doing so, when generally speaking they were far more tolerant than most other ISPs.   

They invoked their FUP to one person who had been downloading over 1TB per month in Feb 2013 which tbh must have taken some doing on an adsl2+ connection, which is what triggered the report to ASA.  (link below*)   

As I mentioned the original owners of BE had already sold out to Telefonica by this time and Telefonica were having their own financial issues and investment in the network started to slow.  Sky announced they were taking over on 1st March 2013, so it seems odd that the first time they invoked the FUP was during the Sky negotiation period.  If they'd have left it just another month it wouldn't have been their problem so unless they did it make their network look better prior to sale ive no idea. I left BE after they announced the Sky takeover.

* BE Broadband Face Unlimited Questions After User Cut Off for Overuse     
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Chrysalis

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Re: BT Business
« Reply #25 on: July 24, 2018, 12:48:32 PM »

We will never know the full details because a lot of the information would be private commercial information.

But to me the fact that it was only a single user who was issued the notice, makes it worse, because it would indicate a single user was capable of causing visible contention on that particular exchange which in itself suggests the shared capacity was small, I remember reading on TBB that BE were commonly using 100mbit pipes in exchanges whilst their competitors like SKY and talktalk were using gigabit in the same exchanges.  If this was true, no idea but I remember reading it.

Also perhaps when looking at the bigger picture, if a single user downloading 1TB was a problem, then how would they manage FTTC? as 1TB per month on a 80/20 connection isnt that extreme, it would perhaps explain why we never seen FTTC services on BE.  On a 16mbit connection (quite high but not unrealistically high sync for adsl2+) if pushed 24/7 the line would be capable of downloading about 5TB so such a line would be about 20% utilised over the course of the month.  If you selling an unlimited service and one guy using his line at say 20% capacity makes things fall over, then that is perhaps poor planning.

It doesnt add up tho, if we assume a 100mbit shared pipe at the exchange which was the problem, and we assume the 1TB was all around peak hours as well so worst time possible for BE, and we also assume a high sync speed of around 16mbit, that is still about 84mbit of unutilised bandwidth which suggests there was a lot of load from other users as well and just that one user just was an easy target to try and get a quick reduction of utilisation on the backhaul and wouldnt have resolved the congestion but just made it less serious.  So my speculation is that this particular exchange was one with good sales for O2, and they got caught out by the upsurge in users so no upgrade was carried out, and with an upcoming sale to sky, there was very likely an investment freeze so no approved upgrades and as such the only resolution available to network staff to ease the congestion was to try and lower the load from existing users hence the FUP notice been sent out.

As to the close proximity of the march handover to sky and the FUP been issued, consider that BE network staff may not have been aware of the march date (communication issues) and the time for meetings etc. to approve the FUP action so basically lag, then it can explain why the notice was sent so close to the sky takeover.
« Last Edit: July 24, 2018, 12:51:01 PM by Chrysalis »
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