Posts by darren

BT preps 2000 per cent evening call price hike

Errr...

..aren't they just changing the tariff and call package??? I don't think they are actually forcing anyone to do or pay anything as you have to opt in to option 2 if you want to go on a contract and get the lower cost calls - if you don't like the tariff you can change supplier?? Or does this dark marketing material everyone's been complaining about contain a picture of Ben Verwayen dangling your kids handcuffed and blindfolded pet bunny over a raptou with dicing attachment in one hand and a crumpled contract in the other??

Paris cos she wuvs her bunny.

BT gets EU backing to raise (and cut) wholesale broadband prices

tsk tsk.

Yeah, fancy BT not sending out engineers for free to help improve another ISP's connection speed.

Tut tut.

Unbundling could cost you £125

get yer facts right

I'm surprised at some of the comments on here given the pubs are closed...

BT is a private company, that has built a broadband network from a mixture of it's own funds, and some RDA funding for remote areas. Why should BT not charge for provision of any service a customer wants, be it a BT service or any other service provider? Why should BT do anything to help customers move to a foreign owned service provide or any other service provider? While they should not stand in the way of customers wishing to do it, there shouldn't be any subsidisation. So Tiscali has built it's entire broadband business plan on BT offering cheaper LLU prices (as did CPW) - more fool them and with direction like that they deserve to fail.

Yes there needs to be some clarification in the industry, but it needs to come from the industry and not fall on the shoulders of a private company all the time.

BT is not 'on the slide', but like anything British, we'll always have a bloody good go at it, try our best to knock it into submision, then all have a good cry about it when it's gone. Lets not forget that as well as doing a pretty good job of looking after much of the UK's national infrastructure, it's also one of the UK's largest employers, and supports hundreds of other UK and global companies that keep Brits in employment.

And no, I don't work for them. Not me. Nope. No sireee.

Giants carve up broadband punters

service does suffer when prices are squeezed -

Working for the best of the big six, I'll leave you to your own thoughts on that one, and as a network specialist normally working with MPLS/private circuits etc, there are a few thoughts I can leave you with here.

Yes, there is indeed a squeeze on service from all operators - having a fiercely competetive market with an emphasis almost exclusively on price - a demand driven by the consumer, means that something somewhere has to be cut.

As it costs largely the same to provide a DSL service, if one operator is selling it for £10 a month and another for £30 a month, guess where the gap came from. When it comes time to renew contracts, not many people put service over monthly costs and then complain when they don't get thier 'moneys worth'! Serously though, service teams cost, and the people working them expect a decent salary, and consumers just aren't willing to part with the extra.

Performance - ADSL runs over telephone lines - they weren't designed to deliver high speed data, and sometimes they work, others they don't. Whether it works or not depends on the individual routing from the exchange kit. If you're line won't deliver 8Mb, it's probably down to physics rather than your ISP being malicious - above all remember that you're paying a very small sum of money for what would have been a very expensive service not too long ago.

If you really need a reliable data flow, have a leased line installed from an ISP - it will only cost about £650 per month for a 2Mb service - I remember installing these abut four years ago to companies who couldn't yet get broadband and it cost £1200 per month - kind of puts broadband pricing and service into perspective : )