It was a hard choice

Hi,
After a long hard choice to choose between Idnet and aquiss i have decided that Idnet is going to replace Zen. Both Isps seem to offer great support but Idnet having been round for a long time swayed it for me. Cant wait to go live next Wensday when i will be going on to the Home super max. Hope the speeds are better than Zen. Big thank you to Tim for helping me sort this out.

Edited by icu (Fri 03-Nov-06 11:59:47)

Well, for what it's worth, I believe you've made the right decision in coming to IDNet. I had a brief spell with Aquiss and really, the two just don't compare.

Quite apart from anything else, Aquiss are going to share in the problems caused by the underlying Entanet platform being oversubscribed with no possibility of relief until at least the end of the year. Then there's the business plan - how can they possibly afford to give 330GB allowance during a month for as little as around

Well done I think youve made a good choice.Aquiss was one I thought about but in the end for a number of reasons I joined idnet officially 1 hour ago.Like you I get connected next weds 8th
rr

Great decision you will not regret it.

The way I see it RE the large offpeak caps....The ISP has paid for enough central capacity to cope with the evening usage, which is many times more (MB/sec) than at night. At night, those centrals are sitting there almost empty, as most people are sleeping and/or don't bother downloading at night. The rest of the costs to an ISP (transits, peering etc), cost nothing in comparison to the centrals! Therefore, I see no problems with Entanet giving users a large offpeak usage allowance. Though I do think they'd benefit from cutting the offpeak hours to 1AM-8AM 7 days a week or something.

No doubt I'm completely wrong though, and someone will be along to correct me shortly

Yes, I'd be interested to know how BT charge ISPs for bandwidth. Is it simple Bytes used, are the charges tiered depending on time? Is it really that much cheaper off-peak than it is on-peak?

For Centrals? The ISP pays a set charge per year, plus an installation charge. From what I recall, a 622Mbit central costs over 1.5 million per year to rent. Not including overheads, it only takes 77 maxing downloaders to fill a central. Or are they 622MByte, i forget, in which case it'd take 622 maxing downloaders to fill a central.

Other charges to the ISP are nothing in comparison. Central charges are artificially inflated by BT to make it more expensive than it'd cost for LLU. Anyway, once the ISP has enough bandwidth to handle its peak use, 6-11PM or whatever, there will be lots of unused central capacity just sitting there at night. It costs the ISP the same whether the centrals are empty or full, it makes no difference. Problem is, advertising large offpeak usage guidelines usually attracts the heavies...

EDIT
Ah found it, a single 622Mbps (Megabit!) central costs

Edited by LadFromWales85 (Fri 03-Nov-06 22:11:58)

"........with all the Nildram and Eclipse migratees making their way (they're migratees mainly because they're P2P'ers or UseNetters and have been capped/throttled)"

I think this is a standard assumption which oversimplifies the vastly different reasons why people join up or leave an ISP. You are not alone in this however and seems to be the first thing said when someone announces they wish to move these days.

Where I have no doubt a significant number have moved for this exact reason, it should never be overlooked that many leave for other reasons such as over principle or because they wish not to be patronised or taken for granted.

I was with Eclipse and left the moment I confirmed they were switching people to a 3rd party LLU system without bothering to inform them of the fact. This didn't directly affect myself but I refused to give money to a company that would operate in this way. I left Pipex half a year earlier for similar reasons of principle.

I joined IDnet because they appear to do everything they promise and have treated me with respect. They get my business for this exact reason despite the fact I pay more than I did before and have a set 'allowance' for the first time since I started broadband.

I agree with your other points however including the belief that the OP has made a wise choice.

Jimmy81

OK, yes, point taken and I agree with it. There are, indeed, many reasons why people leave ISPs and poor service is certainly one of them. It's why I left Nildram some months ago (for IDNet, as it happens).

It was my own silly fault that I got tempted away by high bandwidth allowances (from Aquiss/Entanet) ... allowances which I don't really need either, just to make my actions even more laughable. I guess it's just a comfort blanket in knowing they're there if I need them.

Ah well, back to sanity now and an Internet connection that (so far) performs flawlessly and support that I know I can trust.

Hi cjtc, glad your happy with your ISP now.

Just wanted to post my reason for leaving Nildram was because of the way they never informed anyone of the throttling, I never saw a drop in performance it was purely the principle. I left ACE for two reasons, the principle of implementation again and the really really poor caps they put in place 2 weeks after i joined an unlimited service.