Goodbye and thanks for all the fish…

Post date: 29-Apr-2011 08:37:29

December 31st, 2005

This month I changed my ADSL supplier. I was with Metronet. I have to say I was very pleased with Metronet from the day I got broadband to the day I left. So why did I leave?

It used to say on the front page of the website

• • No usage caps.

  • No traffic shaping.

  • No speed throttling.

They were bought by plusnet , and suffice to say the traffic shaping and speed throtling statements are gone. The usage cap statement has been changed to cost capped. It seems obvious to me the difference. Plusnet are quite open about what they intend to do with the Metronet network. See the second to last point about traffic shaping and prioritisation.

My view is that this kind of thing is generally bad for the following:

Take VOIP for example. I use Skype quite a lot. ISPs are providing their own VOIPsolutions these days so it’s in their interests that their packets get the best QoS . The next step is for a partner to come along and say to the ISP if you give our packets better QoS on your network we can come to an arrangement. We then end up with a closed fractured network, where the big boys move in and can push small VOIP suppliers out because of poor QoS.

This need not just apply to VOIP it could be any technology where there is a driver to make it happen. Taken further we could see a dual stream internet with the sponsored version working well and the regular version with poor QoS.

If you download/upload then you should pay by the bit – but it should be driven by the customers needs not by the shareholders. Use less pay less, use more pay more.

As I’m writting this Andy Abramson has just blogged about QoS but from a slightly different angle see Point 10 .

I was going to add where I’ve gone too and what I think of my new ISP but that will have to wait ’til I have time next to post.