Update to Monthly Usage Quotas

Overview

For many years A&A has resisted offering "Unlimited" plans. Our explanation for this unusual approach has always been themed in a way that aims to be "technically correct"; one can not download an elephant and one can not download more than the capacity of the connection multiplied by time. Therefore, strictly, "unlimited" is false.

We've often resorted to analogy to bolster our explanations; "an all you-can-eat buffet actually does run out eventually", for example.

In tandem with this, we believe we have always offered usefully and appropriately high inclusive usage limits, such that many customers (in their own words) often describe them as "effectively unlimited for me". What they mean by this is that the quota so massively exceeds their actual usage, that the limit is not something they must worry about, or indeed think about at all, ever.

This allergy to presenting something not entirely correct has, definitely, had a consequence for A&A in terms of potential customers. We are definitely aware that potential customers have chosen an alternative provider because of quota anxiety.

The business has changed and developed, and real world usage has started to plateau. We have also deployed a large number of our new FireBrick FB9000 as LNSs and BGP routers, and begun offering higher bandwidth services, up to a gigabit, and monitored average usage over a sensible period of time. We are confident we have ample network capacity.

As a result, we feel that now is the time to start to offer packages that other ISPs would probably describe as "unlimited", but which we would describe as "without a usage cap".

Changes this month

During August anyone on:

• Home::1 10T
• SoHo::1 20T
• Office::1 20T

will have their package changed, with no increase in cost. Our website and order pages will be updated over the coming days too.

"Lite" Tariff

Anyone on

• Home::1 1TB
• SoHo::1 2TB

will have their package name changed to "Home::1 Lite" or "SoHo::1 Lite". The price will stay the same, and the inclusive usage will remain unchanged. This package is intended for people who want the high quality, low latency Internet connection A&A provides but do not need high usage, and at the slightly more budget-friendly price point.

Final words

We hope customers are pleased with these changes, though we do recognise that in a majority of cases they will have no effect at all!

We want to reassure everyone that this change has been extremely carefully thought through, and the assurances given over many years about being able to maintain quality of service (in terms of loss and latency) still stand. We are confident that we will still be able to offer low latency, high quality, Internet connections.