Are all FTTC ISP pretty much the same?
- Thread starter GeX
- Start date
If the wholesale price drops, and an ISP is reselling that wholesale product then why does that mean their price goes up?
hang on a moment there..
£86.72 PA + VAT is £104.06, now divide that by 12 and you get £8.67. (Think about how you work it out.. (86.72 * 1.2) / 12. Can be done in your head, just move the decimal point).
Let's now stick with the inc VAT prices.. £17.99 (PN charge) - £8.67 (wholesale) = £9.32 for reselling me the line. A more than double markup is plenty 'margin' tbf, I don't care that it comes with weekend calls or whatever, I'll never plug a phone into the line - just give me the line without more than doubling the cost.
My experience of PN customer support has been poor, I was charged for something that their contract and help pages said I was not going to be, they were rude to my wife - just not good to deal with. So this has clouded my view of them (I had used them for ~4 years prior to this and it was 'fine', so do accept ymwv).
It's relevant to me, £60 is a lot of money to pay per month and I justified that to myself by the speed of the connection - to pay that amount for something so much slower.. I'm not sure I could! I love the idea of them, and do care about the fact they invest in their network and know it inside out.. but I the monetary value I place on that is not £60 a month
The thing is they are still selling over the same infrastructure as everybody else. I work in Networking so I appreciate the technical level of service they offer but I don't see it as worth 2-3x the price of standard offerings. How often do you have to call your ISP for support? (Virgin Media not included as they are terrible in my experience)
Well we're paying £50pcm for BT Infinity2, a phone we don't use, and of course the ubiquitous phone line rental. At £10pcm more I'm sorely tempted to make the move.
I don't get why people say Zen is expensive. I recently looked around for ISP's and was surprised to realise that Zen is actually one of the cheapest...
A&A 80/20 - 60.00pm including line rental (capped)
Eclipse 80/20 - 57.00pm including line rental
BT 80/20 - 49.99pm including line rental
IDnet 80/20 - 49.80pm including line rental
Zen 80/20 - 46.99pm including line rental
Sky 80/20 - 42.40pm including line rental
PN 80/20 - 37.99pm including line rental
TalkTalk 80/20 - 32.00pm including line rental
Considering how BT, Sky, PN and TalkTalk are filtered, have awful CS and in the case of PN/Talk Talk/Sky often speed complaints - Zen which has no filters, no caps, no traffic management etc, being literally mid priced seems like a bargain to me?
And this is not even considering the TTB service providers like Pulse8, Uno etc - 50+pm there
A&A 80/20 - 60.00pm including line rental (capped)
Eclipse 80/20 - 57.00pm including line rental
BT 80/20 - 49.99pm including line rental
IDnet 80/20 - 49.80pm including line rental
Zen 80/20 - 46.99pm including line rental
Sky 80/20 - 42.40pm including line rental
PN 80/20 - 37.99pm including line rental
TalkTalk 80/20 - 32.00pm including line rental
Considering how BT, Sky, PN and TalkTalk are filtered, have awful CS and in the case of PN/Talk Talk/Sky often speed complaints - Zen which has no filters, no caps, no traffic management etc, being literally mid priced seems like a bargain to me?
And this is not even considering the TTB service providers like Pulse8, Uno etc - 50+pm there
Last edited:
Soldato
@kaktus those prices have only just become valid, since ISPs now have to offer packages inclusive of LR as of 2-3 weeks ago, most decided to jack their prices up.
Since the new rules, it does make Zen a slightly more competitively priced ISP compared to the rest.
Since the new rules, it does make Zen a slightly more competitively priced ISP compared to the rest.
Soldato
- Joined
- 20 Oct 2008
- Posts
- 12,096
I'm currently with Plusnet having moved my FTTC connection from IDNet back when only 40/10 connections were available. I've got no particular problem with Zen (ignoring cost) and they'll probably be my preferred ISP if Plusnet do really **** me off.
Completely ignoring introductory offers is just daft. I believe Plusnet currently charge £32.50/month for the first 18 months and at the moment are offering £85.00 cashback. If my calculations are correct that's £27.78/month for the first 18 months (a saving of about £20/month compared to Zen).
In my experience Plusnet's CS is pretty good. It can take a while to actually get through (no big deal with a free phone number), but once you do the support is good.
Plusnet may traffic manage, but that's something you'd expect anyone running a network to do. It's certainly not something I've ever found to be noticeable at any time of the day.
Completely ignoring introductory offers is just daft. I believe Plusnet currently charge £32.50/month for the first 18 months and at the moment are offering £85.00 cashback. If my calculations are correct that's £27.78/month for the first 18 months (a saving of about £20/month compared to Zen).
In my experience Plusnet's CS is pretty good. It can take a while to actually get through (no big deal with a free phone number), but once you do the support is good.
Plusnet may traffic manage, but that's something you'd expect anyone running a network to do. It's certainly not something I've ever found to be noticeable at any time of the day.
Soldato
- Joined
- 20 Oct 2008
- Posts
- 12,096
They've been forced to change the pricing in the adverts (for reasons that still defeat me).
As far as I can tell the change in the advertising rules didn't require them to actually merge the pricing, just quote an overall figure (for the people unable to perform basic mental arithmetic or investigate the details after viewing the adverts).
I'd be amazed if the advertising changes actually resulted in any drop in the inflated line rental charges, and that's the only way the rule changes could benefit anyone.
As far as I can tell the change in the advertising rules didn't require them to actually merge the pricing, just quote an overall figure (for the people unable to perform basic mental arithmetic or investigate the details after viewing the adverts).
I'd be amazed if the advertising changes actually resulted in any drop in the inflated line rental charges, and that's the only way the rule changes could benefit anyone.
It was the ASA who pushed through the pricing on adverts change. Apparently many people were unable to work out how much a month they would be paying by looking at an advert.
Permabanned
Zen offer a similar level of customer service, technical expertise and don't limit you to only 1TB... I easily get through 1TB in a month, even on only an 80mbit connection.
Wouldn't waste my money on them.
AA do run their capacity at 60% all the time though... which is favourable... but I'm in a congested area and haven't had a hint of any slowdown with Zen and I'm a heavy user.
I think it's a good change personally. "Fibre broadband, £5 per month £18.99 line rental required" was pretty much the definition of a misleading advert.
This^^^, in OZ they also have to tell you how much you will have paid at the end of the contract(after any mid contract rises i.e. £12 for the first 12 months and £18 there after)
Soldato
I have been with Virgin/BT/PN and Sky.
the worst of the bunch is Virgin. they don't invest in their infrastructure and lie about the line speeds until you find out that you signed upto to 60mbs and can only do at best 3mbs. and takes months upon months for them to admit the problem in their cabinet and then offers nothing other than a cancellation of the contract. they didn't even bother to refund the cost of the internet which was unusable.
the next worst is Sky - a lot of outage of broadband and phone. always say it is an openreach problem and each time called up they threatened me with the line "we can ask a BT engineer to come out but if they determine the fault is within your property you need to pay £150 call out and the cost to rectify the fault of the line in your property". Now if I was an OAP with no clues about phone lines and networking and lives on state pensions, then I would be pretty concerned about that level of cost and an open ended bill sent my way. This is my parent's position and thus I made the calls to Sky every time knowing they will bully them.
Plusnet - been with them for years now. the line has no problem with. the technical support is good IMO and you generally don't have to wait long either - about 5min in the queue. the bones I have with PN is their customer support. not only you have to often wait for 15-25min (i once was in the queue for 45min), the blokes on the other end really don't give a two bit care about you. I am currently lumbered with plusnet as I recently moved address and locked into a long term contract. But I certainly will be moving on soon as possible (with the condition that FTTC is not fully used up in my area)
BT - a bit expensive, but simply the best. no wait time for queuing. no problems when calling up regarding calling out engineer - I had to get someone out to check the connection when I first went fibre as the connection dropped after a few days. and great customer care in my experiences.
from some of the previous posts, it seems Zen is a decent ISP as well. so definitely will be between Zen and BT for me. as everyone said, given that all ISPs use openreach (other than Virgin), it is purely down to cost and customer care and which order you prized it more.
the worst of the bunch is Virgin. they don't invest in their infrastructure and lie about the line speeds until you find out that you signed upto to 60mbs and can only do at best 3mbs. and takes months upon months for them to admit the problem in their cabinet and then offers nothing other than a cancellation of the contract. they didn't even bother to refund the cost of the internet which was unusable.
the next worst is Sky - a lot of outage of broadband and phone. always say it is an openreach problem and each time called up they threatened me with the line "we can ask a BT engineer to come out but if they determine the fault is within your property you need to pay £150 call out and the cost to rectify the fault of the line in your property". Now if I was an OAP with no clues about phone lines and networking and lives on state pensions, then I would be pretty concerned about that level of cost and an open ended bill sent my way. This is my parent's position and thus I made the calls to Sky every time knowing they will bully them.
Plusnet - been with them for years now. the line has no problem with. the technical support is good IMO and you generally don't have to wait long either - about 5min in the queue. the bones I have with PN is their customer support. not only you have to often wait for 15-25min (i once was in the queue for 45min), the blokes on the other end really don't give a two bit care about you. I am currently lumbered with plusnet as I recently moved address and locked into a long term contract. But I certainly will be moving on soon as possible (with the condition that FTTC is not fully used up in my area)
BT - a bit expensive, but simply the best. no wait time for queuing. no problems when calling up regarding calling out engineer - I had to get someone out to check the connection when I first went fibre as the connection dropped after a few days. and great customer care in my experiences.
from some of the previous posts, it seems Zen is a decent ISP as well. so definitely will be between Zen and BT for me. as everyone said, given that all ISPs use openreach (other than Virgin), it is purely down to cost and customer care and which order you prized it more.
Last edited:
Permabanned
Not just cost and CS... their backbone is still contended, even if the main line from your house to them is openreach with no LLU like we had with Be/Sky/etc for ADSL2
AAISP do have one of the best there for sure as they're very strict about maintaining 60% capacity... but Zen aren't far behind at all and have never heard of any issues, so they must manage it well.
For the price difference... AA/Zen/BT = Zen all the way
AAISP do have one of the best there for sure as they're very strict about maintaining 60% capacity... but Zen aren't far behind at all and have never heard of any issues, so they must manage it well.
For the price difference... AA/Zen/BT = Zen all the way