Unmetered access £30 pcm from Sept- Nationwide

[Trubloff]

Well, after weeks of indusrty rumours I saw something interesting over on www.ntk.net which confirms things I've been told (I'm a network/telecoms consultant)- namely BT will be offering unmetered nationwide ADSL internet access for £30 a month from September.
Don't hold your breath for BT to confirm it yet- they obviously need to wait till the end of the month to pull in as many suckers as possible to their "half-price" Home Highway offer- tying them into 12 months of similar monthly charges for a far worse service.
I suspect demand will be so high that waiting lists will be huge, but as long as we get it pretty soon who cares?
Downstream will be around 400k/sec, upstream will be something like 64k/sec. if that. Why? Well, they don't want businesses going all VPN over ADSL and no longer needing their hyper-expensive T1s and E1s and so on (see Utumno's latest column- there's your answer mate- businesses need full duplex, home users generally don't.)
My advice to all those with long HH contracts to run is: bad luck, but get the ADSL anyway, if you spend a lot on call charges it'll probably still save you money.
As for how this affects BW, I don't know- but there's the timeframe to do something- 3 months.

Woohoo!!! As they say...

Trubloff

 

[.virt]

If that's right, it sounds like the DB's

 

[[EoD]Riz]

AFAIK pings on ADSL are not as low as ISDN... you can keep yer uber-bandwidth all I want is an uber-ping!

BT must have plans for existing ISDN users as I imagine those not into gaming will be dropping ISDN asap.

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[EoD]Riz

 

[[GA]KillMachine]

Excuse me, i may well be totally dumb, but i can't see all that difference in ping. I have a lan at home and get pings of <10 in Q2, i play on the net and get a ping of 100-150

With ADSL expected pings are around 40, so whats ISDN, say, same as my lan right?

Well, when im playing on the net i see hardly any difference between that and my lan, let alone between my lan and ADSL



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[GA]KillMachine
extreme@barrysworld.com

 

[Imprezzed]

the people on the current BT trial say they get ping ~80

 

[Trubloff]

Ping will be dependent on many factors, primarily backbone speed. If BT have multiple SDH cores (which I think they do) dedicated to the service, you'll see a vastly different ping at your end than if they have a wet piece of string as a backbone- we just can't tell yet. I stongly suspect it will give far better pings than ISDN.

Trubloff

 

[Stu]

Hmmff , who wants tae wait 'til September tho .

 

[[EoD]Riz]

I think the problem here is we just don't know yet?

/me will be watching and waiting... 8)

 

[abcdzx]

This is what some web news had to say about it.

BT touts flat-fee ADSL - - NTK

BT is in denial -- again -- after a spokesman said it had no plans to offer toll-free access to the Internet. That's two denials in three days on the same subject from the giant telco.

However, the news ferrets at NTK think they know different.

NTK says BT is to launch an unmetered ADSL service in September for around £30 a month. In its own words, NTK has blabbed about what is fast becoming one of the worst kept secrets in the industry.

NTK was sworn to secrecy by a snout, but reckoned this oath was invalidatated by the intervention of MP Ian Bruce, who alluded to the deal in Parliament on Wednesday.

Congrats to NTK for the scoop. Especially, if it's true. And yah booh sucks to BT.

For at more than £360 a year, ADSL is not quite the answer to Net users' prayers. It may be toll-free, but that's one heck of a subscription for your average user.

www.theregister.co.uk

BT might not want to confirm it, but an e-mail i recieved from them a couple of weeks ago it leaves us with some hope,


Thank you for your E-mail.

I'm sorry but I am unaware of an 0800 number having been issued as a means of
accessing BT's Internet service - either to customers or internally.

Any changes in service provision to this area will be announced by BT through
our Web pages or via the Press or BT's own publications.

Thank you for contacting BT by E-mail.

Yours sincerely,
Mr Sandy Forrest,(hmm.. Lady Boy)
BT.COM Customer Services Helpdesk.

This sent to me three days before the BT Free Weekend! So we can most definately have hope. So no matter how much BT love to deny stuff, we usually get it in the end.

Thanks to NTK and The register.

ABCDZX

[This message has been edited by abcdzx (edited 12 June 1999).]

 

[TedTheDog]

£30 pcm is for 512k I think, £50 pcm is for 2mb.
ADSL is contention based and the simple concept is, lots of people connect to their local BT exchange using ADSL and the exchange has internet access (yes, simplified).
However, that means the more people using that exchange the more the contention for the connection the more the latency increases. So, if you live in a heavily populated area and lots of people take this offer up you'll have to share "your" (ie the exchanges) bandwidth with yer neighbours.
I've seen ADSL trialists moaning bitterly about their pings as they vary wildy between 80 and 999 all the time.
It wont be like that for everyone. Some people wont be able to get it at all as many many BT exchanges havent been upgraded yet.

So, it should be just fine for surfing etc and good for gaming until yer neighbours sign up.
In the years to come, BT will no doubt sort it out and get more bandwidth than even gamers can use. This is a first step.

Ted

 

[[EoD]Riz]

As far as I know cable modems suffer from the same problems as ADSL, in that it all depends on number of users and investment in backbone?

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[EoD]Riz

 

[SimbobX]

Woohoo .. does this mean that people out in the sticks with no sign of life for miles will get better pings than all you city-dwellers .. . muahahahahah ..

oh, it's means I'm probably too far away from the exchange. pants

 

[Sres]

On the subject of money ... how can u say 360quid pa is a lot?

I worked out I pay around 160quid a quarter + my 30quid a quarter subs to nildram.

that is £190 * 4 = £760 a year.

I could save 400quid a year, and still leave my PC on all the time!?!!?! Course you would have to be behind a firewall, heh more technology

The good thing is you get no nasty suprise at the end of the month/quarter

 

[Fatbloke]

Simbobx,
I reckon I've got the neighbours thing sussed, simply move to an inner city where there's a thumping great exchange to handle the phone calls, but nobody can afford cable modems. You'll have the whole bandwidth to yourself!

Then you just need to stop your PC getting nicked

Fatbloke (from Barking, Essex)


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Fatbloke

www.bigfoot.com/~steve.conrad

 

[[GA]KillMachine]

Hey mate, £160 per quater, thats a damn cheep phone bill, im paying BT more than that a month

and thats with every discount under the sun, hurry up flat rates

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[GA]KillMachine
extreme@barrysworld.com

 

[Mr B]

I thought ChatterDay Saturday excludes 0845 no's?

BTW My phone bill averages £80 pcm and I use all the discounts...

Perhaps I should get a life......i dunno...

 

[Sres]

That sounds a bit worrying to me

So far this month I've spent 47hours online at home

about 160 if u count work (ala now

)

U sure u have all your discounts set up?

I use - F&F, BF & Premier Line. + I'm currently combining Chatterday Saturday with that hehe to get even cheaper calls

Here is a bit i found over at www.adsl.com

and something to look at if you want to know more about ADSL

http://www.adsl.com/faq.html

[This message has been edited by Sres (edited 15 June 1999).]

 

[Sres]

/me lives on the net - from 8:30 when I arrive at work, till 5pm when I leave - 1hour break till 6pm, then 6pm till 10-11 o'clock. hehe

Hate to think what I do over weekend!

I don't know about the Chatterday come to think about it - phoneline is in g/f name so all I do is dial in and use. When bill comes along I use all the tricks in the book to get g/f to pay half

hehe

 

[C4]

LOL

I really need a g/friend!

C4

 

[frankie]

umm nice, playing q2 whilst wrecked is pretty good
anyway
have a good life all
cya

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