[Wylug-discuss] ADSL migration

[Anne Wilson]

On Thursday 11 May 2006 16:54, James Holden wrote:
>
> Not guilty! Plusnet acquired Metronet.
>
Fair enough :-)  It would help if I could remember where I filed that bit of 
info.

> > 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.
>
Totally accepted, but the comments I saw do mirror my recent experiences.  We 
have been extremely happy with Mailbox until recently.  From time to time 
I've seen their status on AG and it has always been grouped with other good 
providers.  Until recently, that is.  The fall-off is in the same period as I 
have begun to have doubts.

> > 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?
>
There must be some way of gathering this info.  I'll see what I can do over 
the weekend.  It's my belief that we are not, on average, high users, but 
there may be two or three weeks of the year when we use considerably more 
than our average.  I suppose there are ways of cutting it down, too, such as 
not downloading all updates for individual machines, but storing them on a 
server box.  There are months when that job alone would account for well over 
a GB.

> > 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.
>
We found that many would only allow 5 email addresses, or would only allow 
yourname at theircompany.co.uk.

I don't see us needing a huge amount of hosting, although with Andy starting 
his Computer Graphics and Animation course in September he is expected to 
have his own web site.  If we can continue to have our second domain mapped 
to a subdirectory the first one's webspace I would give him usage of that.

> > 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.
>
Again, it comes down to trying to find out what our previous usage has been.

> 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.
>
What I've read on this is patchy to the point of being useless.  Much of it 
comes from the something-for-nothing brigade.  I suppose some specific 
questions to possible suppliers on this subject are in order.

> > 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.
>
None of those would be acceptable.  As in many lines of business the best 
customer service often comes from the smaller outfit.  Mailbox certainly had 
a very good department.

> > 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.
>
I guessed it would be a fairly standard system.

Thanks for your comments.  They have given me a little more to think about.

Anne
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