Off to new pastures with new IDNet offerings

There have only ever been 3 ISPs on my radar in recent years:

AAISP - was with them 2 years ago, brilliant!

Zen - was with them over 10 years ago for ADSL and been with them for the past 2 years for FTTC, also brilliant. And you finally got IPv6 deployed!

IDNet - who I will be moving to shortly.

Chose to move as:

1. Not been with IDNet before. Always interesting to try something new. And they tick all the boxes at the right price point (native IPv6 etc).
2. Zen's call charges per minute (for land line at least) appear to be over 10 times more expensive than what IDNet are offering. There is still the call setup charge to consider, but given this fact, and the fact that IDNet throw in 7 line features as standard (which all cost extra with Zen), I think I'll be saving some money by doing this.
3. IDNet offer a 55/10 FTTC speed. Nice! So that's what I've gone for. Also paying a year up front means that this package comes in cheaper than Zen's Unlimited 40/10 package @ £43.99 per month.

What I will lose:

My block of 8 IPs. Never used them all anyway and I can do everything I need to do with just 1 address. IDNet also offer 4 IPs which is a nice gap filler for the 8 IPs Zen can provide.

For those still locked into Zen contracts, I was advised on the phone today by Zen that they are looking to offer new packages early next year, one of those being the 55/10 speed. But they really need to rework their call tariffs because I do feel they might be just a tad overpriced right now.

Anyways, thank you Zen for a superb couple of years of service! If all goes south, I will no doubt return (with my tail between my legs).

In reply to a post by mixt:

3. IDNet offer a 55/10 FTTC speed. Nice! So that's what I've gone for.

Just looked on their site and couldn't find any reference to a 55/10 FTTC offer. AFAICT they only offer 40/10 and 76/19.

Unless of course you've got a special deal as a new customer.

Showing for me (once you press the order button). There's 40/2, 40/10, 40/20, 55/10 and 80/20.

There is no 40/20. But everything else is there, once you initiate the order process.

In reply to a post by rich_jtg:

Showing for me (once you press the order button). There's 40/2, 40/10, 40/20, 55/10 and 80/20.

Duhh. Thanks for that. Since I'm already with iDNet I didn't bother pressing the order button. Can't see why they don't put it upfront on their site though.

I have been thinking about switching from Zen to BT or IDnet recently as well.

The reason for this is that I found out that on my exchange (Harrow, London) Zen isn't actually an LLU service so there's no real point in being with them other than for customer service which tbh hasn't been fabulous.

On that basis, I'm considering either IDnet (for better customer service than BT) or BT (for simply lowest price after gift cards and cashback). Neither IDnet nor BT are LLU either on my exchange so it's all going through BT. I think the only LLU provider is Sky and I'm sure as s*** not going with them for any price.

Any suggestions?

Harrow is TalkTalk enabled, so you have a number of other options. I wouldn't go with the the retail option, but TalkTalk Business are good and there are a number of highly regarded ISPs that use the TTB network including A&A & Uno (currently ranked 1 & 2 on ISPReview) and Pulse8.

IDNet are very good though, although interestingly they use Zen for their backhaul.

A&A is just absurdly overpriced for what you get. I'm not keen on paying £60 a month for a capped service tbh


Pulse8 is not much better with their really high connection charge


In any case, is there even any point in deliberating between providers on a BT or TT network? It's all just re-badged BT Fibre isn't it?

I'm wondering whether to just get [censored] service but lowest monthly cost from BT or get slightly better service from IDnet but most likely identical performance to BT. Or as you say, go with one of these TT providers which I can't imagine is any better and yet seem much more expensive

40/20 is a product PlusNet make up themselves, afaik there isn't a 40/20 product available from openreach/wholesale. I believe their 40/20 product was the 80/20 product rate limited to 40.

Andrew

In reply to a post by fiddlesticks:

A&A is just absurdly overpriced for what you get. I'm not keen on paying £60 a month for a capped service tbh


Pulse8 is not much better with their really high connection charge


In any case, is there even any point in deliberating between providers on a BT or TT network? It's all just re-badged BT Fibre isn't it?

I'm wondering whether to just get [censored] service but lowest monthly cost from BT or get slightly better service from IDnet but most likely identical performance to BT. Or as you say, go with one of these TT providers which I can't imagine is any better and yet seem much more expensive

Pulse 8 is a £49.50 connection charge and you will almost certainly get charged this with any TTB based ISP as your line has to be moved over at the exchange from BTW to TTB MPF (full LLU).

In my view P8's lower monthly line costs and their very cheap calls package, make them cheaper than the likes of BT anyway, so not too unhappy to fork out for the up front cost. I might have only email, best efforts support out of normal working hours, rather than the 24x7 cover I currently get from Sky, but at least I won't have my intelligence questioned when I ring up.

At the end of the day, you get what you pay for. Good extended support costs.

If you are down to a BT vs IDNet decision, I would go with IDNet without question. I do think the TTB options are worth considering though.

I don't ever use the house line for anything, calls or otherwise. I only have it for the purpose of obtaining fibre so not too worried about call charges etc

More importantly for me is, what is the actual benefit of switching over to a TT-based provider such as Pulse8 or Uno? Better service from TT to the ISP's? faster? lower latency? etc

Right now I'm just not understanding why one should go for a TT based ISP - you mentioned Uno and Pulse are currently ranked number 1 and 2. Where would this ranking be? I don't see the ISP's on the list of ISP to compare on thinkbroadband

In reply to a post by fiddlesticks:

I don't ever use the house line for anything, calls or otherwise. I only have it for the purpose of obtaining fibre so not too worried about call charges etc

More importantly for me is, what is the actual benefit of switching over to a TT-based provider such as Pulse8 or Uno? Better service from TT to the ISP's? faster? lower latency? etc

Right now I'm just not understanding why one should go for a TT based ISP - you mentioned Uno and Pulse are currently ranked number 1 and 2. Where would this ranking be? I don't see the ISP's on the list of ISP to compare on thinkbroadband

In reply to a post by jaydub:

.....there are a number of highly regarded ISPs that use the TTB network including A&A & Uno (currently ranked 1 & 2 on ISPReview).....

The clue is there.

(Google ISPReview if you're still not sure. I'm not posting a direct link to a rival site.)

I've gone for a TTB provider on a balance of service and price TBH. I'll leave others to comment on any technical benefits, although you might get a wider response if you start another thread on the Which ISP forum.

Its not a rebadged BT fibre service for a start.

BT wholesale has its own network and sells 3 different types of service to CP's
2 of these types will have traffic going over the BTw network, the 3rd type hands off to the CP's own handover point, e.g. entanet use non BTw backhaul.
Of the 2 types BTw push over their network there is differences to how the traffic is routed, one type routes over MSIL's that are shared by multiple BTw customers, and the contention level is solely managed by BTw.
The other type the MSIL's are dedicated to the CP and the CP manages the capacity.

So even a BTw based isp can be supplied in various different ways, and we havent even mentioned peering and external transit differences.

Talktalk, vodafone and sky all have their own core networks and in addition their own DSLAM's in exchanges, so they can bypass BTw entirely. They still rely on openreach between the exchange and customer, but nothing BTw.

Talktalk e.g. can be an advantage if local routing is more optimal for the customer such as having a local POP that routes directly to london, it can also be an advantage if BTw have congestion issues affecting the exchange, but talktalk's connectivity does not.

So there is definite advantages about picking specific providers.

In my own case I had regular congestion on plusnet prior to jumping to sky where its been just about zero all the time. In addition my latency to london has dropped from around 15ms to 8ms.

Edited by Chrysalis (Tue 08-Nov-16 11:56:48)

All done and switched over.

Interesting behaviour observed during the migration process, though. In the early hours (which is when migrations normally happen), the modem re-synced from 40/10 to 55/10, but my connection remained established with Zen. I was expecting to get booted off entirely, and forced over to IDNet (as happened when I migrated from AA -> Zen a couple of years ago now).

But by 8am this morning, it was still connected with Zen so I forced it across to IDNet. Note from when the 55/10 re-sync happened, the speedtest results whilst still connected with Zen were considerably hindered (around 4Mbs/sec during this time). I guess this is now how they coax users across to their new provider, without just abruptly terminating their connection?

I've also noticed that the average latency (blue line on the BQM graphs) is significantly thinner compared to Zen, so another plus point for IDNet there.

So far, so good. And nice to be on 55/10 FTTC.

That makes quite a bit of sense even though I don't understand much of the technical terms you referenced.

I suppose the appropriate follow up question is, how does one determine which ISP they'd be better off on? It could be one variant of a BTOR / BTW supplied service or it could be one variant of a TTB supplied service.

Without trialing each one for several months, is there some sort of way to figure it out beforehand? I imagine the answer is going to be no, but thought I'd ask anyway just because it brings me back then to my original point which is there doesn't really seem to any real reason to go for anything other than the cheapest supplier unless your connection is awful with them.

Judging by your response, It seems like I could go to the effort and cost of signing up with Uno for example and be no better off than having stayed with Zen or possibly even be worse off. Am I reading/understanding that right?

if you have no past experience of an isp and you dont know anyone locally using that isp then its a shot in the dark, although one can try and build a idea by reading forums and seeing customer feedback, some isp's have a lot of publicised issues which gives an idea how frequent problems are on their networks.

Another factor is that BTw bandwidth is more expensive than talktalk, so isp A spending X amount of money on talktalk vs isp B spending the same on BTw, the isp A will get more capacity for their money and is less likely to have congestion. Isp's using their own networks will ultimately have the lowest ongoing costs because they own their infrastructure in many cases.

This will also be why certian isps such as zen and entanet have moved at least part of their networks away from BTw.

@mixt
Your stats are not looking too good so far. seems to be evening slowdowns as well.

Yup, I expected this as it is £10 a month more for "elevated priority" on IDNet's network.

To be fair, I doubt this is going to bother me, but it is interesting to see none the less. It will be enlightening to see how the speed tests pan out over the next year of service, as it will (probably) give an absolute clear demonstration that not all ISPs are equal, and that you do really get what you pay for (I unfortunately can't work with A&A's prices - if I could, I would be back with them - not a single slow down when I was with them during 2013-2014).

Well I can be another data point in a week or so as I've signed up for the 80/20 service.
I'd be more interested in whether the latency is erratic but this seems to look OK on your line..

They make a clear statement about guaranteeing no contention on their network which I assume in theory would just leave slowdowns at the cabinet level as a possibility?

"This means that we can guarantee the maximum throughput that your line can support at all times"

I've also asked them what the elevated priority option delivers, e.g. just at the BT level or also on their own network. I'll report back when I get an answer although given what they say above I expect this is just the BT elevated service option.

In reply to a post by gmoorc:

They make a clear statement about guaranteeing no contention on their network which I assume in theory would just leave slowdowns at the cabinet level as a possibility?

Congestion between FTTC cabinet & exchange is almost unheard of, congestion usually occurs at exchange level or further on.

To be fair even TalkTalk Business charge £50 connection fee.

To be fair, I doubt this is going to bother me, but it is interesting to see none the less.

It would bother me. Especially since I'm getting the same speed 24/7 from Plusnet for £37pcm. I was all set to move to IDNet but then realised that their pricing wasn't as good as it seemed. Now you're saying that for nearly 50% extra cost I get to watch my speeds drop in the evening.

No way. It ain't worth it just to get mostly still unnecessary IPv6.

Edited by Andrue (Sun 13-Nov-16 18:40:53)

In reply to a post by andew:

40/20 is a product PlusNet make up themselves, afaik there isn't a 40/20 product available from openreach/wholesale. I believe their 40/20 product was the 80/20 product rate limited to 40.

Yup. Product stopped being sold over a year ago. They've recently introduced a 55/10 package that isn't for sale and have forced all the old 40/20 users on to it. Of course in true PN style they screwed up the migration for several people.

40/20 - the bad idea that just keeps giving :-/

Edited by Andrue (Sun 13-Nov-16 18:44:00)

They confirmed to me that the traffic priority option is at the BT level and doesn't apply to their own network.
The reply actually stated cabinet but I would assume this is the priority option that applies through to the BT backhaul network....

Good to know. Thanks for the update.

In reply to a post by mixt:

I was expecting to get booted off entirely, and forced over to IDNet (as happened when I migrated from AA -> Zen a couple of years ago now).

But by 8am this morning, it was still connected with Zen...

Finally got to the bottom of why this happened.

Zen kept quiet about a Fibre GEA Migration which completed against my line on 20/10/2016. I never got notified about this, but it is present on my Zen order history page, having now just checked. So after this date, I would have been on Zen's back-haul and, since I have also been advised IDNet use Zen's back-haul, this is why a disconnection never occurred.

Are you still getting evening/peak time slowdowns?

interesting so zen resell their backhaul to idnet.

Yeah, very interesting, thats another possible alternative scored off my list for where to go next to get a better connection than I have now!

Yes. Hourly speed tests don't lie. See the link in my signature.

I think Zen's billing department need some more coffee. For anyone moving away from them, do keep an eye on things, cause it most likely isn't going to go smoothly.

1) My billing period was always from the 26th - 25th of each month.

2) My landline switched to IDNet on the 18th.

3) My broadband switched to IDNet on the 9th.

4) That means 8 days need refunded for the landline, spanning 18th - 25th, which Zen have got mostly right - a £6.50 credit note raised, calculated as 20.33/30*8*1.2 (line rental plus with caller ID, which is a monthly rate of (£23.50+£0.90)/1.2 = £20.33 (ex VAT).

5) Also means 17 days need refunded for broadband, spanning 9th - 25th, which Zen haven't yet got right. In fact, there has been no credit note raised for this. I'm presuming it should amount to £15.30 (22.50/30*17*1.2) once it is raised.

6) The zero'ing of several landline call charges made between the 9th - 17th of November, because they appear to have shown up as 0044..... on your portal rather than 01....., causing your systems to apply erroneous charges for them when these should be included as part of the line rental plus package I was on during this time (I'm presuming this is a mismatch between yours and/or BT's systems because the broadband migration completed before the landline did).

7) And to top it all off, I emailed your credit control email address a week ago, and I have only just received a reply today advising this is all being looked into.

8) And the icing on the cake is that, this evening, I receive notification that you've raised a pro-forma invoice for the amount of £27 and will be collecting this via direct debit on or shortly after the 3rd of December.

Please sort this out. It is not rocket science. There are 2 mobile calls amounting to 2p, made between the 9th and 17th, so the final amount of credit owed to me appears to be £21.78. I have no idea why you are billing me £27.

I was hoping to leave the direct debit in place to allow for this refund to be gracefully executed, but so far, you are demonstrating to me that your credit control needs some work so I may have to cancel the direct debit on Friday and we'll need to arrange some other method for the refund to be processed.