VM Business

ccarmock · 06-10-2010, 23:54

I spoke to VM Business sales today to find out if they knew when fixed IP on speeds above 10 Mb/s woudl be ready.

They are tentatively quoting November, so he said in a few weeks now.

While subject to change he said there seems to have been a change of heart and a fixed IP address is likely to be offered across the range including on the new 50 Mb/s business service too.

I asked about revised upload speeds in light of the residential upload increases. He didn't have any information on that and thought they were likely to stay as they are now.

I explained that this isn't very attractive as these serviecs are then poorer than the residential offering. The business SLA was quoted as the differentiator, and option for fixed IP address.

I suggested he give my feedback to the marketing team that upload bandwidth at least inline with, but not worse then residential was essential and ideally the business services should have the premium upload speeds as they have to date.

Kymmy · 07-10-2010, 09:12

As I've said lots of times the business broadband SLA is exacly the same as residential....

If they don't do something about upload (something which is essential to a lot of businesses) then they are cutting their own throats..

No point in having a fixed IP if you don't have the bandwidth to use it properly

ccarmock · 07-10-2010, 09:37

I couldn't agree more on both counts. It will be interestign to see what they do in November.

Chrysalis · 07-10-2010, 16:24

Quote:

Originally Posted by ccarmock

I spoke to VM Business sales today to find out if they knew when fixed IP on speeds above 10 Mb/s woudl be ready.

They are tentatively quoting November, so he said in a few weeks now.

While subject to change he said there seems to have been a change of heart and a fixed IP address is likely to be offered across the range including on the new 50 Mb/s business service too.

I asked about revised upload speeds in light of the residential upload increases. He didn't have any information on that and thought they were likely to stay as they are now.

I explained that this isn't very attractive as these serviecs are then poorer than the residential offering. The business SLA was quoted as the differentiator, and option for fixed IP address.

I suggested he give my feedback to the marketing team that upload bandwidth at least inline with, but not worse then residential was essential and ideally the business services should have the premium upload speeds as they have to date.

I will say my thoughts again on this, this will tie in with the reason why BT's FTTC services have tried to avoid areas with higher proportion of business's.

The reason for what you said and the FTTC stuff is that its not good for isp's to offer cheap services with high upload speeds to business's, they have more profiteable services to sell such as leased lines.

ccarmock · 07-10-2010, 16:34

Indeed, however broadband is idea for home workers when upload bandwidth is important.

Also I don't see a contended asymmetric service replacing a non contended symmetric service provided over leased lines. For smaller business maybe, but then in reality there is nothign to stop them signign up for residential broadband anyway.

Ignitionnet · 07-10-2010, 16:36

Quote:

Originally Posted by ccarmock

Indeed, however broadband is idea for home workers when upload bandwidth is important.

Also I don't see a contended asymmetric service replacing a non contended symmetric service provided over leased lines. For smaller business maybe, but then in reality there is nothign to stop them signign up for residential broadband anyway.

When you're paying a fair whack for 10/10 and BT offer 40/10 or 40/15 it's a no brainer.

If desperately worried about reliability simply get a cheap backup, still way less than the leased line.

ccarmock · 07-10-2010, 17:44

For me it's more abotu a business offering for home workers, where upstream bandwidth is an important factor.

Chrysalis · 07-10-2010, 17:48

yeah I was just saying from the way VM probably see it.

ccarmock · 07-10-2010, 17:55

Understood and I think you're right they do see it that way. Originally the reason that a fixed IP address would not be offered on the forthcoming 50 Mb/s business service was due to the fact it would compete too muchw ith their leased line business. Though from what I was told when calling this week they have had a re think of that point.

ccarmock · 20-10-2010, 21:43

A further update on this. Having spoken to VM business again this week I was told that there has been an internal briefing and currently it appears that there may not be a fixed IP address offering on the 20 Mb/s service after all and that the 10 & 20 Mb/s services will remain as they are now. But that the, soon to be launched, 50 Mb/s business service will be available with a true static (as opposed long lease DHCP assigned fixed) IP address.

No pricing information available as yet, and no definite information on upstream bandwidth. Time scales- later this year or early next.....

I was told that there is a recognition that unless they improve the offering they will lose out to competition from BT etc.

Anyone in the know that could help with the gaps here?

joe-1981 · 21-10-2010, 09:02

The site i manage was on a VM business solution until i moved it onto a BT EFM solution last night what a chore the VM guys made it as hard as possible from the start.

From a business POV speeds are always less important than the SLA's attached to a circuit. We now have a 4MB EFM No congestion service on a 2HR SLA and 24 fix time where as the VM business SLA was identical to the Residential one

I wouldn't advise any business to use VM services they are a residential supplier in my eyes not a business one. You need tighter SLA's static routing, uncongested circuits with QOS.

ccarmock · 21-10-2010, 09:51

Again I think it depends what you are using the service for. For an office etc I would agree that any form of broadband solution will not be the optimal solution, but then VM Business offer uncontended leased line service, which is a good service and comparable to BT in terms of performance, and often more cost effective.

However in the arena of broadband, in the business market this is more suited to home workers, or requirements that have a lower performance requirement - maybe remote monitoring or out of band management etc.

In my instance I regularly work from home and anything from BT will fall short due to the ADSL limitation of distance from the exchange. VM wins every time on performance even with BT Infinity being available in my area.

It is true to say VM Business cable broadband has fallen behind comparable business broadband services from other vendors and have some catchign up to do. Hopefully there will be some clarity about their plans before long.

Kymmy · 21-10-2010, 10:21

You are right in that there are different scenarios where VM seems to only be concentrating on the office scenario

Home workers, vpn from home or even businesses hosting their own servers are greatly let down by their lack of true static rDNS-able IP's on a good upload speed.

In my case I run a couple of servers and also need the upload for CAD files to manufacturers...

ccarmock · 21-10-2010, 11:29

Th implication from the person in business sales I spoke to was that full/proper static IPs with associated DNS would be available on the 50 Mb/s business product when launched later this year/early next. Hopefully this is VM Business closing those gaps!