Re: [merged] Price increase
 

thats a damn shame :(

my exchange is already overcrowded, i knew it was, and it was confirmed when i tried getting 2 mbit and ran in to contention issues :(

but.......

but its £42.99 for 2 mbit, suppose i should not complain if i get the speed for that price........

Re: [merged] Price increase
 

Just some general info on BT based DSL products. This may not be the right / best place for this info so mods please move it if you think appropriate.

BT based ADSL services fall into the following categories depending on the BT wholesale product used by the ISP in question.

BT IP Stream based services
BT Data Stream based services
LLU based services

BT IP Stream.

This wholesale product essentially moves data all the way from an end users house to a central POP for the ISP concerned (typically it moves it to telehouse but not always). The connection from the end users house to the local exchange is uncontended. From the local exchange to the ISP's POP it is contended. BT offer two _maximum_ contention ratios for this section fo the connection (though in reality the actual contention is much lower) and they offer two speeds. So you end up with four options

512/256 @ 20:1
1024/256 @ 20:1
512/256 @ 50:1
1024/256 @ 50:1

The majority of ADSL ISP's use the IP Stream product. The wholesale price for these products id 'flat rate' (that is there is no usage charge element for the ISP)

BT Data Stream

This wholesale product essentialy moves data from the end users house to the local exchange. The ISP then has to pay BT or a third party supplier to move the data from the local exchange to their POP. The ISP is free to contend this section of the journey to any level they see fit. This product is also the same price for the ISP regarldess of what speed service they actualy supply to the customer. That is the datastream cost to the ISP is the same for a 512 user as for a 1meg user. The datastream product still uses BT's DSLAM* in the local exchange, but then allows for the data to be moved onto a competitors network from there. As such the products that can be offered via this system are limited by the capabilites of BT's DSLAMs

LLU

Local Loop Unbundling was a regulator (EU) mandated product that BT was required to offer. With this system the ISP put's their own DSLAM into a local exchange. They pay BT for 'space' in the exchange and they also pay BT a fixed fee for each phone line attached to thier DSLAM. They also have to pay someone (BT or 3rd party) to move the data from local exchange to thier POP. As the ISP owns and specifies their own DSLAM they can offer services that are not available using BT's DSLAMs (like SDLS and others). There are basically only two companies using LLU for commercial/retail services atm. Easynet (aimed at business users) and Bulldog (aimed at reidential and business). These 'extended' services can only be offerd on those exchanges where the ISP has put a DSLAM in. In areas where they have not put in their own DSLAM they use datastream.

So basically with IPStream the ISP is dependnet on BT as to what services they can offer and the contention ratios of these services. With IP Stream the ISP get a bit more flexibility but is still limited to what the BT DSLAMs can support. With LLU based systems the ISP has ultimate flexibility in the serivces they can offer. This is why Bulldog's products (where they have put a DSLAM in the local exchange) are so different from all the other ISP's offering (excpet for easynet which also use LLU).

Re: [merged] Price increase
 

That is cheaper than what we seem to think BTs will be.. they are talking about £35 for the wholesale price + vat..

Re: [merged] Price increase
 

An excellent post Erol :tu:

Does this mean that if Kronas goes with Bulldog (like me) he shouldn't have contention issues (other than bulldog independent ones) like the rest of the customers on his exchange as he isn't using the same equipment? If that all makes sense!

Re: [merged] Price increase
 

Essentially yes. In an exchange where bulldog have their own equipment (DSLAM), then any contention issues that that exchange experiences re BT IP Stream based products should not apply to bulldog based products. Of course Bulldog may itself be heavily loaded as well, but its entirely seperate from the BT IP Stream based products.

PS Where my rep point then ? :)

Re: [merged] Price increase
 

No reason to move it - but I have created a copy of it - as it is very informative. :)

Re: [merged] Price increase
 

I've heard bad things about Bulldog recently though. I'm looking around for a decent ADSL ISP and I heard that bulldogs 2Meg off-peak tends to drop to 1Meg at weekends rather than the full 2. The other thing that puts me off them is they don't have their own news service so I'd still have to fork out for my aditional news access.

Re: [merged] Price increase
 

The speeds you will get will Bulldog do depend on what exchange you are on, and what the other Bulldog users on your exchange are doing..

Of course, if you are in Central London on an LLU exchange, then you are foolish not to get it - virtually zero contention and 400K upload then

Though, Bulldog do seem to upgrade the bandwidth available, when they notice their are sustained speed issues and/or an exchange gets more Bulldog users

I personally (on my exchange) have no problems on their Primetime 2000 product and get over 200K when downloading..

During the day, when my product is supposed to be capped to 512K/60k - I often exceed this and get up to 100k :)

As for news access - you are right, they don't have their own newserver.

I use http://news.individual.net/ (free) for text groups and ClaraNews for binaries and it seems to work quite well for me.

If anyone does want to join Bulldog, can they drop me a PM - I have a referral code somewhere :)

Sunil

Re: [merged] Price increase
 

They will have to hurry up as Bulldogs Adsl prices will soon change as their special offers come to an end :)

Re: [merged] Price increase
 

thanks for the explination erol, makes it clearer to differentiate between 'IP' based and 'datastream' based products :)

as for bulldog im considering it......the 'alltime' 2mbit' but is there a way of checking how many users are on bulldog connected to my exchange (i dont think so but worth an ask)

at the moment (special offer) its £37.99 per month with £1 connection* (*geographically dependant to qualify for £1 connection fee)

the only thing i dont like is if i want a monthly contract i have to pay an additional fee, i just dont want to be stuck with a service that may not be a good enough quality for me, interms of speed browsing etc.......

EDIT: just had a look though the order process and 2mbit 'alltime' is not available on my exchange yet, all other services are :confused:

Re: [merged] Price increase
 

The only way your going to get a 24/7 2mbit service then (if your local BT exchange covers upto 2mbit) is an isp that will supply you with a Telefonica datastream (which i have tested) & a 3 month opt out contract. @ £39.99 a month inc vat (price includes 4gig a month Giganews usenet access) and no other restrictions also included Server-side email anti-virus protection, Email anti-spam prevention, 200 megs of webspace, Unlimited POP email addresses, Webmail and National Rate Technical Support which is the best 2mbit price package i have come across so far...

Re: [merged] Price increase
 

Well the reason I guess it was so cheap was mainly as the Main Telewest building was near enough up the road and the council had a lot of services already through them as it was (phones etc). Now the sad part was that this 45mbit line was installed to give TWO people in a library internet access by the way - so you can see they would not scratch the surface of that 45mbit line. I asked at the time (as had good relations with TeleWest there) if i lived in the area could i also have such a thing as a home user and the answer was "Yes" - im guessing the same applied when NTL trialed that Fibre to that london place and one guy had like 155mbit line all to himself - which never lasted but good while it did.

I think NTL maybe should start thinking about people close enough to a central exchange (as was the case with Telewest then) to offer a more flexible service in terms of speed vs price and maybe have more than one product on the table to choose from, such as light user, heavy user etc...

Re: [merged] Price increase
 

sorry I havent read the whole thread but incase it hasnt been posted ntl have announced their new prices

http://www.ntl.com/customerupdate/pdf/price_list.pdf

The shock is analogue tv prices are actually frozen, and digital is going up, they also sneaked in a pay as you go dial up price increase.

Re: [merged] Price increase
 

What do you think this thread is about!? :erm:

Re: [merged] Price increase
 

correction to erol and kits post's , although erol made a outstanding post.

The BT Ipstream product has a 20:1 2048/256 package as well, although it isn't cheap but it is uncapped and reliable. The datastream variant is cheaper but speeds are very incosistent due to the high contention and low user volume.

Anyone here thinking of moving over to ADSL needs to know the dangers of datastream, almost all the low priced 1mbit and 2mbit prices on ADSL use datastream, so research before you order if LLU or IPStream performance should be fine.