In reply to a post by RobertoS:

To be precise:-

When I joined Plusnet their only FTTC product was 40/2.

Their 80/20 trial came along some time later and I went on it. When the 80/20 product went on open sale the 40/2 was dropped and replaced by 40/10.

Much later they dropped the 40/10 and introduced 40/20, by supplying the 80/20 capped to 40Mbps throughput within their own system.

Recently they dropped that and replaced it with 40/2.

The early products had data allowances. The later ones were/are all unlimited usage.

Some of that was before my time with them,didn't know that they had sold the 40/2 before, but i was aware of some of the older products being usage capped But there have been a number of customers who where on the 40/20 plusnet capped product, who after re contracting found that their upstream plummeted to a measly 2mbps shortly afterwards , when plusnet changed the openreach product that they had been on, without their prior knowledge, according to forum posts,the changes in openreach product wasn't relayed to them, some after complaining have since been provisioned on the 40/10 product (that they no longer sell)
Personally i can't see why they don't sell all the FTTC variants

Edited by tommy45 (Thu 17-Dec-15 00:29:36)

You're right of course about the cockups when people renegotiated their 40/20 subscriptions at the end of their 18 months - they were not told they would be downgraded to 40/2. That was really dirty by Plusnet.

they are really trying to save what 20p per customer ? (40/10 to 40/2)

i guess they was finding that people was actually using the upload i guess and they had to buy more capacity

This is probably a reaction to VM upping their bottom tier to 50mbit.

the gap between 40/10 and 55/10 is small, I am surprised its not replacing the 40/10 product.

In reply to a post by Kenneth:

I believe it was actually 40/20 - where Plusnet gave you 80/20 but throttled it to 40/20 - this is my typical speed test Link

No, both their 40/20 and 40/10 products have been withdrawn. They now only offer 40/2 or 80/20 and will not let you have the other unless your line can comfortable sync above 40Mb/s.

Although one or two people have managed to get 40/10 or force 80/20 by being obstinate and of course those already on a 'prescribed' service are allowed to continue on it.

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

You're right of course about the cockups when people renegotiated their 40/20 subscriptions at the end of their 18 months - they were not told they would be downgraded to 40/2. That was really dirty by Plusnet.

Even more dirty PN actively pursued people coming to the end of their 40/xx contract and encouraged them to renew their contract without telling them about the speed drop.

If it replaced 40/10 there would be a price rise, as carrying the extra peak traffic that might result could result in a higher bill from BT Wholesale

In reply to a post by leexgx:

they are really trying to save what 20p per customer ? (40/10 to 40/2)

Because the change was from a 40/20 product to 40/2 (at retail level), the underlying Openreach product change was from 80/20 to 40/2. That amounts to around £3pm + VAT.

Monthly prices, all +VAT:
80/20: £9.95
55/10: £8.40
40/10: £7.40
40/2: £6.90

And that excludes the BT Wholesale costs too

In reply to a post by MHC:

If Max Achievable stats are looked at there might well be a "sweet spot" somewhere around the 50 to 55 Mbps mark.

Interesting point - there will indeed be some sweet spot that gets highlighted because of that gap between D2 and D3.

When I've looked at vectoring speeds, there seems to be a "knuckle" in the graphs around 650m, which I guess is a likely location for this - and that probably represents speeds around 55Mbps in an unvectored world.

There's another "knuckle" around 1600m - presumably for the gap between D1 and D2.

I suspect that the choice for 55/10 at wholesale is that it lets retail ISPs market an "up to 50" product.

Oh ... there's also this graph:
http://postimg.org/image/bly6o16cl/

Extrapolation of the shape of the blue line - if subscribers didn't choose a 40Mbps package - suggests that the median FTTC line speed would be around 60Mbps.

Perhaps the choice of a 55/10 package is to get a chunk of those (about 50% of all subscribers) who obviously have stuck on a 40Mbps package to choose something just a little higher... There might be 30% who could benefit.

Finally, I recall the Shropshire BDUK project revealing that the average speed within their project was 50Mbps - showing a slightly longer line length than the commercial average.

There's definitely room for this level of product.