GRcade

I can understand the issue in Canada because of our population density but I can't understand why the US, which has a much larger population has the same issues with ISP's

Rightey wrote:I can understand the issue in Canada because of our population density but I can't understand why the US, which has a much larger population has the same issues with ISP's

Because it's still bloody massive in comparison to the UK.

Its just not feasable for new companies to be competitive on a large scale.

Imagine trying to set up a new ISP right now in the US. Where would you even start?

It'd be like trying to be an ISP for the whole of Europe. You'd have to have staff set up in every state. That kind of thing isnt an issue in small countries. And even if you just start off in one and try to build it out, it would take forever for you to be able to expand into every state.

That's why the big companies have such a monopoly over there.

Fade wrote:

Rightey wrote:I can understand the issue in Canada because of our population density but I can't understand why the US, which has a much larger population has the same issues with ISP's

Because it's still bloody massive in comparison to the UK.

Its just not feasable for new companies to be competitive on a large scale.

Imagine trying to set up a new ISP right now in the US. Where would you even start?

It'd be like trying to be an ISP for the whole of Europe. You'd have to have staff set up in every state. That kind of thing isnt an issue in small countries. And even if you just start off in one and try to build it out, it would take forever for you to be able to expand into every state.

That's why the big companies have such a monopoly over there.

We have smaller ISP's here, they fit one of two categories, either they start off by buying bandwidth from the major guys and then re-selling it at a better rate to the consumer or they are local, so only operate in one province. The problem where I am in Ontario is that the national carriers are the "local" guys here, so unlike other provinces there is no real alternative.

Setting up an ISP isn't all that hard, I had some friends do it in university, and they were just two guys. On site service is provided by the company that you get your bandwidth from so all you need to do is have someone working phone lines and taking care of basic internet issues.

But then that's still funding and benefiting the major guys no?

Yes it is, but to a lesser extent. However it also shows how cheap they are.

I've been with my ISP since around 2000 and they simply will not just reduce the cost of my service to price match a competitor, who is renting bandwidth from them! It's not like I'm asking for the wholesale discount, just what the competitor is offering on their website!

Instead of giving you a lower price they try to just say, well for just $10 MORE we'll give you some more bandwidth or a higher download speed, when normally this would cost you $20 more!

It's beautifully awful. 2 weeks without internet to discover I'm stuck with ADSL, in 2016. Any internet is better than no internet, but god damn this is horrible after last year having 100Mb/s line all to myself at home.

US broadband/TV providers are horrendous. When you think some of them charge an additional fee just to access the WiFi capabilities of the router - which is also hit with a rental fee - you realise for all the complaining we don't have it too bad. But of course the likes of Sky claw it back by overcharging us massively for things like sports coverage.

EDIT: Maybe not, BT are a bunch of strawberry floating clowns.

They sell us fibre months ago and say that we're going to have fibre, BT engineer turns up and there's no fibre to the cabinet. Crazy.

BT have increased their base Fibre package to "up to 52mb" for all new and existing customers. You apparently have to phone them up and agree to an additional 12 months though.

That leaves Sky trailing BT and Virgin Media, though I expect they'll now follow shortly.

KK wrote:BT have increased their base Fibre package to "up to 52mb" for all new and existing customers. You apparently have to phone them up and agree to an additional 12 months though...

Hmmn... I'm on the BT Infinity 2 package which is something like "up to 70Mb" and it costs quite a bit more than that Infinity 1 package, so I may downgrade to it if the speed is not much different now.

...yeah, just checked and Infinity Unlimited 1 (up to 52 Mb) is £20 while Infinity Unlimited 2 (up to 76 Mb) is £30. Will probably downgrade considering the lower package is ten quid less.

The new SkyQ router is now available to all customers...for a fee. I believe it's £20.

Qikz wrote:

It's beautifully awful. 2 weeks without internet to discover I'm stuck with ADSL, in 2016. Any internet is better than no internet, but god damn this is horrible after last year having 100Mb/s line all to myself at home.

We have the same problem at work, only ADSL. Even almost got Virgin one time because they insisted they could connect to the building... Only on install day to find out it can't be done

You should try the smaller ISPs, not BT. We were on BT getting 2MB down roughly, while the connection died completely during rain. Now I've moved us to a small ISP that deals with small business we are at about 3MB now with no noticeable drops.

Even though they use the same infrastructure, using an ISP with a smaller username means you effectively aren't sharing with as many people. Obviously BT offers the worse speeds because it's most people's go to place.

Not really true that. If you get on bts fttc it's plenty fast. Yeah not cable fast but I get 60 Meg no problems.

Good news if your connection is below 3.5Mbps, just get some wet string!

Engineers at a small British internet service provider have successfully made a broadband connection work over 2m (6ft 7in) of wet string.

The connection reached speeds of 3.5Mbps (megabits per second), according to the Andrews and Arnold engineer who conducted the experiment.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-42338067