In reply to a post by BatBoy:

In reply to a post by Anonymous:

In reply to a post by ian72:

Sorry, should have said. I only have broadband with Sky (so partial LLU) and have requested my MAC code. So, no issues with moving away.

Just wanted any info on Vivaciti and whether they are a good option (ie a better option than going to Be direct).

Well by going with vivaciti or any of the other ISP selling the BE wholesale service ,
You will get support from that isp instead of BE support, so uk based support instead of overseas based, also the peering and routing will be vivaciti's and not BE retail,

Sadly, you're confused. Vivaciti are only a reseller not an ISP - they don't have a forum here for example, just the resellers forum.

So what about all the ISPs that just wholesale the BT product? Are they not actually ISPs? Vivaciti is actually providing a full ISP service using a number of different providers from what I can see so why do you say they aren't an ISP?

I suspect they don't have a forum because they are relatively small and therefore there wouldn't be enough individual posts to warrant a forum (some ISP forums have been removed in the past because of inactivity, doesn't mean they aren't an ISP anymore).

Before WBC the criterion was that the "ISP" had its own BT Central(s) or Central Plus(es). This was also before the Post Office and Vodaphone started on BT Wholesale White Label. Vodaphone now having dropped out, or imminently so.

For whatever reason, the powers that be here added a forum for the Post Office after a while, and Orange retains its even though it has become White Label.

Straight resellers never had ISP rating here and still don't, though there has often been discussion with the staff. The thing is that (nearly?) all were only reselling Entanet. Which does have a forum, that I consider is now unnecessary - given the introduction a while ago of the Resellers one for the reasons following.

I think now that we have a number of sophisticated resellers each offering a wide range of products from several providers they should qualify as ISPs on this site. They always did from the perspective of the man-in-the-street. The most commonly discussed here being vivaciti, ADSL24 and xilo/uno.

We even have acknowledged ISPs doing reselling, for example AAISP. And the likes of ukfsn which I would still classify as a reseller.

DO we even know whether or not the three I gave as examples want their own forum here, rather than the resellers one? I can see reasons why the may not. Don't forget, the presence of any ISP forum here is at the request of the ISP. There are many not represented.

Seb and John have several times said the subject is under review. It can't be simple.

In reply to a post by ian72:

In reply to a post by BatBoy:

In reply to a post by Anonymous:

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Well by going with vivaciti or any of the other ISP selling the BE wholesale service ,
You will get support from that isp instead of BE support, so uk based support instead of overseas based, also the peering and routing will be vivaciti's and not BE retail,

Sadly, you're confused. Vivaciti are only a reseller not an ISP - they don't have a forum here for example, just the resellers forum.

So what about all the ISPs that just wholesale the BT product? Are they not actually ISPs? Vivaciti is actually providing a full ISP service using a number of different providers from what I can see so why do you say they aren't an ISP?

I suspect they don't have a forum because they are relatively small and therefore there wouldn't be enough individual posts to warrant a forum (some ISP forums have been removed in the past because of inactivity, doesn't mean they aren't an ISP anymore).

Vivaciti Does have a forum it's own Vivaciti forums They i belive have their own network too, something that is required by Be wholesale, if they are a wholesaler, a reseller doesn't need it's own network, info on Be Wholesale

In reference to beusergroup.co.uk/technotes/index.php?title=Resellers#Becoming_a_Re...:

Resellers take the BE service and sell it, they provide their own support and end user hardware but everything else is provided by BE (IP space, DNS, DHCP services etc.)
Control over IP Addressing: No
Control over transit: No
Control of DSLAM port: Yes
API Access: No
Existing Infrastructure Required: No
-------------------------------------------


Wholesalers L2TP or PPP link into the BE network and have control over their own IP space. End users use PPPoE or PPPoA and customer ports in exchanges do not use the BE network other than to transverse internally to the POP of the wholesaler.
Control over IP Addressing: Yes
Control over transit: Yes
Control of DSLAM port: Yes
API Access: Yes
Existing Infrastructure Required: Yes

Which would make most who offer Be wholsale Wholsalers not resellers of the Be products So as IP adresses Full control of the dlsam Makes them an isp(Virtual ISP ) not just a reseeler , some of them will be partners of companies like this,pseudonetworks who appear to rent their network's to the reseller , unless they deal direct with BE wholsale if that is possible or not i'm not sure

On another note BeWholesale fears 2012 olympic games could crash office broadband networks
Sound a bit ominus don't it But if they think that their wholsale service will take a knock, i wouldn't like to be an o2 or Be retail customer during the olympics , one solution would be for it not to be available via streaming , why any sporting event should be allowed to cause kaos online i don't know ,

On another note BeWholesale fears 2012 olympic games could crash office broadband networks
Sound a bit ominus don't it .

This applies to nearly all the well-know ISPs. You may not remember the last Olympics, and more recently the Commonwealth Games held in Manchester. Most ground almost to a halt - even a few complaints of getting only around 500kbps from Zen customers.

But if they think that their wholsale service will take a knock, i wouldn't like to be an o2 or Be retail customer during the olympics , one solution would be for it not to be available via streaming , why any sporting event should be allowed to cause kaos online i don't know ,

It's just Be making the point. Note that part of what you link to is warning their resellers to have adequate provision, and the way I read it the other part is referring to the end user businesses where all the employess will be streaming the stuff and could crash their internal LANs.

They may even be wanting to be compared to what happens to the big boys like BT, Sky and TalkTalk, and premium ISPs like Zen, AAISP, Timico, IDNet and many smaller ones that are rarley heard of here.

This is indicated by "However just as important are the benefits of a fixed pricing model, together with unlimited usage, allowing businesses to control their Internet spend and avoid any additional expense when the Games are all over", as on many ISPs there could be huge excess usage charges to SOHO and large business users.

On Newnet I got a reduction to about 40% of IP Profile, on O2 LLU I didn't notice anything significant.

Edit - typo.

Edited by RobertoS (Fri 13-Jan-12 13:44:08)

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

On another note BeWholesale fears 2012 olympic games could crash office broadband networks
Sound a bit ominus don't it .

This applies to nearly all the well-know ISPs. You may not remember the last Olympics, and more recently the Commonwealth Games held in Manchester. Most ground almost to a halt - even a few complaints of getting only around 500kbps from Zen customers.

But if they think that their wholsale service will take a knock, i wouldn't like to be an o2 or Be retail customer during the olympics , one solution would be for it not to be available via streaming , why any sporting event should be allowed to cause kaos online i don't know ,

It's just Be making the point. Note that part of what you link to is warning their resellers to have adequate provision, and the way I read it the other part is referring to the end user businesses where all the employess will be streaming the stuff and could crash their internal LANs.

They may even be wanting to be compared to what happens to the big boys like BT, Sky and TalkTalk, and premium ISPs like Zen, AAISP, Timico, IDNet and many smaller ones that are rarley heard of here.

This is indicated by "However just as important are the benefits of a fixed pricing model, together with unlimited usage, allowing businesses to control their Internet spend and avoid any additional expense when the Games are all over", as on many ISPs there could be huge excess usage charges to SOHO and large business users.

On Newnet I got a reduction to about 40% of IP Profile, on O2 LLU I didn't notice anything significant.

Edit - typo.

I didn't notice anything on my old easynet connection either,But if that will be case this time around with be retail and it's weak point, previous ( peering capacity ) which may not be able to handle the extra demand, unless they increase it before hand, and monitor things more closely so they can react quicker should further capacity be required,

But if that will be case this time around with be retail and it's weak point, previous ( peering capacity ) which may not be able to handle the extra demand, unless they increase it before hand, and monitor things more closely so they can react quicker should further capacity be required

That's the point I'm making.

I think they are saying their new network should be up and running by then and that they will not have a problem on the retail side, but some end users' LANs could crash.

Also the Be resellers are all on different contracts. Some I expect go through the Be network and may need to have extra bandwidth in place on it, (ie rent more), others only go into the Be MSAN/DSLAM from the end user and then out to someone else's backhaul and onward routers. These latter would need to make sure they had sufficient in place to satisfy the demand, and Be will want to ensure that in both cases, and any other variations, they do arrange this as otherwise the end users who know they are on resold Be will think it is Be's fault, when it isn't.

There's also the case of resellers of Be who also resell some other service, the two obvious wholesalers being TT and C & W, with similarly different setups. The ones splitting out at the exchange MSANs from a combination of these will really need to prepare capacity availability.

So overall I'm agreeing with you about the underlying problem, but I don't think the Be network itself is expected by Be to have significant issues.

I didn't notice anything on my old easynet connection either

Via UKOnline by any chance!

No problems noticed during the World Cup, whereas it was noticed on other ISP's including BT who have a much larger infrastructure than BE

I worked for a charity that were classed as a service provider with BT Wholesale (and we had access to the BT Wholesale hotline for service providers)

This was simply because we had our own RADIUS server

In reply to a post by nredwood:

I didn't notice anything on my old easynet connection either

Via UKOnline by any chance!

For memory i think the isp was easynet, As was a buisness connection not sure as to what product or cost,but it had a good upload speed,