In reply to a post by 12eason:

The argument used for switching to IPSC is always the same, ie to save money by combining the costs of some parts of 21cn with 20cn. Yet even though it seems cheaper on paper, it looks like it works out to be more expensive than running centrals quite frankly.

Quite right. That was the promise from BT (and AAISP set their new tariffs accordingly). However, BT went back on this and have put ISPs in a really bad position now. To be fair, AAISP have not halved the tariff on 20CN, it has gone back to where it was before the new tariffs came in but I can see why people are annoyed.

As usual, AAISP have been honest and up-front about this and will not hide this price hike under some sort of "Fair Usage Policy" (for a cautionary tale see http://forums.thinkbroadband.com/unhappiness/t/38266... ) or compromise on the quality of service they provide by simply buying less IPSC bandwidth.


Terry

In reply to a post by TerryN:

Quite right. That was the promise from BT (and AAISP set their new tariffs accordingly).

Afaik though, AAisp didn't jump on the bandwagon until a good while after the price hikes that caught Entanet out. This was because AAisp had to wait for BT to sort out WBMC irc.

Not so have a look at idnet their offerings over 20cn are quite generous, there is an off peak allowance and no throttling, I have a 30gig peak allowance and 60gig off peak for £24.99 which suits me very well

I think is policy for others isps (or seems to be) to at least partially subsidise 20CN customers from lower 21CN/LLU costs, aaisp appear to be strictly pricing based on costs for the actual customer hence their PAYG pricing for usage and large variance between 20CN and 21CN. I hope aaisp havent artifically increased 20CN pricing to try and get 20CN customers in 21CN areas to move.

and for £26 per month I get 5 units split whichever way I like and considering I don't do downloads during the day (work mostly) that more often than not leaves me 3 or more units per month which is still 150GB per month with a rollover allowance on top.

Just depends on how desperate anyone is to use bandwidth 9-6 weekdays I still say AA is better for my needs even with the new allowances (which I still feel are ok shame no21cn here for forever tho!!)

There's more to an ISP than just a usage allowance, as I found out with a large generous allowance with another ISP when I had an intermittant fault on my line.....

Enta is an excellent example, they went the other way instead of slashing allowances they under invested in capacity for MONTHS then blamed the users for using it too much and crapped on everyone with traffic shaping

Typical useless PoS that is OFCOM should NOT be allowing this considering the thousands of exchanges that don't even have RFS dates set yet and these exchanges tend to be the smaller ones sustaining longer lines (generally) so not only are the "have nots" been hit once by lower line speeds but they then get hit again with this [censored] terrible state of affairs brought on by BTs sheer greed

...and as well as OFCOM apparently sanctioning what is an abuse of a dominant market position in terms of exchanges not yet upgraded, the OFT are also sitting on their hands... There is no case for "leverage pricing" until another access method is available, and given the cost of upgrading, the price differential would seem to be a deliberate abuse. My suspicion is that we are being used to subsidise lower pricing for the faster services on cn21 exchanges so that BTw can compete with the lower priced LLU services without hurting their bottom line. We pay more for slow access over old equipment while people on upgraded exchanges pay less despite the money just spent on them - something stinks.

I guess the Govt loves getting the extra VAT on the inflated pricing - much as they do with fuel. Maybe Europe needs to look at the BT abuses present in the UK market, as our govt. sure as hell wont act to end this abuse.

I agree its poor, the same areas repeatedly get investment even tho they already have superior service and on top of that do tend to get preferential pricing as well.

To make it less depressing consider tho that rural areas in other countries tend to either have to choose wireless aka 3g or dialup.