New AAISP tariff trial announced

Just noticed AAISP are trialing a new tariff with some existing customers for use on non business accounts only.

Should help for those concerned with daytime usage rates.

Announcement.

Blog comment.

Shame about us poor 20CN outcasts!

My hopes were raised, then dashed. I work from home, and my connection is paid by a Ltd business. That Ltd business then invoices me personally for my contribution. AAISP wont accept it.

Edited by stuorguk (Mon 19-Nov-12 14:53:38)

The new trial tariff has been extended to 20CN customers as well now

http://s.aa.net.uk/1641

I need to sit down and work out how much extra it would cost and whether it would be worth it.

I assume prices exclude VAT? Could get costly when you use from 100 -200GB per month =S

Edited by swervinc (Tue 20-Nov-12 15:20:06)

Looks to be inc VAT.

From what RevK has been saying this isn't intended as an option for people looking to use extremely high levels of usage but rather to address the needs to average home users who want don;t want to worry about usage at different times of the day costing radically different amounts..

I suspect if any users wer to start using the tariff in a way A&A considered abusive they likely be asked to stop and if they didn't I wouldn't be surprised if A&A asked them to find a different isp.

Does the 2am-6am night-time special period apply to the new Home::1 tariff ?

Doesn't look like it. At least not at the moment, but they still seem to be taking feedback.

There was also this comment in the blog which seems to confirm that it doesn't.

I'm sure this tariff will suit some customers, but I'm sticking with the original (what I have just now). Having the potential to be cutoff does not appeal to me.

The blog posts are interesting and I disagree with some of RevK's rebuttals to suggestions, specifically the lack of the night time special period between 2 and 6am. I still think this should exist.

Also, there's talk on the blog about whether customers should be "slowed down" or forced to "pay up" (for more usage credits). If they go the "slowed down" route, this then begs the question of whether AA can slow down customer connections their side during peak 9-5pm hours, weekdays, on standard tariffs like mine (upon request of the customer). I already do this artificially my side, but not everyone has the equipment their side to do this. If they offered that feature, it would certainly prevent customers clocking up outrageous usage units during peak hours, where most non-techy users fail to realise exactly how many credits a 1080p YouTube video can chomp through during peak hours.

Having said all that, I respect RevK's point with this new tariff - that it is supposed to be simple and easy to understand. 25, 100 or 200 Gb a month, for X pounds a month, is something most people understand, and inline with how other ISPs (who offer capped services) charge, like Zen (for example).

I shall watch with interest as to how the trial pans out.

EDIT: Also, unless I'm missing something, £25/month for 25Gb/month seems a bit expensive. Zen are doing 20Gb/month for £18.37 a month (inc vat) and 200Gb/month for £35.74 a month (inc vat). AA on the same allowance would be £45/month (£10 more expensive). Why such a difference?

Edited by deleted (Sat 24-Nov-12 02:39:24)

In reply to a post by mixt:

Also, unless I'm missing something, £25/month for 25Gb/month seems a bit expensive. Zen are doing 20Gb/month for £18.37 a month (inc vat) and 200Gb/month for £35.74 a month (inc vat). AA on the same allowance would be £45/month (£10 more expensive). Why such a difference?

Especially considering that for £1.10 less (inc VAT) per month, the standard 3-unit tariff offers up to 150GB off-peak or (to match the Home::1 usage) 6.6GB peak and 18.4GB off-peak plus free domain etc. So anyone using less than 6.6GB peak per month would definitely be better off on the 3-unit tariff rather than the 25GB Home::1

Yes, still interested in feedback, and have received quite a lot from a number of different sources and types of customers. One important theme is making the tariff simple, and I have had criticism for the number of "add-ons" already. We are keeping the existing units based tariffs with all of their options.

Unfortunately, whatever we do here has to be a compromise and will be different in some ways to existing tariffs and other ISPs. The actual pricing and usage levels we have picked are not completely out of line with other similar ISPs. Obviously we have scope to increase allowances or decrease prices if we find we need to. It will depend how usage pans out. We're not planning to "ask people to leave" if they are using the service all day, but if everyone on the new tariff does that we'll have to consider if we keep offering it to new customers or not. It is a gamble.

So far the actual customers moving to the new tariff have included many people who are happy to pay slightly more for the flexibility of this tariff. We think this will appeal to customers, new and existing. We think the service we offer is worth the price, obviously.

In reply to a post by RevK:

Yes, still interested in feedback, and have received quite a lot from a number of different sources and types of customers.

I've been taking some interest in your tariff changes recently. My usage is difficult to detail without using a metre. Plusnet simply categorise it as '8am - Midnight' and 'Midnight - 8am'. I can't guess at the '9am - 6pm that AAISP metre.

As it is, my daytime usage with Plusnet's category is 20-35GB per month and 3-5GB the rest of the time. From my own personal perspective (you can't please everyone, I know) your daytime GB allowance charges are too high, while you get a lot of 'night time' allowance (which I don't need ).

It would be nice to see a tariff which reflects users who use the line more during daytime, but not too much at night (home business-esq), but don't pay masses compared to folk using it a lot, off-peak.

AAISP have amended their offering!

http://www.aa.net.uk/broadband-home1-info.html

In case anyone wasn't aware... it has now been bumped up to 50GB.

Very good.

OOI, we're also working on an Office::1 tariff, details here:
http://aa.net.uk/broadband-office1.html

It's aim is more of a complete package, consisting of multiple lines with bonding and 3G fall-back and the hardware (a FireBrick)...

Happy for feedback.

Funnily, I was just reading about that on the newsletter...
I'll mention it at work, where we may be moving office in the near future and would need new lines. I'll get back with any questions

Oh, and speaking of feedback...
With reference to the last FAQ, "What if I use too much?" -
Is the top-up applied automatically and without warning? I know you send warning emails when usage limits are approaching, so perhaps a sentence or two to clarify this wouldn't go amiss. And a mention of the control panel where one can check usage at any time.
I know this is written elsewhere on the site, but I think it would be good to repeat it on that page.

I would imagine for this package (Office::1), it would be applied without warning, as the whole idea of the connection is to be high availability.

Do note that their standard Home::1 package offers alternatives which you may find more appealing:

1) Cut-off with manual top up order required. So the connection will go dead until further credit is manually ordered.
2) Auto-topup with no cut-off.
3) No top up with a throttle applied on traffic speed until the end of the month. Any usage still used during this time is deducted from next month's usage (so you will most likely start the next month with a bit under 50Gb).

http://aaisp.net.uk/broadband-home1-info.html#faq

Do I have to top-up?
Normally the service stops when you reach your quota. You can ask us to let it carry on at a low speed for the rest of the month if you prefer, taking usage from the following month. You can even ask us to automatically bill top-up if you like. But you don't have to top-up if you don't want to.

I think you need to read the bit I was referring to before commenting on what I said.

Obviously it would not be good for a high-availability service to stop working when you hit a usage limit - what happens is we top up your service with 50GB more (which lasts to end of following month) and bill you immediately for that. This avoids a surprise at the end of the month [my bold]. You can pick a usage level to avoid these top-up bills (which cost more per GB than picking a tariff level per month).

As it is, it just replaces a surprise at the end of the month with a surprise in the middle - hence my comment.
As to all the stuff about Home::1, that was totally irrelevant so I won't coment on it.