Pipex Solo - Legal?

Hi,

I was reading the pipex info where they say business use is not
allowed. When you compare

Solo 512K download, 256k upload, contention 50:1, £24.44 pm

Home Office 512K download, 256k upload, contention 50:1, £29.32 pm

There is no difference, AFAIK, except the price. Setup is also free
on Solo and £70.50 on the Home Office. The difference is even more
marked with the 1MB offerings.

But bytes are bytes at the end of the day. Pipex give no
bandwith/traffic limitations and in practice a heavy home user
could easily consume more bytes than a light business user. So,
is it legal to charge businesses more for the same product just
because they are a business. Is this not an unfair contract
term?

I mean, unless you can show a business gets something more, or uses
more, how can you charge them more and not be discriminating? And how
can you bar them from a product unless you can show a reason? Take a
one man SOHO situation, compared with say, a large family. Who will
use the most BW?

BTW I guess this may apply to many ISPs as well as pipex, I just
haven't looked.

Malcolm

--

....malcolm

Malcolm Reeves BSc CEng MIEE MIRSE, Full Circuit Ltd, Chippenham, UK
((E-Mail Removed), (E-Mail Removed) or (E-Mail Removed)).
Design Service for Analogue/Digital H/W & S/W Railway Signalling and Power
electronics. More details plus freeware, Win95/98 DUN and Pspice tips, see:

http://www.fullcircuit.com or http://www.fullcircuit.co.uk

NEW - Desktop ToDo/Reminder program (free)

"Malcolm Reeves" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed)...
> Hi,
>
> I was reading the pipex info where they say business use is not
> allowed. When you compare
>
> Solo 512K download, 256k upload, contention 50:1, £24.44 pm
>
> Home Office 512K download, 256k upload, contention 50:1, £29.32 pm
>
> There is no difference, AFAIK, except the price. Setup is also free
> on Solo and £70.50 on the Home Office. The difference is even more
> marked with the 1MB offerings.
>
> But bytes are bytes at the end of the day. Pipex give no
> bandwith/traffic limitations and in practice a heavy home user
> could easily consume more bytes than a light business user. So,
> is it legal to charge businesses more for the same product just
> because they are a business. Is this not an unfair contract
> term?
>
> I mean, unless you can show a business gets something more, or uses
> more, how can you charge them more and not be discriminating? And how
> can you bar them from a product unless you can show a reason? Take a
> one man SOHO situation, compared with say, a large family. Who will
> use the most BW?
>
> BTW I guess this may apply to many ISPs as well as pipex, I just
> haven't looked.
>
<snip>

They are only offering a service, which you can choose to, or not, subscribe
to. Why winge - go elsewhere if you do not like it.

Cheers

Nick

"Malcolm Reeves" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed)...
> Hi,
>
> I was reading the pipex info where they say business use is not
> allowed. When you compare
>
> Solo 512K download, 256k upload, contention 50:1, £24.44 pm
>
> Home Office 512K download, 256k upload, contention 50:1, £29.32 pm
>
> There is no difference

<big snip>

Put your foot in the other shoe, and consider that Pipex are doing a
"service" by giving Joe Public access at a cheaper level because Joe Public
(in balance) doesn't make the same revenue as Big Mega Companies. Thus they
sell access to Big Mega Companies (and I don't care whether that's a one
mand band or a multinational - they both have to generate revenue to succeed
and pay corporation tax etc.) at the "true" rate, and piggyback Joe Public's
costs onto it.

In the end "You pays your money and takes your choice"

It works for me!

Paul

--
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Version: 6.0.514 / Virus Database: 312 - Release Date: 28/08/2003

"Malcolm Reeves" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed)...
> Hi,
>
> I was reading the pipex info where they say business use is not
> allowed. When you compare
>
> Solo 512K download, 256k upload, contention 50:1, £24.44 pm
>
> Home Office 512K download, 256k upload, contention 50:1, £29.32 pm
>
> There is no difference, AFAIK, except the price. Setup is also free
> on Solo and £70.50 on the Home Office. The difference is even more
> marked with the 1MB offerings.
>
> But bytes are bytes at the end of the day. Pipex give no
> bandwith/traffic limitations and in practice a heavy home user
> could easily consume more bytes than a light business user. So,
> is it legal to charge businesses more for the same product just
> because they are a business. Is this not an unfair contract
> term?
>
> I mean, unless you can show a business gets something more, or uses
> more, how can you charge them more and not be discriminating? And how
> can you bar them from a product unless you can show a reason? Take a
> one man SOHO situation, compared with say, a large family. Who will
> use the most BW?
>
> BTW I guess this may apply to many ISPs as well as pipex, I just
> haven't looked.
>
>
Differential pricing for business and consumer use is quite common in other
industries. You pay more for a business line than a private BT line for
example, but basically you get the same phone line and hardware. Main
difference is in more business-oriented service and support, like quicker
response to line faults and bigger compensation, free entry in business
directories etc. From broadband provider like Pipex, you'll get freephone or
local-rate support (instead of national or premium rate) and other services
more geared to business use like more comprehensive web-hosting. Also
remember most businesses can reclaim VAT, which narrows the differential.

Alec

In article <3f5bb7f5$0$254$(E-Mail Removed)>, Paul King
<(E-Mail Removed)> writes
>"Malcolm Reeves" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
>news:(E-Mail Removed).. .
>> Hi,
>>
>> I was reading the pipex info where they say business use is not
>> allowed. When you compare
>>
>> Solo 512K download, 256k upload, contention 50:1, £24.44 pm
>>
>> Home Office 512K download, 256k upload, contention 50:1, £29.32 pm
>>
>> There is no difference
>
><big snip>
>
>Put your foot in the other shoe, and consider that Pipex are doing a
>"service" by giving Joe Public access at a cheaper level because Joe Public
>(in balance) doesn't make the same revenue as Big Mega Companies. Thus they
>sell access to Big Mega Companies (and I don't care whether that's a one
>mand band or a multinational - they both have to generate revenue to succeed
>and pay corporation tax etc.) at the "true" rate, and piggyback Joe Public's
>costs onto it.
>
>In the end "You pays your money and takes your choice"
>
>It works for me!
>
>Paul
>
And what if you're self-employed,
or work, on a contract/consultant basis, from home?
(personally I'm with demon, who don't fuss I think)
--
robert w hall

On Mon, 8 Sep 2003, robert w hall wrote:

>And what if you're self-employed, or work, on a contract/
>consultant basis, from home?

Paul would put you on a par, on turnover, with a multinational!

Someone (self employed) asked me recently about the cost of ADSL
and I think Free UK is one of the cheapest which allows business
to use it. From their T+C document defining the customer as "the
person, group of people, or company, who receive the Service from
FreeUK under the terms of this Agreement," 22.99 (inc VAT), and
has Claranet managing the service.

It's my understanding that the business users effectively subsidise the
service for the home users. The ISPs and BT need to pay for the
infrastructure in order to cope with peak demand i.e. 9-5 Mon-Fri, and it's
the business customers that tend to use it then. Rather than leave it
sitting mostly idle in the evening and weekends this bandwidth is sold to
home users at a cheaper price. Yes, home users have access during the day,
but most won't use it then. If the cost to business users was decreased
we'd see the cost to home users increase.

"Malcolm Reeves" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed)...
> Hi,
>
> I was reading the pipex info where they say business use is not
> allowed. When you compare
>
> Solo 512K download, 256k upload, contention 50:1, £24.44 pm
>
> Home Office 512K download, 256k upload, contention 50:1, £29.32 pm
>
> There is no difference, AFAIK, except the price. Setup is also free
> on Solo and £70.50 on the Home Office. The difference is even more
> marked with the 1MB offerings.
>
> But bytes are bytes at the end of the day. Pipex give no
> bandwith/traffic limitations and in practice a heavy home user
> could easily consume more bytes than a light business user. So,
> is it legal to charge businesses more for the same product just
> because they are a business. Is this not an unfair contract
> term?
>
> I mean, unless you can show a business gets something more, or uses
> more, how can you charge them more and not be discriminating? And how
> can you bar them from a product unless you can show a reason? Take a
> one man SOHO situation, compared with say, a large family. Who will
> use the most BW?
>
> BTW I guess this may apply to many ISPs as well as pipex, I just
> haven't looked.
>
> Malcolm
>
> --
>
> ...malcolm
>
> Malcolm Reeves BSc CEng MIEE MIRSE, Full Circuit Ltd, Chippenham, UK
> ((E-Mail Removed), (E-Mail Removed) or (E-Mail Removed)).
> Design Service for Analogue/Digital H/W & S/W Railway Signalling and
Power
> electronics. More details plus freeware, Win95/98 DUN and Pspice tips,
see:
>
> http://www.fullcircuit.com or http://www.fullcircuit.co.uk
>
> NEW - Desktop ToDo/Reminder program (free)

On 8 Sep 2003 17:18, "s7uar7" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

>It's my understanding that the business users effectively subsidise
>the service for the home users. The ISPs and BT need to pay for the
>infrastructure in order to cope with peak demand i.e. 9-5 Mon-Fri,
>and it's the business customers that tend to use it then.

For many ISPs, I suspect "peak demand" to be from 1700 to 0100 rather
than 0900-1700, though the trend may have changed with the introduction
of "anytime" dial-up packages in recent years. The only "off peak" time
might now be 0200-0700 which is when a few ISPs have had scheduled slots
for maintenance, as this causes disruption to minimum number of users.

I don't know what proportion of PlusNet's users are "business" and
what proportion are "home" but take a look at the traffic on
<http://portal.plus.net/supportpages.html?D10diomB6dQ%3D>
and draw your own conclusions about 'peak' and 'off-peak'.

In article <(E-Mail Removed) >,
Peter Morgan - 0870 432 9631 <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
>For many ISPs, I suspect "peak demand" to be from 1700 to 0100 rather
>than 0900-1700, though the trend may have changed with the introduction

Now with Bulldog, you're probably safe in assuming peak = 9am-5pm as their
Primetime ADSL packages offer 512k during the day and more in the evening.
However they're more of a business-focussed ISP than most.

Zane.

On Mon, 08 Sep 2003 20:57:58 +0100, Peter Morgan - 0870 432 9631
<(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

>I don't know what proportion of PlusNet's users are "business" and
>what proportion are "home" but take a look at the traffic on
><http://portal.plus.net/supportpages.html?D10diomB6dQ%3D>
>and draw your own conclusions about 'peak' and 'off-peak'.

That's an interesting graph. I would expect personal use to be much
larger than business use myself (although you will also get personal
use during business hours, and on business lines, IMO).

I have been told that legally is ok to discriminate business/home but
not on the basis of colour/sex/etc. BUT, selling the same product for
2 different prices is misrepresentation so if a court would consider
the two products the same then pipex could be in trouble.

Looking around, other ISPs don't make a distinction. For example
Eclipse actually says on its pages that you can use the home products
for home or business. Pay more for the business products and you get
20:1 rather than 50:1 contention. That's fair enough, pay more get
more. Pay more get the same is what I object to.

Malcolm

--

....malcolm

Malcolm Reeves BSc CEng MIEE MIRSE, Full Circuit Ltd, Chippenham, UK
((E-Mail Removed), (E-Mail Removed) or (E-Mail Removed)).
Design Service for Analogue/Digital H/W & S/W Railway Signalling and Power
electronics. More details plus freeware, Win95/98 DUN and Pspice tips, see:

http://www.fullcircuit.com or http://www.fullcircuit.co.uk

NEW - Desktop ToDo/Reminder program (free)