| Archive for Downsizer For an ethical approach to consumption |
| sean |
ISPs reveal new definition of unlimited...apparently they meant, email and a bit of looking at websites. So now they want the BBC to pay for upgrades to their networks.BBC I appreciate that they may not have an unbiased view on this, but it's where I found the story. |
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| jema |
Whist it is a complex issue, there is no doubt that paying for infrastructure does not lie with the content providers. Providers already pay once to get there bandwidth onto the backdone of internet, the rest of it has to be paid by the consumer. | ||||||||||
| Treacodactyl |
Do you need a TV licence to watch any of the online services? | ||||||||||
| sean |
Not as far as I know. Some of them are illegal for other reasons of course. | ||||||||||
| toggle |
not unless it is provided live, as in at the same time as it is on the tv. |
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| orangepippin |
I think the problem is, the BBC iplayer is swamping bandwidth. It is a complicated issue, but I do feel the ISPs have something of a point. Their networks and payment structures were not designed for it, and their room for manouevre is very limited by their bandwidth contracts with BT. | ||||||||||
| MarkS |
tbh the issue of 'unlimited*' broadband isnt anything new. I have a contract that specifies exact limits - I know that in the recent past I would have done better on an 'unlimited' contract but I am mistrusting of companies that wont ever specify basic deliverables in a contract.
* conditions apply. Please read 57 pages of small print for indicative bollocks where we fail to actually specify anything beyond 'you can download anything as long as we find it convenient to let you.' |
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| toggle |
what about the bandwidth contracts they have with customers? if they have sold more bandwidth than they are able to provide, taken on more customers than they can provide a service for, then that is entirely their fault, they need to renegotiate with bt or their customers, not whine that their customers might actually want what they are paying for. |
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| jema |
Video has been the coming thing for ages, but in a messy private market all the providers need to undercut each other on price and no one wants to take the hit on the kind of infrastructure investment needed. | ||||||||||
| orangepippin |
My understanding is that the ISPs hands are tied on this, because of their contracts with BT wholesale. Video has indeed been coming for some time, but I think you'll find that BBC Iplayer has in a very short space of time become responsible for a very large part of the total UK internet traffic. Some of the cost of that should probably be borne by the BBC - who are after all the beneficiaries of that traffic to some degree.
Sure, individual ISPs may have over-cooked their bandwidth, but the market is very competitive and users can easily jump ship. The problem here is that the BBC have waded in and stuffed them all. |
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| toggle |
The bbc have provided stuff that people want to see and because it's legal content, it's harder for the ISP's to say 'screw you' to their paying customers in the way they have been to high bandwidth users for years.
And for the record, I'm with markS. I don't use unlimited bandwidth services because I feel i get more for my money on a limited one with the right limit for my usage. |
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| sean |
Hmmm, not sure that makes a convincing case for the BBC funding it. If a few ISPs go bust/drop out of the market, so what? Piling into a market because you thought it was money for jam then squealing when it isn't is hardly endearing behaviour. | ||||||||||
| Grimnir |
By the Gods, something to make me glad I'm not on any part of the BT network! I never thought someone would come up with a great reason to be with Virgin 
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| orangepippin |
If the BBC launched a new service that resulted in half the population simultaneously getting in their cars and trains and heading to London, there would be gridlock. You wouldn't blame the road builders for failing to build big enough roads, or the train companies for not having enough trains. You would blame the BBC. And yet this, in online terms, is exactly what the BBC has done.
I'm not saying it is all down to the BBC, but they do have some responsibility for the situation. |
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| Northern_Lad |
No I wouldn't: I'd blame the idiots who choose to clog up the system. All the BBC are doing is creating an interest, it's up to people whether, and how, they make usage of it. If it means that the ISPs have to re-negotiate thier contracts with BT and pass on the charges then that's what needs to happen. Market economics in an open system. |
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| orangepippin |
I partly agree with that, but this is not just any old website is it. Even the BBC admits they have increased Internet traffic by 5% in the space of just a few months. I do find the BBC's aggressive stance of blaming the ISPs rather difficult to go along with, although perhaps their logic is attack is the best form of defence. | ||||||||||
| cab |
But the BBC are have not launched a service that is clogging up roads. Thay have launched a service that takes advantage of the clearly advertised benefits of the internet provision we're paying for. Either the companies selling that service have been over-hyping what they can supply, in which case I have no sympathy for them, or they're trying to put the responsibility for their infrastructure and capacity into the BBC because they perceive Auntie as a limitless supply of funds and a soft touch; in which case, I have no sympathy for them. Either I'm paying for a capacity to download this stuff or I'm not. My contract says I am, so if my ISP start grumbling then, frankly, screw 'em. |
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| Barefoot Andrew |
Agreed. A. |
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| Northern_Lad |
Thing is, the BBC will already be paying for this solution. They'll have had to increase their upload link to be able to cope with demand (that's why some sites run slowly with virtually no content and others run fast with lots) - it's the same principal as downloading, only in reverse. | ||||||||||
| Treacodactyl |
I'm not sure I agree with public money being used to fund private companies. BT, which is also a large ISP, made well over a billion pounds in profit in it's last financial year so there would seem to be some money in it's coffers to pay for improvements.
Having said that, if OFCOM insists on using the licence fee to help fund commercial broadcasters then perhaps it should also help fund the ISPs? ( http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/7339381.stm ) |
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| cab |
In my opinion, OFCOM are off their rockers. Its a simple bad idea. So I rather hope that this idea doesn't become a reality, but if it does I could well see ISPs making that argument. |
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| orangepippin |
I don't think it is realistic to expect ISPs to be able to deliver such a massive increase in capacity in such a short time. The BBC service IS clogging up the Internet - by their own admission.
If the ISPs have to fund this capacity upgrade then that means you, the Net user, will be paying more for your connection charges. No commercial service-based business can afford to have massive amounts of spare resources hanging around "just in case". If they did customers would be paying higher charges already. This is basic stuff. |
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| Jamanda |
So if people are receiving a better service why shouldn't they pay more? | ||||||||||
| cab |
Not realistic? Its a free market economy. They've made a promise to provide me with a service. I pay them for that. Its written down in a contract. Not realistic? Well they shouldn't have put that contract to their customers; if their business models were bad then thats their lookout. They've been promising us the capacity to watch video online, now that we want it we're meant to say 'oh, thats okay, I don't want what I'm paying for'?
When the contract changes then yes, maybe I will. I think it more likely that some of the cowboys insisting that they can't do what they're paid for will go to the wall, and that the bigger companies investing in capacity will be able to survive with resultant increases in custom.
Those resources aren't lying around 'just in case', they should exist because their customers are already paying for them. If they do not then their customers have been sold a service under a false pretense. |
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| Northern_Lad |
I agree. It is unfair to expect them to do it in a short time period. But they're setting the expectation themselves.
Fine. Net users are the ones benefiting from the increases so they're the ones who should pay. Why should a little old lady who's never used a computer but has a TV pay so you can receive the service cheeper?
Again, I agree, but that's market economics for you. |
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| orangepippin |
I am afraid that is complete nonsense. |
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| Northern_Lad |
Sorry, I'm just off out to shoot myself for posting like Cab. 
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| vegplot |
ISP's are seeling traffic allocation to allow customers to allow access to resources. The fundamnetal issue here is that currently content providers, such as DS for instance, do not pay ISP to carry that traffic, the ISP customers do, after all it is they who are selling those services.
This issue is that ISP's are contracted to BT who carry the bulk of the backbone traffic and those contracts aren't that flexible or dymanmic so a rapidly changing market place will see ISP's squeal as they struggle to cope with demand. However, much of this is their own making as they tie down customer contracts for 12-18 months at a fixed cost. If the BBC were to be made to pay ISP's as a content provider then what would stop ISP's from demanding payment from smaller providers such as DS or your own personal web site? |
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| vegplot |
Have you gone over to the dark side? |
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| cab |
Errm, no! Go look at the ads for unmetered broadband. They're full of 'download video, watch films, listen to music' stuff. Look at the contracts for those services. They're offering a service that people are paying for and now insisting that they can't do so? Thats dreadful; they've been caught out by people doing precisely what they're paying for. If they haven't the capacity to supply what they are selling then thats blatant false advertising. Justify otherwise if you disagree. |
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| orangepippin |
Well in that case you have been rather naieve. No business operates the way you seem to think it does, at least not here in the real world. Providing unlimited capacity would make your subscription cost infinite. Everything you are complaining about has been approved by the regulator, so perhaps you should talk to him. | ||||||||||
| jema |
Like it or not there has been loads of false advertising by ISPs, claiming false speeds and capacity they are not really able to deliver.
That has been the logic of a free market where companies try and make hay whilst the sun shines. |
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| vegplot |
That's how it's being sold in some instances. Some ISP offer unlimited bandwith for hosting which doesn't make business sense unless they rely on most users not using anywhere near their nominal capacity to compensate for those who are high traffic users. What's happening is the ISP's who are offering uncapped broadband for a fixed cost do so to exploit the market. Now iPlayer has come along they've been caught out by the average bandwidth being well above their expectation. Rather than adjusting their marketing strategy or calling in their contracts they're demanding someone else pay for their own mistake or greed. It doesn't apply to all ISP's mainly those with shareholders who are trying to extract as much profit as possible by whatever means at their disposal. In other words they've been running a business but not a ethical business IMHO. |
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| jema |
It is very very similar in the hosting market 
I try and avoid hosting, as the prices are totally unrealistically low, even given economies of scale that I cannot achieve. I have just looked and seen an advert for under £3.50 a month including 1500gb of bandwidth, now I will be the first to admit I pay quite dearly for bandwidth, but that amount of bandwidth costs me £150. Now to be fair, my bandwidth is I believe better bandwidth than the bandwidth in these deals which will probably be very slow. But the point remains that it is an unreal price only sustainable by having a steady flow of customers who are not actually using the facilities on offer. If ever the market matures and people start both using what they pay for, and also not paying for what they don't use, then the hosting market would have a crisis. |
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| orangepippin |
The crisis seems to have arrived already. Some of it goes back to the way the UK broadband market was originally setup, when the government decided that broadband was critical for the UK - quite rightly. The fact that we now have almost universal broadband and at a price that many can afford is surely a good thing. Hopefully this crisis is just going to be a passing thing. Users will pay for it either through their ISP charges or their licence fee! |
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| vegplot |
Part of our business is in the hosting market. We started many years ago and charged what were at the time resonable charges and grew quite quickly. As time went on our charges haven't changed and we could now be considered at the higher end of the market in terms of price. However, the market we deal with can support it, business, local authorities, NGO's etc. They pay far more than they could do with a bucket shop hosting provider but they get excellent support. We also differentiate in the market, for instance our bandwidth isn't just UK bound, which is dirt cheap, it's Tier1 some 8 times more expensive. You are correct, if users started using what they could then the hosting market would be in dire straits. |
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| Grimnir |
3 years ago I was working on the broadband helpdesk at one of the broadband suppliers who have a big share of the UK market. Even then their 'unlimited' broadband deals did not mean unlimited, despite their advertising campaigns. They hid a 'fair usage' clause in their 'unlimited' contracts which basically said that the definition of unlimited was down to them and if the user actually tried to use their package as bought they got capped. Even then the lies did not stop, people were told their service would be restricted only at peak times, in fact it was always a 24/7 cap. Some high level users were so restricted they were reduced to slow dialup speeds.
This is fact, I know, I had to try and provide answers for them when they called in to find out why their so-called unlimited service was so limited. The company is still advertising the same deals and I suppose still capping anyone who actually wants to do more than download a song from itunes now and then. It is their fault they cannot provide what they offer, they have created the situation they are in now by their own actions. I'm glad I'm on cable, at least they do upgrade their networks! |
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| orangepippin |
Regardless how ISPs may portray it, or customers may pretend and not read the small print, there's no such thing as a free lunch. If you have unlimited bandwidth you'll be paying for it. It's the same with unlimited free weekend calls, or eat as much as you want restaurants. All these things follow a "normal" distribution. Normal distributions can usually be predicted very accurately. I once worked for a business that prided itself in always having size 14, 15, 16 etc. working men's boots in stock. If all the men with very large feet all decided they wanted new boots, the company's advertising would have been caught out because they certainly could not afford to have unlimited stocks ... but statistically that would be extremely unlikely, and in practice the company was always able to honour its commitment.
The ISPs buy broadband capacity on exactly the same basis. However if something comes along that suddenly changes the normal distribution - like the BBC IPlayer - then all the supplier predictions unravel. It will take time for this to work through. The ISPs are rightly open to criticism for sharp practices. So is the regulator. So are consumers. But a lot of the responsibility for the current situation must lie with the BBC. Having said that, the IPlayer is great! |
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| jema |
They may be the cause, but they do not hold responsibility for the fact that everyone else down the chain has been lying. |
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| vegplot |
I can't agree with you on that. The BBC are simply the end link in the chain. The consumer pays the ISP to access information providers by content providers. This not only include the BBC but all web site and anything that use the IP protocol to convery digital information. The cost of providing content is meet by the content provider while the cost of connecting to that content is met by the network carriers who pass the cost onto the user. If you create another model by which the content provider pays for part of the network infrastructure then you will fundamentally alter the Internet and how information is disseminated on it. It's not only the BBC what about all the other high bandwidth digital devices and service such as online games consoles, Sky, YouTube to name but a few? How would BT or any other ISP meter foreign sourced data? If they couldn't would they simply block it? |
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| jema |
The content provider does pay for a lot of the network infrastructure.
Downsizer is hosted in a datacenter that makes investments in connectivity. I pay them to ensure they pay others to ensure that downsizer data gets a fair way through the network before the ISPs are the ones responsible for the final steps to the end user. Quite where all the boundaries lie is complex, and I'd like to know more about that. But the boundary for the content provider does end before the ISP. |
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| orangepippin |
Jema. I think "everyone lying" is a bit excessive. For a start it is not everyone. Some ISPs may have lied, if so I'm sure the regulator will have slapped them. Others may have been economical with the truth, but if you were getting a deal that sounded too good to be true - perhaps it was.
Vegplot. I think the point is the BBC have come in very big and very suddenly. The ISPs are unable to react quickly enough because of the nature of their wholesale contracts. I am not trying to suggest content providers should pay (and I agree with Jema that they do in effect pay for their end connection anyway), just pointing out that the BBC have to take responsibility for this rather large blip in demand trends. |
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| vegplot |
The content provider infrastructure essentially stops at the router. ISP's can act as network manager for content providers and end users so the disctinction and division is blurred. Content providers pay for a large connection, say 100Mbps, non-shared connection as against a broadband users 8Mbps (ha) shared then using that definition the model becomes simpler. At the end of the day the content provider is paying the network carrier to handle the traffic they've paid them to handle. |
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| jema |
excessive, yes a little, but as a two word summation it is pretty accurate! |
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| orangepippin |
As far as 2 word summations go, OK! | ||||||||||
| cab |
If I buy, say, a bottle of fizzy drink, its labelled as containing 2 litres of fluid, but it only contained 1 litre, I'd take it back. I'd get a refund. If I sign up to a broadand service and end up getting less than I'm paying for then I'd expect a refund. Bottom line; companies are expected to provide the service they're charging for. If they cease to do so then they'll go under; complaining that people are using the service that they are paying for and that they weren't expecting customers to do that, I have no sympathy at all. Said companies perhaps deserve to go bust. |
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| cab |
Or, to put it another way, if a customer goes to their broadband supplier and says "I'm a little short this month, so I'm only paying half of my bill and you'll write the other half off" then most likely that customer would be cut off. But, strangely, those companies seem to believe that offering a service at a set price but then providing a fraction of that service is just fine. It isn't, its immoral. | ||||||||||
| jema |
lying is part of the culture:
http://www.godaddy.com/gdshop/hosting/gdcompare_uk.asp?isc=gooukh03b¤cytype=GBP implies I could pretty much run my hosting business for £3.31 a month and have a fraction of the responsibility. I guess I actually pay about 200x that amount 
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| orangepippin |
So far so good. Now imagine you are a drinks manufacturer. You have daily orders from 100 customers of various sizes. You want to keep them all happy but you can't manufacture limitless quantities, so you work out the average orders and schedule production accordingly. Most of the time things go well, occasionally you are out of stock and occasionally you have stuff left over. In fact how well you balance that equation decides whether your business does better than other drinks businesses. Then imagine your most important customer puts in an order which is way bigger than you have seen before ... Starting to get the picture? |
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| cab |
The solution to such a problem is not to sell bottles that are only half full, it is not to raise false expectations by promising that you will always deliver more than you are able to. Soft drinks companies also run low on supplies, they fail to meet orders sometimes, but they don't charge for products that fail to meet the specifications claimed for them when they are running low. Better not to supply the market with a product that gets your company a bad name, to miss an order, than to provide something truly under spec. Internet companies seem to assume that they can sell products on a false expectation that they'll do what the customer is paying for, and then they want someone else to come and pay to fix that for them! Its analogous to the BBC being asked to pay to fill bottles of coke sold half empty. |
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| Grimnir |
I have to agree with cab, the ISP's are selling a product they know only too well does not have the capacity to meet all their customers needs. They have been doing this for years. They have promised just this sort of service ie tv-quality video streaming, watching movies, listening to music etc. Well look, someone has come up with a great way to use the services the ISP's have been claiming to support. BBC did not make the claims, they just provided a service to their customers which the ISP's claims say shouldn't be a problem.
Why should anyone but the companies concerned pay for what they have claimed? |
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| Jonnyboy |
I'm caught between both camps, I understand exactly where orangepippin is coming from. Maybe a better analogy is the expectation that we all have an adequate electricity supply, but this only holds true because we don't all switch on every appliance we own at the same time.
Where I lose sympathy with the ISP's is when they start bleating and trying to blame others. Really they should deal with the short term pain and invest where appropriate. I have no doubt that we'll all have to pay for it in the medium to long term. |
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| vegplot |
I don't think the analogy works. The BBC is the generator and the ISP the wires. If consumers all switch on their cookers at the same time and the generators can cope with the demand but not the wires would you expect the grid company to ask the generators to pay to upgrade their wires? Even though the generators pay to be on the circuit as do the consumers. |
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| Jonnyboy |
That's why I said I didn't support their bleating and that they should pay to upgrade. But I'm pretty sure the cost will pass on to us the consumer eventually. |
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| orangepippin |
Maybe the various analogies don't quite nail it, but what is absolutely certain is that all businesses that supply products where demand exists as a normal distribution will seek to produce just enough capacity to meet demand, allowing for peaks and troughs. Too much capacity / stock / widgets and you lose money. Too little capacity / stock /widgets and you lose customers - and therefore money.
Maybe the ISPs have been a bit economical with the truth as far as advertising or whatever, but the economics are very simple. Anyone who thinks unlimited bandwidth is possible for £9.99 a month is just daft. Now that the BBC has effectively shifted the whole distribution curve to the right, one thing you can be sure of is we will all be paying more. |
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| orangepippin |
And PS, I am hoping to watch the BBC2 Lapland programme that I missed last night so if you lot could logoff now that would be great! | ||||||||||
| cab |
Its called 'lying'. |
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| orangepippin |
Oh, so if someone says you can have unlimited whatever for for £9.99 a month you believe them? I think that's called having a bit of common sense. | ||||||||||
| jema |
Why? It might be common sense to you or me with our level of knowledge. But why should the punter not believe it? |
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| orangepippin |
It does not require any specialist knowledge to know that if someone offers you unlimited *anything* for £9.99 a month you need to read the small print! | ||||||||||
| Behemoth |
I'm glad this is about the internet, imagine if you signed up with a waste collection service, who due to demand exceeded their capacity and failed to provide the service they advertised. I know you could have read the small print about performance and their statement was based on a normative distribution and whole pot of other stats that may change but we don't have time to look into that do we. Oh well at least we know free market promises are worthless.  
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| orangepippin |
You are trying too hard! | ||||||||||
| Behemoth |
Not really. It's about service, capacity and contracts and profit. | ||||||||||
| orangepippin |
If this wasn't the BBC that had swamped the net, but a commercial provider - say Sky? Who would get the blame then? The lying ISPs, the ratings hungry content provider, the helpless regulator, or daft consumers?
Sorry, did I say ratings hungry content provider? |
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| Fee |
Oooh, I've just had a message pop up in the iPlayer Download Manager saying that I've downloaded over 2Gb since installing iPlayer on this machine (this week  ), and to check my internet plan!
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| jema |
Time for a confession  I "sell" my free forums system as being "unlimited" in terms of forum size.
There are several thousand active forums, one of them with a million odd posts, and some awful settings as I recall did end up temporarily breaking. Clearly "unlimited" can never mean absolutely what it says on the can in all circumstances. I'd defend myself by saying 99.95% have worked within the limits and that justifies me advertising the way I do. I don't think the ISPs can claim anything like that percentage. |
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| orangepippin |
That is very honest of you.
At least with the ISPs you can (a) complain and ask for a refund, (b) complain to the regulator, (c) vote with your feet and find another ISP better able to suit your needs. With the BBC you can complain ... but you won't get your money back. So, anyone who thinks unlimited Internet access for £9.99 should mean "unlimited" ... you know what to do. |
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| toggle |
you're assuming we all pay money to the bbc in the first place | ||||||||||
| Behemoth |
I don't know much about this, did the BBC keep this secret or was it trailed in the industry? | ||||||||||
| orangepippin |
The BBC have been working on the IPlayer for some years, and indeed have been heavily criticised for spending vast amounts of tax payers (sorry, licence payers) money on something that could have been done for a few hundred quid by an offshore developer. Several ISPs were involved in trials - including mine, plus.net. So they knew it was on the cards. However the trials were limited - I for one tried to participate but nothing worked and like many others I gave up. It was extremely complicated to get it to work, something to do with weird ports and stuff, you needed to know the internals of your router rather well.
Then, for reasons I am not entirely clear, someone somewhere took the project by the proverbials and fettled it - this was towards the end of last year I think. The thing worked, and to everyone's amazement was very suddenly a big success. It is genuinely good. But I think it was a surprise to a lot of people. This is why I don't think you can just blame the ISPs for the sudden swamping of their bandwidth, it pretty much came out of the blue. |
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| vegplot |
It caught some ISP's out because they offered uncapped Internet access for a fixed price. The term 'uncapped' was used to gain a high customer base - it always sounds better than 'capped' or 'limited access' from a marketing perspective. However, now users are now using the bandwidth the uncapped ISP's hoped they wouldn't and they are complaining bitterly about it deflecting critiscm of their marketing strategies onto a content provider. Essentialy they lied, they could not possibly hope to live up to their promise of unlimited bandwidth. |
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| orangepippin |
We are going round in circles a bit here. Some ISPs may have technically "lied" in the begining ie 3-4 years ago, but many were honest and those that did lie in the beginning were sorted by the regulator. This *was* certainly a big issue, but if you think about it, the whole issue of uncapped and unlimited died a death quite a while ago. For about the last year or so most ISPs have moved to a traffic-shaping model, and uncapped usage is pretty much a thing of the past. There may be a few users who think they are on unlimited bandwidth, but only a few. The vast majority are now on some kind of capped usage. There are loads of different rates around, so anyone who is bleating about unlimited usage and paying £9.99 a month can complain to the regulator but I doubt they will be taken seriously.
Back to the simple economics, most ISPs had their usage demands under control most of the time last year. This stuff is published anyway in umpteen XYZ.Net magazines, and online forums, so anyone who wanted to change ISP because of poor performance or long latency if you were into gaming, or low usage caps if you were into data shifting could have done so. Then the IPlayer appeared on the scene and everyone's usage went from the mid-point of the normal distribution over to the right. I think everyone - the ISPs and the BBC were all caught out. It's just one of those things, and probably a very good thing. Of course each party is now blaming the other, and it's a bit of a mess. But if you sit back and look at it objectively (I always do of course) users have just increased their online bandwith demand by 5% in a very short space of time because a major content provider has just come up with a rather wizard new service. Who is responsible for the mess ... difficult to say. However one thing you can say is the ISPs are NOT responsible for it! |
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| sean |
The ISPs didn't cause the increase in demand, however dealing with it is their problem. There was plenty of warning that it was coming, and I assume that they employ people who's jobs are to analyse the current market and predict future trends, if they don't then they're learning a tough and deserved lesson about the value of planning. | ||||||||||
| jema |
I noticed an interesting bit of traffic shaping Monday.
I put an ftp cap rate on a server of 5mbs, over the course of a 12 hour transfer that traffic graph stayed faithful to this for the first 8 hours or so and then dropped like a stone to a new lower level. This was between one of my USA servers, and a so called "unlimited bandwidth" server in Europe. |
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| orangepippin |
As I said, it looks like the IPlayer caught everyone out. There was no warning for growth on this scale, it has happened very quickly. Easy to criticise with hindsight. Dealing with it is the ISPs problem, correct. Paying for it will be your problem. |
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| Brownbear |
There don't seem to be any broadband suppliers who market for uality and reliability rather than price. For this the consumer is at least partially responsible - always going for the cheapest option and then complaining about the service quality.
Rather like buying a microcar and then complaining that there's no walnut dashboard and it won't overtake a Bentley. 'Fair use' has been in place on 'unlimited' broadband since whenever, and someone who just reads the advertising blurb and not the conditions attached has no real cause of complaint. |
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| MarkS |
I need a job as a strategy consultant in the isp industry.
For years, companies have been plugging away on providing online access to films/music/tv. Obviously sooner or later one of these businesses is going to make it. When that happens its obviously going to have a material effect on bandwidth requirements. I have to say that it was always obvious that when iplayer launched that it would have a significant impact. Most people use their VCR/PVR recording function only to timeshift their TV watching. It was obvious that a 'free' online PVR function would get massive use. Anyone in the industry not realising this should be packed off to work on 1st line support at aol. I object to the unlimited claims because although it was obvious to me that unlimited would not be provided, nobody would ever admit that. Further too many ISP's (plusnet included) have lied about their unlimited packages, lied about their traffic shaping and lied about their caps. |
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| toggle |
There are quite a few that are promoting reliability, good customer service etc, they just aren't the ones who are running the constant flash banner adds over everything. |
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| MarkS |
Not the case. These are the people who supply me (albeit through BT on the final link) http://www.entanet.co.uk/About_Entanet/Entanet_Awards/ They don't sell direct to the public but use a network of resellers (I use ukfsn but there are others more consumer friendly). When I've needed to talk to tech support (3 or 4 times when BT have broken something near me) I have always been able to talk to an intelligent and competent tech person within minutes. No patronising idiots reading from crib sheets. |
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| Brownbear |
So, what you are saying is that I can have good service if I'm willing to pay for it. Do you think it will catch on? |
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| Jamanda |
As the end consumer, who else do you think should pay for it? |
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| orangepippin |
Customers will end up paying, after all it is they who are using the additional bandwidth. There does seem to be a case that BT (wholesale) and the regulator have some responsibility, but whether we will see BT making extra investment I don't know. | ||||||||||
| vegplot |
BT have had it pretty good in previous decade to this one. They managed to squeeze an awful lot of revenue from a copper based system. However, things have changed a lot for them since the Internet revolution and they've found it demanding to put in place the infrastructure for high quality high bandwidth services. Part of the problem is we live in a 'I want' society and the demand for entertainment services with video on demand is really stressing the system. |
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| orangepippin |
Explanation from The Register:
"The major component of this bandwidth cost is fibre backhaul from the exchanges. If BT were to sell dark fibre pairs to the LLU players this price would fall though the floor and low contention ADSL would be available to all. But BT won't sell dark fibre because they fear that their ipstream model and C21 network could be instantly replicated with a vastly lower cost base." Incidentally they have an article subtitled "Readers blame monkey, organ grinder escapes", which rather nicely sums up the misunderstandings apparent here on Downsizer. |
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| Behemoth |
I don't actually understand what that means but I'll live in ignorance hope web's there when I turn my computer box on. Does the last bit mean BT are thrying to protect something they're developed from commercial exploitation by others, or is it market fixing?
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| MarkS |
The Reg article here - http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/04/07/ashley_highfield_isps_mailbag/
see bottom of page for links to other pages. To summarise: The ISPs (monkeys) have promised 'unlimited'. They can't really do unlimited because of the infrastructure and contracts with BT (organ grinder). The monkeys are kicking up a fuss and want Mr Sousa(BBC/Content provider) to pay for increased provision of organs because all of a sudden (not) people want to listen to the music and watch the playful antics. HTH |
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| MarkS |
Oh and the dark fibre/LLU ?
LLU - local loop unbunding: The ISP slaps some of their own hardware into the exchange and your line is connected to that kit. BT charge them for having their kit in the exchange and then also charge for the lines back to a central point. So the ISP, instead of relying on BT to provide all the connectivity between you and the 'internet' only use BT directly for the bit of wire between your house and the exchange and have control themselves of the wires/cable/fibre from there on (despite the fat that this fibre/cable may be bt provided) Dark Fibre - very high performance fibre optics - give fast bandwidth. BT has the local loop - the copper between the exchange and the house. If BT allowed the ISPs to have high performance connections to exchanges then the isps would be able to piggyback on the bt infrastructure without the cost of providing all the exchanges - in effect bt would end up as a property company that owned a load of small buildings with lots of wire rather than owning the national infrastructure. (orangepippin can now pick holes in this simplistic expaination) |
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| cab |
End of story. They lied, they've been found out, now its everyones fault but their own. Really, they need to come clean and give realistic numbers, and accept that they're not meeting their part of the deal so people who are still in contract are freely allowed to move to different providers.
Wrong, the advertising has emphasised unlimited even very recently. You can't advertise something as 'unlimited' and then claim that you're covering yourself with smallprint, thats simply con artistry. |
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| cab |
If the headline says 'unlimited' then only a bounder or a rogue would try to get out of that by pointing at the small print. |
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| orangepippin |
As I said, going round in circles. No point letting the facts get in the way of a good moan! | ||||||||||
| cab |
The facts are simple and plain. I go to a shop. I buy a belt that will fit up to a 32 waist. I put take belt on, belt doesn't go around my 32 waist. I take belt back, shop insist I can't have my money back because the small print says that they don't necessarily have to supply enough waist band to go around someone with a 32 inch waist. They're rogues. They're complete con artists. They've promised something and not delivered. There is no rational or moral reason to apply any other logic to ISPs. Don't make a promise if you're not going to keep it. If the promise is impossible then you are liar. If you break the promise and try to weasel out of it then you're a rogue. |
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| jema |
As I have said, I do play that game
The real point is that the ISPs knew/know they were talking rubbish. But it was the logic of the market, an honest ISP would probably have been an IPS with no customers! |
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| cab |
The likelyhood of sufficient posts getting on to a free forum to knock a server on its back is staggeringly slim. I hope when it happened you provided a polite apology and a full refund for the free service you were providing.
Of course they knew, and the most important difference between what you're doing and what they're doing is that they are charging money for their services. If ISPs cannot be trusted to be honest and to keep to the terms of agreements they have made (the real agreements, rather than weaseling out with small print) then thats ample evidence that said ISPs need to be taxed to pay for a regulator with some real muscle. The ISPs who have put such limits on unmetered broadband when people have started to use the service that they're paying for need the $417 kicking out of them. |
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| orangepippin |
There is already a regulator. If you think he is ineffective why don't you challenge him. Of course, that would mean you would need a reasoned case, which might be difficult if it is based solely on kicking the collective ISPs because you just don't like people who charge you for a service. If you "tax" the ISPs you, as a consumer, will just end up paying more. Tax is simply a business cost and all costs are borne by the consumer in the end. It was not that long ago that there was no broadband at all, so maybe you should count your blessings. Now it is almost universally available and at a remarkably low price when you think what you get for it. It is pretty obvious that in such a rapidly maturing market the regulator, BT, and the ISPs have all made mistakes from time to time. As with any industry (or dare I say, public service) there are good organisations and bad organisations. Kicking the ISPs, as you put it, seems rather like kicking the golden goose. |
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| cab |
Because said regulator doesn't have the teeth required to force compliance with simple, common decency. Regulation of such industries only works if you gove real power to the regulators.
No, I don't like people who charge for a service that they then don't provide. Its really very simple; you offer a service for a price, if you don't provide it then you either refund completely or you're a cheat. It isn't complicated. OFCOM is the regulator here? They've had this complaing before, I believe.
Your point being what? You can either pay for regulation through fining companies that break the rules, through public taxation, or by taxing companies being regulated. Of those three options, the last one makes most sense, although I'd also have specific fines levied on ISPs breaking deals; and yes, most of that cost will end up with the consumer, but if the cost is slanted towards those companies who have lied then they'll lose out relative to other companies, which is as it should be.
It isn't a charity! You can't excuse flat out lying to get custom based on the fact that the product isn't all that expensive.
If an ISP has lied to gain custom then it has broken a fairly simple moral absolute. Look up to the right at our advertisers box. Here on Downsizer we give worthy organisations/people who are members free advertising. One of the things that matters when they're assessed for that is that their product/service does what it says on the tin. Thats important to us because its a simple moral imperative that you don't rob people, you don't go around taking money for services or products you don't provide. It comes back to the same moral bottom line; an ISP takes money to do (x), if it falls short of (x) and then bellyaches about it, and continues to take the money without ever getting in touch with individual customers to come to a new agreement, then it is in the wrong. You would never accept that of any other company, why is it okay for ISPs to be crooks? |
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| jema |
Because that is often the nature of the unregulated free market! As I see it the way the ISP market has evolved in the UK, has left little room for honesty, much the same can be said of hosting. Regulation is often needed in the market to allow the consumer to know the facts, where would the humble aspirin be if every snake oil medicine was allowed to advertise as they liked? It might still be on sale, but it would probably have to make outrageous claims for itself. That would not totally be the fault of the aspirin maker, it would be a fault of the unregulated market. |
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| orangepippin |
Well like it or not there IS a regulator, so start by complaining to him. You may think he is ineffective, but maybe you should start by going through the proper complaints process rather than making wild accusations of dishonest about an entire industry.
It is a moot point where we would be with broadband if it had been left to the public sector to deliver it instead of the free market (plus regulator). However the NHS IT system might give you a clue. |
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| cab |
That doesn't answer why its okay, it just explains why we're often faced with **** companies. Ethics aren't really something I'd sell out here; a product says what it says on the tin or it is being sold under false pretenses. I'd rate ISPs that make such claims as no better than homeopaths.
Precisely so; its the role of a regulator to sort this kind of thing out. Its one of the basic failings in 'free' markets, and it is regrettable that we leave such infrastructure in the hands of regulators that don't have the tools to do a thorough job
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| orangepippin |
The computer you are writing on, the browser you are viewing on, your broadband connection, in fact the whole internet are testament to the benefits of free markets. | ||||||||||
| MarkS |
No they are not.
Most of us have connectivity/broadband only because a Public sector organisation paid for the original infrastructure. If you are on cable then I could agree that that was installed by the private sector. The original internet development was under US government contracts. Anyone who believes that the 'free market' is best doesnt understand. |