UTVip and FRIACO

Stonemason

To clarify several points:
1. The initial service will only support single channel ISDN similiar to the existing UTVip service.

2. We will not automatically transfer existing customers to the new service as there will be a minimum three month term re-instated. We would prefer customers to request the upgrade to the new service and agree to whatever the new terms and conditions will be. In the meantime those wishing to move to the new service can request this by e-mail or telephone and we will keep this on record and process closer to launch :

Though both channels would be nice for downloading(something to bare in mind for the future) i was thinking more of gaming which used to cost me a fortune to the point i had to give up.Though Im only on your light user package at the moment this is simply because without decent pings and download speeds i have no need for your 150 hour package.Hopefully come june i will upgrade to your FRIACO deal as i will hopefully have moved back to ISDN (shudders)i will be able to.. as stated before enjoy the net as i once did exept this time round it wont bankrupt me.

Cheers and all the very best UTVip peeps

PS it would great if you could do a package with both ISDN channels as we poor sods in rural areas are unlikely to see broadband for many years

SkepticOne

Originally posted by nahdoic
I really hope people here aren't deluding themselves to think, that they'll actually get 24/7 access? It's just not possible. But if you work with UTV now, who knows maybe we can work out some products that could actually be better than the rest of the world.

I agree that people here should not delude themselves that they are getting "always on" 24/7 access. The restrictions my self and I think Mr Weigl would be proposing would mean the elimination of clock watching for the largest number of people possible. I'm also aware that the FRIACO wholesale rate is not as low as in the UK, so this task would be harder and won't appeal to the 60% or so that use such services attract in that country. It would be lower here.

The ISP could also sell blocks of uninterrupted time for a set fee. This would appeal to heavy users, but I agree that marketing this would be harder.

In terms of being upfront and honest: yes, with the true unmetered product, the ISP can't be completely upfront. I would not equate this with being dishonest, however.

nahdoic

Fair enough, the elimination of clock-watching would indeed be wonderful, and allow people complete freedom to use and explore the net, and learn why they need to get broadband. It would attract an impressive user base, and will work. The service would have to be kept snappy and responsive though, if people are abusing it, they are going to have to target them and remove them after they have been issued a few warnings. They can't provide a service for really heavy users. IOFFLers especially will have to understand they aren't providing a dedicated internet line.

I would like to see another service introduced for heavy/business users with the use of single and/or dual ISDN channel support. A scary number of irish businesses and heavy users aren't going to see broadband for a long time and there is a need for this type of service, at a more expensive cost but with better reliability and no cut offs.

SkepticOne

Originally posted by nahdoic
Fair enough, the elimination of clock-watching would indeed be wonderful, and allow people complete freedom to use and explore the net, and learn why they need to get broadband. It would attract an impressive user base, and will work. The service would have to be kept snappy and responsive though, if people are abusing it, they are going to have to target them and remove them after they have been issued a few warnings.

Yes, but the word 'abusing' is wrong. In order for such a service to work, the ISP may need to remove certain users. The criteria used for such removals would very much depend on the activity of all the users as a whole and the variation between the users. Therefore, the 'acceptable' number of hours can't really be determined in advance. Consequently, people who find themselves above such a limit aren't abusing anything. My real hope is that broadband will spread sufficiently that a lot of these would be on broadband anyway.

They can't provide a service for really heavy users. IOFFLers especially will have to understand they aren't providing a dedicated internet line.

Of course, not all IOFFLers are out for what they can get for themselves. Many are motivated for social reasons. Flat rate, paradoxically, should benefit both groups since it stimulates both supply and demand for broadband.

I would like to see another service introduced for heavy/business users with the use of single and/or dual ISDN channel support. A scary number of irish businesses and heavy users aren't going to see broadband for a long time and there is a need for this type of service, at a more expensive cost but with better reliability and no cut offs.

I don't see flat rate dial-up eliminating such deals. Certainly the FRIACO wholesale deal, removes the distinction between on-peak and off-peak and as such should make day time and business users easier to cater for. In particular, the clever ISP should have packages specifically for ISDN users, since the link can be brought up and down very quickly on ISDN through 'connect on demand' settings. This should be attractive to the ISP.

jonski

Do ye not think the heavy users , gamers and downloaders , will go for adsl now that the wholesale price has been anounced.

I mean me as a gamer will be one of the first to go adsl.

nahdoic

Well the new RADSL offering is still a little pricey, but considering the fact that ISDN and a flat rate package would cost even more, I'd say most people will be going for ADSL, yes. Unless of course they can't because it's not available in their area, which will be the case for 'a scary number of irish businesses and heavy users'.

For hardcore gamers specifically though, I wouldn't be suprised if they keep their ISDN line and get a flat rate ISDN package, you can't get better pings than that, and in gaming it's all about the pings.

And also, we've yet to see the situation wrt caps on the new offering. If the RADSL offering is capped there's no way in heck I'll be getting it, if I have the option of uncapped, flat rate, better pinging ISDN line.

Moriarty

Originally posted by nahdoic
For hardcore gamers specifically though, I wouldn't be suprised if they keep their ISDN line and get a flat rate ISDN package, you can't get better pings than that, and in gaming it's all about the pings.

DSL can give lower pings than isdn. Furthermore, the extra bandwidth that dsl provides will become more and more important over the next year or two as online games become more and more complex. There are a few games on the market now that use enough bandwidth to really require a broadband connection to get the most out of them. Things arent going to reverse or stagnate.

nahdoic

In some countries yes DSL can give betters pings, last time i checked though we're living in ireland, and it doesn't.

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?s=&threadid=78314&highlight=adsl+ping

Speed is far more important than volume for on-line games.

Tazz T

It looks like 'cheaper' broadband will be here at the same time or before FRIACO, so theoretically speaking the system won't be overloaded by too many users using 56k 24/7 as many 56kers, like the gamers, will have switched to broadband - it looks very much like dsl is going to be one and half times the cost of 56k so it's likely those heavy users near upgraded exchanges will go for the broadband product.

Well, that's my 2c.

Moriarty

Esats dsl gives better pings than isdn afaik. Eircoms (at the moment) doesnt. That can change any time they decide they want it to. Ping is not the only thing that you are intrested in if you want to play well online. A stable connection with no packet loss is as important, if not more so, than a super low ping connection.

mechanima

Been a little unwell past couple of days and missed the fuss but WOW!!!

Knew UTV would do it...

I don't think anybody realises what this means to somebody like me.

Most of my phone use is internet, cos the only way I am comfortable interacting with the world is in writing...the extra money makes a serious difference.

G

sceptre

Originally posted by nahdoic
Why should the average users, who use the service reasonably have to subsidise these people?

We're not having this argument in this thread. We've had it already (do a search) and I doubt that anyone will being anything new to that discussion. If you think you can, start a new thread, call it something appropriate (so that everyone (excepting me as I have to read it) not taking part can just ignore it) and argue about whether the Internet is like electricity or water there.

That's a comment for all btw - I just happened to quote nahdoic as he was the last to post.

Urban Weigl

I would like to second everything ScepticOne has been saying. Your points are exactly what I was trying to bring across.

While I have Mr. Scott Taunton's attention, I would like to propose something: You need to bring in FRIACO at a price point that is as low as possible, otherwise you will only attract moderate and heavy users. On the other hand, if you bring it in at a low price point will mean losing a lot of money on some customers (probably). For a huge company like Freeserve in the UK, that doesn't matter, not to mention that ports cost a lot less there.

So my idea would be to come in with a FRIACO product for 24.99 euros a month (19.99 would be ideal, but that may not be possible). HOWEVER, in the terms of service you could reserve the right to move heavy users to a "Pro" version of the package, say at 39.99 euros monthly. What defines a heavy user I can not say as I do not have your cost spreadsheets. It could for instance be over 100 hours a month, though I suppose very few people would be online between 2 and 7 am, so time spent online during this time might not need to be included in that.

That way, you will get maximize the number of light and moderate users on the package (heck even my neighbour would sign up at that price!), while still catering for heavy users as well, who will be happy to pay a slightly higher price. Obviously couple this with a 15 minute timeout, though it would be nice to have a longer disconnect period such as 8 hours in order to be able to download larger files. Just an idea, but I think it may just be a very good one.

Urban Weigl

Bascially

-- Come in with FRIACO at 24.99 euros, or ideally 19.99. This will ensure that the package will be great for ANYONE who uses the Internet, no matter how much or little they use it. Customers you would not get if the package were priced higher.

-- Move heavy users up to a "Pro" version priced at for example 39.99 euros as per your terms of service. This will cater for heavy users while keeping the price of the basic package down.

SkepticOne

It appears to me that if we want something approaching unmetered access on PSTN for the widest group of people there are challanges for both the ISP (hopefully UTV) and IOFFL.

The nature of PSTN makes it difficult to offer unmetered access. In reality, there is a meter running all the time. The key for the ISP is not letting it be a burden for the vast bulk of the people using the service. Unfortunately, most ISPs offering flat rate have to deal with certain users who may make it difficult for others to get online during peak periods. These users would be the ones running automatic reconnection software even when they are not at the computer, for example.

What this may mean is the ISP not publishing the exact criteria for identifying these users. It may not be that they simply count the number of hours people use online and kick off the top 5%, they might look at the usage logs in a more sophisticated way.

The ISP may choose not to publish these criteria because doing so might result in people modifying their behavior so that they push up against them.

Let us say that it got out that Freeserve in the UK, kicked people off who used, for example, 200 hours a month. People who then heard of this and were using less, might use this as a licence to increase their monthly usage to just under 200 hours.

The reaction on this forum might be "but thats ok, they are within the 200 hour limit". But that would be overlooking the fact that this 200 hours is not the acceptable average for the ISP but rather the extreme upper limit used to identify extreme users. If a significant number of individuals treated this as the norm, then that limit would have to be lowered. It is only 200 hours (just a hypothetical example) the number is not published and only a handfull would approach this number. If Freeserve were to make public a number of acceptable hours, that number would have to be much lower than what it would be if they kept it secret. The other consequence of making it public is that the service would no longer be 'flat rate'; it would be a prepaid discount scheme. This would fundamentally change the nature of the product.

So therefore, if we want flat rate along the lines of the UK (where it has been very successful) we need to hand over trust to the ISP. Are we prepared to do this? I would hope so. This is our challange. What it would mean is that if UTV, in order to provide flat rate to the maximum number of people, had to remove someone from the service, we would agree to accept this decision on the basis that they are an honerable company even if they did not tell us the exact reason for doing so.

UTV are very aware of the challanges on their side as they have indicated in their post. The FRIACO rate, although cheap by European standards, is not as cheap as in the UK. In addition there are infrastructure and backhaul costs. Still, it could be a lot worse.

There are two ways of dealing with this. Either

a) they bring out a varient of the existing UTVip product with a set number of hours for a set price catering to heavy users mainly (perhaps with smaller number of hours for lighter users). This would still be an improvement as the distinction between day and evening would be gone.

or;

b) they attract in as many users as possible including light users. This second approach (the one taken by Freeserve) would mean that there is more capacity to go around generally. By not publishing upfront limits, people would be encouraged to behave responsibly whilst at the same time, those asked to leave (hopefully after warnings) would be limited to a small number. This will mean ordering substantial capacity in advance and running a national advertising campaign emphasising the benefits of flat rate internet access. (this might be in addition to a) above)

I'm aware that UTV will have fully considered the ramifications of both approaches.

What we need to is realise that if we want true flat rate, we are paying for access to a finite shared resource. This means behaving responsibly, e.g., scheduling downloads overnight, disconnecting when not attending the computer, etc. It may mean respecting UTVs right to disconnect those it feels (for whatever reason) it can't support.

I think this is worth it if we are going to remove clock watching from Irish internet access.

Urban Weigl

I did not mean to necessarily imply that whatever would constitute a "very heavy" user should be published. The way I see it is that one option would be to roll out a FRIACO package at a very low starting price (i.e. around 20 euros), thus attracing EVERYONE including just casual Internet users. At the same time implement a clause in the terms of service that would allow UTV to move the user up to a "Pro" type package which can accomodate more hours of usage, priced at for example 40 euros. Obviously only very heavy users would be moved to that package, though what constitutes such use would be defined by UTV.

Basically how I see this working is that once someone becomes a "very heavy" user, they would be sent a letter reading something along the lines of "Dear Sir, Due to your extremely heavy use of this service we are unfortunately no longer able to accomodate you on our standard package, and are moving you to our Pro package priced at X amount. However if you wish to cancel your service with us, please return and sign the...".

Again it's just an idea that I think may work very well, but at the end of the day the decision is up to UTV, who have a lot more facts on the issue that are not available to me and only they can know.

SkepticOne

Originally posted by Urban Weigl
I did not mean to necessarily imply that whatever would constitute a "very heavy" user should be published.

That was just an additional point I wanted to make. Some people may want to know exactly how many hours they can get in advance and this may not be consistant with flat rate over PSTN.

Slutmonkey57b

Well, I trust them enough to let them shoot whoever they want for over-use of the service.

The only other person I'd give free-reign killing priviliges to is Me. And the bloke that named the daisycutter.

LoBo

well said SkepticOne

Malcolm

As can be seen from the previous selection of posts there is a hundred and one things to consider when defining a FRIACO product. We are currently busy developing the product and will consider views expressed on the boards during the process in order to offer the best product in the market. In the meantime bear with us and be assured that even if we do not answer every post that they are being read. We will let you know the full details of our product as soon as they are available.

Webmonkey

Thats Nice, Thanx m8

seamus

Yeah, I have to say, that as far as companies go, and not just ISPs or telcos - all companies (in Ireland) - UTV/ip have a fantastic attitude towards customers. It may be two-way - i.e. we get info from them and they get popularity from us - but even so, it's a very rare thing for us to see companies who are willing to engage the customer face-to-face (the place where I work, dept. heads won't even return colleagues queries :rolleyes: ) and listen directly to the customer, as opposed to just relying on market research and ignoring actual suggestions and comments from individual comments.

God damm Paddy's day, makin me drink :-)

I would actually plead (if I wasn't so vain ) with UTVip to take DeVore's offer of a free interaction board for a few months.

Praetorian

/me wonders if UTV had to pay for this thread.

Dangger

Having been away for the last few days, (and hence a little slow off the mark) I can safely say the IOFFL can cross one objective of the list come June. This is great news!

Come the summer it looks like IOFFL will have to come to a decision about the objectives it should be pushing for in the future. Perhaps its time to begin drawing up new ones. Its taken too long to get to here, but I'm greatful we made it, eventually.

David Long

ElNino

UTV Internet will soon introduce a flat rate internet service for its Irish customers. Available from June, this will be the first offering of its kind in Ireland.

Pricing for the product is still being finalised, but the company says its existing UTVip customers and new subscribers who sign up before June 1 will pay no more for the new product than they do for their existing service.

Scott Taunton, UTV Internet managing director, said, 'We are absolutely delighted to announce that we have signed a major telecom contract which enables us to introduce the first ever flat rate internet service in Ireland.

http://www.onbusiness.ie/2003/0319/utv.html

LFCFan

First Ever? Does this mean that they'll be in there before €ircon? Do €ircon enjoy being behind it's competitors?

dahamsta

Do €ircon enjoy being behind it's competitors?

So... many... responses... must... resist...

LFCFan

it was a retorical question anyway so don't worry yourself with the many responses you could muster

MDR

Probabily slightily inaccurate I should imagine that Esat will probabily introduce something similar themselves as well. Eircom probabily won't bothering offering a deal until a few months afterwards, they will wait and see what the market is like after the release of the UTV/Esat deal, and then make a decision about launching their own product.

They really don't want flat-rate and then more they can do to dis-courage it (ie by not offering a deal of their own) the better. Who knows maybe someone with market-savy will grad hold of the reins at Eircom, put out a severly cut price deal in an attempt to oust competition (in fine Ryansir style) ... I think its quite unlikely though.

dahamsta

Eircom probabily won't bothering offering a deal until a few months afterwards, they will wait and see what the market is like after the release of the UTV/Esat deal, and then make a decision about launching their own product.

I'm not so sure. Certainly they don't want to see a flat-rate product, however there has to be a watershed for them, and I would imagine that the "half-price" retail DSL announcement was the first step towards that. They may not like the idea of flat-rate, but they will have to embrace it or they'll end up like BT, desperately scrambling to get their customers back. BT got many of them back, but they had to fight hard for it. Eircom would be absolutely idiotic to make the same mistake. More than usual anyway.

I'd love to know how many have abandoned Eircom for UTV and EsatBT since the partial flat-rate product was introduced. DO we have any figures for that?

adam

LFCFan

Originally posted by dahamsta
BT got many of them back, but they had to fight hard for it. Eircom would be absolutely idiotic to make the same mistake.

I'd doubt €ircon would be as good getting customers back as BT. They're not exactly known for their great incentives.

dahamsta

I'd doubt €ircon would be as good getting customers back as BT. They're not exactly known for their great incentives.

Neither were BT though. BT had to go through a massive tranformation, a process that's still taking place now. Eircom will have to do the same. It's sink or swim time.

adam

LFCFan

Originally posted by dahamsta
Eircom will have to do the same. It's sink or swim time

Or do their usual and thread water for a few more years as our faltering economy sinks. I just can't see €ircon changing their ways.

dahamsta

Or do their usual and thread water for a few more years as our faltering economy sinks. I just can't see €ircon changing their ways.

They don't have an option though LFCFan, it's mandatory. That was my point.

adam

bk

Originally posted by LFCFan
I'd doubt €ircon would be as good getting customers back as BT. They're not exactly known for their great incentives.

Or they could just lie.

I'm on Esat CPS and NoLimits and I had Eircom ring today trying to get me to go back to them.

They claimed that they are cheaper then Esat now, I of course had done my homework and had a pintout of the prices next to the phone (I was expecting they would call), it turns out that they are only sligthly cheaper on one or two rates *IF* you are on Options Gold.

ihatemushrooms

With all due respect UTV is in not true to say that you are just dealing directly with the 2nd largest telco, why don`t we just deal direct with them?

Scott Taunton

We are continuing to look at the exact details of our FRIACO offering but have yet to see anything posted that is not broadly in line with our view of the likely product.

We will be taking a view on acceptable use which is likely to be in line with Freeserve/AOL in the UK who have some sort of upper limit but recognise the ambition for the product to represent "flat-rate" but not "always on". We will obviously continue to update you as the model progresses pre-launch.

One issue that has been raised in the past and which we have tried to address is that of certain rates on our CPS service. As CPS will be bundled with our FRIACO offering, we want to be in a position to offer genuine savings to our users on the standard Eircom per minute charges, across the board. Up until now, we have offered a saving of 25% on Eircom's Local, National and International standard rates but have been unable to discount mobile rates.

In order to address this imbalance, from 1 April, all of our rates for Irish mobile calls will be reduced by 5%. This will be for all current and future users of the service and will be incorporated into our FRIACO offering.

We will be issuing a press release to this effect later today. Hopefully this will assist in further differentiating our service from others in the marketplace.

Kind regards

Scott Taunton
Managing Director
UTV Internet

bk

Hi Scott,

It is great to see that UTV is still innovating and bringing real competition to the Irish market.

I hope UTV has plans for DSL in the Republic, I would love to give UTV my business when I move to broadband, however I realise it may be too early for you to say anything about this yet.

One question you could answer for me, with your CPS telephone service, is Northern Ireland charged at National rates or UK rates?

I realise this wouldn't matter for most people, but I share a house with a person from Northern Ireland and Esat charge Northern Ireland at national rates, thus saving this person lots of money when phoning home and therefore I can't change at the moment for this reason.

Thanks,
Brian

DeVore

Originally posted by Praetorian
/me wonders if UTV had to pay for this thread.

No they did not. We never ever sell thread space out side the Commercial Interaction Boards. Ever.

DeV.

DeVore

Originally posted by SkepticOne
It appears to me that if we want something approaching unmetered access on PSTN for the widest group of people there are challanges for both the ISP (hopefully UTV) and IOFFL.

The nature of PSTN makes it difficult to offer unmetered access. In reality, there is a meter running all the time. The key for the ISP is not letting it be a burden for the vast bulk of the people using the service. Unfortunately, most ISPs offering flat rate have to deal with certain users who may make it difficult for others to get online during peak periods. These users would be the ones running automatic reconnection software even when they are not at the computer, for example.

What this may mean is the ISP not publishing the exact criteria for identifying these users. It may not be that they simply count the number of hours people use online and kick off the top 5%, they might look at the usage logs in a more sophisticated way.

The ISP may choose not to publish these criteria because doing so might result in people modifying their behavior so that they push up against them.

Let us say that it got out that Freeserve in the UK, kicked people off who used, for example, 200 hours a month. People who then heard of this and were using less, might use this as a licence to increase their monthly usage to just under 200 hours.

The reaction on this forum might be "but thats ok, they are within the 200 hour limit". But that would be overlooking the fact that this 200 hours is not the acceptable average for the ISP but rather the extreme upper limit used to identify extreme users. If a significant number of individuals treated this as the norm, then that limit would have to be lowered. It is only 200 hours (just a hypothetical example) the number is not published and only a handfull would approach this number. If Freeserve were to make public a number of acceptable hours, that number would have to be much lower than what it would be if they kept it secret. The other consequence of making it public is that the service would no longer be 'flat rate'; it would be a prepaid discount scheme. This would fundamentally change the nature of the product.

So therefore, if we want flat rate along the lines of the UK (where it has been very successful) we need to hand over trust to the ISP. Are we prepared to do this? I would hope so. This is our challange. What it would mean is that if UTV, in order to provide flat rate to the maximum number of people, had to remove someone from the service, we would agree to accept this decision on the basis that they are an honerable company even if they did not tell us the exact reason for doing so.

UTV are very aware of the challanges on their side as they have indicated in their post. The FRIACO rate, although cheap by European standards, is not as cheap as in the UK. In addition there are infrastructure and backhaul costs. Still, it could be a lot worse.

There are two ways of dealing with this. Either

a) they bring out a varient of the existing UTVip product with a set number of hours for a set price catering to heavy users mainly (perhaps with smaller number of hours for lighter users). This would still be an improvement as the distinction between day and evening would be gone.

or;

b) they attract in as many users as possible including light users. This second approach (the one taken by Freeserve) would mean that there is more capacity to go around generally. By not publishing upfront limits, people would be encouraged to behave responsibly whilst at the same time, those asked to leave (hopefully after warnings) would be limited to a small number. This will mean ordering substantial capacity in advance and running a national advertising campaign emphasising the benefits of flat rate internet access. (this might be in addition to a) above)

I'm aware that UTV will have fully considered the ramifications of both approaches.

What we need to is realise that if we want true flat rate, we are paying for access to a finite shared resource. This means behaving responsibly, e.g., scheduling downloads overnight, disconnecting when not attending the computer, etc. It may mean respecting UTVs right to disconnect those it feels (for whatever reason) it can't support.

I think this is worth it if we are going to remove clock watching from Irish internet access.

This is one of the best and most well-thought-out posts I have ever seen in 5 years on Boards.

Nail. Head. *thump*

Its a fascinating topic and one I hope to expand on in time.

Why shouldnt IOFFL become the trusted party? Or this community here? "Fascinating Captain"

DeV.

DeVore

Theres been some discussion of ISDN versus DSL pings for games. Last time I checked there were significant problems with DSL pings because of interleaving and routing and also the technology is designed for broadband speed of download rather then latency ping (which is mostly what games want... mostly...)

DeV.

De Rebel

Everything DeV says about SkepticOne's post. And the great thing about a post of that quality in a UTV thread is knowing that the UTV peeps are hear to read and appreciate it. Hopefuly it will reassure them that people here are balanced in their approach and prepared to see both sides of the story.

The only quibble I have is

What this may mean is the ISP not publishing the exact criteria for identifying these users. It may not be that they simply count the number of hours people use online and kick off the top 5%, they might look at the usage logs in a more sophisticated way.

The linking of "ISP" and "sophisticated " borders on being an Oxymoron. Present company (UTV/IP) excluded of course.

Malcolm

Originally posted by bk
One question you could answer for me, with your CPS telephone service, is Northern Ireland charged at National rates or UK rates?

With the UTVip service all calls to Northern Ireland are charged at national rate. This is true when dialling using either the 048 or using the +44 code.

bk

Originally posted by Malcolm
With the UTVip service all calls to Northern Ireland are charged at national rate. This is true when dialling using either the 048 or using the +44 code.

That is great, thanks for the info.

Brian

Moriarty

Originally posted by DeVore
Theres been some discussion of ISDN versus DSL pings for games. Last time I checked there were significant problems with DSL pings because of interleaving and routing and also the technology is designed for broadband speed of download rather then latency ping (which is mostly what games want... mostly...)

DeV.

The ping problems experienced with ADSL in ireland are of entirely artifical making, from all that i have read. ADSL, as it is configured in the vast majority of other countries, provides a better connection to play games over than ISDN does. The combination of low latency and relativly high bandwidth makes xDSL the ideal choice for playing games over the net from home with.

It should not be forgotten that gamers made up a large proportion of the people who bought broadband connections when they were first made available, and continue to be a large driving force behind broadband penetration and demand. They are probably the largest target audience for broadband by a vast amount, so should most definetly not be dismissed out of hand.

exiztone

I'm still quite confused weather the new service will indeed be flatrate or restricted to a time limit.
Can someone confirm either?
Cheers.

kamobe

We will be taking a view on acceptable use which is likely to be in line with Freeserve/AOL in the UK who have some sort of upper limit but recognise the ambition for the product to represent "flat-rate" but not "always on". We will obviously continue to update you as the model progresses pre-launch.

It's flat-rate, but not always on. Basically, it's a license to use the internet as you probably do now, without worrying about the bill (ie dial in when you want to use it, and disconnect when you're finished). But if you plan to use it for 24/7 dowloading, you'll more then likely be asked to stop.

trap4

To me the whole poinst of FRIACO is having 24/7 online access.

I don't wish to dowload much but I want to be able to conntect to my PC using GoToMyPC at any time from a remote location.

I also need to be connected through IM to business partners througout the day and have my email constantly polled in the background, etc, etc.

dahamsta

That's not what FRIACO is about trap4; never has been, never will be. The amount you download is relatively benign, since the real issue with PSTN-based products is the use of the wires, not the use of the bits. PSTN-based products are all about sharing. You need DSL. You may not be able to get it, but that's the product you're looking for.

adam

Ruu_Old

Originally posted by exiztone
I'm still quite confused weather the new service will indeed be flatrate or restricted to a time limit.
Can someone confirm either?
Cheers.

Im more confused does it mean what we have now? like except more time? or be cut off at like every 200 hours or whatever limit will/maybe