discriminatory pricing

[#1]

Quote from: itsme

End Uses should pay what it cost to supply the service.

Be careful for what you wish for.....

[#2]

Quote from: Oldjim

It wouldn't be fairer to me as I would be subsidising the customers in Market 1 and 2 exchanges

Maybe so Jim - but by how much? I feel sure that somewhere on the PN site they say that 80% can get 20Mb - and that will almost certainly be the market 3 exchanges where prices are less... You also say that PN pay more for Market 1 and 2 - but is it REALLY £5 a month.
My exchange now has 4 companies using LLU and they all provide 20Mb speeds.  Those same companies no doubt also pay the higher price but actually offer cheaper service.Sadly maybe there is my answer.

[#3]

Quote from: fourfourdevon

If you want to enjoy the benefits of Market 3, I suggest you move to location with Market 3.

Stupid answer

[#4]

Quote from: bewick

Maybe so Jim - but by how much? I feel sure that somewhere on the PN site they say that 80% can get 20Mb - and that will almost certainly be the market 3 exchanges where prices are less... You also say that PN pay more for Market 1 and 2 - but is it REALLY £5 a month. My exchange now has 4 companies using LLU and they all provide 20Mb speeds.  Those same companies no doubt also pay the higher price but actually offer cheaper service.Sadly maybe there is my answer.

Hi there,
Many market 2 exchanges have 20Mb speeds.
We pay less in Market 3 areas because there is greater competition. If we could charge less in 1 and 2 exchanges that would dissuade LLU providers from investing in those areas (in short, prices for BT Wholesale services are kept higher to encourage LLU investment).
The LLU companies (the ones providing higher speeds in areas where BT haven't upgraded to 20Mb) don't pay the same price as us, because they don't buy services from BT Wholesale. They put their own equipment in the exchange, so can make their own prices.
I can understand the frustration if you live in an area which is never going to be market 3 (I live in a market 1 area!) but I don't feel us charging more in market 3 areas would alleviate that.

[#5]

I'm in a Market 2 which will never be a Market 3.  It's better than Market 1 however.  Market 3 is so that BT can compete against LLU providers with the hope that with lots of competition on M3 areas, LLU's will hit M2 areas to obtain profits where BT cannot compete with them on price (due to being Market 2), when enough LLU providers do that an M2 should hit M3 leading to lower prices.
Not really working out like that though, M1 will *never* have competition, they are lucky if they get BT, so in effect M1's are subsidizing M3's with higher costs so that BT can compete in M3 areas.  M2's may end up with 2 or 3 LLU providers but then stall as the exchange hits saturation, there are not enough people in the town to justify another LLU providers investing in the exchange.
I do think though that M1's should have the same discount as M3, there is no chance of competition on an exchange that may serve only 500 people so having artificially high prices to drive competition is counter-productive and will never work.

[#6]

Spot on David w.
I note that some posters on here  take the very selfish view that they shouldn't subsidise the minority. (Even a moderator) Seems to me that the minority are subsidising the majority!
Someone else said be careful what you wish for. Quite right. If I paid only for the local services I actually use then a lot of other  people would have to pay extra to educate their kids, get medical treatment, bins emptied and so on and so on.
My exchange already has 4 providers with LLU but would need to double in size to reach the 10000 criteria. That ain't going to happen and BT have no plans to upgrade the exchange. Even if they did I would still wouldn't get a discount.. Not from PN anyway.

[#7]

Quote from: bewick

My exchange already has 4 providers with LLU but would need to double in size to reach the 10000 criteria.

That isn't necessarily the case. The Ofcom consultation which closed on Friday proposes changing the Market area definitions as follows (my highlighting):
[quote=http://stakeholders.ofcom.org.uk/consultations/wholesale-broadband-markets/summary]
    * The Hull area: (0.7% of UK premises);
    * Market 1: exchanges where only BT is present (11.7% of premises);
    * Market 2: exchanges where two POs are present or forecast and exchanges where three POs are present or forecast but where BTs share is greater than or equal to 50 per cent (10.0% of premises); and
    * Market 3: exchanges where four or more POs are present or forecast and exchanges where three POs are present or forecast but where BTs share is less than 50 per cent (77.6% of premises).
Introducing market share in place of number of premises (and for 3 POs) is a significant improvement for consumers.
The new consultation results in 349 exchanges changing from Market 1 or 2 to Market 3. These are listed in Appendix 4 to Annex 5 of the full document (PDF).

[#8]

Result! We've moved to Market 3.
Now when is this likely to become effective?

[#9]

Ofcom say they expect to publish their conclusions by the end of 2010. I'm not sure if that means any changes take immediate effect.
I didn't get any clues on that from the summary of the previous classification document (May 2008).

[#10]

Quote from: bewick

Quote from: fourfourdevon If you want to enjoy the benefits of Market 3, I suggest you move to location with Market 3. Stupid answer

Why is it?  If you wanted to live in a place that provided all the benefits of London, then you would have to move to London, if you wanted to live in a place that provided all the benefits or rural living, then you would have to move to a rural location.  How and why should access to Market 3 exchanges be any different?  Its like residents that live close to football grounds objecting to Saturday parking and traffic problems.  Move elsewhere.

[#11]

thanks spraxyt .
My exchange will also be moving to market 3 which is good for me, eventually, but still doesn't eliminate the unfairness.
I for one would not object to paying somewhere between what I now pay and what I will be paying for mkt 3 to ensure that ALL get the same pricing.
Maybe I have an overdeveloped sense of fairness!!

[#12]

Fairness! So as you seem to get a reasonable speed do you believe that you should pay more than say me that only get 1750?

[#13]

Quote from: fourfourdevon

]Why is it?  If you wanted to live in a place that provided all the benefits of London, then you would have to move to London, if you wanted to live in a place that provided all the benefits or rural living, then you would have to move to a rural location.  How and why should access to Market 3 exchanges be any different?  Its like residents that live close to football grounds objecting to Saturday parking and traffic problems.  Move elsewhere.

Because people in Market 1 / 2 areas love where they live?  Because their family and friends live in the area?  Enjoyment of low crime and pollution?  People in rural areas (Market 1) already have it tough.  I live in Cornwall which is pretty rural, but we have a *lot* of coastline so among the most expensive for water rates, and are a county which is classed by the EU as "in poverty", we're a tourist area so we get people from all over the world/county visiting, lots of people visit Newquay for the surfing and the lovely clean water paid for by the Cornish resident.  We'd love the rest of the country to pay for our water bills so they can come and enjoy the lovely summers, but they don't.  We also have people who own a 2nd home and classify it as a business property to avoid taxation and such.
As a mostly rural area we mostly get Market 1/2 exchanges, we rely mostly on cars to get anywhere so pay through the nose for petrol, high water, gas, electricity prices etc. The only good point is the up and coming FTTH/FTTC in all of Cornwall which means 50% of the population will be on 100Mb speeds, imagine that, a Market 1 exchange running at 100Mb?  How much extra will that cost them?
/edit - HPSauce, how do you find out if you'll switch to M3 based on market share?  I've no idea what % of my exchange is LLU but do have 3 providers.

[#14]

Quote from: spraxyt

The new consultation results in 349 exchanges changing from Market 1 or 2 to Market 3. These are listed in Appendix 4 to Annex 5 of the full document (PDF).

if you don't know your exchange code use the exchange checker http://usertools.plus.net/exchanges/ to find it. Then look that up in the list referred to in the quote.

[#15]

Quote from: fourfourdevon

Quote from: bewick Quote from: fourfourdevon If you want to enjoy the benefits of Market 3, I suggest you move to location with Market 3. Stupid answer Why is it?  If you wanted to live in a place that provided all the benefits of London, then you would have to move to London, if you wanted to live in a place that provided all the benefits or rural living, then you would have to move to a rural location.  How and why should access to Market 3 exchanges be any different?  Its like residents that live close to football grounds objecting to Saturday parking and traffic problems.  Move elsewhere.

I live in the oil capital of europe so they claim populations around 250k but theres not one market 3 exchange here lol