Voipfone launch £45 unlimited broadband package
Thursday 27 March 2008 15:25:40 by Andrew Ferguson
For people who have used VoIP (Voice over IP) on their broadband lines many will be aware of the annoyance that can arise if a large web page causes a spike in latency or swamps the connection causing the voice to stutter. Voipfone are trying to address this in two ways with their new £45 (ex. VAT) per month broadband product.
The product uses a Max Premium connection thus giving a maximum upstream connection rate of 832Kbps, enough for lots of VoIP calls, and a maximum downstream connection speed of 8Mbps. In addition to a faster than average upstream speed, they are using traffic management to prioritise VoIP traffic heading towards their servers.
The other basics of the broadband product are that it should be available on any exchange where BT Wholesale offers its Max product range. Additionally you get a static IP address, no lengthy contract and unlimited usage.
There is not much information about what exactly the unlimited usage means on the Voipfone website in terms of whether they reserve the right to control the priority of traffic types beyond VoIP traffic.
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So what do think is a fair price for an "unlimited" Premium service that comes with a statiic IP address and 832Kbps up, and that prioritises voip?
And please remember this is not a debate about the term unlimited!
no doubt the answer will be some retail consumer Limited Local Unbundled product ignoring the specific features of this one. You would have to put up with packet loss on dodgy Level3 peering with Be for example.
Might be OK if you're connected to a green blob
http://www.samknows.com/broadband/mapping/custommap.php?q=all_llu
If it's truly, /truly/ unlimited and if the backhaul is going to be maintained at decent levels then £45 sounds like a very good deal.
However the fact that they feel it neccessary to prioritise VoIP tells me that they are expecting backhaul congestion. That means it's probably £45 for whatever bandwidth you can manage to squeeze out of it which is not such a good deal for most people.
@herdwick:What packet loss? I play an online game that uses Level3 to route to the game cluster (it isn't a 'sharded' game) and I almost never have any problems.
Level3 are a large provider so they tend to get unfairly singled out in my experience. My Be connection has been exemplary. I've only had one outage that was due to Be's equipment failing.
Their routing and peering arrangements seem to be very good.
herdwick - That's a comment on L3 not Be. It'a almost impossible to avoid L3 in the UK, and yes they're crap. As long as you have other L3 providers it isn't really an issue.
Also, funny definition of LLU you have there, you might need to do a little basic research as to what the term stands for. (Does explain why you seem to keep getting certain issues wrong, mind you!)
quote"what do think is a fair price for an "unlimited" Premium service..."
Where does it say the "SERVICE" IS UNLIMITED HUH? It says it has UNLIMITED "USAGE" thats a difference to a UNLIMITED SERVICE. In fact the story makes it clear and i quote..."using traffic management to prioritise VoIP traffic". Nothing like unlimited at all, its just a service designed to prioritise VOIP and ignore everyone else (or traffic shape them)
quote"this is not a debate about the term unlimited!"
Why did you even bring the term up and use it in a incorrect manner relating to the service?
quote"no doubt the answer will be some retail consumer Limited Local Unbundled product"
Good old herdwick... BTs only cheer leader and the only faster, cheaper, better doomsday magnate LOL... Issues with level 3 peering you say..... Atleast the whole darn internet isnt throttled or capped to death by them, the same cant be said for your precious BT though
agree with andruec, whenever I hear the word prioritisation now I think something is up the fact they prioritising means they depriotising something else. So hardly a selling point.
45 quid for this??? I actually had to check we had not got to 1st April already