Re: Kicked Off PlusNet NOW!!

[Calum Morrell <calum@xxxxxxx>]

Tim, I'm a little bit more touchy at the moment than normal, so I'm going
to
assume you weren't trying to patronize me and didn't quite get my meaning -
understandable from the short sentence I wrote.

First of all, thank you for the explanation of modem contention vs DSL.
While I
have been following the development of DSL for the last 6 years or so I'm
sure
there are people on the list who found it helpful.

What I was referring to when I said "Just wait till BT start cutting
people off
DSL because the line is active too often", was that the line is
permanently
active regardless of the state of the users system. I was basically just
being
unkind to BT. I'm lucky, I use NTL World and have never been kicked off an
ISP
but the pathetic [and clearly fraudulent] activity of the various 24x7
ISP's
sickens me. If a service is advertised as 24x7 then it should damn well be
usable by it's customers 24x7 - if it's not, then calling it 24x7 cannot be
legal as all the ISP's I know of are physically available for use 24x7 and
they
are using this term to distinguish between an off the shelf service and
their
own.

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.


*********************************************************
This email is not intended to patronize, irritate or generally hack-off any
and
person dead, alive, alien or fictional - but I'm sure it will.
*********************************************************


Calum

Timothy Morris wrote:

> DSL doesn't work like that. With standard dial-up accounts each ISP
has a
> number of modem ports at its server location that you connect to.
Usually
> they have a contention ratio of between 50 and 20 to 1, that is one
modem
> per 20 or so customers. Any more and it would not be economically
viable. If
> 1 fiftieth of their customers connect 24/7 on an unmetered account
then
> there are no free ports and the remaining 98% of subscribers get
engaged
> tones when they try to connect. The contract may have been badly
worded, but
> connecting 24/7 to this type of account really is against the spirit
of the
> terms and conditions, and you'll probably find that there is a clause
in the
> contract which allows them to terminate you subscription in this case.
>
> With DSL, the port you connect to is actually at your local telephone
> exchange - and it is your port - no-one else can connect to it. From
there
> BT Ignite provide a high bandwidth pipe into their ATM network, and
from
> there forward to your chosen ISP. This is where the contention ratio
comes
> in. Take 50 users connected via the 512U package. The bandwidth from
the
> exchange to the ATM network will be 512k total for the 50 users.
Having said
> that, I think in reality it is probably more than that, as I know that
there
> are at least 20 users connected at my exchange, and I have yet to
experience
> downloads at less than 55Kb/s, and quite regularly watch the Broadband
> version of Bloomberg TV (300k) with no loss at all.
>
> The point that I am trying to make is that ISPs make it clear that
there is
> a 50:1 contention ratio with DSL, and BT doesn't care if everyone is
> connected at once, because everyone has their own port. If access
slows
> considerably then it is the end-users problem. I do think though, that
> before long we'll all be getting a lot more than 512k for our 40 quid
a
> month.
>
> So in answer to your post, I've thought about it - and never gonna
happen.
>
> Tim.
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Calum Morrell [mailto:calum@xxxxxxx]
> > Sent: 01 February 2001 00:09
> > To: ukha_d@xxxxxxx
> > Subject: Re: [ukha_d] Kicked Off PlusNet NOW!!
> >
> >
> >
> > Just wait till BT start cutting people off DSL because the line
> > is active too
> > often [think about it]
> >
> >
> > Calum
> >
> >
> >
> >
>