[Wylug-discuss] ADSL migration

[James Holden]

On Thu, May 11, 2006 at 03:39:41PM +0100, Anne Wilson wrote:
> On Thursday 11 May 2006 15:14, James Holden wrote:
> > Anny,
> >
> > What were the requirements? It might help us recommend.
> >
> Full text of my enquiry is below.
> 
> > Trying not to risk any blowing of own trumpets, but we (Plusnet)
> > recently got a good verdict on uswitch.com:
> >
> > http://tinyurl.com/hq4zp
> >
> Perhaps I've got it wrong, but I thought that Plusnet were the outfit that 
> bought Mailbox.

Not guilty! Plusnet acquired Metronet.

> Since the buy-out, service losses of several hours at a time 
> have occurred, without anything being posted on the service pages on the web 
> or on the rss service feeds.  The helpful, friendly support staff all seem to 
> have disappeared.  Just take a look at Mailbox on adslguide - service and 
> customer satisfaction has plumetted in the last few months, which refects my 
> feelings.

That's a shame, but bear in mind that the users who post on AG don't
necessarily reflect the entire userbase. It's a fact of life that people
shout more loudly when they have a complaint than when they don't.

> Text of enquiry:
> 
> We have been customers of Mailbox Internet since 2002, and are now looking for 
> a new ADSL supplier that can offer us the service we currently have.  We are 
> a 3-generation family, so we need access from up to 10 computers, typically 
> 4-5 at any time.  In summary, this is our current package:

This would suggest that you're a high-usage customer. Broadband ISPs
typically operate on pretty tight margins, so I'm not surprised that you
didn't get much of a positive response. Do you know what your actual
monthly usage is? Do Mailbox provide tools for you to monitor it, or can
you get the info from your firewall?

> 7 email addresses, all based on our own domain names.
> 2 registered domains, mail for one of which is low volume, and currently 
> redirected to the other domain.
> Home/hobby web space
> Static IP
> Fall-back webmail

This is all pretty standard on most ISPs. Some charge extra for a static
IP. Plusnet don't charge extra. The free hosting isn't bad at all, no
problems running stuff like forums.

> Uncapped download on a 2MB service

Although there are still some ISPs advertising this, you won't find many
ISPs that will realistically manage this long term.

No sensible ISP will spend more on bandwidth than they make from
subscription, so if they don't cap, then they will have a bandwidth
shortfall because of all the P2P users.

How the bandwidth shortfall affects the customers depends on how
sophisticated the ISP is at managing the traffic. If they just drop
traffic indiscriminately, then all traffic will suffer, and websurfing
at peak times will be painful.

Some ISPs are prepared to lose money in the short term in the hope of
riding out the storm until BT gets deregulated and wholesale prices
fall.

Other ISPs are prioritising traffic so that when traffic does get
dropped, it's not the important stuff like WWW, gaming or VoIP.

> Technical Support may be requested by telephone or email - Support Staff must 
> be Linux friendly, and able to respond in a reasonable time-scale.

Well, here's the crunch point. The only ISPs chosing to throw bandwidth
at their DSL platform are the Tier 1s, ie: AOL, Wannadoo, BT, and their
customer service will almost certainly *not* be Linux friendly in my
experience.

> Our 2 domains were registered by Mailbox on our behalf.  I would need to know 
> that handling the transfer of them can be smoothly achieved.  If given the 
> choice, I would prefer linux servers.

PN can do all this for you if you want. I think you can do it yourself
with the web interface.

> If you are able to offer a similar package, please quote the applicable price, 
> and give an outline of the time-scale to achieve migration.

All the ISPs use BT's automated migration system. You request your MAC
key from your old ISP, provide it to the new ISP and about 5 days later
your service will cease and you just reconfigure your router to resume
service with the new ISP.

Regards,

James


> 
> Anne Wilson



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> Wylug-discuss at wylug.org.uk
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