Re: Kicked Off PlusNet NOW!!

[Calum Morrell <calum@xxxxxxx>]

Timothy Morris wrote:

> It isn't fraudulent. Their services are not advertised as 24x7, they
are
> advertised as unmetered.

erm, as others have already pointed out, yes they do. Therefore it is both
misrepresentative and fraudulent.



> It is obvious to anyone with an even limited
> understanding of how ISPs work,

Could we possibly stop the personal attacks it's rather unhelpful.



> that there is no profit in allowing 24x7
> connections for the prices charged by ISPs for unmetered accounts.

Then those services should not be advertised and offered. My objection is
based
on the fact that they advertise the service for this very purpose. If they
made
it clear that this activity would not be tolerated and  would result in a
denial
of service I would have no problem with them. Incidentally, do you think
it's
acceptable for the account to simply be terminated without offering the
user the
opportunity of simply reducing the time spent on the service. I agree ISP's
need
to make a profit, there's no point having a fantastic service if they go
under
[and I don't mean to Australia].



> > On to your final quote "So in answer to your post, I've
thought
> > about it - and
> > never gonna happen." Really? You state that the bandwidth is
a
> > user problem and
> > not BT's if too many people are on the same ATM switch ... but
> > that's not the
> > case though. BT have to pay to provide bandwidth and sustain it
at a level
> > suitable for it's users [and remember, long term we're talking
> > businesses here
> > as well]. Like any other service BT provide, it will eventually
> > have reasonable
> > competition and they have to protect there shareholders. What
> > this comes down to
> > is that is a group of people are using up a large percentage of
available
> > bandwidth on the network, that they may feel it is more cost
> > effective to remove
> > that group rather than pay for an upgrade.
> >
> > Never going to happen? I think if it can be done due to modem
> > contention, it can
> > be done for bandwidth contention.
> >
>
> You seem to forget that when you sign up for ADSL you are made aware
of the
> fact that there is a contention ratio of either 50 or 20 to 1
depending on
> the service

I did not forget this, you don't know me so don't assume my level of
knowledge.



> If 50 users sign up at a local exchange and spend 24 hours
> streaming media down from their selected ISP then each user is only
going to
> be able to get just over 10K of bandwidth. No more or less than they
have
> paid for.

On a local scale I agree with the theory, with the exception that it is not
acceptable to be reduced to such an extent. However, I am looking at this
on a
nation wide scale not a local one. BT does not have infinite bandwidth
available
and high bandwidth connections are going to stretch their capabilities more
and
more all the time. How long do you think it's going to be before we find
512Kbps
slow and unusable? How long before WAN links reach speeds we're more used
to on
a LAN? The technology exists and will probably hit the Far East and the US
in
the next five years or so.



> In reality most internet traffic is burst which is why
> 'overbooking' is feasible throughout the network. How else do you
think that
> ISPs can cope with only 155Mbps connections to the US?

Most ISP's can cope with 155Mbps connections because the vast majority of
users
in the UK currently use no more than 56Kbps modems. That is starting to
change,
and when the majority use 512Kbps or greater connections and realise they
can
access far more content intensive media combined with web developers
providing
for a market with far greater bandwidth, this will fall far short of
usable.

Standard disclaimer against insult etc ....


Calum