Any good ISPs offering unlimited 8mb?

[Teal]

If this is a DataStream service then you may end up with some highly variable download speeds as the usual issue for DataStream is that the contention tends to be very real and noticable since it isn't economic to over provide on the VP's from the Exchange back to the center.

Also the explanation only really covers half the question.

As described they would certainly make savings on their upstream bandwidth costs, but the server hosting operation as described would not need the VP's to the Exchanges so all of that cost still has to be handled.

This has the feel of something that will probably start out really good, but as the VP's get more loaded and the heavy downloaders move in the service will probably get very slow for a number of people.

 

[Luke284]

This has the feel of something that will probably start out really good, but as the VP's get more loaded and the heavy downloaders move in the service will probably get very slow for a number of people.

am i correct in saying that the VP's are in the exchange? so it would only matter if a lot of heavy downloaders are on the same exchange as me?

not really sure how this all works.

 

[Teal]

The VP its their link from the Exchange back to their own network.

It doesn't take a lot of heavy downloaders to affect you though, just the one will do it

Where BTW can rely on getting hundreds, or thousands of customers per Exchange, a provider like this will often need to start will more modest arrangements.

I'll use the older 2Mb DSL as an example.

If they wanted to offer their service through a particular Exchange, to get the first customer connected they would need to rent a 3Mb VP from BT (it has to carry the ATM overhead so 2Mb won't do, ask Tiscali, they learned the hard way ). The cost is such that it is very uneconomic to do it for one customer, but you have to start somewhere.

When customer no.2 comes along the VP is already there so nothing new to rent he just shares with no. 1 and the cost per customer goes down. Same for no.3 , no. 4 etc. ...

The problem is to make it financially viable you can't afford to have too few customers per VP and you VP is very sensitive to the use those customers make of it.

If you have just one customer on that 3Mb VP downloading 24/7 you can see that he alone will virtually fill it if he is allowed to. The ISP will use limiting techniques to ensure he doesn't when others also want to use it but the impact of that is very clear and noticable unlike BT where although contention exists in thoery you will very rarely see the effect.

Now, if they have deep pockets they don't just rent very small VP's and they don't just rent 1, but the economics of scale mean that whatever they do their system will be more exposed to the impact of an unmanaged heavy downloader so they need to make the contention bite more heavily than BT have ever done or the service for other users really suffers.

 

[Luke284]

ahh i see! that makes sense.

and as the website doesnt state a contention ratio anywhere (or not that i can see) then its likly to be Datastream. fingers crossed not many people on my exchange use them!

 

[tolien]

They're Enta resellers, so it would seem highly improbable that they're using DataStream (not stating a contention ratio isn't meaningful - there isn't one stated for IPStream either).
Which leaves how they can charge what they are...

 

[Mercutio]

Didnt want to start a new thread on this but after a few weeks of hell with my connection (bulldog) and problems going back to install before that, I gave em a ring.
Missed the callback but in answer machine message guy said he'd checked and I was 3.3k from the exchange as the cable goes so 4Mb was about what was expected (this I already knew). He'd rebooted the port I was connected to and changed the profile to work better with the speeds etc available.
Really wish id have had the faith in their customer service a bit earlier - was just of the opinion id have to lump it fornow.
Line has been absolutely ROCK solid since. Not a single issue. Fairly happy to recommend bulldog at the moment, seems they have got their act together somewhat.

 

[Wingz]

Didnt want to start a new thread on this but after a few weeks of hell with my connection (bulldog) and problems going back to install before that, I gave em a ring.
Missed the callback but in answer machine message guy said he'd checked and I was 3.3k from the exchange as the cable goes so 4Mb was about what was expected (this I already knew). He'd rebooted the port I was connected to and changed the profile to work better with the speeds etc available.
Really wish id have had the faith in their customer service a bit earlier - was just of the opinion id have to lump it fornow.
Line has been absolutely ROCK solid since. Not a single issue. Fairly happy to recommend bulldog at the moment, seems they have got their act together somewhat.

my connection with BD was fine for 9 months until my phone line suddenly went dead but adsl was still working and only can sync to 2meg (usually sync to 6.5meg). i rang BD the next day and they said that i will be contacted within 48hrs.

this has been 2 weeks ago, my phone is still dead and sync'd to 1.5 meg. Good ole Bulldog

 

[Ol!ver]

my connection with BD was fine for 9 months until my phone line suddenly went dead but adsl was still working and only can sync to 2meg (usually sync to 6.5meg). i rang BD the next day and they said that i will be contacted within 48hrs.

this has been 2 weeks ago, my phone is still dead and sync'd to 1.5 meg. Good ole Bulldog

Don't know about anyone else, but I'd have been back on the phone long before 2 weeks !

Anyways, this Evolution everyone's on about, are you meaning Eclipse? Been having a look-see at them myself. http://www.eclipse.net.uk/index.cfm?id=fixedmain_res

 

[Luke284]

no, www.evolutiondsl.net

 

[just_grass]

looking at those eclipse packages,

whats the difference? - apart from the lower two packages not having access to news groups?! (stated on another page)...

afai can see, there is only a price difference!

Anyone shed any light?
Alex

EDIT:

How does the usage allowance for Home Broadband work?

Everything you send or receive over the Internet is bits of data, whether it's a web page, an email, a music track or a video clip. Each element of data is a different size and is measured in Kilobytes (KB), Megabytes (MB) or Gigabytes (GB). The average email is around 4KB, a digital photo around 1MB and a music track around 5MB (1MB=1024KB, 1GB=1024MB).

You can use your broadband connection freely up to the published usage allowance (2GB, 10GB, 20GB or 40GB, depending on the product you have selected). Once you have reached your allowance, you can choose whether to purchase additional GB or to have your download speed reduced to 256Kbps until the start of your next billing month.

 

[Ol!ver]

looking at those eclipse packages,

whats the difference? - apart from the lower two packages not having access to news groups?! (stated on another page)...

afai can see, there is only a price difference!

Anyone shed any light?
Alex

EDIT:

I *THINK* it's contention, thought it doesn't say what you get. There's a link on there somewhere that mentions it....

 

[Phil99]

Home Broadband:

£14.99 - 2GB
£18.99 - 10GB
£24.99 - 20GB
£29.99 - 40GB

No traffic shaping, top level of contention, no peak periods, pay extra for bandwidth used above the set amount (or it throttles down)

Evolution Broadband:

£14.99 - Option 1 - 20GB peak time (6-12pm), 'Classic' contention
£18.99 - Option 2 - 30GB peak time (6-12pm), 'Classic Plus' contention
£24.99 - Option 3 - 40GB peak time (6-12pm), 'Premium' contention
£29.99 - Option 4 - 50GB peak time (6-12pm), 'Premium Plus' contention

This one's unlimited from midnight -> 6pm, but between 6pm and midnight you're limited to the above peak time limits + there'll be traffic shaping applied to high bandwidth applications, e.g. P2P/FTP.

The contention levels aren't fixed at, say, 10:1/20:1/30:1/40:1; instead they're apparently dynamic so basically the Option 4 users will take higher priority over the Option 3 users if/when the bandwidth becomes contended on Eclipse's network.

As far as I'm aware there's no traffic shaping/limits during the day (outside the 6-12 peak time), but I'm not 100% sure on that.

 

[Mercutio]

my connection with BD was fine for 9 months until my phone line suddenly went dead but adsl was still working and only can sync to 2meg (usually sync to 6.5meg). i rang BD the next day and they said that i will be contacted within 48hrs.

this has been 2 weeks ago, my phone is still dead and sync'd to 1.5 meg. Good ole Bulldog

Ahh still v patchy then, guess I got lucky - give em another try though, definitely wouldnt be putting up with that for so long.

 

[alexw]

Evolution certainly look pretty promising.

Although the AUP is mentioned in the T&C and seemingly isn't available on the website (has anyone got hold of a copy of it yet?), they do make specific references on the website to not carrying out p2p blocking and as Raider posted earlier they also claim they don't traffic shape.

For £24.99 p/month with only a 1 month minimum contract it must be too good to be true.

But then since the contract is only 1 month it's perhaps not a big risk to try it.

BTW, what's the usual turnaround time for switching ISPs? How long should I expect to be without internet if I switch from Pipex to, say, Evolution?

 

[Luke284]

you shouldnt be without internet for more than a few mins. unless something goes wrong.

i ordered with evolution last night at 10:30 and ive got a migration date of the 12th

 

[bingham67]

Also looking at either Eclipse or Evolution im not sure how Evolution can charge with no caps because every other isp has caps or fair usage policy for maxdsl.