Originally Posted by Graceland
There are very few decent ISPs out there that can actually continue to offer a true unlimited package, I think AOL are the only ISP that are offering a true unlimited package (not checked to see if there's a fair-usage policy attached with it). I know Tiscali fail on two counts, in my opinion, in that a) their unlimited package comes with a VERY savage fair-usage policy (maximum you can download in a day), and b) they're bloody awful with outsourced non-UK tech-support.
With the introduction of MaxDSL/LLU, and the ability to provide ADSL faster than 2Mbps, companies have started to realise that letting people have an up-to-8Mbps connection (allowing downloads at speeds up to 1MB/sec), for a price in the region of £15-25 per month, and then saying people can download as much as they want, means they're not going to be in business for very long if even a small percentage of their customers take them up on their word and try to download the internet in one go.
Given the price for a 622Mbps BT central pipe, when CBC-pricing was introduced, was £137,730 (and I'm pretty sure it hasn't changed much since then), you're looking at a cost of roughly £220 per 1Mbps of bandwidth. So, if you assume that an 8Mbps user is downloading full-speed for the entire month, that's a potential cost to the ISP of roughly £1,760 for that month. Also, bear in mind that, for that pipe to not become congested, you could only fit 75 users (leaving a margin of bandwidth spare) onto it, meaning that each of those users would be costing the ISP £1,836 per month. Factor onto that price the cost for IP-transit connectivity, the price of the equipment used to create the customer-network, any support-contracts for this equipment (believe me, they're not cheap), the cost to supply the staff to design, build, and maintain that network, the support-staff to assist customers with issues, running costs for the buildings involved, utility bills, land-rent, and so on.
So, would you be willing to pay up to £2,500 per month for a truly unlimited DSL connection? If not, and you'd rather pay £15-25 per month but still download the internet every month, then you're going to be a serious loss-maker to your ISP......they'll either have to introduce download-limits, increase their prices drastically, or rely on having many low-usage customers to offset your download-habits.
Well, that post ended up being slightly longer than I planned......thanks for reading, if you made it this far!
