Euro watchdog: Telcos ARE strangling VoIP and P2P traffic EU telecoms companies are commonly using 'traffic management' practices to block Voice over IP (VoIP) traffic and peer-to-peer (P2P) file-sharing activity online, an EU regulator has said. The Body of European Regulators of Electronic Communications (BEREC) said it had established the "common" use of the practices as part of …
Sorry to hear that, Lars. I was watching iPlayer HD for an hour last night at 8pm - I had a couple of seconds hiatus in the first minute and then no problems. FWIW I'm in the country on the end of an ADSL2+ (nominally 8Mb) link run by Nildram (then Pipex, then Tiscali, now TalkTalk).
I get upto 8Mbs at night 1am until around 9.15am then it drops, but I think that is down to Orange it BT.
I'm a cheapskate, though I do get unlimited broadband for 4.99 a month. I suppose its a way to try and get me to spend more.
Surprisingly this did not happen until BT upgraded the exchanges to fibre last year.
I sometimes wonder if BT secretly save all their bandwidth for their own customers.
Seems to work OK for me at any time. There again, I'm on cable, and I'm on the next tier up from the lowest cost Internet Virgin Media offering. I'm guessing for many people outside cable areas you'll also be dependant upon ADSL speeds and FTTC upgrades, regardless of whether you've gone for the cheapest ISP service or something offering better capacity and speed.
Many of the mobile phone contracts you see advertised are "no VoIP" and/or "no tethering" in the not-very-small print. This may or may not be fair; it allows the service provider to charge separately - charge extra - for those options, or, to look at it another way, to provide cheap Internet data access just to use on your phone. Anyway, these conditions are there in print when you sign up.
So, I have a 2G PAYG phone - original Samsung Galaxy Tab - and Three's neat little 3G internet wi-fi hub at a pretty good monthly price, but usage capped at 15 GB per month - more than contracts on sale now, I think, ha ha! VoIP allowed, too! AFAIK. I haven't used it.
"Fair use" and capping on "unlimited" service is cheating.
No such problems with my BE internet account. It's not the cheapest but it's a consistent 18 mbps download no matter what protocols I'm using or what time of day it is. The consumer are victims of ISP price wars. If they sell it cheap, they have to cut corners, it's the same way with anything really.
Only tangiently-related, but I've set myself a short-term goal of replacing my Virgin "triple-play" broadband, phone and TV with just the broadband as I've realised £40 will get me a VOIP box to connect my existing phone to, and Freesat basically gives me all the channels I want to watch on TV.
I guess if it were possible to do this on DSL and not have to pay a line rental for a phone you don't use much more people would do it, considering how easy it all is.
I would say the writing is on the wall for "triple play" long-term, thank god. Perhaps Virgin will stop trying to sell me a Blackberry by then.
A mobile will do that job - and some providers like Sipgate do offer 999/112.
I only use my BT line (on Primus Line Rental Saver) as a conduit for my ADSL, for the phone I use mobile or VoIP. But I have a phone plugged in for 999 use, and an answerphone telling telemarketers to call my 0871 number that goes to my VoIP - which they almost never do. (Genuine callers will know my 01 number.)
The issue is not so much if the call will get through but what happens when it does. With a landline call to 999 the address is displayed on the emergency operator's screen before they've even answered the call. If you're using SIP over broadband, will your provider know where you are?
It's probably rare, but there are cases in the news where ambulances are sent out to homes and save lives, not because of what the caller said, just because of the automatic address thing and what the operator heard.
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