ozzy

I'm still working on a BIG report for my boss highlight things we needing to look at with our IT systems.

Poking around, I found out our current running costs for a 256Kb leased line connection through Demon. Needless to say I almost spat my coffee all over my nice new flat-panel.

Can anyone give me an idea of what sort of bandwidth they have at work, where you are in the country (we have offices in Edinburgh and Brighton), what sort of money you're paying, who the supplier is and what sort of service you've had over the past 12 months.

Obviuosly, if you don't want to publish costs then please e-mail me per my profile.

Thanks,

Stefan

Luke

Talk to PIPEX.. they seem to be good.

Figment

512Kb ADSL via Pipex (for now) £60.00ish per month including basic router.

ozzy

I don't think I want to compare ADSL. On price I know it is way much cheaper (I could have 10 of those lines for the cost of ours ), but it simply can't provide the level of service we require (although I'm prepared to be corrected).

What I'm considering is non-contention based services for the tie being.

What I would be very interested in is 256Kb, 512Kb, 1Mb and even 2Mb+ costs.

Stefan

Luke

Not very technical..but a mate works for a smallish company that use pipex 2mb business and they are well happy with them.. Ask them..maybe they can help.

Chris L

Stefan

I wouldn't discount ADSL - we have a lot of customers (we're talking serious big multi national companies) using DSL connections for office connections. The cost/risk ratio is such that they are prepared to do this.

A couple of things to consider - if you don't want to use ADSL, consider SDSL - Symetric DSL which is aimed more at the business end of the market. More expensive than ADSL.

The price of a DSL line compared to that of a leased line is so low that you could afford to have a second line in and use it as back up. Something you wouldn't consider doing with a leased line because of the cost. It would also mean that you could have a much larger connection for less money. This will keep your users happy.

The downside is that you will probably find that if you did opt for two DSL circuits they would probably terminate at the same exchange - so technically a single point of failure. But if you haven't got a back up at the moment with your leased line, then I would certainly think it is worth considering.

I work for Equant (part of France Telecom) and a large part of our business is providing these types of connections. We have introduced DSL connection simply to meet customer demand. I would think very seriously about using it.

Chris

beemerboy

you can get sdsl on 1:1 contention for about 5.5k a year with 1.5k setup
or a 2meg leased line for 7k ish, which i what we pay.

BB

ozzy

makes you wonder why we've been paying 7K for 256Kb

and the "well you're in Scotland" excuse won't wear when I have a go at our Demon account manager tomorrow. Although he's probably retired to Spain by now

Stefan

ozzy

I assume, like ADSL, SDSL has a limited bandwidth for upstream traffic?

Stefan

ozzy

Jeezus, Pipex do a 45Mbps leased line for £34K per month

Now, what business justification can I think of for that one

Stefan

Chris L

Stefan

No SDSL is symetric - ie same upload and download speed (as opposed to ADSL - asymetric with different up and download speeds)

Chris

ozzy

Thanks Willie.

Not sure about voice as we use another carrier, so would need to look at costs for this.

I'll be expecting a rather large discount from Demon after the amount we've been paying over the last couple of years. And if I get hold on an Account Manager I'm likely to throttle him.

Stefan

WillieF

just ordered a 155Mb circuit for a customer.... However if you don't need that much 10Mb costs you about £22k per year...

ozzy

So, does your company resell Demon products then?

Stefan

ozzy

Well had a very interesting conversation with our account manager @ Easynet (they handle our Brighton office and multiple sites for our sister company).

Anyway, apparently we are 33km from the nearest POP at good old BT charge £5,500 per annum for the privilege of using their circuit. So, no wonder we pay so fecking much

Stefan

Chris L

Also consider that ALL supplers will oversubscibe their (leased line)circuits, so you can still end up with contention issues (although not so serious). There are business options for ADSL and SDSL too. The combination of much higher bandwidth and a controlled level of contention (say 20:1) means that it is not always as big a problem as you might think.

You also need to consider the size and shape of the data you are transmitting. Is it time / business critical? How much is business related? What controls do you currently have in place? If you don't know the answers to these questions, find out first before making a decision.

Chris

[Edited by Chris L - 9/10/2003 6:50:12 PM]

WillieF

*cough* I could probably organise you a 2Mb on Demon for 8.5k!! So it would be a straight upgrade with no loss of current IP range. Sounds like you haven't had your account looked at by an acccount manager - do you have one?

If you are willing to give Thus - who own demon all your voice traffic then the above can be discounted...

The other option is SDSL but not yet in Livingston.

[Edited by WillieF - 9/10/2003 7:54:08 PM]