SWBell initially had a 16000 foot limit then reduced that to a 14000 foot limit. The latest policy is to try any viable circuit, however, to do this they have removed a guarantee on a minimum bandwidth (download speed). During the times of the above mentioned distance limits a download rate of 384 kb/s was guaranteed. They will now try hard to achieve at least 192 kb/s download, but make no promises on down or up rates anymore.
This new policy does have many benefits to their customers. Under the old system the only way to maintain a guarantee of 384 kb/s was to deny service to anyone who could not achieve this rate. This would occur before and after the service was installed. So people who could not maintain the minimum guaranteed rate were routinely denied service even if they wanted to try the best rate possible under the minimum. The distance limit was then changed 14000 feet in what may be seen as an effort to try and limit the number of disappointed customers. This 14000 foot limit clearly denied viable service to many potential customers, but there were fewer angry ones. However to deny service to a potential happy customer is not smart business for either.
The latest policy to remove both minimum distance and guaranteed minimum speed now allows the customer to try the service and decide for themselves if they are willing to use it at whatever rate they can achieve. This puts the decision in the hands of the customer, clearly where it belongs. To do this they have loosened the rules on the one year contract. Now the customer has one month to decide if they are willing you use the service they have. So far this is an unwritten policy, you should confirm before ordering. This is a good policy for whatever distance the customer has.
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by Flippant 
last modified: 2002-08-17 10:48:12 |
