Broadband

Entanet’s retailers have become popular ISPs with broadband enthusiasts in part due to their well defined monthly download allowances and lack of complex traffic profiling systems. They have tended to poke fun at the “unlimited” providers from this position of clarity and openness which includes publishing the loads on their BT Central infrastructure.

This position may however become a little shaky when their “up to 24M” ADSL2+ product rolls out using BT’s new Wholesale Broadband Connect (WBC) platform.

Entanet have used the arrival of WBC as an opportunity to redesign their products with a shorter off-peak period (1am-7am) which no longer includes the whole weekend. By doing this we would expect users to see higher speeds at weekends and a reduction in the “big slowdown” that can occur at 10pm when the current products switch to their very large off-peak allowances (for example 300 GB/month). This is probably a good thing for most users who want reasonable speeds at weekends.

One feature that caught our eye is the proposed rate limiting that will be applied to an account that exceeds its peak time GB allowance without topping up by paying for extra GB. The speed will slow to 128 kbits/s until either the end of the month or a top-up of 1GB or above is paid for. An unusual twist is that the rate limit will be applied 24/7 and not just to the peak period, as is common practice with other ISPs using rate limits when FUPs or GB allowances are breached.

Furthermore the use of the 128k “excess” service will be limited to 1GB total transfer, so a dedicated file sharer could be disconnected 10 hours after using up the GB allowance. Unless they pay more for a top-up their access will be suspended until the start of the next month.

Entanet retailers, such as ADSL24, are advertising their products using the familiar “Unlimited off-peak usage” phrase when a more accurate (but less marketable) term might have been “Unlimited off-peak usage providing you haven’t used up your peak time allowance”.

The introduction of this particular FUP-type approach is a new one and unfortunately adds little to the clarity of the product definition. Phrases like “Off-peak is defined as 1am to 7am seven days a week and offers unlimited usage with no fair usage policy” don’t really stand up to scrutiny unless explicitly qualified with “until peak time GB allowance used up.”

Current products will continue to be available and ultimately the market will decide whether the new “up to 24M” products will have the same appeal.

Update (Editor): ADSL24 have been in touch and informed us that they’ve updated their website to reflect the changes Entanet announced to resellers two days ago. A spokesperson told us that before this update they were not made aware that the off-peak would also be capped once the peak allowance is reached.

Their website now reads that all new products are “Uncapped - whilst within peak limit” which is a more accurate phrase and further details of the rate limiting is also published on the page to make it clearer. The spokesperson also expressed disappointment with the changes and the manner in which they were announced by Entanet.

Tags: ADSL 24, BT Wholesale, Entanet