Who supplies what?

How many broadband suppliers are there? It seems that most are resellers.

When choosing a provider how does one find out where the supply is coming
from?

Who do Zen resell or have they got their own 'feed'?

Cheers,

Rick

On 29-Jun-2007, "R D S" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

> How many broadband suppliers are there? It seems that most are resellers.
>
> When choosing a provider how does one find out where the supply is coming
> from?
>
> Who do Zen resell or have they got their own 'feed'?

There are ISP's and virtual ISP's.

Vitual ISP's, as you point out, are resellers, they
take their cut, and often contract the ISP they
resell to provide (often shiddy) support.

Other (major) ISP's buy in a high bandwidth
connection into LINX the London Internet Exchange.
https://www.linx.net/
Go to members, where under T you find
Tiscali, under P Pipex and PlusNet, under
Z you find Zen, and so on.

This is no guide to how good or reliable the
ISP is, they are generally run by bean counters,
whose priority is advertising to get new customers,
expanding their empires, and boosting their
performance related pay and pensions.
So they aren't too inclined to buy in adequate
bandwith, which hits the bottom line, as does
customer service, often they charge an arm
and a leg for it. Having to fund the call
centre costs money.
Anyway most of the suckers are locked into a
contract, and voting with their feet isn't an
option. Escaping the clutches of an ISP is a
major hassle, apart from getting your direct debit
cancelled without threats from the ISP if you
terminate it.

In turn ISP's are dependent on the local
loop, and it's well documented here how reluctant
they are to get Openreach to fix things, so if
your street cable is immediate post war, in a
waterfilled duct, the more often you have to
call their helpline the more profit they generate.

It's a bit like cars, cut throat pricing, but try
buying spares retail, another rip-off.

(E-Mail Removed) wrote:
> On 29-Jun-2007, "R D S" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
>
>> How many broadband suppliers are there? It seems that most are resellers.
>>
>> When choosing a provider how does one find out where the supply is coming
>> from?
>>
>> Who do Zen resell or have they got their own 'feed'?
>
> There are ISP's and virtual ISP's.
>
> Vitual ISP's, as you point out, are resellers, they
> take their cut, and often contract the ISP they
> resell to provide (often shiddy) support.
>
> Other (major) ISP's buy in a high bandwidth
> connection into LINX the London Internet Exchange.
> https://www.linx.net/
> Go to members, where under T you find
> Tiscali, under P Pipex and PlusNet, under
> Z you find Zen, and so on.

<rant about ISPs sniped>

Zen are a "real ISP" with their own network and, as ato_zee says, their
own high bandwidth connection. IMHO, they do *not* fit the rant posted
by ato_zee.

In my view, Zen have ample bandwidth, provide a reliable service, have
good customer support and are *not* reluctant to "get Openreach to fix
things". It is true that they are not the cheapest but, IMHO, you get
what you pay for.

HTH


--
Old Codger
e-mail use reply to field

What matters in politics is not what happens, but what you can make
people believe has happened. [Janet Daley 27/8/2003]

R D S wrote:

> How many broadband suppliers are there? It seems that most are resellers.

Why do you care?

> When choosing a provider how does one find out where the supply is coming
> from?

It Depends. One way is to look at the end of your broadband username, for
example usernames ending in '.broadband' are Griffin [griffin.com]
broadband usernames. If the domain part of your username is fully qualified
[eg business-dsl.co.uk], try doing a whois on it. Another way is to do
a 'whois' on your IP address. You can also do a whois on the first few hops
of a traceroute out onto the internet. None of these methods are foolproof,
however. You could try ringing support and just asking them.

--
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"alexd" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed)...
>R D S wrote:
>
>> How many broadband suppliers are there? It seems that most are resellers.
>
> Why do you care?
>

Because I am fucked if I will ever give Tiscali another penny of my money,
directly or indirectly.

On 29-Jun-2007, Old Codger <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

> Zen are a "real ISP" with their own network and, as ato_zee says, their
> own high bandwidth connection. IMHO, they do *not* fit the rant posted
> by ato_zee.

I did not imply that Zen is an inferior ISP, I just pointed out
that Tiscali, PlusNet and Zen, are to be found in the LINX
member list under their respective alphabet letters.
As we know from posts here, how different the is service
from each of them, even if all, or part of their connectivity
is through LINX.

My rant is to point out some facts of life, like with
a virtually captive customer base, many ISP's don't
like spending money, and can get administrativly
top heavy, with little if any technical understanding
in customer support, only prepared scripts.

R D S wrote:

>
> "alexd" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote

>> Why do you care?

> Because I am fucked if I will ever give Tiscali another penny of my money,
> directly or indirectly.

Fair enough :-)

--
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