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Top UK Cable Firms Scrapping DSL 147

Posted by Hemos from the bad-news-for-brits dept.
jeffreyporter was one of a number of people who sent in the BBC story that's running about the hold-up of DSL in Britain, and the situation with the companies investing in it -- but the cable modem companies are quite pleased about this.
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Top UK cable Firms Scrapping DSL More

Top UK cable Firms Scrapping DSL

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  • Entrepreneur: Damn BT are charging a lot for acccess to the local loop. This isn't economical. Screw DSL, let's do something else.

  • Yes, Kingston Communications [kingston-comms.com] are doing ADSL, and doing it very well.

    Unfortunately this company only operates in Hull, a small town/city (apologies to the hull crew)which is the only place in the UK that has escaped the BT monopoly.

    Britain should be at the forefront of high speed internet access due to our small physical size and extensive telephone network

    Ben^3 (cussing the BT)
  • How much longer before NTL buy them? They seem to own every other UK cable company...
  • Ah, the BNP. What a nice bunch of people they are.
  • >>The Monopoly Regional Telephone companies are being assholes.

    *I completely agree.*

    Our company had local Bell Atlantic lines and then had Bell Atlantic ADSL installed on one of them. Then some months after that, we had our lines transferred to another local phone company (Broadview in this case)

    A few months after that, I called Bell Atlantic up to upgrade our DSL connection upto a higher speed. All this time, our DSL service was fine, and we were paying Bell Atlantic via monthly credit card charges.

    Guess what? As soon as they realized that our DSL was running on a non Bell Atlantic line, they told me that they would have to disconnect it immediately!!! no if's, and's, or butts. It was a huge problem, as getting another DSL line would take another 5-6 weeks, and management would not tolerate that!

    Why did they have to disconnect the DSL? I got dozens of reasons: FCC regulations, technical problems, Bell Atlantic regulations that the customer must have a Bell phone line, etc. One person tried to convince me that DSL was a feature like caller id and was thus in nature closely coupled to the local line. PATHETIC!

    All BULLSHIT or ARBITRARY SET MONOPOLISTIC POLICIES!

    After about a few weeks of waiting on hold and being transferred around, I finally got a supervisor who couldn't provide me any legal documentation supporting anything regarding FCC regulations and such.

    Because I had been such a pain in the ass, they eventually relented and arranged for all our lines to be switched back over to Bell Atlantic without disrupting DSL.

    THERE IS NO VALID REASON, BE IT TECHNICAL, LEGAL, OR OTHERWISE, THAT WOULD PREVENT THEM FROM PROVIDING DSL SERVICE TO NON-BELL ATLANTIC CUSTOMERS.

    The fact that they force you back to Bell Atlantic sounds disgustingly monopolistic and illegal. I tried calling the FCC to get more info, but I gave up waiting on hold... blah.

    IF ANYONE HAS ANY LEGAL AND EFFECTIVE WAYS TO STICK IT TO THEM, PLEASE POST'EM!

    they have completely pissed me off.
  • ADSL over ISDN is called IDSL, standard acronym compression applies, it runs at either 128k or 144kbps depending on the line card in the DSLAM. If you order IDSL, you probably get a second ISDN line, the DSL part doesn't sit on higher frequencies, it just replaces the LAPB stream and feeds directly into the DSLAM.

    DSL can sit on top of ISDN, but I don't know of any manufacturers offering the special filters on a commercial basis. Since ISDN uses frequencies up to about 300KHz, those are lost to DSL, and the resulting DSL connection has less bandwidth.

    BT has been offering IDSL to business for about a year now, whenever it seemed like a business was going to get some competitors internet connection. The tariffs were about half of a full time 2xB ISDN call, which is still pretty expensive, certainly more than what ADSL will cost. The good thing about IDSL is that it can go anywhere ISDN can reach, well outside the range of higher bandwidth DSL.

    the AC
    Posting a second time because things don't work right today.
  • even whole cities are divided in parts where there is ADSL available and parts where there isn't yet.

    Don't expect this to change any time soon. This is still the case in the overly wired USA where parts of a city have ADSL and other parts don't. The problem is the wires from your home to the Central Office have to be within a certain distance, I think around 2 miles. If you exceed this length then you're out of luck, no ADSL service. Also, the speed falls off as you get near this limit so you can be in the situation where you can get ADSL but its no faster than ISDN.

    There can be other problems too. I have a friend who lives in a part of the city that will probably never get ADSL service. The telephone installer told him that the ADSL circuit cards take up two slots in the junction box, reducing the number of lines the telco can provide, and are very expensive. Combine the two and the local telco will probably never upgrade his area.

    --
    Don Dugger
    VA Linux Systems

  • But that's *precisely* the problem with cable over here. Each company is granted a complete monopoly for a given area

    That's precisely the problem here in the U.S. also.

    We *really* need a national cable infrastructure, owned by a single company (and appropriately regulated, of course).

    This would probably be better than the current situation, but why couldn't you/we take it a step further and have multiple competing local-loop providers?

    There are already 3 wires coming into my house: cable, telephone and electric. In my area, all 3 of those companies are rolling out data services:

    Cable modems are here, and my cable company is aggressively pursuing cable telephony

    DSL is available in some areas, and is being rolled out to others (slowly)

    My power company is investing millions to roll out data services over power lines in 2001.

    On top of all that there's fixed wireless and satellite.

    Seeing as how there are already multiple companies competing in the local loop market, wouldn't it make sense to get rid of all geographic franchise restrictions across the board, and let the competition play out to the benefit of the consumer?

    *Everything* is moving to IP anyway - your television shows and phone calls are going to be data packets end-to-end before too long.

    It seems to me that creating another regulated monopoly to handle the last loop would be a step backward, at least in my area. I'm not terribly familiar with your situation in Britain but it sounds similar.

    --

  • The UK is a republic, similear to the US. (Different in many fundamental ways, but you still get to elect someone to represent you). Talk to whoever is your elected official and suggest that because BT is doing such a bad job that the UK remove their license to do buisness, and require their phone system to be sold off. This would result in a few months of difficulties as you have no land line phone service, but in the end there would be much gain. Most people in Eurpoe have a cell phone, and those would not be affected to you would still have phone service.

    Remember you have fight BT on many levels, from their management, to the regulator, to your goverment, or just bypass them all with a cell phone. Pick the best part from everyone else's sytems (ie, the US has free local where local is at least your city, and often several). Others have other good points. Start demanding them.

    Of course land line phone service in the US sucks too. Thats why my only phone is a cell phone (and ISDN cause like you I can't get DSL and cable modems are not here yet)

  • KC are a great company. The history's dead strange, basically they ended up with getting the old Post Office telco stuff ages ago when BT got the rest of the country. Only in the Hull (Kingston-upon-Hull, in the North East) area though.

    They've been offering DSL for over a year now. BT got their first offerings out in about September this year. KC are (IMO) well placed to take over the country when LLU happens next year.

  • BT has been dragging it's heels excessivly over DSL - I expected great things when I first heard of the technology, and I thought that BT would be one of the first major operators to adopt it as the new technology to replace ISDN - then I moved to Belgium, the telecoms company here was just completing ADSL trials when I moved out here, and I signed up shortly after it became available to the general public.

    It's cheap, it's fast, it's efficient, and it's popular. In the UK I get the impression that it is slow(er), more expensive, and the availability also strikes me as poor.

    I would say that BT is letting it's custoers down in a big way over this, and Oftel have also been negligent in not giving the incumbrant teelecom company the kick up the rear that it so richly deserved. Hopefully the new regulator Oftcom [ttp] will have more teeth and not be afraid to use them...

    -- Pete.

  • Over here in the Netherlands the ADSL roll out by KPN telecom (the oldest telco overhere) is way behind schedule. The market wants ADSL, but KPN can't deliver the manpower, supplies etc.
    KPN used to have a monopoly, but since a few months a judge decided KPN should let it competitors use it's infrasctucture. I hope this will bring ADSL to my home soon, very fast.
    Prices range between approx. 30 - 40 USD per month.
  • Check me on this, I may be wrong, but I thought that the UK was pretty much ignoring the EU (or was it France?). I seem to recall reading somewhere that one of the major European countries was not playing along with the rest of the EEU, deliberately.

    Besides, unless the European courts are an order of magnitude faster then American ones, I don't see an end to this before 2003...

    Just my 2 shekels.

    Kierthos
  • If anyone else is after an ntl cable modem connection (how many people in Cambridge/East Anglia read this), as long as you've already got cable tv working it's not a big problem. A couple of friends of mine just bought a cable modem and connected it up - worked without a problem. For once, ntl's billing system actually worked, and it picked up they were using it.
  • Already happened, BT is losing it's monopoly over the local loop (the only bit that matters) next year, which should open up the UK to a nive bit of competition in the telco market.

    You can already kind of do this - there are plenty of companies who you can pay a bit, then you dial a 4 digit access code before anything you dial and your calls get routed through their network. How does 3.5p/min international to the US (as oppposed to BT's 30-40p/min sound?) You still need a line rented from BT though.

  • Oh, they constructed some real good messes with their several "We're changing your area code. But don't worry, we won't ever have to do it again" ph/one/ day fiascos. There were companies which hadn't changed over their advertising from the first one by the time the second one came around.

    Rich

  • BT is in the process of thinking about breaking itself up (these things move kind of slowly) and this may just provide the solution you've been asking for.

    One of the four companies they plan to split into will have the boring bits like the wires and the COs (I forget their proposed names, something like Whizz!, Bang!!, Ooops!!! and Boring Co.). The other companies will try and sound exciting and take the internet traffic, business customers, etc.

    Boring Co. will then sell access to it's stuff to all comers in a supposedly equal way.

    Ok, I'm doing 2+2 and coming to 400, but you can hope!
  • I have DSL in the UK, and it's a god-send, but it's very late thanks to BT.

    They really do abuse their monopoly position. Thank god OfTel (the telecoms regulator) are finally getting on with giving them a good slap. Well, a moderate slap anyway.

  • You must be fecking joking (or paid by BT). Have you had a look at the roll out plan lately?

    25% by the end of 2002 maybe, for the rest of the country forget it. Where I live the nearest CITY will get it in 2002 and anywhere is scheduled for never.
  • I checked the starband site the other day and found a dearth of bandwidth info. So you say its upload limit is about 50k. What's the download rate? How's about static ip so I can finally set up my domain? I wouldn't want to run a commercial site, but I do want to get back in from the road.
  • Moron:The lesser the number of companies lesser the hard choice we have to make.

    Intelligent: Oh suck now less freebies to sign up.

    Entrepreneur:Good maybe I could try my hand, there sure is less competition.

  • You probably mean soccer, don't you? Silly rest of the world, calling it football ;-)
    --
  • BAH. this is a duplicate post. I meant to reply to this originally but didn't realize I posted as a separate thread. My apologies to all. Looks weird out of context. So here goes...

    >>The Monopoly Regional Telephone companies are being assholes.

    *I completely agree.*

    Our company had local Bell Atlantic lines and then had Bell Atlantic ADSL installed on one of them. Then some months after that, we had our lines transferred to another local phone company (Broadview in this case)

    A few months after that, I called Bell Atlantic up to upgrade our DSL connection upto a higher speed. All this time, our DSL service was fine, and we were paying Bell Atlantic via monthly credit card charges.

    Guess what? As soon as they realized that our DSL was running on a non Bell Atlantic line, they told me that they would have to disconnect it immediately!!! no if's, and's, or butts. It was a huge problem, as getting another DSL line would take another 5-6 weeks, and management would not tolerate that!

    Why did they have to disconnect the DSL? I got dozens of reasons: FCC regulations, technical problems, Bell Atlantic regulations that the customer must have a Bell phone line, etc. One person tried to convince me that DSL was a feature like caller id and was thus in nature closely coupled to the local line. PATHETIC!

    All BULLSHIT or ARBITRARY SET MONOPOLISTIC POLICIES!

    After about a few weeks of waiting on hold and being transferred around, I finally got a supervisor who couldn't provide me any legal documentation supporting anything regarding FCC regulations and such.

    Because I had been such a pain in the ass, they eventually relented and arranged for all our lines to be switched back over to Bell Atlantic without disrupting DSL.

    THERE IS NO VALID REASON, BE IT TECHNICAL, LEGAL, OR OTHERWISE, THAT WOULD PREVENT THEM FROM PROVIDING DSL SERVICE TO NON-BELL ATLANTIC CUSTOMERS.

    The fact that they force you back to Bell Atlantic sounds disgustingly monopolistic and illegal. I tried calling the FCC to get more info, but I gave up waiting on hold... blah.

    IF ANYONE HAS ANY LEGAL AND EFFECTIVE WAYS TO STICK IT TO THEM, PLEASE POST'EM!

    they have completely pissed me off.

  • Availablility (Score:5)

    by CarlFairhurst ( 104193 ) on Wednesday December 13, 2000 @04:47AM (#563102)
    I'm one of the lucky few who actually has a high speed link via a cable modem. Even if I did want a DSL link, I can't even get an estimated date of when it would be available in my area. To make matters worse, BT cannot easily install DSL to anyone who has a IDSN link, they need to disconnect this first before they can even check to see if the line is suitable for DSL.
    This has the unfortunate effect however of removing a lot of the competition that cable modems should otherwise have, which means there is little or not competition in the UK at the moment for high speed home internet connections, which in turn means we are paying more than we should, so it is in everyones interest for DSL to roll out as soon as possible and by as many people as possible.
  • All true, I admit it, but damn I miss Britian. I was there for almost a year, and I came back to America (where I grew up) and felt a serious lack of tea. I mean, I feel like I'm the only one in this damn country that drinks at least one cup of tea everyday (usually more), and damnit, where the hell are the electric kettles? I really need to get one, and a teapot too, which seem to be in short supply here.

    Anyway, both countries have their issues, but I do love those wee islands. :-)

    Joshua

    Terradot [terradot.org]

  • BT has continued to abuse it's power year after year. The question, of course, is whether the cable providers will bother to ramp-up their efforts to fight BT. Ok, so DSL may not take off, but broadband would be nice anyway.

    I think given the situation, the cable operators in Britain have done well, and they've made many an American cable operator look sluggish.

  • Oftel is a lame duck as Ofcom will now replace it.

    It appears that the solution to a flat tire is simply to rotate the tires and see if that works better rather than fix the tire. (Dilbert?)

    For highlights of the white paper, follow this link:

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/uk/newsid_1067000 /1067401.stm [bbc.co.uk]

  • Re:Cable Companies (Score:3)

    by Vanders ( 110092 ) on Wednesday December 13, 2000 @05:24AM (#563106) Homepage
    The Cable Companies should do more infastructure work before they load even more users onto the systems. I had my Cable Modem installed Monday by Telewest (Blueyonder). It's great when it works (40k/sec), but it needs to work first. The hardware link is fine, but i'm buggered if i've managed to keep an IP level connection going for more than 30Minutes before it craps out and i have to wait another 30 Minutes to get a connection again. Wash, Rinse, Repeat.

    Now, i havn't had it long enough to say that this is a recurent problem, but my mates who have Cable Modems from the same company have also had problems, and Telewest themselves have admited that some of their routers seriously suck. They say they're in the process of replacing them, but god knows how long that will take.

    The same thing happened when they introduced their Surf Unlimited package in Febuary, so i am expecting the service to get better. I'd just like it sooner rather than later, and before they overload the system so much with new users that it stops working completly.
  • What's this all about? Local loop unbundling is happening in the UK, but very slowly. Is there an EU directive pushing it forward?
  • DSL has signed it's own death certificate and will go the way of ISDN. Wireless access is the next stage -- either that or a single fiber going into everyone's house with cable, phone, and net connections. And I doubt the RBOCs in the states and BT over the lake are going to want to run fiber to every house without dragging their feet. So, while purposefully killing DSL, the phone companies have also set up a future where their services are used very little.

    Wireless is making great inroads. Sprint, Worldcom, Teligent, Winstar and AT&T (sorry, no URLs) are all beginning to roll out national services for end users and business -- at about the same price points as DSL (30-50 low end and 100-300 for high end). Regionally, ISPs are starting to offer wireless in hard-to-get-DSL areas such as rural and high-growth suburban where traditional COs are too far away from anything useful. http://isp-wireless.com hosts a mailing list for providers deploying wireless regionally; check the archives for your nearest provider.

    -Chris
    ...More Powerful than Otto Preminger...
  • Are you sure? It looks like the same USB farce to me.

    The more expensive NIC based solution is also avaiable, but that is too expensive for a typical home user.

  • I got the impression that OfCom will only concern itself with whether people are broad/webcasting naughty words - not that it had anything to do with the infrastructure. Guess we`ll have to wait and see.

  • This is more complicated than it looks (Score:3)

    by DrWiggy ( 143807 ) on Wednesday December 13, 2000 @05:31AM (#563111)
    Well, people are only seeing the edge of this argument. I think to bring people up to speed on how this situation developed is too big a task to take on in a reply to a post on slashdot, but basically, here is a brief synopsis. OK, it's quite long, but it's still only 10% of the story.

    BT were privatised many moons ago, and were given the responsibility to handle the UK's telecoms infrastructure as they had done before when it was a government-owned entity. The regulator Oftel was setup to ensure that BT did it's job properly and also allow the new cable players (Nynex, etc.) get a grip on the market, and to ensure everything was nice and competitive. After some years, the cable companies were starting to realise that to provide cable service in a country like the UK was prohibitively expenisve. There are still some towns where the roads date back to Roman times, the majority of housing is not laid out in the relatively straight-forward grid-ish system US cities are laid out in, costs were high, uptake was low, etc. So they all came together under the banner of Cable & Wireless. The only other major company in the field even today is NTL.

    Meanwhile BT had got DSL working in the labs, but realised that the cost was too high to deploy at that time, and anyway, they owned the exchanges, the cable companies hadn't got the infrastrucutre to sort it all out, etc., etc.... Oftel steps in and say "Oi! What are you doing about high bandwidth solutions for end users and allowing for a competitive local loop?", to which BT said "Well, we're going to install DSL over the next few years, and we'll let providers re-sell DSL services over our network. We will invoice them for the line, and the customer will still be free to choose which carrier they wish to use for voice services".

    Oftel came back with "Not good enough. Unbundle the local loop and let the other guys into your exchanges to install their own equipment!" to which BT responded in their best McEnroe impression "You can not be serious! These exchanges cost a fortune to maintain, the system will lead to chaos if we have to let anybody in, the security will go to pot, and the whole damned thing will turn into a huge mess. Anyway, we want to keep control of the local loop". Still, Oftel persisted, and BT grudgingly agreed, after they were permitted to charge accordingly for use of exchange floorspace, and for moving lines across.

    They started by rolling out DSL to about 25% of the population. I've got it through Easynet on the corporate plan. Unfortunately, when we looked at this as a provider, we realised that BT had stiffed us. The only way to offer cheap services is to commit to minimum order requirements. Therefore, providers have to pay a fortune for simple IP routing between the customer's premises and the NOC. There are hidden charges everywhere, and it's stifling the business. Regardless of this, a group of companies started hassling BT for ULL (Unbundling Local Loop) so they could put in some nifty SDSL hardware and start getting things moving. I know of a guy who went into negotiations that went something like this:

    Provider: "So, how much is it to put our equipment in your local exchange? What's the rent, charges for moving lines over, etc.?
    BT: "Looking at your current plans, for such-and-such an exchange, we're talking about £1 million for the next year"
    Provider: "£1 million? For a year? What about the charges after that?"
    BT: "Oh, sorry. Did we say £1 million? We meant to say £5 million."
    Provider: "£5 million for the year?"
    BT: "That's right, £10 million"
    Provider: "You just said £5 million!"
    BT: "No, we just said £20 million. We're quite clear about the price - it's £30 million".
    Provider: "This is getting silly now!"
    BT: "No it isn't, £50 million is a great price!"
    Provider: "How did we get from £1 million to £50 million in such a short space of time. Can we see your breakdown of costs please?"
    BT: "We have always maintained the cost for this exchange to be £60 million. We don't do cost breakdowns, sorry."
    Provider: "I'm going to complain to Oftel"
    BT: "They fully support our pricing policy and think that £75 million is a fair price to pay..."
    etc ad infinitum...

    So, you see, BT is in charge and not doing a very good job. Apparently they originally expected a total national market for DSL services of about 4,000 customers. Now that there areover half a million people pleading to get DSL, who knows. I'm one of the lucky ones that gets 2Mb/sec to my home/office paid for by the company. When we looked at the prices at first, we did consider setting up as a proper DSL provider, but then you realise it's all smoke and mirrors.
  • Nit: it's not "England" it's "Britain", please get it right.

    A free market economy will not provide essentiual services at a decent cost to everybody. Service providers will provide service that they can make a profit on. If you live somewhere remote - forget about that lovely DSL/ISDN/Cable whatever connection, it's not going to happen.

    Note that The Post Office has a (legal) monopoly on delivering letter post. This is in return for guaranteeing to deliver to all addresses in the UK, regardless of location. Do you really think it costs 27p to send a letter from London to the Outer Hebrides?

    If you define a broadband connection as essential services and not as a luxury, then the free market won't help. Legislation with perhaps a single state backed provider of broadband connections would.

  • > The only downside is its limited to 512kbps downstream.

    Hardly a downside - the BT ADSL "service" is also at 512kbps. At least, that's about all I can find out from the BT ADSL website [bt.com].

  • Parliament can replace the monarch if he/she does not effectively rubber-stamp its decisions.
  • Unfortunately, you don't have any recourse YET. The FCC is apparently considering requiring unbundling and I've heard of some technical tests going on, but I haven't heard if/when it will actually go into force. Unfortunately, you are wrong when you say, "there is no valid reason, be it technical, legal, or otherwise, that would prevent them from providing DSL service to non-bell atlantic customers." The valid reason they have is that they are not required by law to do so. That is a valid reason. Do I think they should take advantage of that reason? Of course not. A responsible company should have no problem saying, "Here's our lines, what part of them would you like to use?" But they, just like the cable companies (AT&T especially) have a very screwed up view of the world in believing that the only way they can survive is to be in control of every aspect of their market. "There can be only one!" No, there can't. There can be many, and they all can profit together.
  • Is this still true? BT have been trialling ADSL over ISDN for a few months now. I take it they haven't rolled it out to the general public yet. I'm hoping that by the time they've opened up the exchanges, and my ISP has access to my local one, that they'll be able to convert an ISDN line.

    BT's ISDN conversion first requires converting the line to analogue. They claim that providing ISDN-2 and ADSL on the same pair is impossible. Dispite what Alcatel (who manufacture the CPEs they are using) claim
  • There was a piece in the news lately about a deal made between the WDA (Welsh Development Agency) and BT to provide ADSL to rural communities. Therefore small Welsh Towns are getting ADSL before some English cities. Maybe BT is hoping to increase revenue by making deals all over the UK.
  • OK, I realize this isn't the right solution, but it's at least a possible workaround. Alcatel's Speedtouch Home and Speedtouch Pro both connect to the computer via ethernet instead of USB. I believe they're available to purchase online. It's kind of an expensive solution for you, but it is available. I would assume that those would work with your connection.
  • At least the Spice Girls are a pleasure to watch, unlike the election coverage. Spice Girls - the reason for Mute! :)
  • When did we become a republic?

    There was the period under Oliver Cromwell, but that ended around 1660 when Charles II came back.

  • I'm not in any way trying to stick up up for BT but, the usb modem is manufactured by Alcatel. They have given away 10 of the modems to people to write some linux drivers the following link has more details http://kapu.name.daemon.xs4all.be:8080/Projects/sp eedtouch.php3
  • Yeah, but can you find those Linux/Mac drivers? The modem you get's made by Alcatel [alcatel.com]. Their site says something like, "We're working on Mac drivers. No chance for Linux."
  • DSL in the US is being sabatoged.

    There's a nice infalamatory statement for a Wednesday morning, I suppose I should back it up.

    First, the companies running the cable (New England Telephone, er, NYNEX, er, Bell Atlantic, er, Verizon in my area) are doing roughly the same thing with DSL that they did to discourage ISDN: they under-train their people, don't hire enough people to move on install dates and don't allow "moving" a DSL line once it's installed (which has resulted in at least one friend having to settle for a new, lesser service because he moved to an area that was BETTER located for CO-connectivity).

    Second, most of the high-end providers of DSL service and Internet connectivity are looking to new technologies to allow them to do more and thus charge more, so they're not emphasising DSL internally in about the same way as DSL.

    What we need is a new generation of DSL providers that a) consider high-speed access to be a general-consumer item, and market, manage and train with that in mind b) provide higher-end services through their DSL service (such as wireless ethernet from the DSL modem so you don't have to have extra cabling in your house; bulk subscriptions to a number of for-pay Internet services, etc).

    Anyone hearing rumblings in the industry that this is going to happen?
  • I live in a town with a population of 10,000 in Yorkshire. We've as much chance of getting cable as Ian Paisley has of becoming the next pope!
  • Not entirely true, NTL are bringing in a new "Gold" service at 1 mbit: http://cablenews.diginews.org/
  • There are always four sides to every story: your side, their side, the truth, and what really happened.

    What exactly is the difference between "the truth" and "what really happened?"


    --------
  • I had a lot of the same problems here in California (rural area). And magically, though there was no timetable for when they could do it, originally, they suddenly called, said it was all set to go, they sent out a guy, hooked it up, and bang, we have DSL. At first it wasn't working, then they sent out another guy (4 weeks later?) then fixed their problem at the CO. Finally, it worked, and I'm telling you, DSL is so superior to dial-up, that all the troubles were worth it. Companies charging $30/month for dial-up access are STEALING, because $50/month for DSL makes modem access not worth spit. Dial up providers ought to pay US to use that service.

    And as far as cable goes, I would rather lick Bill Gates' bunghole than give another dime to a cable monopoly. I finally told the worthless cable TV provider here to go fuck off, and got satellite TV, and I'm not about to let them screw up my internet access too. Let them wither and die, I say. DSL is DA SHIT!
  • I'm getting to the state where I'm ashamed to be British.

    From what I understand, you have to pay by the minute for local phone calls. You also have to get a license just to have a TV. Then there's all that insanity with the government being able to force you to give up your crypto keys (check out RubberHose [rubberhose.org]--they may be able to help with that). Now your DSL is getting screwed.

    I can see why you'd be ashamed. From the geek standpoint, Britain is a barbaric country. :-)
  • A good friend of mine's got 2Mb (business) aDSL with demon installed along side a 512K cablemodem from ntl. He's had the aDSL for close to a year, and despite the NAT translated connection, was reasonably happy with it, however service degraded rapidly to the point a couple of months ago he decided to get a cable modem installed along side. He doesn't use the aDSL anymore ;-) He's a big online gamer, and values a low ping above all else. Last week the aDSL gave a ping of 75 and average download speed of 80kps, the CM a ping of 30 and download of 70. The CM costs 25gbp per month and the aDSL 100gbp per month. Guess which is getting cancelled ;-p
    I gotta disagree with the apparent majority on here regarding the state of the UK broadband market though. We've got the most advanced interactive TV developments, fast roll out plans of both aDSL and cablemodems, an increasingly competitive market, world first beta trials of new Broadband services, and fantastic prospects for those working in the business. aDSL doesn't suck if you choose your provider carefully, and you can always read the contract before you agree to it, to guage your chance of getting a refund. for no or partial service.
    I do worry for the inevitable proliferation of broadband in mainly metropolitan areas though, and wonder if we may be developing a less connected rural underclass.

    Disclaimer: I work for ntl: [ntl.com], but only in one of those lowly moral support type functions ;-)

  • From the page -

    For all clarity, none of this is available yet! (No driver, no specs, no firmware.) At the moment, Alcatel is awaiting internal paperwork. As soon as this is available this will be announced in the linux-usb mailing list.

    Alcatel have not given approval for the driver to be released, for the last 6 months or so they have been blocking its release.
  • You also need to have copper pairs. I'm well within the required distance for DSL. There just isn't enough copper between the CO and my home. The available copper pairs have been multiplexed with filters to stretch the number of available lines.
  • My dear chap. Weren't you brought up to respect others as your equals? If not, your at a distinct in this modern and complex world. Perhaps you've got a virus. Unfortunatly with a hardware error such as yours, there's probably little constructive use you can find for yourself, so you consume yourself in the superiority of our British Empire (laughable at any time in history), and excuse your incompatability and inability to interface successfully on your pitiful condition.
  • ...unless you pay more. You can get up to 2Mbps downstream if you fancy paying more than the already expensive price. Oh yeah, and don't get it from BT, they block a huge number of ports, including those for ICQ, games and stuff. Check out other people.

    If you need a round up, ISP Review [ispreview.co.uk] is a good place to look.

  • I guess this is happening all over Europe.

    Exactly what I thought when I first read that article. Here in France it's exactly the same, maybe even worse since France Telecom still has monopoly over local phonelines (e.g.) all good ole modem users. Friends in Germany and Spain tell me they suffer the same...

    I thought the EU had called for the end of state telco monopolies years ago ? They really need to be told again that it's time for them to go home and adapt to competition, instead of trying to find new creative ways to screw their competitors and their captive customers.

    I don't really like the EU - having some new unelected governement over my already oppressive French governement scares me- but I think they might be the only one that could make things change ; obviously our local governements benefit a lot from this dumb situation.
  • i'd say that pretty much qualifies as racist.. not as much as that dickhead posting about the bnp below tho
  • Isn't Kingston Communications already providing cable and internet using ADSL technology?

    Yes. Kingston ( http://www.kingston-comms.co.uk/ ) are one of the few Telcos left in the UK offering ADSL, to deliver Kingston Interactive Television service(http://www.kingston-vision.co.uk/ [site uses flash] ).

    It includes Interactive/Digital TV, true Video on Demand, high speed Web & Email & the Local Link (a sort of Metro-Sized Intranet)

    Kingston have their own Network infastructure in East Yorkshire and expanding this nationally through their subsidiary Torch . (http://www.torch.co.uk) KIT/ADSL should be available across the UK from June 1st next year.

    Something you'll find interesting, is that KIT does not use M$ s/w, and the ADSL router is ethernet (not USB).

    &ltDisclosure&gtI'm a Kingston shareholder, employee and customer.&lt/disclosure&gt

  • The problem is not xDSL it is BT's monopoly position. They've been obstructing competition since they where privatised and OFTEL has done little to control them. OFTEL is run by exBT staff, which is why the Government is disbanding it in favour of a new regulator.
  • If you think the Spice Girls are bad, you should listen to some of the other junk we have to put up with. S-Club7, Westlife, Steps, Robbie Williams. Somedays I wish I was deaf!
  • They did so, once, so I was told.

    Oh look! A flock of pigs has just gone past my window!

  • Right on.

    The government have just announced plans to roll all the broadcast and telecom regulatory bodies into one giant "Ofcom". Hopefully this will mean an end to the increasingly cosy relationship between BT and Oftel.

    I gather that the BT-Oftel situation is actually fairly common: government regulators often end up being "captured" by the industry they are supposed to be regulating, and wind up becoming little more than the PR front for the main industry players. The basic reason is tied to the bureacratic nature of the regulator: in a bureacracy you don't get rewarded for doing a good job, you get rewarded for not rocking the boat.

    The regulated monopoly model is better than the nationalised industry model, but nowhere near as good as true capitalism.

    Paul.

  • I live in Aberdeen, Scotland. I've had ADSL for a couple of months. Here's my experiences.

    I asked about 6 (probably more) people at BT if ADSL were available here. They all said "no", but I had circumstantial evidence to the contray. Well, after basically giving up, I went to a local ISP, Internet For Business (www.ifb.co.uk) to sign up for ISDN instead. Lo and behold! They could offer me ADSL (through BT, of course). Well, I signed on the dotted line (yes, I got a "business" connection), and they regretted to tell me that it would take 5 days to install it! 5 days!!! It took me 32 days in Houston, TX, to get DSL set up! And these guys were apologizing.

    I have since had several other positive experiences from IFB. They're a good company, I tell you. And, no, I am in no way affiliated with them.

    Well, the moral of the story is don't buy your high-speed internet from regional monopolies. BT sucks. And, if you live in Scotland, I strongly recommend you investigate IFB.

    Cheers!
  • What strikes me as ironic is this: I've owned (rented rather) probably 4 different types of Cable modems since I started cable modeming at various locations in the US. They say that the modems achieve these incredible speeds of 25MBps or 30MBps downstream, and then you look on the back of the modem labeled clearly is the following words next to the RJ45 port: 10-Base T.

    That pretty much says it. I'm guessing that this is false advertising. That is like saying "Our cars CAN go 1000 miles on a 10 gallon tank of gas" and then seeing that it only has a 2 gallon gas tank.

    Assholes! I'm quite ready for a third type of player to enter this battle. Who's up for Electricity modems??
  • I have been waiting for 3 months for business DSL here in the US, watching the comedy of errors as the reseller miscommunicates with the providers, who miscommunicates with the local telecom. It seems these UK companies are having the same problems with BT.

    You think that's bad? I've been having the same problem, between BT and _itself_!

    Here's the scenario. I used to be a BT ADSL customer. Easynet comes along and is selling, for me, a more attractive ADSL package. BT of course is reselling Easynet the ADSL, but they're allowing more things for a better price, so I decide to switch to them. Easy? Yeah right.

    So as I was at the end of my contract with BT, I tell them I don't want to renew it. They say fine, the line will be ceased in a week. So I call Easynet, and get it set up to be installed 2 weeks later. (I had a week away anyway)

    So about 10 days later Easynet contacts me. Saying they can't install ADSL on my line due to "conflicting services". Guess what, BT hadn't deactivated my old ADSL! But even worse, guess who performed the line test for Easynet? BT!!!

    Much gnashing of teeth later, it turns out BT's cease department, and their installation department, are completely separate and are not allowed to talk to each other! Apparently this is company policy! So can you tell the installation department "the line test is okay, it's just failing because I have old ADSL on the line, as you can see from the cease order it'll be gone by the time you get here to install"? Of course not! That would be too... too easy!

    So I have to put the cease through myself, by mail, and wait til they get around to it. And can they coordinate so the same engineer deactivates my old one and then installs the new one? Of course not! You have to wait until the cease is done to put in the order so they can do the line test and it won't fail, so they can schedule an engineer!

    So something like 5 weeks later, it got worked out, and I have my ADSL, and it is good. Yes, it's laughable now, so you'd better mod this up as funny ;)

    Fross
  • I think given the situation, the cable operators in Britain have done well, and they've made many an American cable operator look sluggish

    Yes, but that it because the cable infrastructure in the UK is all relatively new, and was installed with bidirectional line amplifiers. US infrastructure is much older and was designed for broadcast not two-way comms, hence has unidirectional amplifiers. Viewed from that perspective, UK cable companies are doing okay at best; they certainly do not sparkle and there are still many cabled areas that do not offer cable-modem internet.

  • Well, I don't know when it was that you last checked, but I've had cable for over a year now, and knew someone with cable about 4 years ago. (Not that it was especially unusual, but we were both students at the time :-) )

    No, it's not particularly widespread, but it's not exactly unheard of either, and the cable companies (of which there are several) are increasing their coverage all the time. Most of the cities/large towns have at least partial coverage.

    Cheers,

    Tim

  • I pay around $2000 a year, including taxes, for a 2M/256k line, 20:1 contention, fully routed with 15 IPs...

    Are you sure you mean bucks and not quid? The offering from Demon [demon.net] -- one of the UK's largest ISPs -- is priced at £175 per month, i.e. £2,100 pa or around $3,000 for 2M/256k 20:1 access.

    The BT offering is slightly cheaper but (1) you need to have windoze and (2) you MUST use their NAT -- there is no static IP with all ports open option. Did we already mention that BT suxs?

    When I change jobs (no, I'm not planning it at the moment) I move countries, unless the UK fixes its infrastructure. Internet access and railways seems to be the most urgent priorities...

  • Are you sure you mean bucks and not quid? The offering from Demon -- one of the UK's largest ISPs -- is priced at £175 per month, i.e. £2,100 pa or around $3,000 for 2M/256k 20:1 access.

    I'm sure. I go with Easynet. As you can see from this pricing page [easynet.net] their 2M line costs just 120 pcm. The nice thing about them is the fully routed option is no extra charge. Their installation is more than most, but it's worth it in the long run i think. So far, no problems with them.

    I don't know of any windows requirements for it, and afaik you can open any port you want at this time - in the future i imagine they'll close some off if they start eating traffic, but it's fine for now :>

    Fross
  • To make matters worse, BT cannot easily install DSL to anyone who has a IDSN link

    Is this still true? BT have been trialling ADSL over ISDN for a few months now. I take it they haven't rolled it out to the general public yet. I'm hoping that by the time they've opened up the exchanges, and my ISP has access to my local one, that they'll be able to convert an ISDN line. I don't really want to go through the hassle of having it cut off and replaced with a standard line which then has to be upgraded to ADSL.

  • I still remember reading on Telewest's Cable Internet site back in 1996 (of course that page isn't there any more) that Cable modems would be out in summer 1997 and would be 2Mbit/s download and 512K/sec upload. So it hits 2000 and Telewest launch their blueyonder cable modem service and it's only claiming to offer 512K down and 128K up. To make things worse they only will install the system for you if your PC meets their requirements which includes having to have Win 9x installed (NT and 2000 coming soon). So I've gotta install Win98 on this machine before they'll install my cable modem :( - it uses DHCP and can be easily set up by myself to use Linux so why can't they just put the 'modem' in and let me install it ffs.

    Well anyway, how does this relate to ADSL, well if Telewest had got their act together and launched cable modems when promised then BT would have had competition on their hands a lot sooner and vice versa, if BT had got ADSL out the door quicker then Telewest would have to compete.

    People were beta testing Telewest cable modems back in 1996, perhaps if Telewest had got their act together they'd have had a great broadband service by 1997, be way ahead of their competition and not in so much financial difficulty which meant that now they're part owned by Microsoft - prior to that Telewest was never an MS butt kisser until MS became a part owner, now things obviously are different.

    So now we've got the choice of two evils in my area MS/Telewest and BT. Ahh well if Telewest had got their act together earlier things could be so different...
  • ...is that it came out so quickly behind ISDN (at least compared to ISDN here in the UK), something BT had invested a _LOT_ of money in, both in setting up and marketing, that they needed to keep it going for a while longer before announcing ADSL. The actual timespan between the proper public announcement of ADSL (with no upgrade path from ISDN, nyuk nyuk nyuk) and its launch was not long at all, compared to the length of the ADSL trials themselves. And of course as a result people are damn furious, saying they'd never have signed up for ISDN (which can be *more* expensive than ADSL, easily!) if they new ADSL was just round the corner.

    Bastards.

  • I have broadband in Uk.. not DSL or Cable (Score:3)

    by Pengo ( 28814 ) on Wednesday December 13, 2000 @06:41AM (#563163) Journal

    I use Wireless.

    www.tele2.co.uk is great, they put an antenna on my roof.. I have right now a 512k line for £39 per month. They are also releasing a new deal, unlimmited internet bandwidth at 156k for £9.99 a month.

    this is available only in certain parts of the Uk, but they are moving quickly.

    the performance is great, and it put's a smile on my face knowing I am not paying a 'last mile tax'.




    --------------------
  • BT's trial started in late 98 as well, iirc. I certainly had it by March 99, and i was one of the last to join. But to use the Kingston connection, didn't you have to live in some little town on the south coast, ie it was extremely limited availability?
  • I have an NTL Cablemodem, connected to a 486 running off of a LRP (Linux Router Project) boot disk, and it works perfectly, just setup DHCP on the Cablemodem's interface card, and enter NTL's DNS numbers and away you go. It does NAT and firewall duties for my home network. As for installation, it took NTL 4 working days to install it, from the first phone call to them, till I was using it to surf. When you register your modem at NTL the final page of the registration process gives you all the details you need to set up a linux box (DNS,DHCP and mailserver addresses). I constantly get over 60Kbs, usually slightly higher, and it is infact better than the shared 2Mbit link at work.

  • State of the UK (Score:4)

    by rf0 ( 159958 ) <rghf@fsck.me.uk> on Wednesday December 13, 2000 @04:49AM (#563166) Homepage
    Well to be honest I am not that surprised.

    There are a number of things that hold up broadband access in the UK but the main one is Local Loop Unbundling (the last mile from the exchange to people) if owned by BT. Now OFTEL, the regulator is working to undo this but even though it should happen in the next 12 months BT are still dragging their feet by saying "there isn't enough room" in the exchanges. It isn't however all doom and gloom. There are cable companies like blueyonder [blueyonder.co.uk]and ntl [ntl.com] trying to get cable out. Also there are a few wireless companines. But if you are like me and live in the sticks there isn't much help. For someone outside the UK you can get a good overview at broadbandhelp.com [broadbandhelp.com]. Even though there are now quite a few ISP's offering DSL BT is still providing the bandwidth and of course it is their best intrests to take their time :(

  • Alas, you aren't allowed to use them for ADSL in the UK. You use the ADSL router/modem BT gives you or you don't use anything. The ones for business use are OK: the one we had delivered on friday comes with a 4-port ethernet hub built in (no, I don't know what model it is - they peeled of the mfrr's labels and stuck BT ones on), but it won't listen to telnet and they put a rubber plug in the console port. They also make it quite clear that if you touch it in any way whatsoever, they cancel your service (which is what is stopping me plugging a box into the console port to have a look).

    Allegedly they're going to let people use their own modems some time next year, but for the moment I may well be having a word with my chum at the Competition Commission later in the week about this.

  • Bloody BT. (Score:3)

    by shippo ( 166521 ) on Wednesday December 13, 2000 @04:55AM (#563171)
    DSL is only available in some areas at present. They have two systems, a 'home' system at 40 GBP per month, and a 'business' system at 100 GBP per month.

    The 'home' system users a USB based interface, with closed specifications. Drivers are only available for Windows 95, 98, ME and 2000, so Linux, Macintosh, BeOS, NT 4.0 and other users are not able to use it. It is made worse by the fact that the USB device exceeds the USB specificaation regarding the amount of current it draws.

    The 'business' system is OS independant, requiring a UTP network connection instead.

    Oftel, our telecomms regulator, has done absolutely nothing constructive about this mess.

    Other privatised industries are just as bad. Our railways are an utter shambles.

    I'm getting to the state where I'm ashamed to be British.

  • It's on over here as well, if you're talking about LA 7
  • Here in the U.S. I use DSL form my local phone company. A support group sort of evolved on a local newsgroup to complain about the poor service we felt we were receiving (frequent outages, poor availability, etc.)

    Then, we started to find the truth. Other service providers were even worse. We were ashamed of our disgust for our own providers when we learned of others' troubles. We even found that our provider was *gasp* ranked one of the best!

    That being said, how do the service providers rank in service and customer service across the lake?

  • The television license (around 120 GBP per year) pays for almost all BBC output, plus a bit going to maintain the shared terrestial transmitters.

    As the BBC has 2 main terrestial TV channels, a few more digital ones, 5 national radio stations and 30+ regional radio stations. And no advertising on any of those, except for other BBC programmes.

    IMHO the TV license is a bargain alone just for BBC radio.

  • NTL does offer cable in a lot of areas though

    But that's *precisely* the problem with cable over here. Each company is granted a complete monopoly for a given area. I might decide that, say, Telewest has a good package on offer, but I can't go for it because NTL has the monopoly in my area. We *really* need a national cable infrastructure, owned by a single company (and appropriately regulated, of course). Then each cable provider can pay the infrastructure owner for to supply services. That way, there's full competition, and the consumer is better off. This is how gas supply currently works. TransCo owns the pipes, but you buy gas from your choice of supplier (British Gas, Eastern Energy, whoever). And no, I don't think there's a hope in hell of this happening in the near future :-(

  • mountains, molehills, etc. (Score:3)

    by Fross ( 83754 ) on Wednesday December 13, 2000 @06:03AM (#563188)
    I've been a triallist since BT first started their closed public (1000) adsl testing, and recently changed to another ADSL distributor. Of course I've paid a lot of attention to the status of DSL availability and plans here over the past two years, and can tell you...

    the article is exaggerating the problem greatly.
    Definitely, there _is_ a problem with the availability of DSL here, as there have been delays in its launch for almost a year, and demand has overwhelmed the (poor) supply from BT - a note for those unaware, BT is the only company able to provide ADSL, and resells it through other companies as well as marketing it itself.

    The five companies mentioned in the article, with the exception of NTL, are of little to no consequence in this arena, and nowhere near the size of larger ISPs (Demon, Easynet, etc) who are offering DSL services and have no plans to back down. NTL is in fact a cable company who has been performing cable modem trials over the last year, so their interest in DSL is unlikely to be more than academic.

    The demand for broadband here is phenomenal, and so many companies (probably approaching 50 by now?) are offering DSL that this will continue. Sure, it is still expensive here (i pay around $2000 a year, including taxes, for a 2M/256k line, 20:1 contention, fully routed with 15 IPs. However, having to pay for local phone calls ere i was racking up around $150 a month for 56k access as it was...), and demand exceeds supply, but wasn't this the case in the USA when it was launched? Couple that with getting our appetites whetted by hearing about it for so long, and this is of course what happens.

    Fross
  • So the kingston one was a trial? I assumed from your post it was commercially available in November 98.

    The BT one was limited to certain parts of London only, but it was not limited to 400 - it started at 1000 and was later expanded to 1500 or so.

  • Same in Holland... (Score:3)

    by Lion-O ( 81320 ) on Wednesday December 13, 2000 @04:58AM (#563198)
    I guess this is happening all over Europe? ;) Its exactly the same in Holland; even whole cities are divided in parts where there is ADSL available and parts where there isn't yet. And while you folks have some form of competition we have to wait for 1 big telecom firm to fix things up in (which is also causing the big delay afaik).

    I'm not very familier with the situation in the UK but in Holland it is good proof why a monopoly is a bad thing(tm).

  • I think DSL is a stillborn technology. It is fundamentally too complex to be rolled out on a wide basis without effectively rebuilding entire local phone systems.

    I have been waiting for 3 months for business DSL here in the US, watching the comedy of errors as the reseller miscommunicates with the providers, who miscommunicates with the local telecom. It seems these UK companies are having the same problems with BT.

  • When has Oftel ever done anything constructive about any mess?

  • Same problems in UK and USA.... (Score:5)

    by trims ( 10010 ) on Wednesday December 13, 2000 @05:04AM (#563204) Homepage

    I work for one of the big CLEC DSL providers in the USA (Covad - perhaps the only one in about 3 months....)

    I can state out loud, scream it from the treetops, and sign my life away as to the one reason DSL companies (both in the US and the UK and probably elsewhere) are having such a big problem:

    The Monopoly Regional Telephone companies are being assholes.

    That's the jist of it. The ILECs (or RBOCs, or just "The Telephone Company") are making it as miserable and as costly as possible for anyone else to install DSL in their COs.

    All the ILECs here in the US consistently take far longer than need be to fix problems with loops (the wires from CO to house), run down normal problems in COs, install basic equipment in the CO, etc. Of course, they'll whine about being understaffed (oh, but you just laid off 30% of your wire techs? OF COURSE YOU'RE UNDERSTAFFED!), or that there's no room in the CO (but they're busy plopping in new equipment of their own...). In many places, they require that CLEC have the ILEC's people install anything into the CO, and require only their people to make changes. Of course, they happen to be fairly slow about this stuff...

    I'm to the point where I'm seriously pissed off. The FTC/FCC in the US (and I'm assuming OFTEL in the UK) need to start seriously levying fines on the ILECs until they get their shit in gear. Right now, the ILECs are just making it miserable for the competition, simply because they can get away with it, and know that they have the $$ to do it later, while delays will kill their competition.

    Fundamentally, I think the only real solution is to strip the local loop ownership from the ILECs. That is, force them to spin out a company that actually owns the "last-mile" physical plant (including COs), but doesn't do any telecom. That way, this new company has equal incentive to provide good service for everyone, ILEC and CLEC both.

    I thkn that's the biggest flaw in the TeleCom Act of 1996 here in the USA - not forcing the ILECs to give up control of the local loop before allowing them into other areas. Hopefully, we can fix this soon, but for now, they just fucking piss me off, the wankers.

    -Erik

  • This situation is very simillar to the position prior to deregualtion, where you were only allowed to use BT telephones, rented from BT at an astronomical rate.
  • Funnily enough this is a subject I know a fair bit about - see the URL above :o)

    The fact that NTL and Telewest are dumping their DSL plans is not as big a set back for DSL as many people would claim since these providers were never looking at providing DSL themselves - they were looking at providing Internet connectivity over BT's DSL package.

    For reasons unbeknown to anyone but themselves BT have created a service which restricts the customer and the ISP by forcing the ISP to use BT's solution all the way. BT provide and own and configure the customer router and modem, BT own and run the local line and the DSL access ontop of it, BT own and run an ATM network which carries the DSL traffic, BT own and run the lines into the ISP's network and BT own and run the Radius servers usedfor authenticating DSL users.
    The ISP has no access to any of this and the customer has no direct contact with BT should there be a problem.

    This has caused fun for people experiencing problems, they guy sitting opposite me went without service for 7 days because the ISP didn't contact BT quick enough and then there was limited contact between BT and the ISP. Personally I was a triallist for 6 months without hitches- when BT came to swap out the service for the full launch kit they left me with a non-functioning install and finally took it all away after 1 month's pissing around and then telling me that the line was too long and too noisy to support DSL - even though it had been running perfectly for 6 months prior!

    BT's DSL is a shambles and you will see Telewest and NTL offering DSL services later - once the local loop has been unbundled and the telcos have their own network in place for the full stretch.

    I'm currently waiting for a Cable modem install and will probably stick with that for a fair while to come ;o)

  • Not in the UK - IDSL is not a provided product.

    BT's provision of ADSL over an ISDN line is to remove the ISDN line and replace it with POTS.

  • Nice sentiment. It won't happen though.

    Did you notice the coverage of this announcement last night? How it covered just about all aspects of the proposed regulator as they apply to the media with a little byline saying "oh this covers the Telcos as well"?.

    That's how it's going to be, folks. OFCOM will be seen to be regulating the sexy, up-front, public-facing Ugly Sisers of the New Media, but the background, necessary-but-unspectacular Cinderella that is the Telcos marketplace will remain as FUBARed as usual, out of sight..

    Just mark this -1 Unwarranted Cynicism

  • Sorry about the delay.

    Down is about 500K

    I seem to recall that a static IP was available for extra bucks.

    I'm scheduled for installation on 30 dec. I'll know more then.

    hanzie

  • My internet provider at work and at home has told me that they plan on dropping support for DSL as well. Support is a nightmare and the margins are razor thin, primarily due to resale of telco resources.

    The only advantage is that the telco is doing open access for alternate ISPs reselling their DSL transport, and the DSL providers are really pushing down costs and upping speed to compete with the cable providers.

  • OK, after waiting 6 months for Demon (strably no competence with the) Internet to provide ADSL here at work, I picked up on an outfit called Timewarp [timewarp.co.uk] who managed a five day install.

    It works, it's static IP, I have a block of assigned IP to work with and they don't port-block or like that there.

    These people have at the very least a nodding acquaintance with A Clue

    If their business service is like that, I think I may be talking to them about their home service...

    Oh, and who are they to contradict you if you say you're in business? How hard is it to whip up a set of stationery these days? Ten, fifteen minutes with a halfway decent WP rig? Whatever, it's not even fraud, provided you've ever done something for pay on your own account. I mean, there's no minimum turnover requirement, is there?

  • Re:Bloody BT. (Score:3)

    by gclef ( 96311 ) on Wednesday December 13, 2000 @05:08AM (#563221)
    I'm getting to the state where I'm ashamed to be British.

    How do you think I feel? I'm 1/2 American, 1/2 British...Between the election, the stupid laws (on both sides) and the Spice Girls, I'm working up some serious therapy bills.

  • There are other options (Score:4)

    by Hanzie ( 16075 ) on Wednesday December 13, 2000 @05:09AM (#563222)
    Being one of those disenfranchised many who can only get about 20K on a really good day with the lights out and the gods smiling...

    Starband [starband.com] is offering high latency, high bandwidth 2-way satellite access, and a bird should be in geosynch over europe fairly soon. This means no modem connection, true 2-way to satellite communication.

    The problem is that all packets have to travel 44,600 miles one way. At 186,000 miles/sec that means a .24 second delay one way, and a half second is added to any ping.

    Internet gaming is out, but e-mail and surfing will rock.

    I spent a couple of hours on the phone with a very clueful guy who runs their tech support. He said that they dont mind linux (he runs it himself) or server hosting. The upstream bandwidth is limited to about 50K, and a popular server would probably be frowned upon, but a personal website wouldn't be any problem.

    Also, since this is mostly owned by Gilat [gilat.com] (an Israeli company) there should be European coverage pretty quickly. According to my source, Gilat [gilat.com] has planned on 3,000,000 people in the US using the service.

    Anyway, there are 3 options. [starband.com]

    1. Microsoft + Radio Shack (yeah, right)

    1. Dish Networks ($100 for 150 channels + net)

    1. Starband [starband.com] alone
  • Depends on why you mean by service provider. If you mean a company that provides net access then there are tons of them, some are very good, others poor. If you mean the companies that provide the hardware infrastructure, they are very few, with BT the only one to have 100% nationwide coverage. And, quite obviously, they're shite. They want to keep their stranglehold on the market for as long as they possibly can, and they're just pissing everyone off.

  • Cable modems are avaliable though.. (Score:3)

    by VC ( 89143 ) on Wednesday December 13, 2000 @05:11AM (#563224)
    As we say in london, Bollocks.
    NTL [ntl.co.uk] does offer cable in a lot of areas though, and for just £20 a month (or £24 including box rental)
    And according to the FAQ [askntl.com] it works with Linux (uses DHCP), its just not supported. The only downside is its limited to 512kbps downstream.
  • >Drivers are only available for Windows 95, 98, ME and 2000, so Linux, Macintosh, BeOS, NT 4.0 and other users are not able to use it.

    This is not quite true. If you look for example at the demon.net (who use BTs hardware for the access) pages you will see that only Windows is _supported_, but drivers exist for others and you are allowed to use them.

    > Other privatised industries are just as bad. Our railways are an utter shambles.

    I agree with the symptoms you observe, but I think personally think it's a problem of monopoly, not of privatisation. All privatiised industries I can think of where competition exists (eg gas, electricity) are now much more efficient than previouly (but this it getting offtopic.)

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