2010 pricing clarification please

I often used to recommend AAISP on the previous tariffs, but the Mon-Fri daytime limits were a nuisance.

The new 2010 structure looks great to me, but being an outsider I'm a bit unclear about how it works. That makes it probable I will give wrong advice to a prospect.

First, I thought you would contract for a certain number of units per month then use them as and when, keeping check by some sort of usage monitor.

But from this post it looks like you pre-select your usage pattern. Or would that just be a ready-reckoner for estimating, then it works as above?

Secondly is the "Line only" charge a monthly standing charge for broadband supply, or is it to do with phone line bundling?

The number of gigabytes of download you get per unit depends on the type of line and time of day;
BT 20CN Peak (9am-6pm Mon-Fri) = 1GB per Unit. Evening/Weekend 100GB per Unit. Night (2am-6am) 1000GB per Unit.
BT 21CN Peak (9am-6pm Mon-Fri) = 1.25GB per Unit. Evening/Weekend 100GB per Unit. Night (2am-6am) 1000GB per Unit.
BT FTTC Peak (9am-6pm Mon-Fri) = 1.25GB per Unit. Evening/Weekend 100GB per Unit. Night (2am-6am) 1000GB per Unit.
BE Line Peak (9am-6pm Mon-Fri) = 8GB per Unit. Evening/Weekend 100GB per Unit. Night (2am-6am) 1000GB per Unit.

Your usage does not have to be whole units at certain times, you can use some of a unit during the day and some in the evening, etc. There is a minimum of two units a month of pre-paid usage. Each pre-paid unit in your tariff costs £2.55+VAT so the minimum usage charge per month is £5.10+VAT on top of the line only charge for the service. Line charges can be found on http://www.aaisp.net.uk/broadband-units.html
If you have an account with us you will have a username and password which can be used to log on and obtain usage stats.
http://www.aaisp.net.uk/broadband-services.html explains the different between a Extra line and a Phone line.

I hope all this helps but please feel free to ask further questions.

I can only imagine this was dreamt up by someone with too much time on their hands.

Sorry if it is confusing.

The "line-only" is the broadband cost per month and nothing to do with phone line rental. Maybe we can find a better phrase for that.

But yes, you pick number of units a month and they go down as you make use of the service. The speed they go down depends on time of day and type of line. For most people the type of line is fixed, but some people have a mixture of say Be and BT lines so it is more relevant.

We wanted to come up with a way to try and make the tariffs simple, and a simple number of "units" a month seems a good start. But the different types of lines have different costs and we wanted to give people better value if they can use cheaper types of lines (e.g. Be and BT 21CN) hence the different rates.

Yes, we could do all the services at the same rate and make it even simpler, but that would mean most customers worse off.

I hope that helps.

That's just what I wanted to know, thanks RevK .

I do think "line-only" needs changing to something like "Broadband service" or "BB service" if that's too long.

Then maybe a short sentence that clarifies the bit about buying a total number of units, which is what I had originally assumed. The post I linked to implied the user had to choose a fixed number of units per period-type. Although the AAISP description more fits what you just said than that interpretation.

Though an online ready-reckoner may be a good idea? So if someone wants 12GB peak, 45GB offpeak, 100GB night, it just produces the total and the cost? Complicated by the line-type mix of course. Easy enough for many of us, but ....

The reason I suggest that is there are already people commenting about being too daunted by the method and that would resolve it. It needs to be at the enquiry stage not sign-up.

Personally I think it is a great system.

The ready reckoner I suggest could be based on the existing units table. Allow people to input figures into a similar table and bingo!

The order page should make it very clear as it shows how much you get on each line you have at different times as you select the tariff. This is when ordering new service and when changing tariff.

Existing customers have been moved to a corresponding tariff, but can change to a new tariff for next month if they like.

All good points Bob. I'd suggest they called the "line charge" something like a fixed/connectivity/standing charge. Some users may be most familiar with "standing charge" as that's what you get on some gas & electricity tarrifs.

I agree that the AAisp system aims to be both fair and transparent and tries hard not to cross-subsidise or penalise certain customer groups.

I do fear that the idea will be too hard for Joe User though. I'd suggest they have some "standard tariff mixes" or something to help get new users going, especially on the sales pages. So for example a so-called 10Gb mix that gave say 2Gb daytime, 8Gb evenings and potentially loads overnight if they don't use all their units. That might give Joe User a better idea of what's going on.

And just noticed the resold Be service is way expensive. Gold plated or what!?!?

You miss my point .

Very few people are willing to go into an ordering system to find out how much their preferred usage pattern will cost them, and those same people are the ones that won't have worked it out themselves in the first place.

I'm just suggesting a way you may get more people into the ordering system. Which provokes another thought - a link from the ready-reckoner straight into the appropriate bit of the ordering system with the user's figures retained to be put into there automatically. With a chance to revise them of course at that point.

Most users want to do a price comparison early on, not at the buy stage.

Is there a meter available?

Apparently Be charge more wholesale than they do retail. Go figure!

Customers can get usage stats in detail updated every hour as well as an emailed alert when usage allowance is reached.

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

Apparently Be charge more wholesale than they do retail. Go figure!

Not necessarily. Go to Be's site and find out how much their LLU broadband costs with 16 IP addresses, then see how much A & A can do it for. Be make their money through all the overpriced "extras".

Edited by deleted (Mon 21-Dec-09 15:49:11)

In reply to a post by zebedeee:

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

Apparently Be charge more wholesale than they do retail. Go figure!

Not necessarily. Go to Be's site and find out how much their LLU broadband costs with 16 IP addresses, then see how much A & A can do it for. Be make their money through all the overpriced "extras".

Both ADSL24 and ukfsn have said this, as Be resellers.

How good they are at negotiating I know not, but I imagine they are telling the truth of their experience.

One of the guys at AAISP told me that they feel that it is reasonable to charge an admin fee to set up IP addesses (which is what Ofcom guidelines say) but Be charge monthly for these items. 16 IP addresses with AAISP costs nothing extra, whilst the same thing from Be costs an extra £19.50 a month.

What about the vast majority (?) of customers who aren't interested in multiple IP addresses. That is incidental to my point that ukfsn and ADSL24 both report Be wholesale prices being higher than retail, which I posted in reply to the original question.

Since AAISP are primarily a business ISP, I think you'll find that the "vast majority" of their customers are quite interested in static IPs.

In reply to a post by zebedeee:

Since AAISP are primarily a business ISP, I think you'll find that the "vast majority" of their customers are quite interested in static IPs.

That is still nothing to do with the main point of my post. Stop side-tracking and repeating something that I am not really disputing.

I agree Bob, when people are still popping up complaining about throttling of downloads on plusnet, its clear that most people won't dig for information even after they sign up, let alone before.

Unless AAisp want to stick with only the well informed customer (who's either very tech familiar and/or a major bandwidth user) they need to find a way to present their usage model to a "what's a browser?" level user. And I sometimes think that's a very large proportion of the market. I'd still suggest they have a couple of standard packages built out of their model.

If you guys took some time to read AAISP's web pages, and actually listened to their established customers, you might learn that Andrews & Arnold have one of the best and fairest usage policies out there.

Since you won't be pounced upon (or billed) for the odd transgression, then there is no real need to totally understand every nuance of their usage terms, as far as I'm concerned. I left Zen to join AAISP, and at Zen carrying over of unused peak allowance was unheard of. It is perfectly acceptable at AAISP. The whole thing is based around a little bit of "give and take", and in my experience AAISP is one of the most approachable ISP's that you'll find in the UK.

In reply to a post by zebedeee:

If you guys took some time to read AAISP's web pages, and actually listened to their established customers, you might learn that Andrews & Arnold have one of the best and fairest usage policies out there.

Hey!

Step back and re-read the whole thread. All I'm doing is trying to help get more customers for AAISP. I have not criticised anything and I don't think Kevin has either.

I have been recommending the old packages for months for precisely the reasons you now post.

!kcits eht fo dne gnorw eht pu dekcip evah uoY

I think that you make a very good point regarding a simpler 'standard packages' for very many everyday non-techys like me..

I don't understand a lot of the package stuff, just check my usage level daily, reading these forums on TBB and some posters insistence on an isp with 'unlimited' I think A&A should make very clear that customers do get a monitor of usage on a control panel, it seems that I have overestimated the bandwidth that I thought I used

also am now unclear as to which packages allow domain hosting as previously I think you had to pay for a 4gb/100gb level, there again I probably have got that wrong as well.!!

The 'selling point' for me with AAISP apart from their reputation plus monthly contract was the excellent support staff who once they began to understand that I needed simpler explanations were fantastic and of course UK based with that irc stuff, not just a queue to a call centre.

oh and best of all the best speed on my line I have ever had with good throughput, on 20CN using BT copper
BT test at 7.10pm which I think speaks for itself
Download speedachieved during the test was - 4283 Kbps
Your DSL Connection Rate :5984 Kbps(DOWN-STREAM), 448 Kbps(UP-STREAM)
IP Profile for your line is - 5000 Kbps

Edited by deleted (Tue 22-Dec-09 19:16:37)

you guys are assuming aaisp wants to be come just 'another' mass market isp.

they seem to be sitting pretty where they are and making a living out of it.

Far from that, as it is still premium pricing for a premium product.

Very few companies do not wish to maximise their profitable customer base.

Completely in agreement Bob.

AAisp have created an excellent reputation for their support, and have actually wound up BT a few times - which in my book is a plus!

Their previous packages remain excellent, unless a user needs substantial daytime usage (as many of us do), when they get a tad expensive. Perhaps fairly so, perhaps not. Arguably they want to keep a high business user mix during work hours and the pricing does that and is not high to a real business.

I think Bob and I are just concerned that the complexity of the new scheme will turn off lots of low cost light users who would benefit AAisp's customer mix & bottom line. Its very transparency and fairness requires complexity which sadly may be beyond most of the british public.

And sorry if that seems harsh but this is the country where for example: people have a phone contract and complain on the O2 forums because they didn't realise it committed them to pay £NN/month for the entire 24 months until the bitter end, or on these very forums where plusnet customers joined them without realising that they throttle, or ISP helpdesks that don't know the difference between sync speed and throughput!

Hmm. I've tried it now as a new prospect and it just gives a drop-down list of units. Select 9 and it says (IIRC) 11.25GB at peak or 400GB or something offpeak.

See this post from a genuine enquirer.

To you RevK it is clear, because you already know the answers . To an enquirer it is extremely opaque and off-putting, which is a shame as basically it is a brilliant way of doing things.

You really need a ready-reckoner as I suggested earlier, so people can get it to tell them how many units for their usage pattern. Not the other way round which the current way doesn't even do well.

As for going in to order to do that - an even bigger off-put! For example following the route:-

Home Page.
Scroll down to the checker.
Enter phone number.

I get this page:-

Openreach availability checker response
Your exchange is ADSL enabled, and our initial test on your line ...

"Order Now" (button that hasn't copy/pasted)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Be availability checker response
Be is already providing service to the Input. [8]

Click that button and nothing happens. That is because IE8 has blocked something as suspect cross-scripting:-

How does Internet Explorer help protect me from cross-site scripting attacks?

Internet Explorer's Cross-Site Scripting (XSS) Filter can help prevent one website from adding script code to another website. XSS Filter watches how websites interact, and when it recognizes a potential attack, it will automatically block script code from running. When this happens, you will see a message in the Information bar letting you know that the webpage was modified to help protect your privacy and security.

If the modified webpage does not work properly, try going to the home page of the website and navigating to the webpage directly. If the page still does not work correctly, contact the website's administrator."

I can get in by going back to:-

Home Page.
Broadband panel >> Find out more
Order now - etc.

So when you selected a number of units it said clearly what you get for it (would have been 900GB off peak for 9 units). How is that not exactly what you need? It equates "units" to "download" in a clear way. We are not trying to be difficult, honest.

Now, we could perhaps ask lots of questions to get a "usage pattern" and work out units, but I can be sure people would say that is way too complicated as well, some times you can't win. I'll see if we can find other ways to show things that are clearer to people.

As for IE complaining, I am rather puzzled. The scripting is all carefully done to only access the same site - or at least that is the intention - as we are well aware of IEs quirks and did test the site extensively with IE. So we will re-check this and try and find the cause. Thank you for letting us know.

The Be availability checker response being a tad cryptic in some cases is something we are aware of and looking to change soon.

Thanks for answering . The difficulty is as that poster that I linked to . Even I, with my fairly good mental arithmetic, would find that no use if I wanted 5GB per month peak, 35GB off-peak and 5GB night-time (mainly to allow for MS and AV updates coming through).

I did try the route to Order twice, going throught the phone number box on the Home Page. Same result. IE8 doesn't like it. I have to go out for a few minutes, later I will try Safari, FF and Chrome .

The Be message doesn't bother me as it is correct, and I think similar comes up through the route that worked.

I agree a question and answer approach to the required number of units would be unworkable. Did you read my ready-reckoner suggestion though? The table you have on the tariff page I think is quite clear, and all you need is an interactive version of that, allowing a user to input a requirement rather than the defined allowances in that table.

All the best - I wish you well with this flexible approach.

Edited by RobertoS (Thu 24-Dec-09 16:38:24)

I do appreciate people are trying to help, so thanks for the feedback.

I may be worth explaining why the tariffs are as complex as they are.

If you start on the basis that we could just charge per GB or some such as a simple tariff, then it works out fairly pricey to cater for the peak usage and still make a profit.

You find there are gaps in the evenings and over night when people could use more and not cost us more. This is where the peak and night periods come in giving more per unit to encourage people to fill in the gaps. Its giving customers more for their money in an effort to try and be fair. A bit like old Economy 7 electricity tariffs.

The same logic applies to 21CN and BE lines having different download per unit - it is to allow us to offer people more for their money. Previously we charged the same for 20CN and 21CN, but bandwidth on 21CN is getting slightly cheaper so we wanted to fair and give 21CN customers more for their money. With the BE lines usage is much lower cost for us, so again we wanted to be fair and make those lines better value for money. We did not have to - we could have kept the prices and usage per unit the same.

At the end of the day making the tariffs simple would mean people paying more; people not being rewarded for doing the downloads at off peak times and over night; people not benefiting from 21CN savings; and people not benefiting from the much cheaper bandwidth on BE lines.

Its tricky to see how we could be less complex in the way it works but still be fair.

I hope that makes some sense!

OK, calculator on http://www.aaisp.net.uk/broadband-units.html

Hope that helps.

In reply to a post by RevK:

OK, calculator on http://www.aaisp.net.uk/broadband-units.html

Hope that helps.

That Calculator makes a huge difference! I thought before without it was like learning Chinese as a second language.

By the way, although I realise you can't realistically put every preset value into the calculator, are the Evening levels fixed at 10, 50, 100 or could 25GB for the month evening be specified?

For the month, I'd be looking for 2GB day, 25GB Evening, 50GB Night. What would that be Incuding VAT for the month please? (Taking into account the VAT rise)

Fantastic, that Calculator is wonderful

Initially the system looks complicated, but as you look at it a little more, it must rank as the most flexible system ever
the whole system is really good and i'm sure once the system has started transparency of its operation will become clearer
as I see it if you go over your limits say on the off peak and d/l a further 100GB your extra levy for that month will be 1Unit, not £?/GB
this would equate to an extra £4.89/unit compare this to most ISPs and it would be substantially more (apart from peak time only)
if you pre ordered that extra Unit, the price would be £2.93/unit pcm, but that could be spread across the spectrum of usage.

your daily peak use is stated as 2GB day, are the other values 25GB Evening, 50GB Night for the month?

The calculator looks good. The approval response from a few others I think proves the point.

However (for me) in IE8 altering the calculator default settings has no effect. In FF the units are immediately recalculated. No warning message at the top though, and using your link.

Re the site bug, I have now identified the cause of the problem .

First in FF it works fine, so I haven't bothered checking Safari and Chrome.

Second, your (open) link to the calculator page gave me the clue. If I go to the aaisp.net.uk Home Page in IE8 there is again no problem. It goes wrong if I start at www.aaisp.co.uk. (Though as I said that is fine in FF).

Hope that helps.

FYI
Might just be me but it doesn't seem to work with IE7. It updates fine with FF.
(Sorry if this has already been mentioned. Might be worth a note if it can't be fixed as it's rather frustrating otherwise!)

I've just had a very quick look - but are the allowances per day or for the month?
i.e "Daytime Usage" - when I pick 1GB is that for each day or for the month?
It might say in the small print but a lot of users won't stick around to find out...

Just my observation:
I like the look/sound of AAISP but I'm afraid I think this is still too complicated for most people...

EDIT: I see it's not just me seeing IE problems
Merry Christmas!

Edited by b4dger (Thu 24-Dec-09 17:04:52)

Another point re the less knowledgable, many will not know whether they are 20CN or BT21 CN before the order stuff. as I can't get into the order area does it show clearly in the area where you enter your phone number what can be offered ?

While ordering it is clear which you can get, and also what you get for the selected tariff.
The availability checker on the site also says what you can get.

I have added a 25GB on evening/weekend. I can add others if people think they would help.
I have marked all as /mon to make it clear that it is monthly usage levels.
I have added a Calculate button for IE users.

The Calculate button doesn't.

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

See this post from a genuine enquirer.

The link doesn't go the the which ISP residential where the poster was I think and AAisp may like to 'talk' to him

Edited by deleted (Thu 24-Dec-09 17:29:45)

same for me on IE7.


Can someone say if "daytime usage" is actually "monthly daytime usage" ?

In my experience you really need to 'spoon feed' visitors! Sometimes the techies/owners are too close to things...

Just trying to help like some of the others here

In reply to a post by RevK:

While ordering it is clear which you can get, and also what you get for the selected tariff.
The availability checker on the site also says what you can get.

I have added a 25GB on evening/weekend. I can add others if people think they would help.
I have marked all as /mon to make it clear that it is monthly usage levels.
I have added a Calculate button for IE users.

That is better RevK, i thought i was going to have to call into your office for a translation, seeing as you are based locally to me

So in my scenario with 21CN:-
2 GB Peak = Mon-Friday 9am-6pm
25GB = Evenings and Weekends
100GB = Night 2am-6am <--- I assume this tariff is 7 days a week? not 5?

So for me that calculates to 1.95 Units
So I purchase 2 Units which costs £17.56 Including VAT Month?, but will increase from Jan 2010 with the VAT rise?

Calculator is OK with Firefox 3.5.6

Edited by Vorlon (Thu 24-Dec-09 17:37:19)

In reply to a post by mistynow:

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

See this post from a genuine enquirer.

The link doesn't go the the which ISP residential where the poster was I think and AAisp may like to 'talk' to him

Ah indeed! Mea culpa. Thanks

RevK - see http://forums.thinkbroadband.com/which_isp/t/3766799...

RevK has added "/mon" to the selection texts.

Well Gentlemen as I am one of the non-techys here and was getting awfully confused, I can now say I've got it !!!! No help needed from sons or grandsons so I reckon most will now understand .

just realised that I can save an awful lot of money as well

Just checked Safari and Chrome, both recalculate on the fly like FF so just IE that's a problem.

Correct.

The site always uses current prices and usage levels and VAT rate in the calculator. So it is working on 15% VAT as that is the current VAT rate.

In reply to a post by RevK:

Correct.

The site always uses current prices and usage levels and VAT rate in the calculator. So it is working on 15% VAT as that is the current VAT rate.

I see, so i could add 5GB to my Evenings rate to bring my Scenario (above) from 1.95 units to 2.00 units.
Which gives me more flexibility than I get with Zen currently (25GB Peak), when I'm happy to set downloads ouside of peak hours. Also it would cost me less than the £25ish per month which I'm paying now.

I see, so i could add 5GB to my Evenings rate to bring my Scenario (above) from 1.95 units to 2.00 units.
Which gives me more flexibility than I get with Zen currently (25GB Peak), when I'm happy to set downloads ouside of peak hours.

Don't forget all this is is a ready-reckoner to estimate your needs. The GBs you specify don't have to be used in those periods, just the Units get used at different rates depending on when you are online/downloading.

There also is the flexibility of carrying forward under and over-runs.

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

I see, so i could add 5GB to my Evenings rate to bring my Scenario (above) from 1.95 units to 2.00 units.
Which gives me more flexibility than I get with Zen currently (25GB Peak), when I'm happy to set downloads ouside of peak hours.

Don't forget all this is is a ready-reckoner to estimate your needs. The GBs you specify don't have to be used in those periods, just the Units get used at different rates depending on when you are online/downloading.

There also is the flexibility of carrying forward under and over-runs.

Thanks Roberto, I have just got my head around the way it's set out now. But in my scenario, just so I knew what the maxs's were (understanding that it is a Pick & Mix), I like the idea of upto 2, 30, 100 for 2 units because it is practical for me. I doubt very much I'd use anywhere near 100GB on the Night rate though.

I have been looking at Idnet again and now AAISP, essentially because I'd like to save money, but also have flexibility, even if that flexibility is in the early hours of the morning.
My reasoning here:-
http://forums.thinkbroadband.com/zen/t/3766995-zen-w...

In general I never use more than 10GB with Zen, but pay for 25GB. But if I need more than 25GB on occasion like now I would have to pay more. There is no carry over, nor is there any other facility in the way of off peak usage. At the moment i pay around £25 too, whereas i could have more flexibility for less money (around £18).

I'm on 8Mbps version of 21CN at present and aslong as I get stable and reasonable online gaming pings as I do with Zen I'd seriously consider moving. As I've been with IDnet before, they are a known factor, although AAISP would be new to me.

when looking at the 2010 pricing with the calculator there seems to be quite a big jump in costing as compared with my current deal

Professional Broadband (100+2GB/mon) + night time unlimited = £20.50

now using the calculator (100+2GB/mon) + night time 500GB/mon (no option to select 1000GB) = £23.42 + £1.46 for the further 500GB = £24.88

????

But it's just an estimator !

You can use 2TB night-time if you want. That's 2 units, plus whatever you want for peak and off-peak. Or with those 2 units you can use 1.5TB night-time and have 50GB off-peak to play with.

Edited by RobertoS (Thu 24-Dec-09 18:40:31)

yes I'm aware of what you're saying, just that previously that bandwidth was guaranteed for that cost,
so on the presumption that I would use the full bandwidth on my current package, then continue to use the same
level of bandwidth with the new package then there would a substantial increase of cost.
In reality my costs may reduce as I am never anywhere near the limit even on the 2GB peak usage
Great feature the carry over, very flexible.

In reply to a post by Vorlon:

In general I never use more than 10GB with Zen, but pay for 25GB. But if I need more than 25GB on occasion like now I would have to pay more. There is no carry over, nor is there any other facility in the way of off peak usage. At the moment i pay around £25 too, whereas i could have more flexibility for less money (around £18).

I'm on 8Mbps version of 21CN at present and aslong as I get stable and reasonable online gaming pings as I do with Zen I'd seriously consider moving. As I've been with IDnet before, they are a known factor, although AAISP would be new to me.

Andrews and Arnold are only resellers of wholesale services, but you do get the choice of BTW or Be LLU. They do seem to be rather more "on the ball" with the technical stuff than Zen were, in my experience, and they are much more approachable. I think you would like AAISP's control panel which graphs your line usage and the line latency over the previous 24 hours. AAISP ping your router once per second and display the latency on a graph. This facility is really very useful if you have line or exchange problems.

Post deleted by Chrysalis

Hi Zeb,

Yes I'll probably move to either AAISP or IDnet in January. I have purchased some games on offer and I can't download them at any time unless I pay extra (ie on top of my £24.46). As Zen, I and you know, I do love Zen's quality and wouldn't really want them to change, except in regard to perhaps off peak flexibility for the domestic customer.

Both AAISP, IDnet and Newnet have this offpeak facility and for those of us who want quality, pay for quality and don't want traffic shaping, they are the better options. I like the 1 month contract too, so i will be asking Zen for my Mac early january.

I don't want something for nothing or poor service, but simply flexibility. Also I hate buying extra with Zen when in the main I only use 10 out of my 25GB per month allowance. There is no carry over either, non of which I am whining about as I do know the score. I do want flexibility though, that's all.

Pity you're not on AAISP right now. We have unmetered usage until midnight on 1st Jan 2010

Edited by deleted (Mon 28-Dec-09 09:16:44)

In reply to a post by zebedeee:

Pity you're not on AAISP right now. We have unmeteted usage until midnight on 1st Jan 2010

That would of been good and I believe IDnet are doing the same.

In reply to a post by Vorlon:

I believe IDnet are doing the same.

They are....

The calculator still doesn't work in IE, with or without the "Calculate" button, and the button isn't needed in other browsers.

I'll have to find a windows machine and try it.

In reply to a post by RevK:

I'll have to find a windows machine and try it.

A link to the calculator without any real navigation would be better too.

If you click on Broadband, then the small Price link you are faced with the Units system straight from the outset which is confusing. You then have to find the small More link to find an explanation.
It's all very neat like an essay, but not very clear at all and I believe research says that people will close the page altogether if they can't navigate reasonably quickly.

The units system is great when you understand it but I'm sure many will be perplexed to find a headed "BROADBAND Prices" page that doesn't really give you a clear price indication from the second you see it - making quick ISP pricing comparisons almost impossible.
It would be good if some of the familiar type price points were added to a comparison foot note, just so potential customers could immediately understand and see a known competing comparison.
Something like my ideal scenario for instance:-
21CN
2GB Peak
30GB Eve/Weekends
100GB Night
= £17.56 inclusive

To Add, Opera 10.10 auto calculates with no problems.

In reply to a post by RevK:

I'll have to find a windows machine and try it.

What are you using at the moment?

Hi,

I don't want to create a brand new thread as my question is very similar to the OP.
I am thinking about signing up but have to query the way the quotas work.

During the signup process I'm told that I can download 2.5GB during peak or 200GB off peak. Am I literally given a choice of whether I use the Internet during the day or evening, or can I run up 2.4GB during peak and 199GB off peak and still be within my 2 unit quota?

Another possibility is that if I only downloaded in the day (unlikely) and reached my 2.5GB, I would not be able to download in the evening as I'll have eaten up my quota?

Damn this is confusing...

It's complicated at first but a very good system. You have in fact pretty well got the hang of it, but not quite.

It isn't a choice. If you haven't seen this page have a go at it with any browser except Internet Explorer, the calculator/estimator doesn't work in that. It's good for seeing different combinations and working out ones it doesn't actually have itself.

I gather you are on 21CN or FTTC/FTTP, not 20CN.

Let's deal with your second question first - that's easy. You would indeed have used up your quota (if the days were all Mon-Fri). You wouldn't be stopped from downloading but you would be eating into the following months quota because of the carry-forward of over/under-use system. Unless you buy some extra, I'm not quite sure if/how you can do that.

Now the first question - looking at the page I linked to. Open it if you can while you are reading this.

1GB peak takes 0.8 units. Similarly 2GB takes 1.6 units. So 0.4GB take 0.32 units. 2.4GB as you specify = 1.92 units. You therefore have 0.08 units left, giving 8GB off-peak or 80GB night-time.

Similarly you can do different combinations of how you would use the 0.08. So 4GB off-peak and 40GB night-time.

Any clearer?

Edited by RobertoS (Wed 06-Jan-10 20:19:53)

Thank you so much for your response.
Basically, if I only download after 6pm and at the weekends then I'll have no problems with the limits as I've only ever downloaded up to 30 - 40GB in a month.
Is there a monitor of sorts that can be checked? I've read about a control panel so I imagine it's in there.

Only problem I have now is trying to find a wireless router to replace the homehub.
Been recommended looking for one that can have the dd-wrt firmware on it.

Oops nearly forgot. I believe that my exchange is 21CN. The exchange checker on Plus.net states so and aaisp puts me in the same pricing band.

Edited by Fantasmo (Wed 06-Jan-10 22:29:11)