Not happy with UKFSN/Entanet

I've never had any problem with them up to now, I've happily recommended them to other people but I just read their mass-mail -- the bit about 'ALT' caught my eye. A strike system? A bandwidth limiting system? They say they don't want to govern how people use their bandwidth, but they want to limit it regardless? Fantastic. Why not just slap some sexy traffic shaping down and tell everyone what they're doing? On that note, I'm thinking about a new ISP. DSL isn't necessary, but preferably an ISP without/with very little in the way of traffic shaping/bandwidth limiting/blahblah. Any ideas?

In reply to a post by Surgery:

the bit about 'ALT' caught my eye. A strike system? A bandwidth limiting system? They say they don't want to govern how people use their bandwidth, but they want to limit it regardless? Fantastic.

You do know the ALT has been in place for about 18 months now?

I didn't, this is the first I've heard of it. Given that I barely go over 1.5 megs, what are they going to decrease my speed to? 0.5? 0.2? Why not!

In reply to a post by Surgery:

Given that I barely go over 1.5 megs, what are they going to decrease my speed to? 0.5? 0.2? Why not!

Well, the traditional lower limit (i.e. doesn't throttle any lower) has been 2Mbps.
I have also received the same e-mail (probably still on Jason's mail-list), although I've been with BE since last August.
The e-mail doesn't mention a change to this lower limit, so you may be worrying over nothing (given you barely go over 1.5Mbps).

I'd suggest staying put, to see if you notice the new ALT (because it's not affected you for the last year or so, since its inception), and also as it's pretty easy to leave (given the 1 month notice period).
With any luck, and if they leave the lower limit at 2Mbps, you still won't notice anything.
The speed drops start at the maximum speed of the ADSL system, not at your maximum speed, so it has to go a long way before you start to notice anything (with all those connecting faster than you being affected first).

EDIT: I've done a little digging; it seems the new lower limit will be 1Mbps (so you'll only start to notice it, when it's at the extreme of its operation - which, if the old system is anything to go by, will be about 1-2 hours each weekday, and a few hours a day at weekends) - So probably nothing to get too stressed about (and certainly not worth leaving an ISP you've been perfectly happy with, up to now).

Edited by adebov (Mon 02-Mar-09 20:34:46)

I just read it at the end of the mail and I was like...what? This is a bit Tiscali-esque, what's going on? I hadn't realised they already had ALT in place. Then again, my speeds aren't exactly face-tearing. The whole mass-mail was a bit confusing actually -- I noticed a post on the UKFSN forum saying how the e-mail was such a mess it was going to be re-done for tomorrow. Choosing a new price plan doesn't seem complete either: I went to the billing part of enta.net and the new package choices aren't matching up to what is being described in the email or the 'need help choosing?' page of the billing section. I'll wait and see!

How the ALT was until recently. Note the date of the post.

There was a slight change when the Olympics were on, and strange things are happening at the moment preparing for the new packages. So as you say, wait and see. The ALT is being re-written it seems as there aren't Centrals any more, and Jason of ukfsn is expecting a corresponding description to the one I linked to to be published by Enta before too long.

Yeah, adebov said they'd had it up all this time, I had no idea. I just read the '5 strikes' system and thought I'd taken bad acid and was hallucinating I'd signed up with Tiscali again. Full of righteous indignation, I replied back to the support email as soon as I'd read it -- they can have a good chuckle at me being snarky.

Edited by Surgery (Mon 02-Mar-09 22:29:38)

In reply to a post by adebov:

EDIT: I've done a little digging; it seems the new lower limit will be 1Mbps

My understanding (and things may have changed again sine I last looked in detail) is that there are to be two "levels" of ALT, based on your total bandwidth usage. One ALT set is for "the top 5%" (they didn't say whether that 5% figure was fixed form any point in time or dynamic so X00Mb may put you in the 5% one week/month but not next) and one for the rest. I thought that the lower limit only applied to the normal ALT, not the "top 5%" one, or perhaps it could be that the 1Mbit cap applies to the "bad box" ALT and the other remains at 2Mbit.

Now that "off-peak" (or what-ever they are calling it now) is now going to officially be a free-for-all, someone who only gets1.5Mbit anyway might not be capable of getting into the top 5% band unless a great many heavy users migrate. Personally I don't see how the changes are going to work out well - while Be seem to manage for the most part despite having always been officially a "free for all", available evidence suggests to me that Enta's arrangement will cope less well. Only time will tell for sure though.

One ALT set is for "the top 5%" ...

For clarification ... Your "5%" figure should actually be "?%", where ?% is an (as yet) unspecified figure AND is likely to vary from node to node dependent on overall useage.