WHICH COMPANY WOULD YOU CHOOSE?
AOL
“A choice of different products is great for consumers, but selling capped services as full fat broadband is misleading and confusing to Internet users. With many broadband services, you have to sign 12 month contracts, and with more and more broadband content becoming available, including video on demand services just round the corner, consumers cannot predict what surcharges they may end up paying in future. Broadband is exciting because it is always-on and high-speed, unless you have a limit on the amount of content - measured in unfathomable gigabytes - your package allows you to access each month. It's like buying a top of the range stereo but only being allowed a certain number of notes each day. If you plan to make the most of broadband, keep clear of the caps.”
www.aol.co.uk
Bulldog
"At Bulldog Broadband we don't believe in putting a limit on how much our users can download. The whole point of our service is to give people a better experience on the internet - and with data caps it's impossible to enjoy the web to the full. Quite simply, we give you more downloads, with less restrictions."
www.bulldogbroadband.com
Eclipse
“Usage-based broadband Internet connectivity is being driven primarily by the end-users themselves. Our customer research suggests that existing dial-up users thinking of migrating to broadband are demanding prices that are comparable with current their dial-up connection. Also, having not experienced the benefits of broadband they tend to feel uncomfortable saying 'extra' for an unlimited service that they will not necessarily use. In order to deliver a viable and sustainable broadband service at dial-up prices service providers need to match the service to the usage profile for the customer, hence usage-based
broadband. In the absence of usage-based charging the only option is to reduce the performance, which defeats the object of broadband entirely.
In November 2004 Eclipse introduced its popular Home Broadband service at only £14.99 - the equivalent of many flat rate dial-up services. It is the perfect stepping stone to broadband for dial-up Internet users and represents incredible value for money. With speeds up to 40 times faster than their current dial-up service, there hasn't been a better time to switch to
broadband. Customers are given a generous monthly usage of 1GB, which is ideal for people who are occasional users or new to broadband. Customers can also purchase extra usage and have the option to set a budget to control their usage, which is useful if they should be spending time with the family and not all night surfing the web!”
www.eclipse.net.uk
Nildram
“While other ISPs have taken a more heavy-handed approach, expelling ‘broadband hogs’ or shifting them on to special ‘bad boy pipes’, at Nildram we’ve addressed the issue with practicality and sensitivity. We’ve always been focused on providing our customers with continued high quality service levels and our approach to ‘capping’ has bore this in mind. Our fair usage policy allows non-pay as you go non-business users up to 50GB per month, offering extra bandwidth for sale at 99p per GB – that’s about the same as watching an average broadband video stream (300kbps) for around 11 hours a day, every day of the month. This usage limit applies between 8am and 12 midnight. Nildram pay as you go customers can manage their own Internet costs by setting their own usage caps – those who reach their self-set limit have their service speed reduced to 64kbps. They can use their connection at a reduced speed until the start of their next billing month, or re-set their cap to enjoy higher speed connectivity again. We estimate that less than one per cent of our customers will be affected by our fair usage policy and we’re confident that it provides enough headroom for personal download usage.
We are committed to enabling those few customers that do exceed their usage limits to continue to access the Internet at a reduced speed or offering them the opportunity to buy extra bandwidth at a competitive price.”
www.nildram.net
NTL
"Usage guidelines are now standard amongst most broadband ISPs. They are usually introduced with lower priced access services. NTL’s new 2Mb and 3Mb services offer 30Gb a month guideline, while the new 1Mb service has a 3GB a month guideline. The vast majority of NTL's broadband users never get anywhere near to the guidelines. They are put in place to
protect the quality of the services for all customers. It is generally only extremely heavy users - such as individuals running a business form home who constantly abuse the residential network - who are likely to exceed the guideline."
www.ntl.co.uk
Pipex
"At PIPEX we understand that there are many types of customers. We offer a range of services that include the genuinely unlimited Solo services, for those who don't want to worry about caps or allowances, and then our Lite service is for customers who currently mostly surf and email."
www.pipex.net
Plusnet
“ISP PlusNet is always at the forefront of broadband technology and usually the first to trail blaze new products and network management techniques.
When BT Wholesale recently announced broadband infrastructure speed increases up to 2mbps, PlusNet realised customers would still share the same network capacity. To accommodate the likely increase in data transfer, ISPs only options are to restrict speeds, shape traffic or massively invest in network capacity, which would inevitably lead to higher
prices. PlusNet have risen to the challenge by giving their customers both speed and usage options. ‘Broadband Premier’ is based on the fastest speeds with generous fair usage levels, ‘Broadband Plus’ has no set usage levels, set speeds and is managed through prioritising basic use. ‘Broadband Pay As You Go’ is based on flexible usage at the fastest speed.
Marketing Director, Marco Potesta said “The majority of Broadband customers are generally interested in speed, rather than pushing the limits of how much they can download. The industry average user downloads around 6GB per month and our fair usage levels start from 30GB, up to 125GB per month. We don’t count overnight use, so even moderately high usage Broadband internet customers won’t be affected by the policy. By charging for usage rather
than speed, we can deliver incredible value prices for high speed and quality services. It makes good sense that customers who use more, pay more.”
www.plus.net
AOL
“A choice of different products is great for consumers, but selling capped services as full fat broadband is misleading and confusing to Internet users. With many broadband services, you have to sign 12 month contracts, and with more and more broadband content becoming available, including video on demand services just round the corner, consumers cannot predict what surcharges they may end up paying in future. Broadband is exciting because it is always-on and high-speed, unless you have a limit on the amount of content - measured in unfathomable gigabytes - your package allows you to access each month. It's like buying a top of the range stereo but only being allowed a certain number of notes each day. If you plan to make the most of broadband, keep clear of the caps.”
www.aol.co.uk
Bulldog
"At Bulldog Broadband we don't believe in putting a limit on how much our users can download. The whole point of our service is to give people a better experience on the internet - and with data caps it's impossible to enjoy the web to the full. Quite simply, we give you more downloads, with less restrictions."
www.bulldogbroadband.com
Eclipse
“Usage-based broadband Internet connectivity is being driven primarily by the end-users themselves. Our customer research suggests that existing dial-up users thinking of migrating to broadband are demanding prices that are comparable with current their dial-up connection. Also, having not experienced the benefits of broadband they tend to feel uncomfortable saying 'extra' for an unlimited service that they will not necessarily use. In order to deliver a viable and sustainable broadband service at dial-up prices service providers need to match the service to the usage profile for the customer, hence usage-based
broadband. In the absence of usage-based charging the only option is to reduce the performance, which defeats the object of broadband entirely.
In November 2004 Eclipse introduced its popular Home Broadband service at only £14.99 - the equivalent of many flat rate dial-up services. It is the perfect stepping stone to broadband for dial-up Internet users and represents incredible value for money. With speeds up to 40 times faster than their current dial-up service, there hasn't been a better time to switch to
broadband. Customers are given a generous monthly usage of 1GB, which is ideal for people who are occasional users or new to broadband. Customers can also purchase extra usage and have the option to set a budget to control their usage, which is useful if they should be spending time with the family and not all night surfing the web!”
www.eclipse.net.uk
Nildram
“While other ISPs have taken a more heavy-handed approach, expelling ‘broadband hogs’ or shifting them on to special ‘bad boy pipes’, at Nildram we’ve addressed the issue with practicality and sensitivity. We’ve always been focused on providing our customers with continued high quality service levels and our approach to ‘capping’ has bore this in mind. Our fair usage policy allows non-pay as you go non-business users up to 50GB per month, offering extra bandwidth for sale at 99p per GB – that’s about the same as watching an average broadband video stream (300kbps) for around 11 hours a day, every day of the month. This usage limit applies between 8am and 12 midnight. Nildram pay as you go customers can manage their own Internet costs by setting their own usage caps – those who reach their self-set limit have their service speed reduced to 64kbps. They can use their connection at a reduced speed until the start of their next billing month, or re-set their cap to enjoy higher speed connectivity again. We estimate that less than one per cent of our customers will be affected by our fair usage policy and we’re confident that it provides enough headroom for personal download usage.
We are committed to enabling those few customers that do exceed their usage limits to continue to access the Internet at a reduced speed or offering them the opportunity to buy extra bandwidth at a competitive price.”
www.nildram.net
NTL
"Usage guidelines are now standard amongst most broadband ISPs. They are usually introduced with lower priced access services. NTL’s new 2Mb and 3Mb services offer 30Gb a month guideline, while the new 1Mb service has a 3GB a month guideline. The vast majority of NTL's broadband users never get anywhere near to the guidelines. They are put in place to
protect the quality of the services for all customers. It is generally only extremely heavy users - such as individuals running a business form home who constantly abuse the residential network - who are likely to exceed the guideline."
www.ntl.co.uk
Pipex
"At PIPEX we understand that there are many types of customers. We offer a range of services that include the genuinely unlimited Solo services, for those who don't want to worry about caps or allowances, and then our Lite service is for customers who currently mostly surf and email."
www.pipex.net
Plusnet
“ISP PlusNet is always at the forefront of broadband technology and usually the first to trail blaze new products and network management techniques.
When BT Wholesale recently announced broadband infrastructure speed increases up to 2mbps, PlusNet realised customers would still share the same network capacity. To accommodate the likely increase in data transfer, ISPs only options are to restrict speeds, shape traffic or massively invest in network capacity, which would inevitably lead to higher
prices. PlusNet have risen to the challenge by giving their customers both speed and usage options. ‘Broadband Premier’ is based on the fastest speeds with generous fair usage levels, ‘Broadband Plus’ has no set usage levels, set speeds and is managed through prioritising basic use. ‘Broadband Pay As You Go’ is based on flexible usage at the fastest speed.
Marketing Director, Marco Potesta said “The majority of Broadband customers are generally interested in speed, rather than pushing the limits of how much they can download. The industry average user downloads around 6GB per month and our fair usage levels start from 30GB, up to 125GB per month. We don’t count overnight use, so even moderately high usage Broadband internet customers won’t be affected by the policy. By charging for usage rather
than speed, we can deliver incredible value prices for high speed and quality services. It makes good sense that customers who use more, pay more.”
www.plus.net
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