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UK ADSL packages Announced By British Telecom 135

Posted by emmett from the rule-britannia dept.
jac writes: "BT have just released news of BT Openworld -- BT's new broadband portal and high-speed Internet service using ADSL technology. The home-user service is £39.99 a month with speeds up to 512 kpbs, connection is via a BT USB modem (Win 98/2000). I wonder if we'll see a lot of UK effort going into Linux USB modem support in the next few months?" Good to see the Britons getting decent bandwidth.
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UK ADSL packages Announced By British Telecom More

UK ADSL packages Announced By British Telecom

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  • Re:Why this is still a bad thing (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Do you know what is the worst bit ?

    Their server apears to run on Linux (it did when I tried it on netcraft.com), and yet they will offer crappy Linux support.

  • In Denmark this would be a bargain (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Actually, here in Denmark the BT solution would be considered fairly cheap.
    The previously state-owned monopoly Tele Danmark (now an Ameritech-owned monopoly) sells an ADSL package for
    -$375 start
    -$50/month
    -and ... $.03 pr. MB transferred!

    And, by the way, only Windows 98 is supported. (The startup price includes an ATM card since this is required for operation.)

    -Jesper Juul

  • Re:I've been testing this for a year (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    The USB hub is supported in 2.4 yeah, but that says something for specific device support. For example, just because your OS has PCI bus support doesn't mean it has support for all the PCI peripherals.
  • Just as in the US, the Netherlands etc., these phone companies are required to open up ADSL to multiple ISPs. That's why they come up with dreadful schemes such as NAT, PPTP, PPPoE.

    My local cable company does not have these requirements imposed on them. That's why they can offer a nice and simple DHCP setup through their Internet cable monopoly...
  • Yes it is expensive, and a year late too. This is the price you pay for having a company named British Telecom in charge of affairs.

  • Re:UK (Score:1)

    by madprof ( 4723 )
    That's "fish 'n' chips" cos you're replacing both a and d with inverted commas.

    By the way, hot grits down the pants is exceedingly preferrable to paying BT's charges for their under-specced service.
    NT won't work with it, Linux won't work with it (which really hacks me off) and if you knew how incompetent BT have been about the test installations you'd cry.
    Or laugh.
  • Prices will come down. Guy Kewney has an insightful analysis of the situation on zdnet uk [anchordesk.co.uk].

    His conclusion is that they should have rolled it out earlier, but wanted to develop some unique content in order to get revenue from that as well, since the price is currently loss-making!

    Baz

  • As one of the lucky "few" (only 400 exchanges at the present, rising to 70% of the country within 18 months), do I take the punt?

    Let's face it, 40 quid isn't cheap, but it's the same as my mobile bill!

  • No youre not allowed to hook up a lan to it, its against the licence agreement. Stupid i know...
  • ADSL: great if you live in a city, but out in the sticks (and I ain't that far out) and I'll have to wait two years. Hmmm, service with a sting in the tail.
  • > However, there's a difference between what
    > is allowed, and what can actually be done.

    Exactly - how do they intend to enforce that?!

    Seems like a bad move to outlaw bandwidth sharing for home users anyway. The latest versions of windows 98 support internet connection sharing, I believe, and having more than one PC in a household isn't that uncommon these days.
  • Just as in the US, the Netherlands etc., these phone companies are required to open up ADSL to multiple ISPs. That's why they come up with dreadful schemes such as NAT, PPTP, PPPoE.

    Source IP Routing would do that job too, without the enduser noticing anything. I assume it wouldn't fit in their infrastructure as well as pppoe and friends. esp. pppoe is designed with that in mind - but nevertheless it's a hack.
  • Small correction:

    - ok, dtag has 768k down, BUT only 128k up, which imposes exactly the same "load" on the line as BT's offering
    - That 1.5 gigabits may be caused by bad drugs, but there's no way to compress anything.
    - the costs are actually higher than the BT-offering, as there ain't no flatline
    - Drivers: No you don't need proprietrary device drivers, but you need the PPP over Ethernet Protocol - which is non-proprietary and easy, but try to use beos with that.
    And - naturally they gave a f*ck about non windows os's and their joke of a windows driver (winpoet) is only used by people who actually have to. No official win2000/macos/linux support.

  • Oh man, coming from germany, ohh the similarities:
    1,2,3,5,6,7,8,9 exactly the same here, it's just that we had ISDN before. Because the german telecom pushes it down the throat of everyone who doesn't close his mouth fast enough. Guess they had renewed their infrastructure fast and ISDN is the default for every household internally (i.e. analog ist just "castrated" isdn).

    It's a shame, our governments are still protecting the monopolists because they still hold shares.
  • I moved from UK because of IR35, but lets not go there
  • Upstream is 256 Kbit, remembered I could look it up and provide accurate information.

    Message on our company Intranet:
    "You have a sticker in your private area"
  • At least you may have ADSL. In Portugal the best thing arround is still ISDN, where you have to pay a lot for the phone calls.

    Broadband in Portugal is limited to a very small percentage of the population, because the cable TV company only converted a few cable tv cells. I'll be able to have it somewhere in the next year :( The funny thing is that you have a limit of 1Gb/month of cable modem usage. So it's broad band only for a few days/month.

    Did I mention that *all* communications in Portugal are dependent of Portugal Telecom? The monopoly includes the cable company as well as the major ISP.

    Maybe I'll get ADSL in 5 years and it will only cost a month's pay, per month...

    JBv

    PS: I was trying to paste a link to the PT site... but waiting for the #!"$%#$%&#%/& applet to load has put me off.
  • Since I'm under NDA not to discuss my Demon.net -fronted ADSL knowledge I'll just stick to saying that I look forward to finding out about NTL cable modems.

    I run a linux server at home, and want to host a MUD.
  • bell's not the only game in town, you need to check deals from others such as covad. 1.5M/ 384K $74.95. this is a decent deal. with no usage policy. http://www.nni.com/dsl/dslservices.htm [nni.com]

  • They might no beable to get enough new IP addresses for static allocation. They are planning to provide this service to a large portion of the UK population I suppose.

  • ...which is still pretty ridiculous. As of 27 April 2000, US$1 is equivalent to GB£0.6350. See http://www.x-rates.com/tables/GBP.html [x-rates.com].

    Some other sites with currency exchange rate info:

  • Indeed there is.
    Check out Sohonet, http://www.sohonet.co.uk

    This is a network covering the Soho area of London,
    which is a centre of movie, TV and media production. You guessed it - they use wireless links to give 155Mbps and 10Mbps links between companies, and a high bandwidth pipe to the Internet. (We happend to be connected by a 10Mbps
    dedicated fibre link).

    Just as you predict - a small, innovative outfit providing high bandwidth services via wireless.

    John Hearns
  • Recently I got som information from www.telia.se (in swedish, yes. So what?)
    It is said to cost 200SEK a month(~23USD) at a speed of 512kb/s *at least* 95% of the time. If more speed is demanded they could speed it up later on (no more info there?)

    I guess it's quite a good offering :-)
    Pity they don't start to connect people before the end of this summer :-(

    /Hannes
  • (reply will follow in english too:-)
    Lycka till med att få in internet i en villa för det priset!
    Iofs så ingår sådan internetuppkoppling i hyran på en del lägenheter. Är det gratis då?

    Good luck connecting a cottage to the Internet at that amount of money!
    Btw, such connections are sometimes included in the rent. Is that internet for free?

    /Hannes
  • As a Canadian who's been living in London for the past six months, I don't understand why the general populus puts up with this monopolistic crap.

    Guess this kind of goes along the lines of the auto manufacturers' price-fixing, which is just now being exposed for what it is.

    With the amount of US media coverage, I'm surprised at how long it takes for changes to come about.
  • I've been using Home Highway for about a year now and it all works fine. BT Internet gives me a flat-fee connection from 6pm-midnight weekdays and 00:00 Saturday to 23:59 Sunday (although often they screw up -- I was connect all day yesterday).

    RedHotAnt (www.redhotant.com) is a UK based ISP who give you toll-free access at all time, and they also give setup instructions for Amiga, Mac, Linux and FreeBSD (I think). Service is a little poor, and lots of guilt pressure is applied to try and make you disconnect, but otherwise I've been impressed.

    It is with great pleasure now BT cannot charge me for any phone calls. Calls on my voice line are routed through CallNet. (CallNet is supposibly another toll-free ISP, but I've so far had 2 hours of connectivity before I gave up on them.) The data line is always dialed to toll-free numbers.
  • Telewest allegedly have cable modem service available (at least where I live) now - see www.blueyonder.co.uk. No public servers, "authenticated, low-connection-limit" servers are OK, so ssh back to your box from outside is OK, Quake 3 servers are out. I'm not sure where that leaves SMTP servers or DNS, which are the important bits...

    London is about last on their list of deployment areas, which given the history of any kind of technology roll-out in the UK only prompts me to say "Ha ha!" in my best Nelson voice ;)

    Regards,
    Tim.
  • If the speed of the btopenworld site is anything to go by, I don't hold out much hope for their internet service. I've typed this comment, and it still hasn't finished downloading on my 2 Mbps link at work :P

  • Sounds very much like how Cincinnati Bell's ADSL service used to work when they first started out. They too used NAT all over the place so really only basic (web browsing, e-mail etc.) online applications worked. Things like video conferencing and a lot of games just didn't function.

    To make matters worse people weren't able to reliably connect because the connection ratio was 2.5:1 (I shudder to think what 50:1 would be like.)

    The good news is that things did improve after a while, connecting was easier and they canned NAT. Baby steps I guess.
  • Ah yes. I was using the Dollar = 2.2 Pounds math.
    But that's for the Canadian.

    Maybe I'm full of crap (-:

  • The EU/EC is having a go at BT, its pretty poor when we have to rely on supra-national entities to save us poor Brits, heres the full story in the Guardian :-

    http://www.guardianunlimited.co.uk/Archive/Artic le/0,4273,4012233,00.html
  • The actual percentage of population that will be able to have the service will be lower as many of the lines here in the UK have been DACSed (multiplexed at the street level box) so many people do not have an exclusive line to the exchange and therefore will not be able to have ADSL, this is what happens with a monoploy cuts corners, plus there are not the technical staff available to do the customer installations, right now there are 3 installation technicians in London, where there should be 50 already trained by now, assuming 10 connections done per day per installer (~1 hour to get to the residence and install) that would mean we would have a roll out rate of some 6000 connections in London per year, to connect all Londoners at that rate would take over thousand years, BT don't have a clue, its all nice press releases and not much else.
  • OFTEL are at best useless, they are supposed to respond to complaints made against telecos within 10 days, I had to wait 150 for some drivel form letter, OFTEL==BT for all intents and purposes, now I understand why people resort to violence against the state, VX anyone??? ;)
  • 2 weeks, you are lucky, here on the BT ADSL trial / pre-roll-out service we have daily outages, BTs implementation is BAD, we'll have to wait until next year for local loop unbundling to give us decent service and prices, I might have left the UK by then as I'm so fed up with it.
  • Looks like industry analysts are agreeing with me see the ZDNet story below :-

    http://www.zdnet.co.uk/news/2000/16/ns-15062.htm l

  • Here is a link [bellatlantic.com] to BellAtlantic's InfoSpeed DSL FAQ.

    " Can I connect multiple PCs or a LAN to my DSL service?
    Bell Atlantic will only support one computer to one DSL subscription. "

  • BT have always offered the minimum they can get away with to home users. They've kept prices artificially high for, well, ever, and they only respond at all to direct competition - I can't remember the last BT innovation. Oh, except the dialling code changes, London's third in recent times, serial organised stupidity that you wouldn't find *anywhere* else.

    For business, BT is better. My company spends a *lot* of cash with BT, and I suspect that solely for that reason they're pretty good. We get good pricing, reasonable sales service, the obligatory crap helplines - I've never had good support from a telco, in any country - but they're at least as good as the competition. They even offer unique services occasionally.

    For me this is one of the worst side effects of the pisspoor semi-regulation in the UK telco industry. There's some choice, though not as much as I'd like, for business users, and BT are OK in that arena. For home users, often whose only choice is between 'BT' and 'bugger off', it's "take what you get and like it, chump."

    Compared to UK ISDN costs, 40ukp or even 100ukp isn't that bad. Compared to the most of the western world, I agree it's still very high.

    Let's see the EC help out for once, and slap Busby down! (Busby was a BT mascot from way back, a stupid yellow bird that sat on telephone wires and laughed at home users for being so stupid. I may have made the last bit up.)

    -Andre'
  • I moved from England (Digital Highway ISDN and sky-high phonebills) to Belgium (cablemodem @ 20 quid/month). I'd love to move back to England, but if I can't get some cheap bandwidth there, I'm better off just living in another country and taking the plane now and then.
    Having an always-on, fast connection radically changes the way you look at the internet.
  • A couple of other places you may want to complain to, the UK government's 'e-minister' [mailto] and the 'e-envoy' [mailto]. They also have an 'e-forum' [ccta.gov.uk]
  • I just spoke to BT, and found out that the ethernet connection option is available at the same price as the regular USB one. The only instance in which you need to pay more for the connection is if you want to contention ratio down from 50:1 to 20:1.
  • Because this might put pressure on the price for Internet through normal phone such as ISDN (128 kbit).

    For the time being I'll stick to normal 128kbit ISDN with it's open and generic access. Only the price is high. I hope that all these cable and DSL alternatives make the cost per minute for normal access go down further.
  • I'll admit it, I'm American, I don't live 'cross the pond, but how prolific is USB over there, anyways? I know of one friend of mine over there who has no computers with USB and can't really get any pretty soon since spends the vast, vast majority of his disposable income on Internet access...

    Are ethernet cards just a little overly expensive, or do people find them massively inconvenient, or what?


    -Jo Hunter

  • first off - I submitted this about 26 hours ago. Why is it *more* relevant now that its old news? (Go on...moderate me down!)

    However, if you go looking there are lots of problems.

    1. Its vapour over much of the country until up to 2002. (I live in Cambridge, so I'm covered, but on the other hand I already have a nice ethernet connection to JANET in my flat)

    2. You have to have a BT phone line. I don't know many people who have those - everybody has a mobile or a phone from the cable company. Make that ~600pounds + 17.5%VAT a year. Thats about 1000USD a year!

    3. They want you to only use one computer. _laugh_, that takes all of an old 486 to sort out + your favourite OS and presto! Instant gateway hiding as many machines as you like. Ethernet routers aren't even expensive these days.

    4. The whole WIN/Mac thing! Again, I'm sure that'll be easy to get around.

    But still, better than nothing I guess. NB The chip off the old monolith has got one of the 5 3rd gen mobile phone licenses as of today. NB2 They seem to be under the delusion that people will use the portal they're putting together with it. And a POP3 email holder. And webspace. I can get all these for free!

    What I really want to know is... do we have linux drivers for whatever USB ethernet box they're using????????

  • Grad student accommodation. Most U of Camb-owned student accomodation have ethernet connections coming out of their ears.

    Being a grad student in the UK may suck dick in many ways, but there are fringe benefits in Cambridge like cheap accomodation, cheap food and living close to town that make it bearable. And you get a great degree in a short space of time compared to the US or the rest of Europe. On the other hand the pay is terrible and you have to work like a dog.

  • Although BT was privatized ages ago, there is a government committee/organisation/bureaucracy thing called "oftel" which keeps an eye on them (and the rest of the UK telecoms industry) with regard to anti-competitive actions/quality of service issues/etc. See here [oftel.gov.uk] if you really want to.
  • That's not expensive over here, an ISDN line will cost you at least that a month!

    That's what having a monopoly will do to a country's telecommunications industry!

  • Oh dear. Trial after trial after trial. BT have sat on technology as usual to ensure it doesn't cut into their more lucrative captive markets (in this case their absurdly overpriced ISDN). Now they want to roll out at ~40ukp per month for a 50:1 contention ratio? They really think the British public is stupid. Thank god for the cable companies. NTL have been offering high speed cable modem for a while, 40ukp per month, and it's AMAZING! We have it at home.

    Given their way, BT will crush ADSL and try and force us to take up ISDN along with metered access! Call up NTL and ask about their cable modem service (dunno their phone number), if you are Cable & Wireless then hassle them since they have been bought by NTL. Unfortunately I'm Cable London who are now owned by Telewest :-( I collared their top guy at a conference but he just promised things "in the works". Hmmm.

    Phillip.

  • ....even better....just send a mail straight to the top.....sir.iain.vallance@bt.com.....Hurt him! ;-)
  • It's all too depressing....
    Violence sounds good to me
    Never mind the bollocks, lets torch Downing Street
  • if your friend only requires modem access he can get it 24/7 for 5 quid per month from world online. no call charges. and lots of other companies have similiar deals. all new PCs sold in the UK for the last or 2 years have had USB, and it's not expensive to buy a USB card if you dont have it.

    Abashed the Devil stood,
    And felt how awful goodness is

  • This is not first, the best tech or the cheapest; so how come it's made /. ?

    Kingston Communications (BT's only realistic competitor in the UK) introduced ADSL onto it's network over a year ago (Oct/Nov 98).

    Kingston Vision launched an Interactive Digital Television Service for subscribers under the Kingston Interactive Television brand (~£12pcm) over ADSL including a high speed Internet connection for an addition (£15 pcm).

    So with Kingston you get more (DTV + Internet) for less (~£27 vs £40)

    The Kingston service uses IP over 10Base-T, so it's not limited to Windows PC's, the 3Com modem even includes a 4 port Hub, and provides as much bandwidth as your ADSL line will carry; in practice this will be above the min 4.5Mbps need to carry VOD.

    The BT ADSL offering is by comparison lousy, expensive and poor tech.

    This service is also being rolled out Nationally as soon as OFTEL force open BT's monopoly.

    So prepare to say good bye to BT.

    Check out the KITV.CO.UK and/or Kingston-Vision.co.uk for more info.

    I work for Kingston Vision, but these comments are my personal opinion..

  • Considering the main competition near where I live are NTL, who are offering a completely free cable modem service for their subscribers, I don't really see BT making much of an impression at those prices.

    However, the regulators have the local loop monopoly in their sights: currently it must be opened up by July '01 but there is pressure to bring that date forward. Expect to see interesting developments over the next year or so.

  • it is actually closer to 65 USD, but as with everything we (people in the UK) are ripped off by everyone :)

    Crispin
  • Unless you're stuck with DACS (?), BT's brilliant method of doubling their prof^H^H^H^Hlines. This allows them to put two lines down the same bit of copper. Knackers your line quality tho. Ask them to improve the quality and you'll be told that they only rate their lines for voice traffic and if you want to transfer data, buy Home Highway (BT's half-assed ISDN system).
  • There will probably soon appear several small WLAN ISPs in the UK kicking some monopoly ass. England is quite flat, densely populated area and just sticking transmitters in some radio towers will probably get you people out from the grasp of BT monopoly :)

    Until then, hang on.

  • I understand that they are going to explicitly block IP telephony unless you go for the more expensive business service.

    You could of course use no standard ports etc. and probably run rings around their sys admins, but the would be a royal PITA!

    (sigh)
  • You almost never are. My BellAtlantic ADSL account, and almost every other personal cable modem/DSL agreement I've read forbids LAN connections or anything else even related to sharing of bandwidth.

    However, there's a difference between what is allowed, and what can actually be done.
  • Or Asymmetric DSL, if you want to be not wrong. My bad.
  • That's why it's called Asynchronous DSL- upstream and downstream are not the same.

  • BT Sux (Score:2)

    by Anonymous Coward
    BT, in return for being allowed by OFTEL to offer pay video services to the home, announce there will be ADSL available. BT trial an ADSL service, and offer a wholesale package to ISPs, and several big ISPs start signing people up to trial services. The idea is that there is an ATM 'backhaul' (I think this is the right term) from your exchange to your chosen ISP (or indeed video on demand service provider). I looked at the pricing, in connection with some ideas of serving 'niche' markets, like hooking up health clinics with video conference links, or media people to work at home. So far so good - visions of a world with competing and specialist providers for niche markets. Then, all of a sudden, in the words of the BBC article today: "BTopenworld, which was created earlier this month in a reorganisation of BT's internet operations." BTOpenworld comes on the scene. http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/business/newsid_7 26000/726551.stm A brand new company formed by BT to capture this market. And they conveniently don't want to tell you that you can get the service from other providers - ie. they will be selling you their new service first. Sorry, it makes me want to vomit. It has all the hallmarks of BT's ISDN rollout - anyone remember the years they sat on ISDN?
  • This Guardian article [guardianunlimited.co.uk] reports on how the European Commission has just criticised BT for being too slow in rolling out access to the local loop to other companies.

    The EC thinks they should do it by the end of this year, not mid next year.

    Nice to know someone with a bit of weight is happy to throw the cat amongst the pidgeons.

    ...j
  • I've got an X.21 leased line coming into my house. I consider myself quite lucky to have it. No "online/offline" hours. However I sure pay for it. It's £350 a month plus VAT (which I don't pay, but still...). Wait for it... for 64Kb/s. That's Kb, not KB too!

    Yes, I'm very jealous of everyone in the US for their cheap access, and yes, I have considered moving because of it!

    The problem is twofold: BT is held back in part by being extremely money grabbing - they are (I think) the richest company in the country, and one of the richest companies in the world. They are also held back by their stock holders, who see the release of DSL in this country as a turning point - all those people paying up to 4p a minute on local phone access to the net will suddenly be paying a flat rate monthly fee. This is gonna hurt BT. Hence the ridiculous prices.

    And yes, BT could have rolled this out much much sooner. They have the resources and the infrastructure. Don't believe otherwise. They have the infrastructure for everyone to have X.21 in their homes too - but the money they'd lose rolling that out prevents them from making it the price it should be.

  • At Last (Score:2)

    by alanw ( 1822 )
    At least they have fixed the index.html page. Yesterday if you didn't have flash, you just got a blank screen.
    More at The Register [theregister.co.uk]
    Contention ratio of 50:1, with 20:1 for business users.
    Being rolled out slowly - only a few major urban areas get it in July.
    At least it's a start. They will probably overtake the clueless Cable companies. I have had a fibre optic cable almost to my door for years now, but they don't seem to want to sell me bandwidth.
  • Yes, it's a pain not having servers

    So pick a different ISP that *does* let you have servers.

  • Basically we are stuck with this crap setup until BT are stripped of local loop monopoly

    No you're not. You're talking about BTs ISP service, which has all of the faults you describe. So simply don't use it. My ISP is planning to offer ADSL from July without all the BT problems. Of course, they're still limited to the exchanges that BT designate until the local loop is unbundled. Anyway, the basic package will be USB, 50:1 (and no NAT, IIRC). A 10baseT option will be slightly more, but nowhere near the £99/month that BT is quoting. Lower contention rates and faster speeds are also available. http://www.f2s.net [f2s.net] for contact details.

  • all new PCs sold in the UK for the last or 2 years have had USB, and it's not expensive to buy a USB card if you dont have it.

    True, but please point me to somewhere I can buy a USB card for my SparcStation 4, my DG AViiON or my NeXT Turbo Colorstation (yes, I have all of these running at home). All support 10baseT, but none of them support USB. I hate the fact that everything is so PC-centric these days.

  • In the UK this is not YET an option.

    No, but it will be by the time BT Openworld launches.

  • Re:Price (Score:2)

    by QZS4 ( 7063 )

    Anyone have any ideas why DSL is spreading faster then cable?

    Because everyone has a phone line, and far from everyone have cable tv?

  • Good question - USB is no more widely used here than in the US, if anything it is less used since PCs are still a bit more expensive here, so more people are using pre-USB models.

    I think they went USB in order to prevent businesses from just using NAT (now very easy to get hold of, even on Windows) and connecting a number of PCs (or even a medium size site - many companies still use 128K leased lines, so ADSL would be better even with these rate limits...).

  • Yes, it's a pain not having servers, but with always-on and a *nix box, it's relatively easy to poll your ISP mailbox every minute or so, which is not bad. The money I save on phone bill costs (easily 100 - 200 pounds a quarter) will pay for an inexpensive hosting provider (probably US-based because they are very competitive there).

    Not at all ideal, and I wish they'd lose the server restrictions.

    The installation fee is waved if you go for the USB-based service and pre-order before the June launch.

    My biggest problem is not having any Linux support for the USB+PPPoE+other stuff - I may have to revive a Windows box just for this and use it as a router or something, at least until the Linux community comes up with some solution.
  • Well, it still seems to be on Linux - see http://www.netcraft.com/whats/?host=www.btopenworl d.com

  • Can you point me towards ISPs that do allow servers over BT ADSL service? I thought the ADSL modem was part of the BT ADSL service resold to ISPs - are you saying they can use their own kit?

    Also - the ADSL service from BT has a network-based NAT (not a big surprise given the vast potential user base and the scarcity of IPv4 address space).

    Although I really wish BT didn't have such annoying restrictions, it's possible that the lack of IPv4 address space is a solid technical reason for the use of NAT. Unless the whole world goes IPv6 it's hard to see any major provider deploying ADSL, cable or mobile Internet to millions of users without doing NAT.

    CAIS Internet does ADSL-based services to hotels, and allocates a 10.x address to clients using DHCP - clearly there is a NAT there somewhere, but since it is static NAT (i.e. you get a whole IP address for your host, not just a few port numbers on a shared address space) it should be quite usable when combined with a dynamic DNS service such as TZO's (www.tzo.com, has clients for almost every OS and is quite reliable).

    I think a static NAT based service is a reasonable way of providing a near transparent ADSL service - it economises on IPv4 address usage, but still allows active hosts to keep hold of their DHCP leases for long enough that their IPv4 addresses don't change too frequently.
  • In the UK this is not YET an option.
  • The "single user/home" service is based on a USB modem - what'll I do with my FreeBSD firewall now??

    Looking closer at BT's "offer" shows that one can get an Ethernet connection - but that's labelled as the "business" service and costs 99 pounds (approx. $150) a month!!!

    It's also a bit weird the way BT talk about the USB connection as "single user". Am I not allowed to use a Linux box as a router to a LAN with this (cheaper) service?

  • I damn well hope we get Linux USB support, as BT are charging £99.99 per month for a network (Router) solution. check here [208.56.203.238]

    Linux + IPmasq (NAT) will bypass this nicely and save me £60 a month.

    Am I the only one who expected 768kbps only to find that BT are only guaranteeing 512kbps?

    Also this is an single ISP solution ie Use BT's ADSL = Use BT's ISP.

    Oh well, at least it's better than my 56k that never connects at 56k. (49k tops)...

  • Phew (Score:2)

    by _Spirit ( 23983 )
    Just ordered an ADSL line here, in The Netherlands. Reading the offerings in the UK I realized what a great deal I am getting. I get 4 fixed IP's, an ethernet connection (No USB, parallel or other weird port) 1024Kb downstream, and I get specific permission to run servers. I don't recall the upstream speed (I think it was half your downstream speed). Price is about $70 a month. You can get a 512Kb connection with one IP for a little over $30. They made us wait for this a long time though.

    Message on our company Intranet:
    "You have a sticker in your private area"
  • Never mind a UK effort, we really need drivers for internal DSL modems for Linux and *BSD. It's easy so long as you get an edge router that dumps to Ethernet. But now the telco's are offering internal cards with only windows drivers. It helps them stop NATD boxes/firewalls/proxies.
  • I'm no BT fan, but:
    • The price is at the low end of what was expected.
    • There are no usage charges.
    • It shouldn't be any problem to use other OSes so long as the USB modem is supported.
    • It's available in several cities apart from London
  • If it's the same service they're offering as part of the Demon trial, the ADSL 'modem' is also a NAT box. You technically *can't* run servers of any kind, irregardless of the AUP / T&C.

    Given the frequent gibbering about portals and content, and the above-mentioned NATing, I suspect it's a 'web-and-email' service rather than an Internet service. If it was a *real* IP service, they'd risk cutting into their ludicrously-expensive leased line market :(

    Bah. I don't want facilities from my ISP. I don't want their mail servers, their DNS, their games servers, their 'unique content'. Not even their news servers, if I had an always-on link. I want a pipe, with some IP addresses allocated to me on one end and routeing on the other.

    Regards,
    Tim.
  • Yes, their web site is intentionally vague on the offerings.

    You are right about the all the proprietary schemes they are using for the home offering. The modems use a proprietary windoze driver to connect to their servers, similar to how AOL works. Once you connect to theirs servers, then you can get access to the internet. Linux connections will not happen for a while, until someone gets desperate and hacks the protocols. They have some kind of proprietary authentication scheme as well, but I can't figure out when things get authed if the connection is always on.

    The IP addressing is all on private IP numbers for now, and there is no direct routing to the internet. Its all NAT (ipmasq for the linux crowd), plus firewalls. What they wouldn't answer me was whether they would be actively scanning users machines for servers or any vulnerable open port. Its entirely possible this windoze driver does not allow a true IP connection anyways.

    The Work service is also a joke, but at least they claim they will offer a 4 static IP addresses at some point in the future. You can NAT and hook up as many machines as you want for browsing and email. But there is still a firewall preventing any incoming sessions, so a company can't use this to set up a web server in their own building. The sales droids are now being trained on how to jump on any business customer who asks for this, and redirect them to a very expensive web hosting service.

    Yes, we are stuck with this crap until OfTel gets some backbone and forces BT to behave like a responsible monopoly. Opening up the local loops hasn't killed any american RBOC, in fact their profits are the highest ever.

    the AC
  • I know it's a new product and all, and I know it's market driven, but isn't £39.99 a tad on the expensive side?

    If I'm not mistaken, that converts to ~$90USD! My telco has a monopoly on ADSL here in NB, Canada, and I only pay $39.95CDN/month. Which is more like ~$22USD.

    Like I said, I guess the market will dictate.

  • The problem is that BT has a monopoly on the local loop and our Prime Minister, Mr. Tony Blair has signed an EU (European Union) deal to open it by the end of this year, however this is not being implemented as BT and the regulator OFTEL oppose it (OFTEL is an arm of the government, which it seems to be severely corrupt). What BT have done is to price the retail offering (BTOpenWorld) at a price that means they loose money to the wholesale arm that actually supplies the connection to the retail division and all other ISPs, so crippling other ISPs ability to provide the service at a lower cost and making them heaps of money via the wholesale division, and this is all sanctioned by our freindly government dept. OFTEL.
  • Considering the cost of local phone service, whcih requires you to pay by the minute connection charges, I think this will be proportionately a bargain in the UK.

    If you then use your ADSL connected PC as your telephone with a free DialPad [dialpad.com]-like service, your total phone bill may go down.

  • This ISP doesn't seem to know their ass from a hole in the ground when it comes to security.

    A Quote from a zdnet article. (Which you can find at http://www.zdnet.co.uk/news/2000/16/ns-15055.html) :
    "The personal details -- including addresses, home telephone numbers and email details -- of everyone who has signed up for BTopenworld's broadband service have inadvertently been left on BT's Web site.

    A plain text file containing the personal details of nearly 7,000 consumers and business users who have registered online for the service has been exposed."

    For the theregister's take on it, take a look at http://www.theregister.co.uk/000427-000028.html.

    And then there was last month's similar blunder: http://www.theregister.co.uk/000327-000008.html.

    I don't know about anyone else, but I personally would not feel comfortable using a provider that had these types of problem BEFORE they even start offering the service.

  • Not a problem if your me, I spent £100 on internet calls last month (and that was a drop from the last one)

  • They probably think they're really smart though!

    Remember ISDN? BT went digital using a non-ISDN compatible standard, and had to replace much of the (relatively new) equipment with ISDN compatible stuff, but it never took off, as the price was just too high.

    40 quid seems better than what I might have expected from BT, but it's still a lot. It's about a tenner more than ADSL from Deutsche Telekom, which is 768 kilobit downstream instead of 512, and goes up to 1.5 gigabits if you turn on compression (so I'm told by someone in Stuttgart who has it). Also, the DT offer uses a DSL box which connects to your machine(s) via ethernet, so no OS/driver problems there.

    In Germany, we all like to hate DT for being overpriced, but it seems they're actually doing something good for once. Too bad I can't get DSL in my little village yet! :-(

    -- Steve
  • The situation here is unbelieveable. ZDNET UK [zdnet.co.uk], who have truly been champions on the issue of the unbelievable fact that local phone calls in the UK are still metered, have driven home some really disturbing facts.

    One of the ones that got me was a report that ADSL, which was supposed to be released in April (the London exchanges have been for the most part open since March) was delayed because BT told OFTEL that there wasn't enough interest in their trials.

    That's interesting, since I know about 20 people who couldn't get on one. Then I managed to coax out of a customer service operator an ADSL department phone number. Asked to join a trial, and was told that tons of people ask that but they're full up. Interesting, I say, referring to your company's refusal to release ADSL because you don't have enough triallists. Hemm, hawww... Uhhh... I absolutely swear that three days later this phone number wasn't working anymore.

    So this is what us UKers face. ADSL for roughly 65-70 US dollars a month (when you can get 2 Mbps no contention in the US for 40 dollars a month) at a 50:1 contention ratio, ethernet not allowed, only USB modem. Did I say 50:1 contention ratio? Did I mention that some urban areas of London have such bad copper lines that you can hear the connection break when the wind blows?

    Or you can get their damned Home Highway ISDN service, which is what I have opted for. Starting in June, with Surftime [bt.com] it should cost roughly 67 pounds for 24 / 7 dual channel ISDN and two seperate analog lines for phone calls (this is great for my setup, as my roommate and I need our own phone numbers and lines, and we can play Counterstrike together on the Net using a 64k channel each). But it gets even better, as I've just found out. BT always inadverently screw up the installation. What most people don't know is that the agreement you sign indicates they owe you a month of rental for each day that the installation is late. They don't tell you this, you have to read the fine print and bitch. Well, as a result, I now have 5 months free ISDN rental. Woo hoo! Starting to love this company's inefficiency. We've started joking that next week when the engineer comes we'll chop down the telephone pole until BT owes us for 30 months compensation.

    One last thing about HH. It makes you sign a year long contact that is unvoidable by any means. If you move, you're screwed. No transferring the account. If you got HH before April 25th, you can switch to ADSL for free... If you sign a 3 year binding agreement. Nice company, huh? And make sure you don't use the BT Terminal Adapter. Pings of 70-100 compared to 30-40 in a net game.

    For further reading, check this message board: Wireplay's [gameplay.com] forum for broadband. There's always insider info and tips here.

  • 40 pounds a month is too expensive for my liking, but this is pretty typical of BT. They tend to price products at the top end of what people will pay for them.

    BT have also done something in the past called Home Highway, which was supposed to have been 2*64K digital channels. The costs of this was prohibitively expensive too. I don't know of anyone that took that up either. Most people were waiting for ADSL to be introduced.

    It wouldn't surprise me if BT also charge for each moment you use it. I also doubt that the £40 is a flat unlimited usage fee. They also subscribe to the typical British notion that if you have a computer, it must be a Windoze PC. Support for other machines and operating systems is only likely to come after substantial lobbying. Better start lobbying now.

    I guess that London (as usual) will be the first to use it. Most of the country will be given the chance to use it - eventually, but I won't hold my breath waiting.

    Hopefully, they will get kicked a bit by the regulator to speed things up.

    M.

  • You're leaving the UK because of a bad DSL connection? Wow, man, you really are a geek ;)

    Wait until you get over here - phone lines are atrocious; once BT have their bugs stamped out I expect UK DSL to be an order of magnitude more reliable than it is here in the US.

    Point of advice: when looking for an apartment, get one as close as possible ( 500m) from the Telco's exchange.

  • I pre-registered yesterday, and I recieved this email in my inbox just a few seconds ago:

    Date: Fri, 28 Apr 2000 08:58:21 "GMT"
    From: "btdigital@btinternet.com"
    To: "xxxx@xxxxxx.xx.xx"
    Subject: Your BTopenworld registration

    Dear Sir/Madam

    Re : Your BTopenworld registration

    For a short period yesterday a hidden area of the BTopenworld site holding
    the details that you registered was accessed by a limited number of
    unauthorised persons. I am writing to apologise to you for this breach in security.

    I would like to assure you that as soon as the problem was identified, we
    took immediate steps to secure the site.

    We are writing to those people identified as having accessed this hidden
    area to get written confirmation that they have not copied, used or passed your
    details to any other person and will delete or destroy all copies of this
    information.

    I can confirm that we are undertaking a full and thorough investigation to
    ensure that breaches of this nature do not happen again.

    Once again our sincere apologies.

    Yours faithfully

    Robert Salvoni
    General Manager BTopenworld

    --

    Email reproduced in full, apart from my masked email address.

    So...who wants to trust their 24 hour on connection to BTopenworld then?


    --
    jambo
    system.admin.without.a.clue
  • The previous BT logo was a blue T, the left hand bar of which was 2 dots. The joke was that if you turned it 90 degrees anti-clockwise, you got a little cockup, another 90 and you got a big cockup and a further 90 would give you an absolute balls up!
  • Could some UKian tell us Yanks whether the government still has oversight in BT matters? Or has that been privatized?

    I'm not quite sure what you mean by oversight but BT was privatized about 20 years ago.

    Seems to an outsider that the sight of one monopoly doing a deal to shore up another would attract some criticism from the Labor Party.

    But this is Labour Party v2.1 which is basically the Conservative party as was. That's why the real conservative pary is having so much trouble: there simply isn't a need for two of them.

    Blair is very keen on monopolies: M$, BT, Railtrack, and various others have all been in to see him at No10 and gone away happy. About the only one he doesn't seem to like is the Post Office, which is by far the best, most efficent and profitable PO in the world. So obviously we need to break it up!

    Meet the new boss, same as the old boss

    TWW

  • BT OpenWorld (Score:3)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 27, 2000 @07:25AM (#1106729)
    BT OpenWorld have a telephone enquiry number: 0845 602 1263

    OpenWorld are just one potential ADSL ISP. BT (the network) are required to wholesale the the IPStream data links to other ISPs at the same price as they charge OpenWorld (about £30/mth). The ISPs then add the IP layer, mark the price up, and sell it to you.

    The Bad Thing is that ISPs buying ADSL links wholesale get only a 20:1 bandwidth ratio to carry the traffic from their subscribers back to their POPs. Something tells me OpenWorld may find ways to get round this...

    On the hardware front, the unofficial truth is that you can use a 10baseT network card if you have an Amiga/Linux2.2/NT/non-USB machine; but don't expect technical support from BT for anything other than a single Win95/98 box or a PowerMac.

    You may have to supply your own ADSL-to-Ethernet "modem" if you choose not to use the USB version provided. Of course, other ISPs may supply/support other equipment.

    The real difference between the £39.99/mth package and the £99.99/mth "business" one is that OpenWorld plan to uprate the more expensive one to IPStream's 1M/256k or 2M/256k incarnation later in the year. The four-port router they supply on that deal is capable of this, whereas the USB "domestic" hardware is limited to the initial 512k/256k. This is how they justify the higher setup cost of the business user version (don't know how they justify the higher rental).

    Back in "single-user" land, you get one DHCP-assigned IP number (presumably a real one). There is nothing BT can do to stop you typing "ipchains" to share the connection round a LAN ;-)

    DuncanGibb@spammenot.ultramail.co.uk (still waiting for a password)

  • Restrictions & tunnel servers (Score:3)

    by Cato ( 8296 ) on Friday April 28, 2000 @01:24AM (#1106730)
    I just want vanilla IP service as well - however I have little choice if I want something priced at approx 40 UKP/month. The business service is 100 UKP/month and has a non-waivable installation charge of 260 UKP (Q: does this include ownership of the router + ADSL modem, or just installation of the line + kit?).

    So, until local loop unbundling in July next year, I will have to live with the annoying BT 'outgoing only' service model. It's a pain, but still a lot faster than dialup access, so I can probably manage for a year or so.

    I wonder what would happen if an enterprising ISP or hosting provider set up some sort of tunnelling server - i.e. allowing servers at home to be accessible via tunnel endpoints located outside the BT firewall, using something like GRE or L2TP to tunnel from home to the tunnel server... Probably BT would get upset at this, but technically it would be quite straightforward - just make sure the home system 'calls out' to establish the tunnel, then from that point it's just ordinary traffic, with any TCP SYNs inbound to servers at home nicely hidden within the tunnel.

    For extra geek points, this could use HTTP as the tunnel mechanism (as in the various 'bypass your firewall' tools), for increased undetectability, or even IPSec, for increased security against monitoring. Something UDP or raw IP based would be best for performance of non-TCP apps, though.

  • Re:Transfer direction (Score:3)

    by turg ( 19864 ) <[turg] [at] [winston.org]> on Thursday April 27, 2000 @06:46AM (#1106731) Journal
    Well, if you actually click on the link and go to the FAQ, it says 256Kbps upstream

    ========

  • Good if you live in London... (Score:3)

    by trintragula ( 119106 ) on Thursday April 27, 2000 @06:57AM (#1106732) Homepage

    If you live in one of the first roll out areas this is great. Problem is of course that only 10% of the population do, and some of them won't see anything for another year or two.

    The rest of us will have to wait that long just to see when we might expect to get a connection. Couple that with the sparsity of Cable Modem providers and the general lack (or low quality) of free modem access and you find that the uk remains a technological backwater.

    The government in all its wisdom wants us all to use the internet and make the uk a leader in e-commerce, but forgets that no one will help them unless they can enjoy the sort of access all you lucky people get in the US.

    Anyhow, the Times has this introduction to ADSL [the-times.co.uk] in case you haven't heard of it and you can register with BT to be told when they have decided to roll out to your area over here [btopenworld.com].

  • Why BT Sucks (Score:3)

    by tagishsimon ( 175038 ) on Thursday April 27, 2000 @07:44AM (#1106733) Homepage
    So many things suck about BT, its hard to know where to start.

    1. BT is regulated by OFTEL [oftel.gov.uk], so in answer to an AC, it is still under government regulation.

    2. Oftel have given a generous amount of time to BT before it needs to unbindle the local loop

    3. In this time, BT wil seek to tie in as many users to its pitiful services as possible - this (my view) is they ADSL is being lauched now.

    4. ISDN in the UK was *not* promoted for about the first ten years of its life. Its only in the last couple of years that BT have pushed it. Why? I guess because there is little or no advantage to BT in users using ISDN.

    5. Less than 6 months ago, Iain Vallance, the BT Chairperson, said stuff like "the internet is too immature a technology for UK business ... BT is acting as a lollypop man (person who helps schoolkids across the street) trying to save businesses from themselves".

    6. ADSL rollout *might* reach 70% of the population by the end of 2002.

    7. Why so slow?

    8. To protect leased line connection charges - e.g. we pay circa $40,000 for an E-1 (2mbps) line, and are quoted $8,000 for a (wait for it) 64k line. If we can get 512k for $4,000 under ADSL, the scale of potential revenue loss to BT (profits of more than $1.4 billion per annum from a population of 58 million souls) is large.

    9. Bottom line; BT is doing the *least* it can to increase offerings, the *most* it can to preserve its monopoly position.

  • Re:Why this is still a bad thing (Score:4)

    by ralphclark ( 11346 ) on Thursday April 27, 2000 @01:42PM (#1106734) Journal
    It's the NAT layer preventing us from running our own servers that is the most odious aspect of all this IMHO.

    I have just sent the following communications to BT and Oftel:

    To BT I wrote:

    I am very unimpressed with the severe limitations placed on the ADSL service BT is offering.

    I was very much looking forward to hosting my own web server, but it appears that not only is this impossible under the current service offering, I will also be unable to use my own SMTP server or any kind of server at all.

    I know from ADSL users in the US that this is not due to any technical limitations imposed by necessity but is simply due to a policy decision by BT to limit the service in this way. It seems more than likely that BT intends to force users to pay for a web hosting service when this is not really necessary for any technical or practical reasons.

    I feel that this is yet another clear example of BT leveraging their monopoly over the local loop in an improper way. I will be therefore also be contacting Oftel to request that they either remove this monopoly or force you to stop forcing Network Address Translation on ADSL users and allow us to run our own server software.

    And to Oftel I wrote:
    BT's new ADSL service has been deliberately designed with unnecessary limitations which damage the value proposition for end users.

    The worst of these is that it is not possible for users to run any sort of server software. There is no technical reason why this should be so, but they have inserted a layer of Network Address Translation (NAT) between the users and the internet which prevents servers from being accessible from the outside world.

    I have no doubt that BT seeks to force their users to pay for web hosting services etc. in the expectation that they will get some of the business. I am utterly incensed by this; it is yet another clear example of BT cynically abusing its monoply over the local loop. The customers yet again find themselves robbed of any alternative.

    Please note that in other countries such as the Netherlands and the US where ADSL has been available for some time, customers are indeed able to run their own servers as a part of the standard service.

    I am therefore requesting, in the strongest possible terms, that OFTEL immediately takes one of the following two actions:

    i) to force BT to remove the NAT which is hiding the servers in my ADSL connection

    ii) to remove BT's monopoly on the local loop forthwith, i.e. not to wait until next year.

    As I implied there are other problems with BT's ADSL offering but the NAT restriction is plainly intolerable. BT continues to take advantage of their monopoly by refusing to provide the full service available in overseas telecoms markets which have been fully privatised.

    I look forward to an early reply.

    I urge all existing and potential ADSL users in the UK to send your own complaints to these bodies. I am sure most of you can write more persuasive letters than I did. Pick an issue: complain about the NAT, complain about the poor support for non-Windows addresses, complain about the restriction to single computer, complain about the contention ratio; whatever genuine complaint you make will help to drive home the message that BT are fucking us in the ass and getting away with it. We are the customers and we are not happy, either with BT's abuse of its monopoly or with OFTEL's old-boy-network, kid-gloves treatment of the same.

    Suitable online complaint forms can be found here at BT [bt.com] and here at OFTEL [oftel.gov.uk].

    Consciousness is not what it thinks it is
    Thought exists only as an abstraction

  • I've been testing this for a year (Score:4)

    by hedgehog_uk ( 66749 ) on Thursday April 27, 2000 @10:28AM (#1106735) Homepage
    I'm one of about 900 people who have been testing BT's ADSL since last April. BT are a large monopoly, so therefore they make clueless decisions. Initially we paid £30 a month for a 2Mb/s connection. We were given an ADSL modem and ATM->Ethernet router. After ~8 months, BT changed the trial to £50 a month at 512Kb/s. For real-world usage the 75% reduction in bandwidth was not a big deal, but the increase in price was. I still feel that £30-£35 a month would be about right, but £40 isn't as bad as it might have been.

    BT seem to be focused on Windows and ignoring the many *nix users on the trial. They have tacitly acknowledged that we exist by providing us with the information needed to connect with Linux.

    BT have not yet contacted us trialists to tell us about the official launch. What we have at present is the same as their 'multi-user business service' which they plan to charge £100/month for. If they downgrade us to the USB modems then I probably won't be able to use it with Linux and will be extremely annoyed with them.

    I can't wait for the local loop to be unbundled next year so I can switch to a clueful adsl provider!

    HH

    Yellow tigers crouched in jungles in her dark eyes.

  • Why this is still a bad thing (Score:5)

    by A Masquerade ( 23629 ) on Thursday April 27, 2000 @06:55AM (#1106736)
    • USB only unless you pay much much more, manufacturer of the modems won't talk to anyone else, so a linux port will be hard.
    • BT only support windows (currently - might do Mac), and use proprietary authentication schemes - so its not just the modem you must drive but the other end too
    • Its a 50:1 contention ratio
    • Its firewalled and NATed to the point of uselessness - you ain't going to be able to connect back into a box on this service no nohow
    • BT OpenWorld are just a renamed BT Internet. BT Internet are clueless... so clueless they had to rename them, need I say more
    • All the other ADSL services within the next year are just going to be this resold - BT still own the local loop and are doing everything they can to keep it that way as long as they can

    Basically we are stuck with this crap setup until BT are stripped of local loop monopoly

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