Perhaps I should add that ADSL2plus services are generally not speed-limited, as well as being mostly uncapped. There are exceptions. Free Sky broadband for Sky TV customers is capped at 2GB per month. Primus, a Canadian company reknown for cheap offerings, has a capped option alongside an uncapped one on TalkTalk infrastrucure. OpenReach offers 40/2 40/10 and 80/10 megabits/s as fibre options. Competitors tend not to offer the middle option. FTTH is capped at circa 350/? megabits/s. BT Retail will install on a per home or business basis from the existing FTTC. On 01/08/14 20:51, Fred Stratton wrote: > I shall attempt an answer, probably to a slightly different question > to the one you are actually asking. > > Remember, the UK is a member state of the EU. > > Cable cost too much to install in the 1980s, partially causing the > demise of Nynex. Cable is routed underground here, like most > services. All cable, which covers most major cities, out as far as > here in the suburbs, is run by Virgin Media. No price competition. > Lost a lot of video content to BT and Sky. Probably price competitive > with Sky satellite TV. Tiered bandwidth offering, comparable to fibre > in speed, heavily traffic-shaped. > > The telecom operator BT has no state involvement. > > BT is comprised of two parts. One is BT Retail, which has circa 38 per > cent of the retail market. > > The other part is the supposedly separate OpenReach, which owns and > maintains infrastructure, and sells services to 3rd parties. AFAIK, BT > Wholesale also sells telephony services to third parties on top of > OpenReach services. > > Because of its dominant position, the regulator, OfCom, regulates > OpenReach prices for services to third party service providers. > > It is currently investigating fibre prices, on the basis that these > are too high. > > Not all services come via BT. TalkTalk has the most separated > infrastructure. Sky uses OpenReach fibre backhaul. > > Local Loop Unbundling means that there are eight or so different > DSLAMs in each telephone exchange. Sky and TalkTalk in addition have > their own non OpenReach voice telephony equipment. > > There are two tiers of ISP. > > One is composed of the big players. These are BT Retail, Sky and > TalkTalk. BT Retail have 5 brands operating as separate entities, > including Plusnet, notable for carrier grade NAT and traffic shaping. > None have caps or download limits. > > These three are focused around content delivery, principally video. > The service is cheap, with a plug in gateway provided. Contracts are > generally for one year. Customer service is hopeless. You are paid > inducements and cashback to change provider. Whilst the ADSL price is > cheap, the cost of the phone line is steadily ratcheting up. > > If the price of a service increases by 10 per cent or more in a year, > the retail customer can leave the ISP, whatever the contract says. > > I am obliged to pay money to a public corporation, the BBC. These are > a major online video content provider, and the main competitor to the > three main ISPs for content. These ISPs pay fees to Akamai principally > to access iPlayer, and complain about it. > > The others are the smaller players such as EE, and boutique providers > like Zen and AAISP. > > EE, or Everything Everywhere, are T-Mobile and Orange, a combined > unit in the UK providing mobile telephony, and internet services over > the BT network. BT Wholesale, I think, provide and run their > infrastructure. > > Zen and AAISP provide a good service over lines rented from OpenReach > or TalkTalk. They have customer dervice and respond to faults. They > cost ten times as much as the big three, because they make their money > by charging for bandwidth. There are many others in this category. > Some provide ipv6. > > Retail customers find deals through sites such as this > > http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/phones/cheap-broadband > > The fibre infrastrucure has been rolled out by BT. Fujitsu, and > Digital Region, a public enterprise, have pulled out or folded. > > Sky and TalkTalk currently use OpenReach infrastructure for fibre, but > are introducing some of their own cabinets as a joint experiment. > > OpenReach FTTC uses Huawei or ECI MSANs. I have fibre cabinets 200 > metres in either direction along the road. > > CPE for ADSL is customer installed, and is generally a > TrendChip/Ralink or BroadCom based device with the usual driver BLOBs, > a 2.6 series kernel, and telnet access. > > CPE for VDSL/FTTC is the official network endpint for fibre, rather > than the wall plate. The boxes provided are either Huawei HG612, or an > ECI equivalent. > > These are cut down gateways without wireless, configured as VDSL2 > 'modems'. The HG 612 Is Broadcom based and has been unlocked. I have > used one on an ADSL2plus line. Source code is available, even some > Broadcom code released in error by Huawei. The ECI box is Lantiq > based, and blogic has had OpenWRT running on it. There are > configuration problems with uboot, so this not stable. > > This partly answers your question. Note also I have said nothing about > mobile internet. > > > > On 01/08/14 19:12, Dave Taht wrote: >> uknof list: >> >> There has been a long discussion on the cerowrt-devel list about >> how/when/ and where to get bufferbloat related fixes into the head >> ends and CPE, and it's confusing as to who can and what sort of >> devices controls what, >> >> The uk seems to have a vibrant dsl based isp market all getting stuff >> from BT. >> >> How does it work in Britain? I am under the impression that there are >> a lot of HFSC + SFQ based rate limiters there for various classes of >> service >> >> See below for some open questions on the role of the DSLAM, the BRAS, >> etc... >> >> Or see "the ideas on how to simplify and popularize bufferbloat >> control" thread: >> >> https://lists.bufferbloat.net/pipermail/cerowrt-devel/2014-July/thread.html >> >> On Fri, Aug 1, 2014 at 2:04 PM, Sebastian Moeller > > wrote: >> >> Hi MIchael, >> >> On Aug 1, 2014, at 06:51 , Michael Richardson > > wrote: >> >> > >> > Sebastian Moeller > wrote: >> >> No idea? How would you test this (any command line to >> try). The good >> >> thingg with the ping is that often even the DSLAM responds keeping >> >> external sources (i.e. hops further away in the network) of >> variability >> >> out of the measurement... >> > >> > With various third-party-internet-access ("TPIA" in Canada), >> the DSLAM >> > is operated by the incumbent (monopoly) telco, and the layer-3 >> first hop >> > is connected via PPPoE-VLAN or PPP/L2TP. >> >> So they "own" the copper lines connecting each customer >> to the DSLAM? And everybody else just rents their DSL service and >> resells them? Do they really connect to the DSLAM or to the BRAS? >> >> > The incumbent telco has significant >> > incentive to make the backhaul network as congested and >> bufferbloated as >> > possible, and to mis-crimp cables so that the DSL resyncs at >> different speeds >> > regularly... >> >> I think in Germany the incumbent has to either rent out >> the copper lines to competitors (who can put their own lines >> cards in DSLAMs backed by their own back-bone) or rent >> "bit-stream" access that is the incumbent handles the DSL part on >> both ends and passes the traffic either in the next central >> office or at specific transit points. I always assumed >> competitors renting these services would get much better >> guarantees than end-customers, but it seems in Canada the >> incumbent has more found ways to evade efficient regulation. >> >> > my incumbent telco's commercial LAN extension salesperson >> > proudly told me how they never drop packets, even when their >> links are >> > congested!!! >> >> I really hope this is the opinion of a sales person and >> not the network operators who really operate the gear in the >> "field". On the other hand having sufficient buffering in the >> DSLAM to never having to drop a packet sounds quite manly (and a >> terrible waste of otherwise fine DRAM chips) ;) >> >> > >> > The Third Party ISP has a large incentive to deploy equipment >> that supports >> > whatever "bandwidth measurement" service we might cook up. >> >> As much as I would like to think otherwise, the only way >> to get a BMS in the field is if all national regulators require >> it by law (well maybe if ITU would bake it into the next xDSL >> standard that the DSLAM has to report current line speeds as per >> SNMP? back to all down stream devices asking for it). But I am >> not holding my breath... >> >> Best Regards >> Sebastian >> >> > >> > -- >> > Michael Richardson >> > -on the road- >> > >> > >> > >> > >> > >> > >> > >> >> _______________________________________________ >> Cerowrt-devel mailing list >> Cerowrt-devel@lists.bufferbloat.net >> >> https://lists.bufferbloat.net/listinfo/cerowrt-devel >> >> >> >> >> -- >> Dave Täht >> >> NSFW: >> https://w2.eff.org/Censorship/Internet_censorship_bills/russell_0296_indecent.article >> >> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> Cerowrt-devel mailing list >> Cerowrt-devel@lists.bufferbloat.net >> https://lists.bufferbloat.net/listinfo/cerowrt-devel > > > > _______________________________________________ > Cerowrt-devel mailing list > Cerowrt-devel@lists.bufferbloat.net > https://lists.bufferbloat.net/listinfo/cerowrt-devel