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Annex M pricing

ianfretwell
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Annex M pricing

Hi,
I'm just interested in knowing other people's feelings about the Annex M pricing  - i.e. the additional £10/month.    Is it just me that thinks it's excessive given I'm only paying just over that for the service in the first place?
Of course I'd dearly love to have fibre but BT have decided that my particular exchange isn't worth the effort (Silkstone)  -  despite the fact that it's ringed by fully enable exchanges in what you might describe as less affluent areas (BT obviously don't take things like that into account it appears)...
So although I get a (pretty good by ADSL2+ standards) solid 16 Down / 1 Up connection it could obviously be a whole lot better.
Disgruntled rant over I suppose!!
Thanks for reading (And maybe commenting)
14 REPLIES 14
dvorak
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Re: Annex M pricing

BT wholesale charge for it and PN pass on that cost, they don't have control over it.
Can't find the any recent wholesale price by pretty sure it started at 7+vat in 2010 when it was launched..
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Mayfly
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Re: Annex M pricing

Exactly what is it and does is benefit a customer please?
Anonymous
Not applicable

Re: Annex M pricing

Faster upload speed than uncapped ADSL2.
[quote=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ITU_G.992.5_Annex_M]Annex M is an optional specification in ITU-T recommendations G.992.3 (ADSL2) and G.992.5 (ADSL2+), also referred to as ADSL2 M and ADSL2+ M. This specification extends the capability of commonly deployed Annex A by more than doubling the number of upstream bits. The data rates can be as high as 12 or 24 Mbit/s downstream and 3 Mbit/s upstream depending on the distance from the DSLAM to the customer's premises.
This is an easier to understand version - Annex M –What’s it all about ?
This shows the UPLOAD speeds available on various Plusnet connection types for BUSINESS products - Plusnet : upload speeds
Wink
dvorak
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Re: Annex M pricing

If you've got a good enough line it gives you extra upload, in theory up to 2.5mb - but the usual factors come into play.

EDIT - beaten by purleigh's much more useful answer Smiley
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ianfretwell
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Re: Annex M pricing

It'd be nice to have an official answer from PlusNet though wouldn't you all agree ?  It's not as if anything is actually done to change the line physically, so it must only be a software type change surely ?
Townman
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Re: Annex M pricing

Ian,
You appear to have a "cost to do" based rather than "value derived from" based approach to pricing.
Remember that broadband charges to ISPs have a bandwidth component, faster upload means more bandwidth utilised by the subscriber.
I guess you have to ask yourself just how much value do you place on a faster US synch rate?

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Anonymous
Not applicable

Re: Annex M pricing

Quote from: ianfretwell
It'd be nice to have an official answer from PlusNet though wouldn't you all agree ?

What do you expect Plusnet to say,  because Plusnet are resellers of BT broadband connections, and as with all the available broadband add-ons they pretty much just pass on the cost that BT charge them.  These prices are about the same with whatever ISP you choose.
Your question should perhaps be rephrased as -
    "how are BT allowed to get way with charging so much for minor technical enhancements".
or
    "why do BT restrict the full potential our broadband connections and then charge considerable extra money for removing the restrictions"
Embarrassed
Townman
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Re: Annex M pricing

Purleigh,
It depends upon how you view this - a technical facility or an enhanced ability to do something of value?
This appears to be priced along the lines of the more ability you have / can consume then the more you pay for it.  Frankly I'd like to see the whole of the BB space priced like this.  The faster you can go the more you pay... or looking at it from the other end, the slower the service BTOR delivers, the less you have to pay for it.
Attacking BTOR's revenues might lead to improvements in rural areas.

Kevin

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Anonymous
Not applicable

Re: Annex M pricing

Don't get me started on "Market 1" pricing in rural areas !   Angry
I do agree that pricing would be fairer if the amount BT charged was correlated to the speed that the customer actually received.
That would be a great incentive for BT to upgrade the rural exchanges to something better than "up to 8Mb" 20CN connection
However, as the original question of this topic is really about why are the small improvements made possible with "Annex M" or "Max Premium" so expensive compared to the price of the standard service.  
For example you might have Plusnet "Essentials Broadband & phone" at £5.99 per month (assuming Market 2/3 and on 21CN ADSL2), but to add "Annex M" to provide an not guaranteed "up to 2.5Mb upload" improvement costs an ADDITIONAL £10,  which is a grossly disproportional price compared to the basic product.


Although it could be worse, being charged more money for less performance on the SAME broadband product -

e.g. Plusnet "Essentials Broadband WITHOUT phone" at  £15.49 (on "Market 1" 20CN ADSL), then add £7.83 for "Max Premium" for the not guaranteed "up to 0.8Mb upload" speed.
Suddenly 21CN with "Annex M" doesn't seem so bad  Undecided
  "Market 2/3" 21CN ADSL2 (2.5Mb upload/18Mb download) with phone at £15.99 for 10GB per month.
compared to
  "Market 1" 20CN ADSL1 (0.8Mb upload/7.15Mb download) without phone at £23.32 for 10GB per month.

However both these cases are still very expensive compared to the basic "Essentials" product at £5.99 per month.
Crazy
jim:green factual errors in post corrected at the request of the poster mod:end
jelv
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Re: Annex M pricing

What hasn't been highlighted in this topic is that Annex M ALWAYS reduces the download speed.
jelv (a.k.a Spoon Whittler)
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TORPC
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Re: Annex M pricing

@jelv
can you elaborate a bit more please
Jaggies
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Re: Annex M pricing

@ TORPC
You effectively have the same total amount of bandwidth on the line, but on Annex M there is more bandwidth allocated to upstream, so it uses some of the downstream instead.
Roughly:
Total bandwidth
|-----------------------------------------------------------------|
Annex A
Upstream        Downstream
|-------------| |-------------------------------------------------|
Annex M
Upstream                  Downstream
|------------------------| |--------------------------------------|

Not to scale, but you get the idea.
TORPC
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Re: Annex M pricing

Cheers Jaggies Smiley
eblakeborough
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Re: Annex M pricing

Quote from: ianfretwell
It'd be nice to have an official answer from PlusNet though wouldn't you all agree ?  It's not as if anything is actually done to change the line physically, so it must only be a software type change surely ?

The second post in here pretty much sums up the answer to this - we pass on the charge we get charged to you for it.