Knowledge of the Network is Power

An ISP planning to deliver the services of the future needs to understand and control its network.

by Alex Goldman ISP-Planet Managing Editor [August 15, 2005]

We asked Merrimack, N.H.-based bandwidth controller specialist Ellacoya to introduce us to some of their most interesting independent ISP customers, and were surprised to be immediately directed to the United Kingdom.

After the recent FCC decision handing the copper network back to the ILECs (not much of a surprise to those who saw Martin's hand in the FCC's Fiber Failure), the industry will have to look abroad to find the latest in DSL innovation.

Pricing DSL
We had already heard about Sheffield, UK-based DSL provider PlusNet from Jupiter Research analyst Ian Fogg in his blog post Brave Move from PlusNet, which talks about the company's plans to offer 8 Mbps DSL, and also notes that the company provides more information about its complex DSL pricing scheme than most other companies provide about their far less complex pricing tiers.

Alistair Wyse, technical director for PlusNet, explains that the various pricing levels of its residential product each offer a different user experience. An innovative pricing scheme, one we had not seen before, PlusNet calls "Pay As You Go". The scheme is relatively cheap, at £14.99 (approx. $26.75). However, users get only 1 GB of monthly transfer free and pay £1 (approx. $1.75) per additional GB used each month. The company declares the "contention ratio" of each pricing tier, which users can use to gauge the likelihood of experiencing bandwidth issues at peak usage times.

Innovative pricing is the first step in planning for the network of the future. "Within two years, people will be using their broadband connections for rich media, VoIP, and IPTV," says Wyse. He says the company has increased bandwidth from the 512 Kbps that was until recently the industry standard to 2 Mbps, and is already preparing to roll out 4 Mbps and 8 Mbps speeds.

"Then, with ADSL2+, we'll be able to roll out faster speeds. Then the problem is delivering a great quality of service."

He admits, however, that currently, customers on faster connections are not using the web very differently from those at slower broadband tiers, and he sees this pattern continuing in the immediate future. "Most customers on faster tiers will be getting what they get today, but they'll be getting it a little quicker."

The company does not yet provide rich media, but it is providing many other services. Its VoiceTalk service, SIP-based VoIP, on-net only, is free to all customers.

The company also offers webmail, anti-virus, anti-spam, and maintains two information sites for its customers: a user tools site and a portal.

The network
PlusNet has a reputation for providing more information to customers than many other ISPs, and that extends to information about the network infrastructure. The company has two backbone providers, Level 3 and British Telecom (BT, the ILEC). Its backbone relies on equipment from Juniper, Foundry, and Redback.

For usage-based pricing, it turned to Ellacoya. John Calcio, Ellacoya's vice president of business development, once served in the same role at Juniper, and Wyse is pleased at how well products from the two companies work together. "Obviously, the big thing for now is using Ellacoya in conjunction with the Juniper platform to deliver QoS, which enables us to differentiate our product. In order to move forward, we need to be intelligent about the traffic on our network. We need to be able to deliver QoS for real time applications."

In the future, Wyse expects his company's bandwidth demands to rise. He notes that BT's prices are based on bandwidth used. We ask whether this means that PlusNet's costs will rise, but he points out that in the long run, the law of supply and demand says supply should increase to meet a greater demand. He says that demand drives everything an ISP does, anyway.

When that happens, PlusNet will be ready. "We believe in being open with our customers. Ellacoya gives us the ability to differentiate our products and communicate to our customers what those differentiations are. We are constantly investigating new services for our customers, working on the deployment of applications like VoIP. Bandwidth suppliers in the UK are not yet ready for IPTV."

But when they are ready to deliver, PlusNet will be ready too.

— End