Cerberus price drops

I just noticed some major price drops by Cerberus at https://www.cerberusnetworks.co.uk/connectivity-broa...

All plus VAT, 12 month contract, £40 activation

* 900/110: £60 (down from £110)
* 450/70: £50 (down from £80)
* 300/50: £40 (down from £55)
* 150/30: £35 (down from £44)
* 115/20: £32.50 (down from £40)
* 80/20: £30 (down from £37)
* 40/10: £27.50 (down from £34)

The 200/20 band has gone, unsurprisingly.

The high upload versions are also slightly down, but now even less attractive, with the activation fee unchanged at £495:

* 900/200: £160 (down from £180)
* 450/150: £120 (down from £125)

Great for me since my current contract runs out next month

When I was discussing my contract renewal with them a few months ago, they were alluding to the price cuts, but it's too late for me now. I jumped ship in June to TTB, with their 3 months free deal, which drops the average price on the 900 service to around £52.50 across the term.

Cerberus had to shift eventually, as their prices were way out of kilter with other business providers.

Nice, I'd love to get my monthly cost down but with my local altnet ISP (Lightning Fibre) rollout likely due within the next 1 to 6 months in my street I can't really go for another 12 month contract with Cerberus. Good news for those who are on Cerberus though and nearly or completely out of the minimum contract.

I’m hoping to get around 5 years return on FoD (before the local native rollout catches up). The net cost to get the service was £3450 in 2018. So if I can defray it over 5 years, works out around £58 per month.

Too late for me I jumped ship to EE and went from 132 to 54 inc VAT. I probably would have considered staying to avoid the hassle at those rates. In the end though the migration was painless (other than the accidental cancel fee Cerberus are in the process of refunding me).

In reply to a post by abat:

(other than the accidental cancel fee Cerberus are in the process of refunding me).

Yeh they tried that on me too. Bit cheeky.

In reply to a post by candlerb:

I just noticed some major price drops by Cerberus at https://www.cerberusnetworks.co.uk/connectivity-broa...

All plus VAT, 12 month contract, £40 activation

* 900/110: £60 (down from £110)
* 450/70: £50 (down from £80)
* 300/50: £40 (down from £55)
* 150/30: £35 (down from £44)
* 115/20: £32.50 (down from £40)
* 80/20: £30 (down from £37)
* 40/10: £27.50 (down from £34)

The 200/20 band has gone, unsurprisingly.

The high upload versions are also slightly down, but now even less attractive, with the activation fee unchanged at £495:

* 900/200: £160 (down from £180)
* 450/150: £120 (down from £125)

Great for me since my current contract runs out next month

The high upload prices are totally crackers. You could take 2 lots of 900/110 services and still have £40 net in change. I don’t blame Cerberus but the underlying BTW prices are just plain silly.

Edit:
Cut another way…taking the following:
- 1 x 900/110
- 1x 900/110
- 1x 300/50
Gives an aggregate of 2100/270 for £160 pcm + £120 activation.

Or someone orders 900/200 for £160 pcm + £495 activation.

Hmmmmm. Less is more 🤣

Edited by Pheasant (Sat 07-Aug-21 09:04:58)

Too late for me as well having jumped to BT Business. Last time I spoke to them they had no intention of dropping price.

Its a shame because service was good, and you could talk to a human, Will look at moving back in 24-months!

In reply to a post by Pheasant:

Cut another way…taking the following:
- 1 x 900/110
- 1x 900/110
- 1x 300/50
Gives an aggregate of 2100/270 for £160 pcm + £120 activation.

This got me thinking. What happens if you order multiple 900/110 services? With a 4 port ONT, ISTR that there is a maximum aggregate throughput of 1G so that stage would need a second ONT fitted.

At three 900/110 services you exceed the downstream capacity of the PON - I'm sure someone here will run up against that problem at some point... I don't envy anyone having to explain it to a mass market ISP's first-line support staff.

Have a bedtime read through SIN506.

Theres quite a big difference between the "downstream peak" and "downstream prioritised" rates for each given speed profile.

Doing a speedtest, if the PON is relatively uncongested, the OLT won't discard any uprioritised traffic (all that above the prioritised rate) = you can burst up to your peak rate.

Tis another different matter with a fully utilised PON under heavy traffic, where several users may be trying to get the full throughput simultaneously. OR will only guarantee the *prioritised* rate not the *peak* rate. Unprioritised frames get discarded = you are only really guaranteed the lower figure.

Edit: whoops looks like a new SIN 506 version (August 9) just got released. I've updated the link

Edited by Pheasant (Fri 13-Aug-21 13:45:35)