To clarify for you most LLU is broadband-only LLU. That should not affect your BT use of the line for text type at all. If I recall correctly there are only a few firms who go full-LLU which is I think: Sky, TalkTalk, Tiscali, Original Bulldog = now Tiscali, AOL?. And Virgin Media are on Cable. The plusnet discounts on certain exchanges follow because they can get a different price from BT wholesale on the most competed exchanges.

Quite a few of the others who have phone packages available are just using one of BT's wholesale options for the normal BT line. Although it would be worth checking if those would interfere with the text service.

Post deleted by Sadoldman

Thanks to everyone for the replies, they are most helpful!

Both NewNet and IDnet look like good options, since they both include a single static IP. NewNet are very good on price - can probably go for their £12/month package since the backups can be scheduled, though their off-peak window of 2am to 7am is a bit narrow. I'm using incremental backups of data only so this should be fine.

This exchange (THNU, which I found by searching on phone no) does have some LLU options including Be/O2, who sound OK though maybe not as good as IDnet/NewNet on support and reliability. Also it sounds like the Be 'unlimited usage' model is creaking, causing discussions of FUP.

Since speed doesn't matter at all in this case, I think it's going to be one of these IDnet/NewNet. Pro's and con's as I see them:

- NewNet - Home Lite ADSL2 with 3GB @ £12.67/month
- PRO: ADSL2 so no change in technology, which is probably good for reliability, and unlimited download in offpeak. Upload unlimited (is it really?)
- CON: 5 hour offpeak window, max 448 Kbps upload rate for backups,

- IDnet - Home Starter ADSL2+ with 12 GB @ £14.67/month
- PRO: More transfer allowance, probably a bit faster in both directions, upload unlimited
- CON: May be less reliable due to BT WBC issues than ADSL2?

Unlimited upload is great for backups and remote access by me, of course.

Any other comments? Something I've missed? I'm leaning towards NewNet on price and not being WBC based, but quality of tech support is really important as well.

I believe both IDnet and NewNet are non-LLU for Newbury/THNU - if they are, that's OK as long as it's a good service.

Interesting, I haven't done any speed tests but on MetroNet/Plusnet I did find a dramatic difference in SSH speed betwen 119 (unusably slow in peak times, multi-second delays to echo a single character) and 22 or 222 (both good). That implies their deep packet inspection has limits - perhaps they allocate some protocols to low priority purely on port number, and reserve DPI for certain port numbers.

The shaping on port 119 was a lot worse than 512 Kbps - more about seconds per bit than bits per second!

Edited by deleted (Tue 28-Jul-09 09:37:42)

Newnet will be on WMBC in the not too far distant future, as all BT Wholesale ISPs will have to be.

I think you are over-concerned about O2 - the Standard package would suit her fine. The faster upload would also be ideal for the backups.

You could also get her the O2 mobile phone discount if you have access to one. The phone does not have to be in the same name a, or registered to the same address as the broadband account.

I moved from Newnet to O2 Standard as the 3GB started to get too restrictive for me once iPlayer and such came along. Also many sites these days have mini-video on the home page - for example the BBC again.

The 2-7 unmetered on Newnet is not that simple. Readings are taken at hourly intervals starting at the time the user session commences. So starting an upload at 2:03 could have all the usage to 2:55 included in metered time if the user session started at 11:51 the day before. And so on.

Similarly if the session started at 11:03 then time between 6:03 and 7:03 could be included in metered, instead of the previous example.

There are complex discussions a few weeks ago in the Newnet forum.

The talk of FUP on Be may or may not be well-founded but there is no evidence of things creaking. Just the 3-monthly spell of people saying the price model is unsustainable, fuelled this time by some funny idea of community condemnation.

They seem also to be concerned about the effect on individual exchanges, rather than under-capacity at the centre. That is reasonable, as to provide additional backhaul to an exchange because of the usage of one customer would be completely ludicrous.

That isn't to say it has to ruled out due to the customer profile they probably have, but remember they are talking about people who regularly download several hundred GB per month.

There has been no mention of anything similar relating to O2 in these forums. With hindsight I shouldn't have started the thread Traffic management possibility as instead of turning into a discussion of whether some restriction may be needed on O2 it turned into a discussion of Be, and more particularly later on, the Be new web site.

This has made several people such as you think that O2 are looking at a general usage restriction. There is nothing to suggest this.

The FUP reserves the right to ask any user to moderate their behaviour. So does the the much-vaunted NO FUP claim on Sky Max. They have just moved the clause to the standard T & Cs instead!

Edited by RobertoS (Tue 28-Jul-09 09:56:45)

Bob - thanks VERY much for explaining the NewNet restrictions, I wasn't aware of that. Not really clear what a session means - is it just a period during which packets arrive without big gaps? If so, it would be hard to stay within the offpeak period. It really makes the whole offpeak almost unusable.

However, for backups NewNet might be OK, but only because the upload is unlimited.

Useful info on Be, I will have a much closer look at Be / O2. I understand the infrastructure is the same in both cases, but is it worth joining one or other service - clearly you chose O2, but are there significant differences? The mobile discount is worth knowing about - particularly the bit about not being at same address, as we do have an O2 phone in our household. Very handy.

UPDATE: I've now looked at both Be and O2 a bit more, and noticed that O2 charge almost £5/month for a static IP - however, with the mobile phone customer pricing, the total is £12.23. This is similar to NewNet but without its restrictions, and less than IDnet's £14.69. Be isn't an option here as you need to go for a Pro package at £21.50/month to get a free static IP. A bit odd that Be prices the static IP so high when quite a few ISPs include it for free.

So I'll go for O2 as long as the mobile discount thing works out.

On WBC, I know all ISPs will move to this but right now it just seems very bleeding edge, based on comments from ISPs such as IDnet and A&A.

If this forum had rep points I would give you some

Edited by deleted (Tue 28-Jul-09 21:19:13)

In reply to a post by Cato2:

Bob - thanks VERY much for explaining the NewNet restrictions, I wasn't aware of that. Not really clear what a session means - is it just a period during which packets arrive without big gaps? If so, it would be hard to stay within the offpeak period. It really makes the whole offpeak almost unusable.

On WBC, I know all ISPs will move to this but right now it just seems very bleeding edge, based on comments from ISPs such as IDnet and A&A.

If this forum had rep points I would give you some

The session basically starts at a modem/router sync event. Part of the discussion I referred to were about re-syncing either just before or after 2am, and similarly just before 7am.

WBC is not really fit for beta release never mind live roll-out.

Ta for the compliment.

Note if I haven't mentioned this it is in the full MKD document but not as obvious in the Page 4 update.

Currently O2 are giving 2 months free - ends the end of this month. Also signing up through Quidco there is £50 Cashback. (You need to register there or it doesn't work). It takes you into the normal O2 web site to order but the cookie system tracks you came from there. So make sure you delete cookies first or O2 will pick up their own cookie on your machine instead! Quidco will deduct £5 from the payment as an annual subscription.

Re the O2 mobile, if you get into the free 2 months then there is no need to organise the association of the phone with the broadband until a few days before the first actual billing date.

Edit - You don't need the MAC in order to sign up and qualify for the two offers. You can supply it when you receive it.

Edited by RobertoS (Tue 28-Jul-09 23:26:00)

the ssh on port 222 I think on isps like plusnet would be in real danger of been marked as encrypted torrent traffic.

so in my opinion you need a isp that doesnt shape traffic. On BT-based services they not that cheap.

entanet funny enough maybe your best option although they have the alt system at least it doesnt protocol shape.

yea shaping has that affect, a 512kbit connection without shaping will perform far better than a 100mbit connection shaped to 512kbit, because the shaping drops packets artificially emulating packet loss.

ukonline may also be an option for you the 2 meg package.

Edited by Chrysalis (Thu 30-Jul-09 03:14:53)

It's all about how the shaping is done. What people refer to as shaping may mean almost anything. The basic idea is a queue of packets matching certain criteria, which can have a bandwidth and a priority - the problem with NNTP/119 may be that it has zero committed bandwidth and is very low priority. Packets from almost any other traffic class will take priority which at peak times means seconds for a single packet to be delivered. This can be implemented through a combination of packet dropping and buffering - if it's seconds of delay it's most likely dropping packets.

Unless the ISP documents explicitly how they are doing the shaping, and the DPI vendor does the same in freely accessible docs, it's very hard to know what's going on. QoS is complex enough without having to guess at the configuration.