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[Weaver]

Since we’re effectively back in a second lockdown now and have zero income from Janet’s tourism business once again, I have implemented  some cost-cutting measures. I’ve chopped off the BT + A&A ‘premium’ option on each of my four lines which saves 4 × £10 per month in total (can’t remember about VAT).

A&A have had a scheme running offering free quota top-ups for COVID-locked customers, and kindly gave me one on inquiring about it. So I was very pleased at that.

I also reduced the number of ‘units’ of quota per month that was buying because I wasn’t getting through them all.

[burakkucat]

Yes, it must be quite difficult for you, once again. 

I seem to have a vague memory of you saying that A&A had classified your four lines as "business" (which, of course, they are -- essential for Mrs Weaver's business) and so there was no need for you to purchase the Openreach / BTWholesale premium support add-on.

[Weaver]

The ‘premium’ thing is traffic prioritisation on the AA and BT networks. AA is quite dubious about the real world benefits of this, and trying to measure the benefit is hard. I’ve always had it, but cutting it was my contribution to the war effort.

I don’t have the fast time-to-fix extra cost option on any lines any more. Having had it on one line, I tried to buy it for more than one line and BT wouldn’t sell it to AA iirc, for reasons I don’t really understand. Perhaps because the time constraints were totally unrealistic out here.

We have also been spending lots of money; fixing the Rayburn, buying winter food - 90 bales of straw - for donkeys, and are about to have the roof fixed because water is getting in. When we had it totally redone 15 years ago, Janet thinks that inferior wood was used which is not sufficiently robust against the attacks of time, or umpteen other things could be wrong. But that needs doing and materials have already arrived.

The lockdown will end once again and then business will reboot. Visitors who were wanting to come to stay last month have had to be told ‘come back later/watch this space’. Unfortunately one of Janet’s visitors who loves coming every year has had to be postponed, by us, which was a disappointment to them.

We may have talked about the ‘premium’ traffic priority thing in an earlier thread. £10 per month per line seems a bit steep and I assume that’s due to BT’s charges to A&A because in general A&A’s add-on services are really well-priced where they don’t have to pay someone else. Perhaps it costs BT a lot to deliver it. But then I don’t load the BT network up with many packets given the slow speed of my links, and BT’s pricing to A&A is not (I assume) speed-related?

I wonder if it’s the case that however hard I try I won’t be able to see any speed benefit from the premium option because my links are way too slow (esp compared with those of us who have 900Mbps links). Is the reverse true? That is, if you have a 900 Mbps fibre link then priority might be a worthwhile add-on?

[burakkucat]

Perhaps someone like CarlT, who (I believe) has access to BTW price lists, would be able to comment about that aspect?

I wonder if it’s the case that however hard I try I won’t be able to see any speed benefit from the premium option because my links are way too slow (esp compared with those of us who have 900Mbps links). Is the reverse true? That is, if you have a 900 Mbps fibre link then priority might be a worthwhile add-on?

Good questions but, unfortunately, ones that I cannot answer.

Like you, I have one longish line operating as ADSL2 which gives me slightly less than your four bonded lines. However, the system I am currently using today does have a 1 Gbps link between it and the Adva FSP150CC-GE112. The latter device performs the buffering, as its link to the ZyXEL VMG1312-B10A is at 100 Mbps. The VMG1312-B10A then copes with the required asymmetric buffering for the ADSL2 line speed. 

[Alex Atkin UK]

I wonder if it’s the case that however hard I try I won’t be able to see any speed benefit from the premium option because my links are way too slow (esp compared with those of us who have 900Mbps links). Is the reverse true? That is, if you have a 900 Mbps fibre link then priority might be a worthwhile add-on?

I'd expect contention to more likely happen on the PON than further up the chain.

[Weaver]

How big is the bottleneck at a PON ? Still new vocabulary to me, fibre access technologies. Does that mean if you buy two FTTP links and bond them then you will be contending with yourself ?

[burakkucat]

I believe Openreach typically install PONs with a 1:32 split in the optical fibre.

As for having more than one service to a multiport ONT (& the consequences thereof), I would look towards psychopomp1 and CarlT for their input . . .  both have the experience of that configuration.

[Alex Atkin UK]

I believe Openreach typically install PONs with a 1:32 split in the optical fibre.

As for having more than one service to a multiport ONT (& the consequences thereof), I would look towards psychopomp1 and CarlT for their input . . .  both have the experience of that configuration.

Right, so running flat-out with a fair-sharing profile it would still be 75Mbit per person (ignoring overheads).  However I believe that is why they now have minimum performance profiles too, the higher your package, the higher your minimum allocation is.

I suppose with that in mind, the contention ratio on the backhaul from the exchange could be insanely high.  But then most people wont to buying 900Mbit packages.