UK ADSL packages Announced By British Telecom

jac writes: "BT have just released news of BT Openworld -- BT's new broadband portal and high-speed Internet service using ADSL technology. The home-user service is £39.99 a month with speeds up to 512 kpbs, connection is via a BT USB modem (Win 98/2000). I wonder if we'll see a lot of UK effort going into Linux USB modem support in the next few months?" Good to see the Britons getting decent bandwidth.

Comments

BT OpenWorld

[Anonymous Coward]

BT OpenWorld have a telephone enquiry number: 0845 602 1263

OpenWorld are just one potential ADSL ISP. BT (the network) are required to wholesale the the IPStream data links to other ISPs at the same price as they charge OpenWorld (about £30/mth). The ISPs then add the IP layer, mark the price up, and sell it to you.

The Bad Thing is that ISPs buying ADSL links wholesale get only a 20:1 bandwidth ratio to carry the traffic from their subscribers back to their POPs. Something tells me OpenWorld may find ways to get round this...

On the hardware front, the unofficial truth is that you can use a 10baseT network card if you have an Amiga/Linux2.2/NT/non-USB machine; but don't expect technical support from BT for anything other than a single Win95/98 box or a PowerMac.

You may have to supply your own ADSL-to-Ethernet "modem" if you choose not to use the USB version provided. Of course, other ISPs may supply/support other equipment.

The real difference between the £39.99/mth package and the £99.99/mth "business" one is that OpenWorld plan to uprate the more expensive one to IPStream's 1M/256k or 2M/256k incarnation later in the year. The four-port router they supply on that deal is capable of this, whereas the USB "domestic" hardware is limited to the initial 512k/256k. This is how they justify the higher setup cost of the business user version (don't know how they justify the higher rental).

Back in "single-user" land, you get one DHCP-assigned IP number (presumably a real one). There is nothing BT can do to stop you typing "ipchains" to share the connection round a LAN ;-)

DuncanGibb@spammenot.ultramail.co.uk (still waiting for a password)

Restrictions & tunnel servers

[Cato]

I just want vanilla IP service as well - however I have little choice if I want something priced at approx 40 UKP/month. The business service is 100 UKP/month and has a non-waivable installation charge of 260 UKP (Q: does this include ownership of the router + ADSL modem, or just installation of the line + kit?).

So, until local loop unbundling in July next year, I will have to live with the annoying BT 'outgoing only' service model. It's a pain, but still a lot faster than dialup access, so I can probably manage for a year or so.

I wonder what would happen if an enterprising ISP or hosting provider set up some sort of tunnelling server - i.e. allowing servers at home to be accessible via tunnel endpoints located outside the BT firewall, using something like GRE or L2TP to tunnel from home to the tunnel server... Probably BT would get upset at this, but technically it would be quite straightforward - just make sure the home system 'calls out' to establish the tunnel, then from that point it's just ordinary traffic, with any TCP SYNs inbound to servers at home nicely hidden within the tunnel.

For extra geek points, this could use HTTP as the tunnel mechanism (as in the various 'bypass your firewall' tools), for increased undetectability, or even IPSec, for increased security against monitoring. Something UDP or raw IP based would be best for performance of non-TCP apps, though.

Re:Transfer direction

[turg]

Well, if you actually click on the link and go to the FAQ, it says 256Kbps upstream

========

Good if you live in London...

[trintragula]

If you live in one of the first roll out areas this is great. Problem is of course that only 10% of the population do, and some of them won't see anything for another year or two.

The rest of us will have to wait that long just to see when we might expect to get a connection. Couple that with the sparsity of Cable Modem providers and the general lack (or low quality) of free modem access and you find that the uk remains a technological backwater.

The government in all its wisdom wants us all to use the internet and make the uk a leader in e-commerce, but forgets that no one will help them unless they can enjoy the sort of access all you lucky people get in the US.

Anyhow, the Times has this introduction to ADSL in case you haven't heard of it and you can register with BT to be told when they have decided to roll out to your area over here.

Why BT Sucks

[tagishsimon]

So many things suck about BT, its hard to know where to start.

1. BT is regulated by OFTEL, so in answer to an AC, it is still under government regulation.

2. Oftel have given a generous amount of time to BT before it needs to unbindle the local loop

3. In this time, BT wil seek to tie in as many users to its pitiful services as possible - this (my view) is they ADSL is being lauched now.

4. ISDN in the UK was *not* promoted for about the first ten years of its life. Its only in the last couple of years that BT have pushed it. Why? I guess because there is little or no advantage to BT in users using ISDN.

5. Less than 6 months ago, Iain Vallance, the BT Chairperson, said stuff like "the internet is too immature a technology for UK business ... BT is acting as a lollypop man (person who helps schoolkids across the street) trying to save businesses from themselves".

6. ADSL rollout *might* reach 70% of the population by the end of 2002.

7. Why so slow?

8. To protect leased line connection charges - e.g. we pay circa $40,000 for an E-1 (2mbps) line, and are quoted $8,000 for a (wait for it) 64k line. If we can get 512k for $4,000 under ADSL, the scale of potential revenue loss to BT (profits of more than $1.4 billion per annum from a population of 58 million souls) is large.

9. Bottom line; BT is doing the *least* it can to increase offerings, the *most* it can to preserve its monopoly position.

Re:Why this is still a bad thing

[ralphclark]

It's the NAT layer preventing us from running our own servers that is the most odious aspect of all this IMHO.

I have just sent the following communications to BT and Oftel:

To BT I wrote:

I am very unimpressed with the severe limitations placed on the ADSL service BT is offering.

I was very much looking forward to hosting my own web server, but it appears that not only is this impossible under the current service offering, I will also be unable to use my own SMTP server or any kind of server at all.

I know from ADSL users in the US that this is not due to any technical limitations imposed by necessity but is simply due to a policy decision by BT to limit the service in this way. It seems more than likely that BT intends to force users to pay for a web hosting service when this is not really necessary for any technical or practical reasons.

I feel that this is yet another clear example of BT leveraging their monopoly over the local loop in an improper way. I will be therefore also be contacting Oftel to request that they either remove this monopoly or force you to stop forcing Network Address Translation on ADSL users and allow us to run our own server software.

And to Oftel I wrote:

BT's new ADSL service has been deliberately designed with unnecessary limitations which damage the value proposition for end users.

The worst of these is that it is not possible for users to run any sort of server software. There is no technical reason why this should be so, but they have inserted a layer of Network Address Translation (NAT) between the users and the internet which prevents servers from being accessible from the outside world.

I have no doubt that BT seeks to force their users to pay for web hosting services etc. in the expectation that they will get some of the business. I am utterly incensed by this; it is yet another clear example of BT cynically abusing its monoply over the local loop. The customers yet again find themselves robbed of any alternative.

Please note that in other countries such as the Netherlands and the US where ADSL has been available for some time, customers are indeed able to run their own servers as a part of the standard service.

I am therefore requesting, in the strongest possible terms, that OFTEL immediately takes one of the following two actions:

i) to force BT to remove the NAT which is hiding the servers in my ADSL connection

ii) to remove BT's monopoly on the local loop forthwith, i.e. not to wait until next year.

As I implied there are other problems with BT's ADSL offering but the NAT restriction is plainly intolerable. BT continues to take advantage of their monopoly by refusing to provide the full service available in overseas telecoms markets which have been fully privatised.

I look forward to an early reply.

I urge all existing and potential ADSL users in the UK to send your own complaints to these bodies. I am sure most of you can write more persuasive letters than I did. Pick an issue: complain about the NAT, complain about the poor support for non-Windows addresses, complain about the restriction to single computer, complain about the contention ratio; whatever genuine complaint you make will help to drive home the message that BT are fucking us in the ass and getting away with it. We are the customers and we are not happy, either with BT's abuse of its monopoly or with OFTEL's old-boy-network, kid-gloves treatment of the same.

Suitable online complaint forms can be found here at BT and here at OFTEL.

Consciousness is not what it thinks it is
Thought exists only as an abstraction

I've been testing this for a year

[hedgehog_uk]

I'm one of about 900 people who have been testing BT's ADSL since last April. BT are a large monopoly, so therefore they make clueless decisions. Initially we paid £30 a month for a 2Mb/s connection. We were given an ADSL modem and ATM->Ethernet router. After ~8 months, BT changed the trial to £50 a month at 512Kb/s. For real-world usage the 75% reduction in bandwidth was not a big deal, but the increase in price was. I still feel that £30-£35 a month would be about right, but £40 isn't as bad as it might have been.

BT seem to be focused on Windows and ignoring the many *nix users on the trial. They have tacitly acknowledged that we exist by providing us with the information needed to connect with Linux.

BT have not yet contacted us trialists to tell us about the official launch. What we have at present is the same as their 'multi-user business service' which they plan to charge £100/month for. If they downgrade us to the USB modems then I probably won't be able to use it with Linux and will be extremely annoyed with them.

I can't wait for the local loop to be unbundled next year so I can switch to a clueful adsl provider!

HH

Yellow tigers crouched in jungles in her dark eyes.

Why this is still a bad thing

[A Masquerade]

• USB only unless you pay much much more, manufacturer of the modems won't talk to anyone else, so a linux port will be hard.
• BT only support windows (currently - might do Mac), and use proprietary authentication schemes - so its not just the modem you must drive but the other end too
• Its a 50:1 contention ratio
• Its firewalled and NATed to the point of uselessness - you ain't going to be able to connect back into a box on this service no nohow
• BT OpenWorld are just a renamed BT Internet. BT Internet are clueless... so clueless they had to rename them, need I say more
• All the other ADSL services within the next year are just going to be this resold - BT still own the local loop and are doing everything they can to keep it that way as long as they can

Basically we are stuck with this crap setup until BT are stripped of local loop monopoly