Slashdot Mirror
Top UK Cable Firms Scrapping DSL
jeffreyporter was one of a number of people who sent in the
BBC story that's running about the hold-up of DSL in Britain, and the situation with the companies investing in it -- but the cable modem companies are quite pleased about this.
ADSL over ISDN is called IDSL, standard acronym compression applies, it runs at either 128k or 144kbps depending on the line card in the DSLAM. If you order IDSL, you probably get a second ISDN line, the DSL part doesn't sit on higher frequencies, it just replaces the LAPB stream and feeds directly into the DSLAM.
DSL can sit on top of ISDN, but I don't know of any manufacturers offering the special filters on a commercial basis. Since ISDN uses frequencies up to about 300KHz, those are lost to DSL, and the resulting DSL connection has less bandwidth.
BT has been offering IDSL to business for about a year now, whenever it seemed like a business was going to get some competitors internet connection. The tariffs were about half of a full time 2xB ISDN call, which is still pretty expensive, certainly more than what ADSL will cost. The good thing about IDSL is that it can go anywhere ISDN can reach, well outside the range of higher bandwidth DSL.
the AC
Posting a second time because things don't work right today.
Hemos is like...sci-fi fans;he thinks technology is cool, but he hasn't bothered to understand the science it's based on
That's precisely the problem here in the U.S. also.
We *really* need a national cable infrastructure, owned by a single company (and appropriately regulated, of course).
This would probably be better than the current situation, but why couldn't you/we take it a step further and have multiple competing local-loop providers?
There are already 3 wires coming into my house: cable, telephone and electric. In my area, all 3 of those companies are rolling out data services:
Cable modems are here, and my cable company is aggressively pursuing cable telephony
DSL is available in some areas, and is being rolled out to others (slowly)
My power company is investing millions to roll out data services over power lines in 2001.
On top of all that there's fixed wireless and satellite.
Seeing as how there are already multiple companies competing in the local loop market, wouldn't it make sense to get rid of all geographic franchise restrictions across the board, and let the competition play out to the benefit of the consumer?
*Everything* is moving to IP anyway - your television shows and phone calls are going to be data packets end-to-end before too long.
It seems to me that creating another regulated monopoly to handle the last loop would be a step backward, at least in my area. I'm not terribly familiar with your situation in Britain but it sounds similar.
--
The UK is a republic, similear to the US. (Different in many fundamental ways, but you still get to elect someone to represent you). Talk to whoever is your elected official and suggest that because BT is doing such a bad job that the UK remove their license to do buisness, and require their phone system to be sold off. This would result in a few months of difficulties as you have no land line phone service, but in the end there would be much gain. Most people in Eurpoe have a cell phone, and those would not be affected to you would still have phone service.
Remember you have fight BT on many levels, from their management, to the regulator, to your goverment, or just bypass them all with a cell phone. Pick the best part from everyone else's sytems (ie, the US has free local where local is at least your city, and often several). Others have other good points. Start demanding them.
Of course land line phone service in the US sucks too. Thats why my only phone is a cell phone (and ISDN cause like you I can't get DSL and cable modems are not here yet)
Rich
I'm one of the lucky few who actually has a high speed link via a cable modem. Even if I did want a DSL link, I can't even get an estimated date of when it would be available in my area. To make matters worse, BT cannot easily install DSL to anyone who has a IDSN link, they need to disconnect this first before they can even check to see if the line is suitable for DSL.
This has the unfortunate effect however of removing a lot of the competition that cable modems should otherwise have, which means there is little or not competition in the UK at the moment for high speed home internet connections, which in turn means we are paying more than we should, so it is in everyones interest for DSL to roll out as soon as possible and by as many people as possible.
The Cable Companies should do more infastructure work before they load even more users onto the systems. I had my Cable Modem installed Monday by Telewest (Blueyonder). It's great when it works (40k/sec), but it needs to work first. The hardware link is fine, but i'm buggered if i've managed to keep an IP level connection going for more than 30Minutes before it craps out and i have to wait another 30 Minutes to get a connection again. Wash, Rinse, Repeat.
Now, i havn't had it long enough to say that this is a recurent problem, but my mates who have Cable Modems from the same company have also had problems, and Telewest themselves have admited that some of their routers seriously suck. They say they're in the process of replacing them, but god knows how long that will take.
The same thing happened when they introduced their Surf Unlimited package in Febuary, so i am expecting the service to get better. I'd just like it sooner rather than later, and before they overload the system so much with new users that it stops working completly.
Syllable : It's an Operating System
The more expensive NIC based solution is also avaiable, but that is too expensive for a typical home user.
Well, people are only seeing the edge of this argument. I think to bring people up to speed on how this situation developed is too big a task to take on in a reply to a post on slashdot, but basically, here is a brief synopsis. OK, it's quite long, but it's still only 10% of the story.
BT were privatised many moons ago, and were given the responsibility to handle the UK's telecoms infrastructure as they had done before when it was a government-owned entity. The regulator Oftel was setup to ensure that BT did it's job properly and also allow the new cable players (Nynex, etc.) get a grip on the market, and to ensure everything was nice and competitive. After some years, the cable companies were starting to realise that to provide cable service in a country like the UK was prohibitively expenisve. There are still some towns where the roads date back to Roman times, the majority of housing is not laid out in the relatively straight-forward grid-ish system US cities are laid out in, costs were high, uptake was low, etc. So they all came together under the banner of Cable & Wireless. The only other major company in the field even today is NTL.
Meanwhile BT had got DSL working in the labs, but realised that the cost was too high to deploy at that time, and anyway, they owned the exchanges, the cable companies hadn't got the infrastrucutre to sort it all out, etc., etc.... Oftel steps in and say "Oi! What are you doing about high bandwidth solutions for end users and allowing for a competitive local loop?", to which BT said "Well, we're going to install DSL over the next few years, and we'll let providers re-sell DSL services over our network. We will invoice them for the line, and the customer will still be free to choose which carrier they wish to use for voice services".
Oftel came back with "Not good enough. Unbundle the local loop and let the other guys into your exchanges to install their own equipment!" to which BT responded in their best McEnroe impression "You can not be serious! These exchanges cost a fortune to maintain, the system will lead to chaos if we have to let anybody in, the security will go to pot, and the whole damned thing will turn into a huge mess. Anyway, we want to keep control of the local loop". Still, Oftel persisted, and BT grudgingly agreed, after they were permitted to charge accordingly for use of exchange floorspace, and for moving lines across.
They started by rolling out DSL to about 25% of the population. I've got it through Easynet on the corporate plan. Unfortunately, when we looked at this as a provider, we realised that BT had stiffed us. The only way to offer cheap services is to commit to minimum order requirements. Therefore, providers have to pay a fortune for simple IP routing between the customer's premises and the NOC. There are hidden charges everywhere, and it's stifling the business. Regardless of this, a group of companies started hassling BT for ULL (Unbundling Local Loop) so they could put in some nifty SDSL hardware and start getting things moving. I know of a guy who went into negotiations that went something like this:
Provider: "So, how much is it to put our equipment in your local exchange? What's the rent, charges for moving lines over, etc.?
BT: "Looking at your current plans, for such-and-such an exchange, we're talking about £1 million for the next year"
Provider: "£1 million? For a year? What about the charges after that?"
BT: "Oh, sorry. Did we say £1 million? We meant to say £5 million."
Provider: "£5 million for the year?"
BT: "That's right, £10 million"
Provider: "You just said £5 million!"
BT: "No, we just said £20 million. We're quite clear about the price - it's £30 million".
Provider: "This is getting silly now!"
BT: "No it isn't, £50 million is a great price!"
Provider: "How did we get from £1 million to £50 million in such a short space of time. Can we see your breakdown of costs please?"
BT: "We have always maintained the cost for this exchange to be £60 million. We don't do cost breakdowns, sorry."
Provider: "I'm going to complain to Oftel"
BT: "They fully support our pricing policy and think that £75 million is a fair price to pay..."
etc ad infinitum...
So, you see, BT is in charge and not doing a very good job. Apparently they originally expected a total national market for DSL services of about 4,000 customers. Now that there areover half a million people pleading to get DSL, who knows. I'm one of the lucky ones that gets 2Mb/sec to my home/office paid for by the company. When we looked at the prices at first, we did consider setting up as a proper DSL provider, but then you realise it's all smoke and mirrors.
DSL in the US is being sabatoged.
There's a nice infalamatory statement for a Wednesday morning, I suppose I should back it up.
First, the companies running the cable (New England Telephone, er, NYNEX, er, Bell Atlantic, er, Verizon in my area) are doing roughly the same thing with DSL that they did to discourage ISDN: they under-train their people, don't hire enough people to move on install dates and don't allow "moving" a DSL line once it's installed (which has resulted in at least one friend having to settle for a new, lesser service because he moved to an area that was BETTER located for CO-connectivity).
Second, most of the high-end providers of DSL service and Internet connectivity are looking to new technologies to allow them to do more and thus charge more, so they're not emphasising DSL internally in about the same way as DSL.
What we need is a new generation of DSL providers that a) consider high-speed access to be a general-consumer item, and market, manage and train with that in mind b) provide higher-end services through their DSL service (such as wireless ethernet from the DSL modem so you don't have to have extra cabling in your house; bulk subscriptions to a number of for-pay Internet services, etc).
Anyone hearing rumblings in the industry that this is going to happen?
I live in a town with a population of 10,000 in Yorkshire. We've as much chance of getting cable as Ian Paisley has of becoming the next pope!
I'm getting to the state where I'm ashamed to be British.
:-)
From what I understand, you have to pay by the minute for local phone calls. You also have to get a license just to have a TV. Then there's all that insanity with the government being able to force you to give up your crypto keys (check out RubberHose--they may be able to help with that). Now your DSL is getting screwed.
I can see why you'd be ashamed. From the geek standpoint, Britain is a barbaric country.
You also need to have copper pairs. I'm well within the required distance for DSL. There just isn't enough copper between the CO and my home. The available copper pairs have been multiplexed with filters to stretch the number of available lines.
I have discovered a truly marvelous sig, unfortunately the sig limit is too small to contain i
Oh look! A flock of pigs has just gone past my window!
The government have just announced plans to roll all the broadcast and telecom regulatory bodies into one giant "Ofcom". Hopefully this will mean an end to the increasingly cosy relationship between BT and Oftel.
I gather that the BT-Oftel situation is actually fairly common: government regulators often end up being "captured" by the industry they are supposed to be regulating, and wind up becoming little more than the PR front for the main industry players. The basic reason is tied to the bureacratic nature of the regulator: in a bureacracy you don't get rewarded for doing a good job, you get rewarded for not rocking the boat.
The regulated monopoly model is better than the nationalised industry model, but nowhere near as good as true capitalism.
Paul.
You are lost in a twisty maze of little standards, all different.
I live in Aberdeen, Scotland. I've had ADSL for a couple of months. Here's my experiences.
I asked about 6 (probably more) people at BT if ADSL were available here. They all said "no", but I had circumstantial evidence to the contray. Well, after basically giving up, I went to a local ISP, Internet For Business (www.ifb.co.uk) to sign up for ISDN instead. Lo and behold! They could offer me ADSL (through BT, of course). Well, I signed on the dotted line (yes, I got a "business" connection), and they regretted to tell me that it would take 5 days to install it! 5 days!!! It took me 32 days in Houston, TX, to get DSL set up! And these guys were apologizing.
I have since had several other positive experiences from IFB. They're a good company, I tell you. And, no, I am in no way affiliated with them.
Well, the moral of the story is don't buy your high-speed internet from regional monopolies. BT sucks. And, if you live in Scotland, I strongly recommend you investigate IFB.
Cheers!
--Be human.
I have been waiting for 3 months for business DSL here in the US, watching the comedy of errors as the reseller miscommunicates with the providers, who miscommunicates with the local telecom. It seems these UK companies are having the same problems with BT.
;)
You think that's bad? I've been having the same problem, between BT and _itself_!
Here's the scenario. I used to be a BT ADSL customer. Easynet comes along and is selling, for me, a more attractive ADSL package. BT of course is reselling Easynet the ADSL, but they're allowing more things for a better price, so I decide to switch to them. Easy? Yeah right.
So as I was at the end of my contract with BT, I tell them I don't want to renew it. They say fine, the line will be ceased in a week. So I call Easynet, and get it set up to be installed 2 weeks later. (I had a week away anyway)
So about 10 days later Easynet contacts me. Saying they can't install ADSL on my line due to "conflicting services". Guess what, BT hadn't deactivated my old ADSL! But even worse, guess who performed the line test for Easynet? BT!!!
Much gnashing of teeth later, it turns out BT's cease department, and their installation department, are completely separate and are not allowed to talk to each other! Apparently this is company policy! So can you tell the installation department "the line test is okay, it's just failing because I have old ADSL on the line, as you can see from the cease order it'll be gone by the time you get here to install"? Of course not! That would be too... too easy!
So I have to put the cease through myself, by mail, and wait til they get around to it. And can they coordinate so the same engineer deactivates my old one and then installs the new one? Of course not! You have to wait until the cease is done to put in the order so they can do the line test and it won't fail, so they can schedule an engineer!
So something like 5 weeks later, it got worked out, and I have my ADSL, and it is good. Yes, it's laughable now, so you'd better mod this up as funny
Fross
Yes, but that it because the cable infrastructure in the UK is all relatively new, and was installed with bidirectional line amplifiers. US infrastructure is much older and was designed for broadcast not two-way comms, hence has unidirectional amplifiers. Viewed from that perspective, UK cable companies are doing okay at best; they certainly do not sparkle and there are still many cabled areas that do not offer cable-modem internet.
Well, I don't know when it was that you last checked, but I've had cable for over a year now, and knew someone with cable about 4 years ago. (Not that it was especially unusual, but we were both students at the time :-) )
No, it's not particularly widespread, but it's not exactly unheard of either, and the cable companies (of which there are several) are increasing their coverage all the time. Most of the cities/large towns have at least partial coverage.
Cheers,
Tim
It's official. Most of you are morons.
Are you sure you mean bucks and not quid? The offering from Demon -- one of the UK's largest ISPs -- is priced at £175 per month, i.e. £2,100 pa or around $3,000 for 2M/256k 20:1 access.
The BT offering is slightly cheaper but (1) you need to have windoze and (2) you MUST use their NAT -- there is no static IP with all ports open option. Did we already mention that BT suxs?
When I change jobs (no, I'm not planning it at the moment) I move countries, unless the UK fixes its infrastructure. Internet access and railways seems to be the most urgent priorities...
Hi!
Are you sure you mean bucks and not quid? The offering from Demon -- one of the UK's largest ISPs -- is priced at £175 per month, i.e. £2,100 pa or around $3,000 for 2M/256k 20:1 access.
:>
I'm sure. I go with Easynet. As you can see from this pricing page their 2M line costs just 120 pcm. The nice thing about them is the fully routed option is no extra charge. Their installation is more than most, but it's worth it in the long run i think. So far, no problems with them.
I don't know of any windows requirements for it, and afaik you can open any port you want at this time - in the future i imagine they'll close some off if they start eating traffic, but it's fine for now
Fross
I still remember reading on Telewest's Cable Internet site back in 1996 (of course that page isn't there any more) that Cable modems would be out in summer 1997 and would be 2Mbit/s download and 512K/sec upload. So it hits 2000 and Telewest launch their blueyonder cable modem service and it's only claiming to offer 512K down and 128K up. To make things worse they only will install the system for you if your PC meets their requirements which includes having to have Win 9x installed (NT and 2000 coming soon). So I've gotta install Win98 on this machine before they'll install my cable modem :( - it uses DHCP and can be easily set up by myself to use Linux so why can't they just put the 'modem' in and let me install it ffs.
Well anyway, how does this relate to ADSL, well if Telewest had got their act together and launched cable modems when promised then BT would have had competition on their hands a lot sooner and vice versa, if BT had got ADSL out the door quicker then Telewest would have to compete.
People were beta testing Telewest cable modems back in 1996, perhaps if Telewest had got their act together they'd have had a great broadband service by 1997, be way ahead of their competition and not in so much financial difficulty which meant that now they're part owned by Microsoft - prior to that Telewest was never an MS butt kisser until MS became a part owner, now things obviously are different.
So now we've got the choice of two evils in my area MS/Telewest and BT. Ahh well if Telewest had got their act together earlier things could be so different...
...is that it came out so quickly behind ISDN (at least compared to ISDN here in the UK), something BT had invested a _LOT_ of money in, both in setting up and marketing, that they needed to keep it going for a while longer before announcing ADSL. The actual timespan between the proper public announcement of ADSL (with no upgrade path from ISDN, nyuk nyuk nyuk) and its launch was not long at all, compared to the length of the ADSL trials themselves. And of course as a result people are damn furious, saying they'd never have signed up for ISDN (which can be *more* expensive than ADSL, easily!) if they new ADSL was just round the corner.
Bastards.
I use Wireless.
www.tele2.co.uk is great, they put an antenna on my roof.. I have right now a 512k line for £39 per month. They are also releasing a new deal, unlimmited internet bandwidth at 156k for £9.99 a month.
this is available only in certain parts of the Uk, but they are moving quickly.
the performance is great, and it put's a smile on my face knowing I am not paying a 'last mile tax'.
--------------------
BT's trial started in late 98 as well, iirc. I certainly had it by March 99, and i was one of the last to join. But to use the Kingston connection, didn't you have to live in some little town on the south coast, ie it was extremely limited availability?
I have an NTL Cablemodem, connected to a 486 running off of a LRP (Linux Router Project) boot disk, and it works perfectly, just setup DHCP on the Cablemodem's interface card, and enter NTL's DNS numbers and away you go. It does NAT and firewall duties for my home network. As for installation, it took NTL 4 working days to install it, from the first phone call to them, till I was using it to surf. When you register your modem at NTL the final page of the registration process gives you all the details you need to set up a linux box (DNS,DHCP and mailserver addresses). I constantly get over 60Kbs, usually slightly higher, and it is infact better than the shared 2Mbit link at work.
Well to be honest I am not that surprised.
:(
There are a number of things that hold up broadband access in the UK but the main one is Local Loop Unbundling (the last mile from the exchange to people) if owned by BT. Now OFTEL, the regulator is working to undo this but even though it should happen in the next 12 months BT are still dragging their feet by saying "there isn't enough room" in the exchanges. It isn't however all doom and gloom. There are cable companies like blueyonder and ntl trying to get cable out. Also there are a few wireless companines. But if you are like me and live in the sticks there isn't much help. For someone outside the UK you can get a good overview at broadbandhelp.com. Even though there are now quite a few ISP's offering DSL BT is still providing the bandwidth and of course it is their best intrests to take their time
Cheap UK and US VPS
Alas, you aren't allowed to use them for ADSL in the UK. You use the ADSL router/modem BT gives you or you don't use anything. The ones for business use are OK: the one we had delivered on friday comes with a 4-port ethernet hub built in (no, I don't know what model it is - they peeled of the mfrr's labels and stuck BT ones on), but it won't listen to telnet and they put a rubber plug in the console port. They also make it quite clear that if you touch it in any way whatsoever, they cancel your service (which is what is stopping me plugging a box into the console port to have a look).
Allegedly they're going to let people use their own modems some time next year, but for the moment I may well be having a word with my chum at the Competition Commission later in the week about this.
-- AndrewD
A Maze of Twisty Little Laws, All Different.
The 'home' system users a USB based interface, with closed specifications. Drivers are only available for Windows 95, 98, ME and 2000, so Linux, Macintosh, BeOS, NT 4.0 and other users are not able to use it. It is made worse by the fact that the USB device exceeds the USB specificaation regarding the amount of current it draws.
The 'business' system is OS independant, requiring a UTP network connection instead.
Oftel, our telecomms regulator, has done absolutely nothing constructive about this mess.
Other privatised industries are just as bad. Our railways are an utter shambles.
I'm getting to the state where I'm ashamed to be British.
Then, we started to find the truth. Other service providers were even worse. We were ashamed of our disgust for our own providers when we learned of others' troubles. We even found that our provider was *gasp* ranked one of the best!
That being said, how do the service providers rank in service and customer service across the lake?
But that's *precisely* the problem with cable over here. Each company is granted a complete monopoly for a given area. I might decide that, say, Telewest has a good package on offer, but I can't go for it because NTL has the monopoly in my area. We *really* need a national cable infrastructure, owned by a single company (and appropriately regulated, of course). Then each cable provider can pay the infrastructure owner for to supply services. That way, there's full competition, and the consumer is better off. This is how gas supply currently works. TransCo owns the pipes, but you buy gas from your choice of supplier (British Gas, Eastern Energy, whoever). And no, I don't think there's a hope in hell of this happening in the near future :-(
"The invisible and the non-existent look very much alike." -- Delos B. McKown
I've been a triallist since BT first started their closed public (1000) adsl testing, and recently changed to another ADSL distributor. Of course I've paid a lot of attention to the status of DSL availability and plans here over the past two years, and can tell you...
the article is exaggerating the problem greatly.
Definitely, there _is_ a problem with the availability of DSL here, as there have been delays in its launch for almost a year, and demand has overwhelmed the (poor) supply from BT - a note for those unaware, BT is the only company able to provide ADSL, and resells it through other companies as well as marketing it itself.
The five companies mentioned in the article, with the exception of NTL, are of little to no consequence in this arena, and nowhere near the size of larger ISPs (Demon, Easynet, etc) who are offering DSL services and have no plans to back down. NTL is in fact a cable company who has been performing cable modem trials over the last year, so their interest in DSL is unlikely to be more than academic.
The demand for broadband here is phenomenal, and so many companies (probably approaching 50 by now?) are offering DSL that this will continue. Sure, it is still expensive here (i pay around $2000 a year, including taxes, for a 2M/256k line, 20:1 contention, fully routed with 15 IPs. However, having to pay for local phone calls ere i was racking up around $150 a month for 56k access as it was...), and demand exceeds supply, but wasn't this the case in the USA when it was launched? Couple that with getting our appetites whetted by hearing about it for so long, and this is of course what happens.
Fross
I'm not very familier with the situation in the UK but in Holland it is good proof why a monopoly is a bad thing(tm).
I think DSL is a stillborn technology. It is fundamentally too complex to be rolled out on a wide basis without effectively rebuilding entire local phone systems.
I have been waiting for 3 months for business DSL here in the US, watching the comedy of errors as the reseller miscommunicates with the providers, who miscommunicates with the local telecom. It seems these UK companies are having the same problems with BT.
I work for one of the big CLEC DSL providers in the USA (Covad - perhaps the only one in about 3 months....)
I can state out loud, scream it from the treetops, and sign my life away as to the one reason DSL companies (both in the US and the UK and probably elsewhere) are having such a big problem:
The Monopoly Regional Telephone companies are being assholes.
That's the jist of it. The ILECs (or RBOCs, or just "The Telephone Company") are making it as miserable and as costly as possible for anyone else to install DSL in their COs.
All the ILECs here in the US consistently take far longer than need be to fix problems with loops (the wires from CO to house), run down normal problems in COs, install basic equipment in the CO, etc. Of course, they'll whine about being understaffed (oh, but you just laid off 30% of your wire techs? OF COURSE YOU'RE UNDERSTAFFED!), or that there's no room in the CO (but they're busy plopping in new equipment of their own...). In many places, they require that CLEC have the ILEC's people install anything into the CO, and require only their people to make changes. Of course, they happen to be fairly slow about this stuff...
I'm to the point where I'm seriously pissed off. The FTC/FCC in the US (and I'm assuming OFTEL in the UK) need to start seriously levying fines on the ILECs until they get their shit in gear. Right now, the ILECs are just making it miserable for the competition, simply because they can get away with it, and know that they have the $$ to do it later, while delays will kill their competition.
Fundamentally, I think the only real solution is to strip the local loop ownership from the ILECs. That is, force them to spin out a company that actually owns the "last-mile" physical plant (including COs), but doesn't do any telecom. That way, this new company has equal incentive to provide good service for everyone, ILEC and CLEC both.
I thkn that's the biggest flaw in the TeleCom Act of 1996 here in the USA - not forcing the ILECs to give up control of the local loop before allowing them into other areas. Hopefully, we can fix this soon, but for now, they just fucking piss me off, the wankers.
-Erik
There are always four sides to every story: your side, their side, the truth, and what really happened.
This situation is very simillar to the position prior to deregualtion, where you were only allowed to use BT telephones, rented from BT at an astronomical rate.
The fact that NTL and Telewest are dumping their DSL plans is not as big a set back for DSL as many people would claim since these providers were never looking at providing DSL themselves - they were looking at providing Internet connectivity over BT's DSL package.
For reasons unbeknown to anyone but themselves BT have created a service which restricts the customer and the ISP by forcing the ISP to use BT's solution all the way. BT provide and own and configure the customer router and modem, BT own and run the local line and the DSL access ontop of it, BT own and run an ATM network which carries the DSL traffic, BT own and run the lines into the ISP's network and BT own and run the Radius servers usedfor authenticating DSL users.
The ISP has no access to any of this and the customer has no direct contact with BT should there be a problem.
This has caused fun for people experiencing problems, they guy sitting opposite me went without service for 7 days because the ISP didn't contact BT quick enough and then there was limited contact between BT and the ISP. Personally I was a triallist for 6 months without hitches- when BT came to swap out the service for the full launch kit they left me with a non-functioning install and finally took it all away after 1 month's pissing around and then telling me that the line was too long and too noisy to support DSL - even though it had been running perfectly for 6 months prior!
BT's DSL is a shambles and you will see Telewest and NTL offering DSL services later - once the local loop has been unbundled and the telcos have their own network in place for the full stretch.
I'm currently waiting for a Cable modem install and will probably stick with that for a fair while to come ;o)
Matt Thompson - Actuality - Insert product here.
BT's provision of ADSL over an ISDN line is to remove the ISDN line and replace it with POTS.
Matt Thompson - Actuality - Insert product here.
Sorry about the delay.
Down is about 500K
I seem to recall that a static IP was available for extra bucks.
I'm scheduled for installation on 30 dec. I'll know more then.
hanzie
********* sig: If you don't like the law, get filthy stinking rich, and buy a better one.
My internet provider at work and at home has told me that they plan on dropping support for DSL as well. Support is a nightmare and the margins are razor thin, primarily due to resale of telco resources.
The only advantage is that the telco is doing open access for alternate ISPs reselling their DSL transport, and the DSL providers are really pushing down costs and upping speed to compete with the cable providers.
OK, after waiting 6 months for Demon (strably no competence with the) Internet to provide ADSL here at work, I picked up on an outfit called Timewarp who managed a five day install.
It works, it's static IP, I have a block of assigned IP to work with and they don't port-block or like that there.
These people have at the very least a nodding acquaintance with A Clue
If their business service is like that, I think I may be talking to them about their home service...
Oh, and who are they to contradict you if you say you're in business? How hard is it to whip up a set of stationery these days? Ten, fifteen minutes with a halfway decent WP rig? Whatever, it's not even fraud, provided you've ever done something for pay on your own account. I mean, there's no minimum turnover requirement, is there?
-- AndrewD
A Maze of Twisty Little Laws, All Different.
Starband is offering high latency, high bandwidth 2-way satellite access, and a bird should be in geosynch over europe fairly soon. This means no modem connection, true 2-way to satellite communication.
The problem is that all packets have to travel 44,600 miles one way. At 186,000 miles/sec that means a .24 second delay one way, and a half second is added to any ping.
Internet gaming is out, but e-mail and surfing will rock.
I spent a couple of hours on the phone with a very clueful guy who runs their tech support. He said that they dont mind linux (he runs it himself) or server hosting. The upstream bandwidth is limited to about 50K, and a popular server would probably be frowned upon, but a personal website wouldn't be any problem.
Also, since this is mostly owned by Gilat (an Israeli company) there should be European coverage pretty quickly. According to my source, Gilat has planned on 3,000,000 people in the US using the service.
Anyway, there are 3 options.
********* sig: If you don't like the law, get filthy stinking rich, and buy a better one.
As we say in london, Bollocks.
NTL does offer cable in a lot of areas though, and for just £20 a month (or £24 including box rental)
And according to the FAQ it works with Linux (uses DHCP), its just not supported. The only downside is its limited to 512kbps downstream.
Official GOD FAQ.