how can large ISPs be so cheap?

As the title. i notice that Talk Talk, sky and Bt are a lot cheaper than smaller ISps, how can they do this?

I know that they may have more customers, but to offer unlimited for a few quid more than normal seems to be impossible.

Talk Talk for instance is £25.50 for unlimited fibre, yet the ISp i am with for £25.90 it is a 30GB limit, ok it is unlimited off peak. Then there is a £100 connection fee, where Talk Talk is £30.

I have no idea what sky is charging, Bt is around £26 again unlimited and free connection.

granted that sky and Talk Talk uses their own LLu system, but it still comes over the Bt fibre, so they still have to Pay Bt wholesale. How Bt retail can do the higher speed for the same price as the lower speed I don't know, i suppose it helps when you are all one company.

Never believe that rubbish about BT departments not being connected.


We are going back to the old days, where smaller ISPs will be forced out because they can't compete.

Even if i did go for fibre, there is no way i would pay a £100 connection fee, no offence ADSL24, but that is over priced, i would have to go for one of the larger providers and then there is only one I would go for and that would not be a great choice either.

Thankfully at the moment i am happy with what I got and will not be going fibre when it comes here around the end of next month, but I know a few people who are thinking of it and some of them are with the smaller ISPs and will go to Sky, Bt and even Talk Talk because they are cheaper.

Two things:

Traffic Management
Customer Service

TalkTalk & BT employ unskilled, offshore call centre staff.

Small (pricey) ISPs employ reasonably bright british people.

TalkTalk & BT Traffic Manage their networks which means during peak times HTTP should remain nice and fast but other types of traffic like Peer to Peer might slow down depending on network traffic especially in the evening.

Small, pricey ISPs have enough bandwidth and stringent enough usage limits to no have to traffic manage.

Edited by izools (Mon 21-May-12 20:49:17)

I agree it does knock the smaller ISPs out of the market
I'm interested in seeing the reasoning for pricing myself too...

I believe that PLENTY of people are living the what I call 'small isp myth.' They believe their ISP is offering them something far better than they would get elsewhere and hence they justify the high prices. I have definitely experienced this myself in the past. The reality is that the big ISPs are far cheaper and often just as good in terms of connection speed, throughput etc.

I'm going to watch this thread closely anyway

TalkTalk subsidises via the phone calls most people make, e.g. voting on X-factor and similar for Sky with TV and BT with it requiring calls.

Hence the emphasis on ARPU in their financial reports

Small ISP's definitely tend to have the edge on the customer service front from my experience but of course you have to pay for that at some point so its up to each individual whether its worthwhile or not.

I don't think that customer service is the only thing that contributes towards the difference in price though.

The economies of scale will be a large contributing factor to the cheaper prices that the large ISP's can offer. Whether you have one customer or one million customers there's certain costs to doing business and when you can spread those costs across more customers the cost per person is generally less.

I did the small ISP thing for many years but swapped to BT Infinity earlier this year for the cost saving and have been very impressed with them since swapping to them.

Yup the customer service is definitely very random, sometimes you can end up with a decent person other times you may as well be talking to a wet cloth but overall the quality of what has been provided (customer service aside) has been top notch.

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

TalkTalk subsidises via the phone calls most people make, e.g. voting on X-factor and similar for Sky with TV and BT with it requiring calls.

Hence the emphasis on ARPU in their financial reports

Mmm, that is true.

Not that I agree with it, certainly with Bt, they should not be allowed to force people taking their calls package as well.

In reply to a post by Dilbert:

Small ISP's definitely tend to have the edge on the customer service front from my experience but of course you have to pay for that at some point so its up to each individual whether its worthwhile or not.

I don't think that customer service is the only thing that contributes towards the difference in price though.

The economies of scale will be a large contributing factor to the cheaper prices that the large ISP's can offer. Whether you have one customer or one million customers there's certain costs to doing business and when you can spread those costs across more customers the cost per person is generally less.

I did the small ISP thing for many years but swapped to BT Infinity earlier this year for the cost saving and have been very impressed with them since swapping to them.

Yup the customer service is definitely very random, sometimes you can end up with a decent person other times you may as well be talking to a wet cloth but overall the quality of what has been provided (customer service aside) has been top notch.

TBH, I don't want to touch BT again, even the thought of using their fibre network puts me off. With the problems i had with Bt with ADSL, I want to stay as far away as possible.

If the service works ok then there should be no need to use customer services, I been with ADSL24 for 2 years now, give a day or two and only once had to get in contact about a problem.

I fear for the smaller ISPs to be honest once fibre covers most of the country, people will go for the cheapest option, it don't matter if it any good or not. that have been proved by the amount of people that have gone for Talk Talk, not because of quality, but because of price.

the other thing that bothers me is how long will it be for people are forced onto fibre even if they don't want it? I know I won't be because the price difference unless cable and wireless gets sold and their new owners decide to dump the re-sellers.

i pay just under £20 a month for my broadband which to be honest is pretty good, sure the speed is not great, but that have nothing to with my ISp, I blame Bt for that, because they cut costs when they put the new exchange in. for this £20 a month I get unlimited internet, no traffic management and no profiling.

If I wanted to stay with my provider and go for fibre, i would be paying more for less if you know what I mean.

It is all geared up to benefit BT at the end of the day.

granted that sky and Talk Talk uses their own LLu system, but it still comes over the Bt fibre, so they still have to Pay Bt wholesale.

Nope.

VULA/GEA, completely avoiding BT Wholesale and its prices/markup. Effectively the same as LLU. On both LLU and GEA they pay Openreach for the connection between you and the exchange, and on top of that for FTTC they pay Openreach for that between you and the exchange.

BT Wholesale also pay Openreach for those services.

I have used TalkTalk Business ADSL2+ for the last 2 years - I paid £22 /month plus VAT for phone and unlimited broadband. Their business customer service is on shore, knowledgeable and helpful. You also get prioritised bandwidth over residential users so all in all it is a good value package.

My cabinet is in the final stages of being upgraded for FTTC and has an RFS of end June. Unfortunately TT Business are not offering a fibre product at the moment so I have been forced to move to another supplier else I would have stayed with them (they have lost a happy customer).

I will be going to BT for the simple reason that they do offer an unlimited package. I am approx 6.5km from the exchange and with ADSL2 get just over 1Mb. At about 600m from the cabinet I have an estimated 50Mb. So whatever happens I should get a vastly improved service over what I am used to. I currently have to have 2 lines so I will be able to cease 1 line and still pay less than I do currently.

I would have been happy to go with a smaller ISP but the relatively small download limits put me off. I don't use peer to peer but we do use Netflix which is very bandwidth hungry. I work from home and even on our lousy 1Mb connection I have seen our combined data usage rise from c12 to c60GB/month. That is without HD so smaller services with 30-40GB of data allowance is simply not enough. Business grade packages which offer c100GB are twice the price of BT.

With more Netflix/Lovefilm data hungry services arriving there needs to be big step up in bandwidth allowances to allow the smaller ISP's to compete, which probably means a drop in wholesale data prices.

I don't get it either, Fibre has just started at my local exchange so I spent some time checking what packages were on offer.
I usually try to avoid the larger ISP's and find a small UK based ISP who wont mess about with my connection and offer either an unlimited connection or a larger allowance.
However this time I appear stuck, the difference between the big and small ISP's is night and day. 90gig for £50 a month @ 40/10 vs Unlimited (with peak time throttling) for £26/mnth @ 80/20

Im usually willing to pay a bit more for the better service and to avoid the big ISP's but i don't think I can justify it this time.

Capitalism and the market place are pretty powerful forces. We dont know how its going to look in a few years time.

Innovation and marketing can completely change around a system that is stagnant. ISPs are no different. Remember when Freeserve was launched? ISPs copying the business model exploded all over the place, when ADSL started out it was only BT, and then BT sold it as a wholesale product all the other ISPs got on board.

Then LLU came onstream. That market is now dominated by TalkTalk and Sky the latter only started offering broadband in 2006 and the former only really took off in the same year.

Who knows what will happen in the next few years. Sky for instance offer broadband not to make a profit on it, their price, quality and customer service are unrivalled, but to increase the numbers of their paid tv service and reduce the churn from people leaving.

I think they succeed because people are addicted to saving every last pound and seem to love to bundle themselves up in some mental long term phone/bb/tv package (where they can spread the profit amongst the services)

Personally, I don't bundle anything and pay the premium for choice, flexibility and decent customer care.

In 2000 if you told people you'd have 80mbit for £50 they would have torn your hand off, BT/TT prices of ~£26 are unreasonably low imo (cutting their own throats) but people just expect that now from all isps.

Edited by Magsy (Tue 22-May-12 14:42:58)

People say that staying with BT Wholesale gives you choice, but when it comes to unlimited fibre at an affordable price, staying with BT Wholesale only gives you a choice of one provider, BT.

Back in the old days I had AOL for years. I then switched to 'eclipse internet.' At that time it was quite small and was quite expensive comparatively. It had good reviews etc.

I had the worst ever experience with them and actually switched back to AOL (who then restricted me to something ridiculous like 20 kb/s at peak due to FUP).

Anyway moral of the story as I mentioned earlier is that the smaller ISPs does not automatically mean better. I do agree that customer service is usually better at the small ISPs but definitely with eclipse they were unable to swallow any charges.

At the time they wanted me to pay upfront for an engineer before crediting it to my bill... Comparatively Sky told me straight up 'there will be no charge as you are in the master socket.'

Sky do fibre now too which is good. No throttling of torrents etc. I pay £20 plus line rental and get full speeds 24/7. That's only for 40/2 though. 80/20 is £30.

I have to say I have been shocked by how expensive fibre is overall. I had 15mbps for £7.50 before. I now have 40mbps for £20. Thing is my usage has not increased. It feels like the first days of broadband when we were billed by speed when actually ISPs are billed according to usage.

In reply to a post by ukhardy07:

I have to say I have been shocked by how expensive fibre is overall. I had 15mbps for £7.50 before. I now have 40mbps for £20. Thing is my usage has not increased. It feels like the first days of broadband when we were billed by speed when actually ISPs are billed according to usage.

I don't think the price for fibre is too bad at all. In 2002 I was paying £29.99 for 512Kb broadband and am now paying £26 for 80/20Mbps (160x faster at a lower cost).

If you want to see high pricing take a look at the Verizon Fios products in the U.S. It is FTTP but the pricing is much higher than BT FTTP.

I think it's not bad pricing overall...

But compared to how cheap LLU products had become it's quite expensive.
For those who are seeing significant improvements e.g. 1mbps to 80mbps price-wise it's not too bad.

For those syncing at high speeds already it seems quite pricey.

You aren't forced. If you don't agree there are a lot of other ISPs around to choose from.

In reply to a post by zyborg47:

As the title. i notice that Talk Talk, sky and Bt are a lot cheaper than smaller ISps, how can they do this?

Any ISP is free to pick their price.

I know that they may have more customers, but to offer unlimited for a few quid more than normal seems to be impossible.

Why? There's nothing complicated about it. A connection is a connection. You've maybe been fooled into thinking bandwidth is terribly expensive. In reality it isn't. You can download terabytes if you desire on ADSL24's fibre service. They just force you to do it at particular times of day. BT allow you to do it whenever you wish - as any sensible ISP should.

How Bt retail can do the higher speed for the same price as the lower speed I don't know, i suppose it helps when you are all one company.

Speed is essentially irrelevant. If you want 40GB usage you can pay £18 or whatever it is. If you want "unlimited" pay £26. If you live in an ADSL only area that's just bad luck.

We are going back to the old days, where smaller ISPs will be forced out because they can't compete.

Nonsense. There are dozens of ISPs to choose from. BT Group has about half the market which seems reasonable to me given their investment.

Even if i did go for fibre, there is no way i would pay a £100 connection fee, no offence ADSL24, but that is over priced, i would have to go for one of the larger providers and then there is only one I would go for and that would not be a great choice either.

Choices eh...doesn't sound like ISPs being "forced out" to me. You're making a decision based on what you value the service at. If you decide not to pay that's up to you.

Thankfully at the moment i am happy with what I got and will not be going fibre when it comes here around the end of next month, but I know a few people who are thinking of it and some of them are with the smaller ISPs and will go to Sky, Bt and even Talk Talk because they are cheaper.

Maybe people choose these ISPs because they offer a decent service at the right price?

ADSL in the UK which launched in 2000 was ALWAYS available as wholesale. In 1998 and 1999 the trials were small (i..e a few hundred households) and not commercial service.

TalkTalk started in 2006, Sky was a couple of years later.

There are some vocal campaigns to make the pricing more like you said, i.e. you want fast speeds you pay more

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

ADSL in the UK which launched in 2000 was ALWAYS available as wholesale. In 1998 and 1999 the trials were small (i..e a few hundred households) and not commercial service.

TalkTalk started in 2006, Sky was a couple of years later.

Sky purchased easynet in 2005 and set up as an ISP in 2006.

It cost them £211million to buy and they sold Easynet off for £100million 5 years later.

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

ADSL in the UK which launched in 2000 was ALWAYS available as wholesale. In 1998 and 1999 the trials were small (i..e a few hundred households) and not commercial service.

TalkTalk started in 2006, Sky was a couple of years later.

Tiscali was still trading until sometime in 2008, and talk talk although it may have been trading then wasn't rolled out on a national basis, because Tiscali still operated the LLU infrastructure that tt bought , Although tiscali LLU was hit and miss back then too, most of their ADSL was via BTwholesale So only offered a 2.2Mbit (capped) or ADSL upto 8mbit max products
talk talk

Ticali uk Same address and still trading

Edited by tommy45 (Tue 22-May-12 17:37:34)

In reply to a post by zyborg47:

TBH, I don't want to touch BT again, even the thought of using their fibre network puts me off. With the problems i had with Bt with ADSL, I want to stay as far away as possible.

I had the same attitude for about 10 years, last time I was with BT was way back in dial up days and that resulted in a 467 page bill so its fair to say our relationship didn't end well.

I have been around all the smaller providers since then like Nildram, Eclipse and Aquiss but in the end when I changed to FTTC BT's offering was just too good to resist compared to the prices offered by the smaller ISP's.

After a year with a small FTTC isp I knew I would be sacrificing quality on the customer service front moving to them as BT's can be very random but their actual connection and the network has proven to be top notch.

Sorry but you are wrong.

http://www.thinkbroadband.com/news/4125-tiscali-bran...

TalkTalk bought Tiscali in 2009. But TalkTalk launched its own full LLU based service in 2006, while Tiscali was another competitor.

Tiscali UK may well still be trading, and not sure what you wanted to show in companies house as the link did not work.

So they did, my head had it slotted in as 2007, so a year out.
http://www.thinkbroadband.com/news/2852-sky-results-...

TalkTalk had grown quicker though as by Nov 2007 they had 2.5m customers

As a small ISP we have to simply pass activation costs on at cost so if Openreach charge an install fee we have to pass it on. There is little margin we make per month per connection so it would take us several years just to break even if we did not charge the install fee at cost. If Openreach gave free installation we would pass it on.

In reply to a post by Adsl24:

As a small ISP we have to simply pass activation costs on at cost so if Openreach charge an install fee we have to pass it on. There is little margin we make per month per connection so it would take us several years just to break even if we did not charge the install fee at cost. If Openreach gave free installation we would pass it on.

I understand that and this is the problem again, larger companies are once again able to drop prices and make a loss on connections, also sell their services for dead cheap prices, as others have said here to sell other services, some you have no choice to take their services, .

Talk Talk, Bt and sky now force people to take their phone service if they want their broadband, be it ADSl or fibre.

something is very wrong in this country, i wanted a time where we could just get a naked line, and not bother with one for voice, I thought maybe with fibre we would get it, but it have gone backwards now.

The problem is people want faster speed, but they don't want to pay a lot more for it, so big companies are once again going to win.

As much as I like ADSL24, if I was going fibre, I could not justify the £100 connection fee and the higher price per month for less data usage. i try to support the smaller companies, which is why I buy my meat from a butchers, my milk from a milkman that gets it from a local dairy, my bread when I can I get from a local bakery. Prices are getting higher, things are getting more difficult, my wages are low and this city is expensive to live in.


but at the moment I have no desire to go for fibre when it comes here, but that could change at some point.

In reply to a post by zyborg47:

In reply to a post by Adsl24:

As a small ISP we have to simply pass activation costs on at cost so if Openreach charge an install fee we have to pass it on. There is little margin we make per month per connection so it would take us several years just to break even if we did not charge the install fee at cost. If Openreach gave free installation we would pass it on.

I understand that and this is the problem again, larger companies are once again able to drop prices and make a loss on connections, also sell their services for dead cheap prices, as others have said here to sell other services, some you have no choice to take their services, .

Talk Talk, Bt and sky now force people to take their phone service if they want their broadband, be it ADSl or fibre.

something is very wrong in this country, i wanted a time where we could just get a naked line, and not bother with one for voice, I thought maybe with fibre we would get it, but it have gone backwards now.

The problem is people want faster speed, but they don't want to pay a lot more for it, so big companies are once again going to win.

As much as I like ADSL24, if I was going fibre, I could not justify the £100 connection fee and the higher price per month for less data usage. i try to support the smaller companies, which is why I buy my meat from a butchers, my milk from a milkman that gets it from a local dairy, my bread when I can I get from a local bakery. Prices are getting higher, things are getting more difficult, my wages are low and this city is expensive to live in.


but at the moment I have no desire to go for fibre when it comes here, but that could change at some point.

I understand and share your ideal of having a naked line but the truth is that the cost to provision a voice service is small and line rental would need to be required regardless..

& I wish I had your 'local' support however I just cannot justify the local butchers prices, the dairy etc. Sad but true that the world we live in is dominated by the few large successful companies. TESCO for instance get 95 % of my shopping business.

Perhaps the smaller providers should take a similar option of offering bundled services.

I honestly think that providers are in many cases making a loss however overall making a profit. E.g. Sky. I find it hard to understand a truly unlimited service at £7.50... They must be making losses with some customers. Bundling isn't all too bad. It does give us the service cheaper overall. & In a way it does highlight how expensive things would be if they were not bundled.

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

So they did, my head had it slotted in as 2007, so a year out.
http://www.thinkbroadband.com/news/2852-sky-results-...

TalkTalk had grown quicker though as by Nov 2007 they had 2.5m customers

The links expired well these new ones will work Talk talk group ltd Tiscali uk

Well said Orly
My sentiments entirely common sense really.

In reply to a post by ukhardy07:

I understand and share your ideal of having a naked line but the truth is that the cost to provision a voice service is small and line rental would need to be required regardless..

They do it in other countries. I know that we would need some line rental, but it can be reduced.

A friend of mine is going onto a new wi-fi type broadband this weekend, and since she don't need a phone line she is getting rid of it and getting something like vonage for her phone.
Her broadband via copper wires is awful and waiting for Bt to decide if fibre is going to be extended around her place once the exchange is done is like waiting for a kettle to boil over a camping fire

I did look at it, but it is a bit expensive to be honest for what they offer, my housing association is saying about giving all its tenants free broadband with the above company, but when that is going to happen I don't know.

& I wish I had your 'local' support however I just cannot justify the local butchers prices, the dairy etc. Sad but true that the world we live in is dominated by the few large successful companies. TESCO for instance get 95 % of my shopping business.

Butcher prices are not that much different to supermarket ones and you get better meat, we got a load of them here, even one virtually next door to our Tescos. Milk i must admit is a little bit more expensive, but I prefer the taste.

I work in a supermarket, because I need a job, but I still like to support smaller companies if I can.

Perhaps the smaller providers should take a similar option of offering bundled services.

Some of them do, ADSL24 for instance offer a bundle for broadband and phone on Talk Talk equipment, but it is still more expensive than Talk Talk own service, but that is not ADSL24 fault, just the way the market is.

I honestly think that providers are in many cases making a loss however overall making a profit. E.g. Sky. I find it hard to understand a truly unlimited service at £7.50... They must be making losses with some customers. Bundling isn't all too bad. It does give us the service cheaper overall. & In a way it does highlight how expensive things would be if they were not bundled.

Most of the larger providers make a slight loss because they hope or force you into having other products with them

BT now force you to have their phone service, hoping that you will use it for all these calls to mobiles, and premium numbers and no doubt hoping you will also buy their TV service.

Talk Talk is the same, but without the TV service at the moment.

Sky is also the same now and hope that you will either get a sky Tv package or keep your sky Tv package. i must admit I am pleased that Sky saw sense and don't force people to have their sky TV package anymore,but felt they went backwards by saying everyone who uses their broadband must also have their phone service.


The reason i chose a cable and wireless product was because I heard good things about it for people with long lines, as there is no profiling ( take note BT, Sky and Talk Talk ) i get a far better sync speed than i ever could get with BT and no doubt Talk Talk. I have seen Sky on long lines and it is pretty good once you had words with them.

Unlimited and no traffic management also helps, sure i would like a bit more speed, but i get a faster speed that if I was with BT.

The price is fine, not as cheap as the big three, but i don't mind paying a little bit more for a decent service, but I do have limits.

The problem with the big three is customer service or the lack of it, at least ADSL24 customer service is in the Uk, even if I only used it once,

In reply to a post by ukhardy07:

TESCO for instance get 95 % of my shopping business.

If you are looking for good prices you should really re-evaluate that, the days of Tesco being good value are long gone, Tesco now gets less than 5% of my shopping spend. These days we use Lidl, Aldi & Asda for the bulk of our shopping.

Well, we're constantly working with our suppliers to help us out as best they can, as naturally, the more we sell, the more they benefit too.

To this effect we have some exciting package variations (especially for the higher usage allowances) and also a reduction in the setup fee for new connections and migrations.

We've (finally) signed off the commercials with our supplier so we shall be releasing details on Monday.

Thanks

James

Edited by Adsl24 (Sat 26-May-12 09:50:55)

And that tells us what about the trading names and how they can provide broadband so cheap?

In reply to a post by Going_Digital:

In reply to a post by ukhardy07:

TESCO for instance get 95 % of my shopping business.

If you are looking for good prices you should really re-evaluate that, the days of Tesco being good value are long gone, Tesco now gets less than 5% of my shopping spend. These days we use Lidl, Aldi & Asda for the bulk of our shopping.

The key to success is doing the tescp/asda/morrisons shop *last*. Go to the aldi/lidles first, then go the Icelands/farmfoods and then pick the stuff up you cant get there at the big supermarkets.

The price differentials on some things is huge. Fresh fruit and veg is massively cheaper at lidl/aldi as is most fresh meat, frozen food is best at farmfoods and iceland. The quality is not diminished. The fresh meat from Aldi is superb value and high quality.

But none of those stores have the depth of variety as you get at the big supermarkets. So go there just for those things you cant get elsewhere.

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

And that tells us what about the trading names and how they can provide broadband so cheap?

Well the date of incorporation for talktalk was 15/12/2009 does that not mean that was the date they started trading under the brand name talktalk ?
here is what the web site samknows says about their history samknows

In reply to a post by tommy45:

Well the date of incorporation for talktalk was 15/12/2009 does that not mean that was the date they started trading under the brand name talktalk ?

No - the talktalk brand was launched in 2003.

A change in December 2009 is more likely to have to do with getting ready for the fact that they demerged CPW and talktalk in March 2010

In reply to a post by Adsl24:

Well, we're constantly working with our suppliers to help us out as best they can, as naturally, the more we sell, the more they benefit too.

To this effect we have some exciting package variations (especially for the higher usage allowances) and also a reduction in the setup fee for new connections and migrations.

We've (finally) signed off the commercials with our supplier so we shall be releasing details on Monday.

Thanks

James

I know how difficult it is for smaller ISPs and I don't blame them, I blame the the way this country works by allowing big companies and the government for allowing this in my opinion anti-competitiveness to carry on.

I will have to have a peak to see what you got on Monday, as I said at the moment I am fine with how I am as long as who ever ends up buying Cable and wireless don't pull it all from under us.

It is the same in any industry small vs large

Smaller ISP's have always been more expensive it is nothing new

If you have a complaint about it Ofcom are the people to speak with. But what would you have happen? Force large ISP's to increase their prices affecting literally millions of households to help a few handfuls of ISP's?

Smaller ISP's must have known and know now the score when it comes to competing with larger ISP's

In reply to a post by zyborg47:

I know how difficult it is for smaller ISPs and I don't blame them, I blame the the way this country works by allowing big companies and the government for allowing this in my opinion anti-competitiveness to carry on.

Perhaps these smaller ISP's should be allowed/forced to install their own infrastructure rather than piggyback on BT's. Even though you have bought/rent your house how would you feel if the government forced you to share it with me.

Neither is going to happen though.

you not being force to get their products, you are free to use any other provider of service that meets your requiment.

making things cheaper when yoou buy more is standard everywhere, be in 2 for 3 or reduce unit price when you 10 ext, or even a certain % off when you spend so much.

Offering internet at a cheaper price when you take anopther service follows that same logic if you buying 2 service off me I have 2 cance to make prodift, therefore instead of wanting to make 10 profit per user per product I will happily only make 7£ but as you buying 2 service that mean £14 profit from you.

However If i was inchard I would offer single product but at a mark up, i.e. if you don't tike out line rental add £2.50 to the monthly fee if you don't take our call plan at £5. Bit like sky currently does for their ADSL

In reply to a post by Adsl24:

Well, we're constantly working with our suppliers to help us out as best they can, as naturally, the more we sell, the more they benefit too.

To this effect we have some exciting package variations (especially for the higher usage allowances) and also a reduction in the setup fee for new connections and migrations.

We've (finally) signed off the commercials with our supplier so we shall be releasing details on Monday.

Thanks

James

Great news, so will it be available to order today and provisioned the next day?

What time?

Seems as if another date has passed, not surprising though :/

In reply to a post by zyborg47:

In reply to a post by Adsl24:

Well, we're constantly working with our suppliers to help us out as best they can, as naturally, the more we sell, the more they benefit too.

To this effect we have some exciting package variations (especially for the higher usage allowances) and also a reduction in the setup fee for new connections and migrations.

We've (finally) signed off the commercials with our supplier so we shall be releasing details on Monday.

Thanks

James

I know how difficult it is for smaller ISPs and I don't blame them, I blame the the way this country works by allowing big companies and the government for allowing this in my opinion anti-competitiveness to carry on.

I will have to have a peak to see what you got on Monday, as I said at the moment I am fine with how I am as long as who ever ends up buying Cable and wireless don't pull it all from under us.

Governments can sometime be enthralled to big business. All regulation helps big business because the impact of any regulation no matter how erroneous has a disproportionate impact on smaller enterprises.

Government is not the solution to these anti competitive actions, competition is.

In reply to a post by Squirrel:

In reply to a post by zyborg47:

I know how difficult it is for smaller ISPs and I don't blame them, I blame the the way this country works by allowing big companies and the government for allowing this in my opinion anti-competitiveness to carry on.

Perhaps these smaller ISP's should be allowed/forced to install their own infrastructure rather than piggyback on BT's. Even though you have bought/rent your house how would you feel if the government forced you to share it with me.

Neither is going to happen though.

BT has such a natural advantage though. When privatised it inherited a complete infrastructure, rather than having to start one from scratch. BT like any near monopoly has not being shy of abusing its authority when allowed to. The quid pro quo for the consumer though was ever reducing prices but this was under regulator price controls.

The universal obligations imposed on BT have been one by one lifted though.

i wanted a time where we could just get a naked line, and not bother with one for voice,

That would be an even more costly product I suspect, the ISP's have to recoup their costs, so the margin would be slimmer on a 'naked' service, therefore they would be obliged to charge more.

You doubtless pay more for your bread, milk, and meat, because you choose to buy them from smaller outlets, are you raising similar questions on Thinkcheese.com, I wonder ?

Would not a mobile service better meet your needs, no line rental to pay ?

I'd be interested to know whether a naked line from the fttc cab to the residence could be done.. Surely then there would be less copper to maintain in good working order.

In reply to a post by Anonymous:

Seems as if another date has passed, not surprising though :/

Just spoke to ADSL24 Sales, they say the 80/20 packages are still being drafted and wont be released until mid to late June

Why such conflicting information? I don't mind waiting but being told a date when it'll be launched which is then missed is worse than not knowing a date in the first place in my opinion!

C.

In reply to a post by blueacid:

I'd be interested to know whether a naked line from the fttc cab to the residence could be done.. Surely then there would be less copper to maintain in good working order.

Do you see this as fttc with no voice service carried at all?

I do. Therefore the copper between cab and exchange would not be required, only the copper between cab and customer.

Doubtless it would happen, but it might well reduce openreach's liability for expensive repair costs, with less in the chain to go wrong..

In reply to a post by zyborg47:

larger companies are once again able to drop prices and make a loss on connections,

You think BT are making a loss on their charging model?

Might want to peruse their annual statements where you see BT Retail making more profit year on year.

lol.

Edited by orly (Tue 29-May-12 15:01:22)

That is the most frustrating part, especially as James stated it would be available within 14 days.

So it ends up being over 2 months late now, in the 80/20 trial thread James said it would be available from them as soon as Openreach launched it.

...... how would an engineer know that your 'naked' service wasn't just a spare pair ?

I thought they already had units that would detect a line that's in use without a dial tone. Am I mistaken there?

I thought they already had units that would detect a line that's in use without a dial tone. Am I mistaken there?

The new 'blue butts' have a digital services warning on them, and there used to be a 'digital sniffer' but that's not how you tap through a joint looking for a spare.

There's enough trouble with SDSL pairs getting nicked by engineers, due to no dialtone on the line.

In reply to a post by Zarjaz:

That would be an even more costly product I suspect, the ISP's have to recoup their costs, so the margin would be slimmer on a 'naked' service, therefore they would be obliged to charge more.

You doubtless pay more for your bread, milk, and meat, because you choose to buy them from smaller outlets, are you raising similar questions on Thinkcheese.com, I wonder ?

I pay more for my bread, meat and milk because I get a better product but the cost difference is not huge, in fact the bread I buy is only 10p more the stuff that comes out of supermarkets ovens.

Granted Milk is a fair few pence more, but then it is delivered as well.

Meat much better quality from butchers than what supermarkets push out.

But with broadband it still comes down the same wires, the main difference is how the provider mucks about with it and also customer service.

i have said before, I don't mind paying a bit extra for a decent service other wise I would not be with the provider I am with, there are plenty around that is cheaper than the just under £20 a month i pay at the moment.

Would not a mobile service better meet your needs, no line rental to pay ?

No, how do you make that out? Using a mobile service with the Wii and Ps3 would be expensive if not difficult.

In reply to a post by orly:

In reply to a post by zyborg47:

larger companies are once again able to drop prices and make a loss on connections,

You think BT are making a loss on their charging model?

Might want to peruse their annual statements where you see BT Retail making more profit year on year.

lol.

BT will not be making a loss as they are the most expensive large supplier, I suppose they are making a loss when they offer it to people cheap for three months, but then they stick you on a long contract, so that makes up for it.


Sky makes their money from TV, Broadband is just a way to keep people, i doubt they are making that much money form £7 a month. Talk Talk no doubt makes most of their money of phone calls.

In reply to a post by Cobra001:

you not being force to get their products, you are free to use any other provider of service that meets your requiment.

If you can find one at a decent price.

making things cheaper when yoou buy more is standard everywhere, be in 2 for 3 or reduce unit price when you 10 ext, or even a certain % off when you spend so much.

It is not just the fact of offering it cheaper, I can understand that, but they don't give you a choice, you want Bt sky or Talk Talk broadband, then you have to have their phone service.

Offering internet at a cheaper price when you take anopther service follows that same logic if you buying 2 service off me I have 2 cance to make prodift, therefore instead of wanting to make 10 profit per user per product I will happily only make 7£ but as you buying 2 service that mean £14 profit from you.

but I can still buy one service off you and not bother with the other even if it costs more.

However If i was inchard I would offer single product but at a mark up, i.e. if you don't tike out line rental add £2.50 to the monthly fee if you don't take our call plan at £5. Bit like sky currently does for their ADSL

but you still got to take Sky line rental.

In reply to a post by Anonymous:

That is the most frustrating part, especially as James stated it would be available within 14 days.

So it ends up being over 2 months late now, in the 80/20 trial thread James said it would be available from them as soon as Openreach launched it.

i thought ADSL24 was going to have some exciting package variations (especially for the higher usage allowances) and also a reduction in the setup fee for new connections and migrations on Monday, no word of them.

People are so bothered about getting up to 80Mb/s, i just would like a couple of extra Megabit without paying a small fortune for it.

i don't want or need this super fast 40 megabit stuff, that people seems to be having problems with anyway.

All pay broadband is having a stall in high town on Saturday, normally I am working when they are in town, this week I am not, maybe it is time to have a good chat with them and see if their wireless broadband would be a good thing to go for, so far I must admit thet price seems a bit over the top.

Yea, I do remember hearing that. But then I thought steps had been taken to resolve that problem, hence my suggestion.

If the problem still exists then naturally it's a rather unworkable idea. grr.

In reply to a post by zyborg47:

In reply to a post by orly:

In reply to a post by zyborg47:

larger companies are once again able to drop prices and make a loss on connections,

You think BT are making a loss on their charging model?

Might want to peruse their annual statements where you see BT Retail making more profit year on year.

lol.

BT will not be making a loss as they are the most expensive large supplier, I suppose they are making a loss when they offer it to people cheap for three months, but then they stick you on a long contract, so that makes up for it.


Sky makes their money from TV, Broadband is just a way to keep people, i doubt they are making that much money form £7 a month. Talk Talk no doubt makes most of their money of phone calls.

Sky is definitely not making a loss on it's communications sector though. See http://www.itproportal.com/2011/08/01/sky-broadband-...

They would not have invested in communications if it was believed to be loss making.
In the first year or so I believe communications made a loss but this was whilst a customer base and equipment was installed. It was an expected loss too with a vision that the future would yield a profit.

Edited by ukhardy07 (Wed 30-May-12 03:15:08)