| Frequently Asked Questions - last updated
20/5/10 How can Rutland Telecom offer faster broadband than BT, SKY, AOL, Tiscali, Pipex, TalkTalk, Millennium Telecom etc? In Rutland, these companies mainly buy broadband services from BT Wholesale and sell them on. In Rutland this involves old equipment in the telephone exchanges. Rutland Telecom is investing in the latest equipment which is used in Scandinavia, Japan and the USA. Much faster speeds can be delivered using ADSL2+ technology (up to 48Mbps), SDSL/EFM (symmetrical upload/download speeds up to 40Mbps) and fibre (effectively unlimited). In street cabinets we use VDSL offering speeds up to 40Mbps. The big Internet Service Providers are not interested in investing in rural areas - as a local company, we are! How do I switch to Rutland Telecom from my existing broadband provider? No MAC code is needed from your broadband provider because we operate our own network. MAC codes are only for companies which resell BT Wholesale broadband. We have no 12-month or 18-month contract. There is no setup fee. Your router and phone adapter are included free. Simply call in our office and we will talk you through the process of transferring your valued business to us.You will need to complete our online registration form. To transfer your telephone number into our network costs £25. A new number (any area code) is free. How long does it take to switch to Rutland Telecom? For broadband with a new phone number, or porting your number, just 10 working days (2 weeks). This delay is imposed on us by the regulator Ofcom to give consumers time to change ther mind. Installation can be expedited to happen sooner for a fee of £195 (the quickest route is 3-4 days with a new phone line from us). There is minimal interruption in broadband service when switching but as we all know any change to new technology can have teething problems. From our experience these are often due to internal wiring issues or computer problems inside the home or business. Please carefully read our terms and conditions so you are clear where our responsibility ends and where charges might apply for such problems. Does bonding to give faster speeds really work? On our ADSL2+ equipment - yes! See the speeds on our home page. But you need to be within 2-3km of the telephone exchange (Northgate, Oakham; Stockerston Road, Uppingham), or on one of our wireless services if we are to achieve this. Realistically you might get a maximum download of 42Mbps with 2 phone lines, and 1.7Mbps upload. On the old equipment provided by BT Wholesale in the Rutland exchanges (which all other ISPs depend on - maximum speeds about 6.5Mbps) then problems do exist when customers ask for lines to be bonded. Using our own equipment, we guarantee incremental speed increase with bonding where the quality of copper is good. If not you can have your money back! With SDSL then we can provide symmetrical speeds using bonding up to 40Mbps (8 bonded vopper phone lines) Do I need a special router? We provide a router free to all residential customers (non-wireless). No username or password is required - no setup on your computer or inside the router is needed atall. If you wish to provide your own router it must be ADSL2+ compatible and we would charge for configuring it. We cannot guarantee 3rd party routers will work on our network. We can provide and pre-configure the security on wireless routers for an extra cost. SDSL customers must use our CPE and then provide their own broadband router. VDSL customers (fibre-to-the cabinet) require a VDSL modem from us but can provide their own broadband router (not ADSL or ADSL2+ - a router which does not contain a modem). We can provide this router too - wireless or non-wireless. If you require support for configuring your own router this is charged at our standard rate. We provide the basic settings if you wish to try to configure your own model. We cannot guarantee 3rd party routers will be compatible with our network. We have found that the routers we supply, which mirror the equipment in the exchange or cabinet, give faster speeds. Is your technical support and customer service outsourced to a call centre abroad? No. In fact we are unique amongst ISPs in having offices in the high street. If you are not happy with the service then we cannot hide! We'll make you a coffee and get to the bottom of the problem. How can I test my broadband speed? See this page where you can test our broadband speed and data throughput rates. I'm worried about my children accessing inappropriate content in their bedroom on the internet. Can you help? Yes. We have an optional family content filter for £5/month which exceeds the high standards expected in schools and by BECTA. All computers in your household or business are filtered. The internet is a wonderful resource, but sometimes parents need a little help with children who can be one step ahead of them! We have vast experience of running school networks and working with Rutland families Can I use email on your network Yes but we believe email addresses should be independent of broadband providers so a customer is not tied to them. To that end we do not offer free email addresses. You can register a free email address such as Google Mail, or purchase your own domain name and pop box. We do not offer an open relay SMTP server to our broadband customers. We can supply a fully-hosted email service with webmail and 5 pop boxes for £100/year (prices exclude VAT). Do you provide static public IP addresses As a member of RIPE, we are able to issue public IP addresses to customers. Our policy for residential customers is to issue one dynamic public IP address per connection. Static IP addresses and additional IP addresses are available at extra cost. Do I have to take telephone service (line rental)? Yes this is a requirement. You do not have to use the phone but line rental is payable. Can I keep my existing phone number? Yes - even if you pay line rental to companies other than BT such as TalkTalk, AOL, Sky, Onetel, Utility Warehouse etc. We migrate your number into our digital system where there are a huge range of services available such as CLI, voicemail-to-text, music on hold and hunt groups. All controlled from a web-based switchboard control panel. Your line rental with your existing supplier will be automatically cancelled. Porting your number costs £25. Can I have a new phone number? Yes. Our current range is 01572 85xxxx - and we have reserved some as "golden numbers" We can even arrange for you to have any area code (e.g. 020 to give the impression your office is in London! - no extra cost). What if I am abroad - can I receive calls? If you take our Centrex service, yes. Provided you have a broadband connection, you can take your VoIP phone with you and it will ring when someone dials your 01572 number. Alternatively you can have calls redirected to your mobile or any landline number - you pay for each call transferred. Can I keep my existing phone? Yes. We either a) provide you with VoIP phones (our 5.8GHz wireless customers or our MPF-without-dialtone service, or for Centrex users who want simultaneous calls, more than one number etc). or b) we maintain your dialtone and no adapter is necessary. Most of our customers will be on this service (single number one call at a time) Do you provide new VoIP phones? Yes a range of desktop models exists. We also provide cordless digital VoIP phones e.g. see the Snom M3 range. Where in my house will phones work? For our service with dialtone, your phones will work as before subject to your internal wiring being is a suitable condition. For our MPF without dialtone service, simply plugging a phone into one of your old internal phone extensions will not work. All phones must ultimately be linked back to the router. There are many advantages of the non-dialtone service - please discuss your options with us. If you already have broadband, you will be using ADSL filters to split the voice side of the line from the broadband (data) side. These are redundant for our customers without dialtone. The router plugs into the phone socket (no filter is required) and then any VoIP phone must connect to the router. In the event of power failure I understand your phone service does not work This is true for a minority of customers who have selected true VoIP with QoS all the way to their router - those who do not have a dialtone service. You will not be able to dial the emergency services like you could on an old-style PSTN BT telephone which receives a small amount of power down the line from the exchange. However we do offer a battery backup service which kicks in if the power fails. This will also keep your internet router and phones running for several hours. Please ask us for details. For all other customers, phones will work as normal because we send power down your phone line. Do you offer carrier-class voice calls with Quality of Service (QoS)? Yes. We have invested in an NGN interconnect as recommended by Ofcom (see 3.100). Unlike many companies offering VoIP services - where the calls are contended over the public internet before reaching the main telecoms switches of companies like Gamma Telecom, BT and the mobile operators - our calls are prioritised by being VLAN-routed over fibre-optic links meaning there is no contention on voice calls. Whilst the service is a modern digital IP voice service with all the benefits this brings, our residential end user experience is similar to when they were on legacy TDM networks i.e. we have dialtone, 1571, 1471, call waiting etc. Between our equipment in the local exchange or street cabinet, and the residential end user, the standard service is analogue. Users can upgrade to digital and use VoIP phones if desired. Like our business users with true VoIP phones, they may need to make Quality of Service (QoS) rules in their router to prioritise voice traffic over data traffic where the broadband line is shared for both, but otherwise QoS for IP telephony applies from our exchange-based or cabinet-based equipment onwards for all customers. No calls go over the public internet before being interconnected with the main voice switches and IP networks in London etc. What are your call charges? These are clearly displayed on our website with a prominent link on the home page (unlike other providers). We offer a bundle allowing free calls to all UK landlines. Unlimited free calls to other Rutland Telecom customers. If you have a relative abroad you can issue them with one of our VoIP phones (or they can just use their computer with a headset and free VoIP software) and International calls are completely free. Yes that's right you can call anywhere in the world by this method completely free with no fair usage policy. Otherwise international calls are provided at very low cost e.g. 2p/minute to a USA landline or mobile. When are direct debits collected? On or shortly after the first of the month (moving to 15th of the month from June 2010). Broadband is billed monthly in advance (in arrears from July 2010). Calls are billed in arrears. Any additional services taken such as computer repairs are also collected by direct debit. What about quality of voice calls We are unique in Rutland in that we offer Quality of Service (QoS) on our VoIP network. This means voice calls on our network are prioritised all the way to our switches and the BT and mobile interconnects in London. Some VoIP providers do not offer this service because the equipment providing broadband in the telephone exchange is too old, or they simply rely on calls going over the internet with no control of quality. Ours is the latest DSLAM equipment with QoS built in. Your router needs to support QoS if you use our MPF without dialtone service and you are sharing the line for calls & data. What about fax lines? We advise cancelling a second fax line, migrating the number into our digital fax system, and have your faxes arrive as PDF attachments to your email inbox (this is known as Fax2EMail). You do not need to pay BT line rental on the 2nd line (saving £11.75/month). Our fax service is just £10/month. You can also send faxes on a PAYG basis for 10p/page from your email. How do I leave Rutland Telecom? :( We are confident we have the fastest broadband service in Rutland, with the lowest contention ratios, backed up by outstanding local customer service and support. However, if you choose to leave for whatever reason, such as a house move, you only need give 30 days notice because we do not impose 12 or 18 month contracts on our customers (unlike other providers like BT who renew line rental for 12 months unless you tell them not to!). We also have no tricks to trap you such as a free email address which you lose when you leave us, making it difficult to switch to another broadband provider. We do not issue MAC codes as we are an LLU operator. MAC codes are only for transferring between providers who resell BT Wholesale broadband. Your new supplier may charge you to transfer to them from our service. Please be sure to read our full terms and conditions.
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