BALLSUP Max

The rollout of ADSL Max appears to be a disaster. BT have updated their
checker but Pipex, at least, are currently telling customers that they are
not accepting orders for ADSL Max and to call back in 7 days.

Is BT to blame or Pipex?

Which ISP is handling the ADSL Max upgrade best from a consumer point of
view?

Looking at the websites of the major ISPs I found a complete lack of useful
information.

--
Mark W. Lewis, North Somerset

On 1 Apr 2006 11:11, "Mark Lewis" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

>The rollout of ADSL Max appears to be a disaster. BT have updated their
>checker but Pipex, at least, are currently telling customers that they are
>not accepting orders for ADSL Max and to call back in 7 days.

Is this for a new ADSL connection, or an existing Pipex customer ?

There has been quite a lot of information (when updates come in from BT)
for Plus.Net customers, for example they indicated they can only place a
maximum of 700 orders per day with BT Wholesale, until the end of April,
when a new "bulk order" system comes into effect. That means that there
will be a limited number of regrade orders for the whole of this month,
and if there was still to be a 700/day limit, it would take 6+ months
to get all customers regraded (where it is possible, anyway).

I suppose you might assume that once the exchange is updated, all lines
which are connected will also be regraded. Wrong. The orders for this
new IPstream Max will need to be placed and regrades for existing users
who want to be regraded... So no *instant change* should be expected!

>Is BT to blame or Pipex?

Perhaps Pipex has been slow in working out who gets priority, but is at
the moment putting off tens of thousands of eager users wanting their
line to be regraded *today* (which clearly isn't possible).

>Which ISP is handling the ADSL Max upgrade best from a consumer point of
>view?

I guess there will be some smaller ISPs, no doubt AAISP and others, which
know their customer profile and will have communicated with them to give
some reasonable schedule of regrades, so they know there is a delay of
XX weeks before they can expect their regrade, or can "jump the queue" if
they wish, with some admin fee payable to the ISP.

>Looking at the websites of the major ISPs I found a complete lack of useful
>information.

New customers will get connected (and even migrations might get regraded)
first, I expect, plus some criteria for existing customers. In the case
of Plus.Net they have indicated that those who ordered "up to 4/8" Mbps
last year will be first in the queue, there will then be accounts that
have been with them for longest, and so on. They have yet to explain
any "jump the queue" policy/fees. Peter M.

--
UK ADSL <http://tinyurl.com/5jpa4> - Happy to save cash!!

> The rollout of ADSL Max appears to be a disaster.

In what way? AFAIK to date a large percentage of exchanges have been altered
to run at the higher speeds. The start date given by BT is actually 3rd
April not the 1st. If BT follow past practice that actually means the first
day that they will actually accept orders. Given that a lot of ISP's are
then going to submit bulk upgrades it is likely to take a little time before
they actually happen.

>BT have updated their
> checker but Pipex, at least, are currently telling customers that they are
> not accepting orders for ADSL Max and to call back in 7 days.
>
> Is BT to blame or Pipex?

See above. It makes no difference really since blaming one or the other is
not actually going to achieve anything is it? Guess you will, like the rest
of us, have to be patient for a few days.


Peter Crosland

poster wrote:
> On 1 Apr 2006 11:11, "Mark Lewis" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
>
>> The rollout of ADSL Max appears to be a disaster. BT have updated their
>> checker but Pipex, at least, are currently telling customers that they are
>> not accepting orders for ADSL Max and to call back in 7 days.
>
> Is this for a new ADSL connection, or an existing Pipex customer ?
>
> There has been quite a lot of information (when updates come in from BT)
> for Plus.Net customers, for example they indicated they can only place a
> maximum of 700 orders per day with BT Wholesale, until the end of April,
> when a new "bulk order" system comes into effect. That means that there
> will be a limited number of regrade orders for the whole of this month,
> and if there was still to be a 700/day limit, it would take 6+ months
> to get all customers regraded (where it is possible, anyway).

so plus net has 130,200 adsl customers, interesting.

--
Eps

On 01 Apr 2006 19:18, andy <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

>> if there was still to be a 700/day limit, it would take 6+ months

>so plus net has 130,200 adsl customers, interesting.

no, read it again... It would take 8+ months if the limit was 700 a day,
and wasn't going to change, and assuming everyone actually wanted to be
regraded... but the "bulk order" system is due to be changed at the
end of April, so any figures are just guesses, which was why I used
"if" at the very start of the line... Peter M.

--
A few GB a month (at up to 8000 kbps) for 14.99 ? Yes!
See <http://tinyurl.com/5jpa4> I'm happy to save cash!

"andy" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed)...
> poster wrote:
>> On 1 Apr 2006 11:11, "Mark Lewis" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
>>
>>> The rollout of ADSL Max appears to be a disaster. BT have updated their
>>> checker but Pipex, at least, are currently telling customers that they
>>> are
>>> not accepting orders for ADSL Max and to call back in 7 days.
>>
>> Is this for a new ADSL connection, or an existing Pipex customer ?
>>
>> There has been quite a lot of information (when updates come in from BT)
>> for Plus.Net customers, for example they indicated they can only place a
>> maximum of 700 orders per day with BT Wholesale, until the end of April,
>> when a new "bulk order" system comes into effect. That means that there
>> will be a limited number of regrade orders for the whole of this month,
>> and if there was still to be a 700/day limit, it would take 6+ months
>> to get all customers regraded (where it is possible, anyway).
>
> so plus net has 130,200 adsl customers, interesting.

Not sure where that figure came from, but it's incorrect.
They have 176,000 broadband customers according to their final results on
22nd February.

On Sat, 1 Apr 2006, Mark Lewis wrote:

> The rollout of ADSL Max appears to be a disaster. BT have updated their
> checker but Pipex, at least, are currently telling customers that they are
> not accepting orders for ADSL Max and to call back in 7 days.
>
> Is BT to blame or Pipex?

Well for new customers and migrations all the orders for MAX products we
place are for up to 8Mb service.

Existing users are going to have to go through the upgrade system.

I'm not sure anyone is really to blame for how this works as such.

BT are going to have to face millions of upgrade orders over the coming
months and there is no way they could handle them all at once so they have
told ISPs they will have to stage their orders.

ISPs are having to work out a system to handle tens of thousands of these
orders - both to place them and to track them properly. The ISPs are also
having to respond to lots of customer queries regarding this which makes
for additional work as well.

What I know for certain is that ISPs are able to place a limited number of
upgrade orders between now and the end of the month when BT will start
accepting bulk upgrade orders. BT have indicated that it will take up to 6
months to process all of the upgrades although they have not stated what
this figure is based upon (have they assumed that all customers connected
to an updated exchange will upgrade or a specific percentage?).

It's clear that some users will have to be patient about this while others
will be fortunate enough to be in an earlier batch of upgrades. I've heard
a rumour that some ISPs are offering the opportunity to be among the
earlier ones in exchange for a bribe^W admin fee. I have not seen anything
to support this rumour though.

We're a small ISP however our ADSL provision is via Entanet and they are
not so small. I've managed to get some of our customers included in the
first batch of upgrades they put through. I'm talking with our account
manager to see if there is a way of getting more done early.

Jason
--
UKFSN.ORG Finance Free Software while you surf the 'net
http://www.ukfsn.org/ up to 8Mb ADSL Broadband from just £14.98
** FREE ADSL MIGRATION **
http://www.linuxadsl.co.uk/ ADSL Routers from just £21.98

Jason Clifford <(E-Mail Removed)> writes:

> BT are going to have to face millions of upgrade orders over the coming
> months and there is no way they could handle them all at once so they have
> told ISPs they will have to stage their orders.
>
> ISPs are having to work out a system to handle tens of thousands of these
> orders - both to place them and to track them properly. The ISPs are also
> having to respond to lots of customer queries regarding this which makes
> for additional work as well.
>
> What I know for certain is that ISPs are able to place a limited number of
> upgrade orders between now and the end of the month when BT will start
> accepting bulk upgrade orders. BT have indicated that it will take up to 6
> months to process all of the upgrades although they have not stated what
> this figure is based upon (have they assumed that all customers connected
> to an updated exchange will upgrade or a specific percentage?).

Would it not have been simpler for all concerned if BT had just
enabled 'full' rate adaption (aka ADSL Max) on all the DSLAM ports
when they performed the (presumably software) upgrade rather than
having to re-configure on a line by line basis with all of the
accompanying administrative overhead? Thus putting everyone on the
same basis - the highest ADSL rate which the line will support.

Graham Murray wrote:

> Would it not have been simpler for all concerned if BT had just
> enabled 'full' rate adaption (aka ADSL Max) on all the DSLAM ports
> when they performed the (presumably software) upgrade rather than
> having to re-configure on a line by line basis with all of the
> accompanying administrative overhead? Thus putting everyone on the
> same basis - the highest ADSL rate which the line will support.

And really upset the ISPs who provide "unlimited" accounts and who would
then see an "up to" fourfold increase in traffic. Doing it this way
allows the ISPs to restructure their accounts to allow for the extra
traffic.

--
Ian

Use the Reply-To address to contact me (limited validity).
Mail sent to the From address is ignored.

On Sun, 2 Apr 2006, Graham Murray wrote:

> Would it not have been simpler for all concerned if BT had just
> enabled 'full' rate adaption (aka ADSL Max) on all the DSLAM ports
> when they performed the (presumably software) upgrade rather than
> having to re-configure on a line by line basis with all of the
> accompanying administrative overhead? Thus putting everyone on the
> same basis - the highest ADSL rate which the line will support.

You are assuming that all users would want that and that's not a safe
assumption.

Many users specifically choose to have a 512K or 1Mb connection when they
could faster. Many others do not want to upgrade for a host of reasons.

As someone else has pointed out doing that migth also have caused chaos on
ISP networks.

These things have to be managed for a host of reasons.

Yes it is a pain - we're all sitting here wanting faster connections and
we see all the announcements that March 31st things will be upgraded but
we now find the upgrades will take a long time to complete. We'll need to
be patient as things will be happening as quickly as is possible - it's in
the ISPs interests to get things done asap.

Jason
--
UKFSN.ORG Finance Free Software while you surf the 'net
http://www.ukfsn.org/ up to 8Mb ADSL Broadband from just £14.98
** FREE ADSL MIGRATION **
http://www.linuxadsl.co.uk/ ADSL Routers from just £21.98