Recent Traffic Shaping
Quote That Business Product review really is getting overdue, methinks.
It certainly is but this is something my colleagues in the Products team and I are working on currently. (no news yet though
)
Quote I don't see how it's reasonable to suggest that a tele-worker account in particular shouldn't meet residential standards as a minimum
All of our Business products meet Business standards as a minimum, as that is primarily what they are designed for and indeed used for but I understand your point. By Business standards I mean the higher priority they are given on our network.
Standard Business apps are prioritised on our network to ensure that our business customers receive a gold plated service for the primary intended use. They are not designed with usenet and P2P apps in mind, for the reasons outlined by Dave above although as you have experienced in the past, these should still provide a reasonable user experience. Refresh or not, I dont see this changing.
Quote Is there any perceivable difference in the ticket response time or quality of answer?
If you are referring to business support, then absolutely, there is a massive difference. Calls to the Business support team are generally answered within 30 seconds and tickets responded to within 4 hours. As for first time fix, again this is something which the CSC as a whole is particularly good at, and the Business support team excellent at. First time fix ratios are highlighted in the Customer sat results published each month to the Community site. However not every issue will or can be fixed on first touch and a wide variety of reasons govern that. I'll certainly look over your account history tomorrow and gain an understanding of your experiences.
From your original post, the comment which concerned me most was this,
Quote why have you now capped the business users in off peak time to level 3 for most recreational activites ?
I can state that we absolutely havent done that and if you can give me further examples of "recreational" activities which you feel are not performing as expected, I'll be more than happy to examine this further.
Quote One of your three main current business products is the Teleworker account, which you advertise as being suitable for people who work from home.
Absolutely, with the emphasis on work there.
A great many of those accounts are provided by employers for staff who need to work from home and many of those companies do not want those connections used for anything other than business use. One of the main selling points or attractions of our business products is our intelligent traffic management which ensures that VPN traffic, VOIP, HTTP (S) remote apps etc, function at line speed and are not and cannot be impacted by bandwidth hungry applications. If only occaisional work related usage is required or if residential usage is the main requirement then clearly a residential product would suit better.P2P and usenet will work on our Business products but we will not get to the point where these apps impact the product design and the experience of our business customers. I accept that 25KB/s with 4 connections open isnt a great experience. What do you acheive with more connections opened or is that feasible for you?
Interesting thoughts re the self-employed home worker, especially as I am one. Many of us have to mix domestic and business use of our facilities and services and sometimes the T's&C's are unclear on whether it's allowed or not. Not to mention the service levels required.... 
(which obviously affects the price)
Not sure how big the market is, but hey that's what market research and product positioning is for!
My new ISP have specific T's & C's regarding the use of the package I chose by exactly such people. It was a factor in moving, though as noted elsewhere the main reason was ADSL2+. If you're a proper dedicated commercial location then you have to use a different package and if you're purely domestic you have other options.
(which obviously affects the price)Not sure how big the market is, but hey that's what market research and product positioning is for!
My new ISP have specific T's & C's regarding the use of the package I chose by exactly such people. It was a factor in moving, though as noted elsewhere the main reason was ADSL2+. If you're a proper dedicated commercial location then you have to use a different package and if you're purely domestic you have other options.
I think I need to clarify one or two things here
P2P and Usenet will work on our Business products, all of them, as will all standard applications. Traffic management is not as tight on this product range as it is on the resi product set and there are no set usage limits.
In your case Simon, I take it you have seen better speeds whilst using Usenet on your current product?
I need to emphasise that nothing has changed in terms of traffic management to cause any degradation of usenet or P2P speeds on our side.
There should be no difficulty mixing Business use and residential use on any of our Business products as traffic receives a higher prioritisation than residential products, one of the reasons for the higher cost. P2P and Usenet will still recieve a lower priority, just as it does across our entire product range, but will and should still work, at an acceptable speed especially outside peak hours.
I suspect a seperate issue is causing your problem Simon. To see a high degree of latency and dropped packets when using usent would mean that we would have to experience a large number of gold drops and potentially silver drops to result in this effect. We arent and as such I believe something else is at play here.
I have checked your line stats and profile and can see no issues there or on our side.
Do you see latency when browsing or using any other protocols?
As an indication, we do have a couple of customers who are Open source software developers and these guys manage to rack up a fair amount of P2P usage, distributing that software as part of their daily work. They are not experiencing issues right now nor have I seen any other reports of similar difficulties across the product set.
P2P and Usenet will work on our Business products, all of them, as will all standard applications. Traffic management is not as tight on this product range as it is on the resi product set and there are no set usage limits.
In your case Simon, I take it you have seen better speeds whilst using Usenet on your current product?
I need to emphasise that nothing has changed in terms of traffic management to cause any degradation of usenet or P2P speeds on our side.
There should be no difficulty mixing Business use and residential use on any of our Business products as traffic receives a higher prioritisation than residential products, one of the reasons for the higher cost. P2P and Usenet will still recieve a lower priority, just as it does across our entire product range, but will and should still work, at an acceptable speed especially outside peak hours.
Quote there are so many dropped packets & complete stops
I suspect a seperate issue is causing your problem Simon. To see a high degree of latency and dropped packets when using usent would mean that we would have to experience a large number of gold drops and potentially silver drops to result in this effect. We arent and as such I believe something else is at play here.
I have checked your line stats and profile and can see no issues there or on our side.
Do you see latency when browsing or using any other protocols?
As an indication, we do have a couple of customers who are Open source software developers and these guys manage to rack up a fair amount of P2P usage, distributing that software as part of their daily work. They are not experiencing issues right now nor have I seen any other reports of similar difficulties across the product set.