View Full Version : [Now Official] More ntl speed changes
We have recently learned that ntl have plans for more speed changes, either at the end of this year, or early next year. These will be optional increases (and not free) and both 2mbps and 3mbps have been mentioned.
At the other end of the scale - it looks possible that the 150k service may be re-introduced (presumably at a lower price).
All this is being made possible by the current large scale upgrades to the network which started in the summer, in preperation for the current free speed upgrades.
No mention has been made of upload speeds, but it seems reasonable to assume that if 3mbps download is offered then the upload is likely to be higher than 256k (400k maybe ?).
More details will be posted if/as they become available.
Thank you.That is very interesting.I'm wondering of course what the charges will be but I'm guessing it won't be within my price range. :)
Florence
27-10-2004, 02:14
Thanks Paul looks promising for the customers..
MovedGoalPosts
27-10-2004, 02:41
Most interesting. No doubt speculation at this stage but.
One wonders in practice whether there is a much lower price that is chargeable id a 150 kpbs tier is reintroduced. The fixed costs of line provision, modem supply etc, compared to the day to day running costs and limited bandwidth needs may not actually create much margin.
As for the top end upgrades, no doubt any increase in upload speed may be desirable by some users. One does though really have to wonder at whether this will be the time that ntl revise their download guidance, now 18 months out of date, to reflect current internet volumes in terms of sizes of files, and thus adjust the overall levels to reflect increased bandwidth. At this higher level no doubt there will also be a premium fee for the service, as only the heavy data shifters would be the first subscribers.
NitroNutter
27-10-2004, 03:25
Be nice to see these speed increases arrive and at better prices, with no restrictions.
The 2 meg line was rumoured to be arriving last July-Septemper from some NTL staff but it never showed.
Now when cable first started the plain truth was there wasnt much choice in broadband, if you were lucky enough to be in a broadband area it was one or the other available but not too often both. This is now very far from the truth and cable needs to revise the policy that adsl is not competition.
ADSL 2 meg line is £35-£40 depending on provider, this is the current top level adsl (except london which has 4 meg).
NTL 1.5 meg is £37.99, and is the current top cable service except in blue yonder/telewest areas that have 3 meg allready. note NTL is one of the biggest cable sections in the country, if not the biggest.
As you can see here you can allready get more for less elsewhere. You should also note at the adsl prices above the bandwidth is in no way restricted, unlike NTL's 1 GB a day policy. I mean If i was to update my Router alone it is a good 2 GB. Then we have 4 x windows update and it goes on and on.
Now for more rumours ;) ADSL is expected to drop further next year and introduce the 4 meg deal on a national basis where possibly available.
This is apparently going to be a 4 meg down 400 or 800k up and is expected to drop in around the £40 marker, doing that can only have a knock on effect on dropping the lower tiers prices if not instantly it will not be long before it happens.
Of course you should by now be able to see where I am going with this, that unfortunatly in the broadband arena NTL has fallen behind and even with rumors for next year is still behind.
I wonder how interesting the next year will be in the battle of the BB providers :)
And yes I am talking as an X NTL user who had cable since the beginning and changed all my services after several years of being with them.
Come on NTL win me back, and I'm in no way desperate to leave my current providors of com services.
Ignition
27-10-2004, 05:52
Interesting Mr Nutter that you should discuss uncapped services especially when the current trend in ADSL provision is towards capped services due to BT increasing / changing the way they charge for backhaul bandwidth. Wanadoo, BTBroadband, both going hard capping, other providers 'looking closely' at it.
BT have no intention of introducing anything over 2Mbit at the moment at all - there is still no Home 2Mbit product, these are all based on Office products, and no rumours or announcements on an Office service over 2Mbit have been heard. Any increase in bandwidth will come from Bulldog increasing the reach of their network, this will be far from national availability though and will probably only be the inner cities / larger towns.
As far as 800k upstream goes have heard absolutely nothing at all about this one, Bulldog offer the highest residential upstream at 400k. Increasing this to 800k will limit availability of the services somewhat (as unlike cable ADSL is a distance dependent technology, if you're too far from your exchange you aren't going to get service or will be limited in the speeds you can have). Also ADSL can't do 800k upstream ;) Maxes at 768k-ish.
Sadly from your point of view unlimited services are slowly but surely becoming less and less available and capping more common place as companies try and consolidate and 'reign in' users using 3 figures GB per month.
NTL are by the way the largest cable operator in the UK by a fair margin.
NitroNutter
27-10-2004, 06:26
So big boy AOL with a huge advertising campaign of no limits being its primary advert base is really just a ruse, a quick customer grab then they really intend to impose capping ? bit outragous these large companies are permitted to lie so blatantly like that if thats the case.
Euro providers are entering the country too enhancing the adsl competition even further. All offering uncapped or multi level capped or premium uncapped. The bandwidth game is indeed a huge international rip off thats going about atm.
Anyway even by .au standards today the NTL 1 GB cap is archaic to say the least
800k 768k ? at that level 32k is a bit of a hair split, but still specualtion and rumours are fun ;)
As for the sadness, I doubt it currently we are capped by speed, in the future we will surely be metered and capped by most providers but the caps will be decent and so will the lines. Dont make the future sound so bleak when really it doesnt have to be.
PS: my line is with BT but my internet most definately has nothing to do with them past my exchange.
Could be just to come into line with telewest prior to a merger? how much are the blueyonder packages?
purple_smarties
27-10-2004, 07:57
Could be just to come into line with telewest prior to a merger? how much are the blueyonder packages?
you have to take out basic digital tv and phone but they are included in the prices.
256k - £17.99
750k - £25.99
1.5mb - £35.99
3mb - £50.00
The 2 meg line was rumoured to be arriving last July-Septemper from some NTL staff
But it wasn't being discussed by the people implementing the network, which suggests it wasn't actually a *true* rumour.
Good to see that NTL are actively developing their product.
Pity though that there is more to speed than the headline figure. I've noticed that browsing on a 512kbps 20:1 ADSL line is constently brisker than on my 750kbps cable connection.
SMHarman
27-10-2004, 09:09
Most interesting. No doubt speculation at this stage but.
One wonders in practice whether there is a much lower price that is chargeable id a 150 kpbs tier is reintroduced. The fixed costs of line provision, modem supply etc, compared to the day to day running costs and limited bandwidth needs may not actually create much margin.
<snip>
But it's the hook, another reason / thing to move to BT/Sky, the product being in the house and being remotely (or user) upgradable to higher speeds.
Smart move for a cheaper lower speed IMHO.
themelon
27-10-2004, 09:24
Good to see that NTL are actively developing their product.
Pity though that there is more to speed than the headline figure. I've noticed that browsing on a 512kbps 20:1 ADSL line is constently brisker than on my 750kbps cable connection.
But I also noticed that on my 1mb 50:1 line that it frquently struggled to get above 700k downstream and even then it didnt feel like it.
This being the standard product is where the comparison needs to come in. 20:1 is generally recognised as a business product, or premium product on DSL which you pay more for.
Currently there are probably not as many 20:1 contention users for contention ratios to cause a problem, on 50:1 contention it can be a problem depending on the area you live in, ive seen sub 56k speeds at peak times on 512k 50:1 dsl.
etccarmageddon
27-10-2004, 10:30
More details will be posted if/as they become available.
cheers. it's about time speeds were improved - particularly the poor the poor upload speed options.
huzzah!!
2mb looks nice, 3mb will probably too costly, in line with blueyonder. The prospect of higher upload speeds will be amazing, but considering (afaik) practically no residential connection (only bulldog in london?) has an upload >256k i can't see why ntl would change this. I hope so much they do though :) FTP is so lame with 256k upload.
Good to see that NTL are actively developing their product.
Pity though that there is more to speed than the headline figure. I've noticed that browsing on a 512kbps 20:1 ADSL line is constently brisker than on my 750kbps cable connection.
Then we need to look at your connection as i am on the same node as you and my connection flys.
:)
2mb looks nice, 3mb will probably too costly, in line with blueyonder. The prospect of higher upload speeds will be amazing, but considering (afaik) practically no residential connection (only bulldog in london?) has an upload >256k i can't see why ntl would change this. I hope so much they do though :) FTP is so lame with 256k upload.As it says, the upload has not been mentioned, so this may not change. It would be nice if it did though (for the higher speeds). There is more upload capacity to play with because of the better cards they are now using.
Florence
27-10-2004, 13:51
maybe we should all wait for this its no use speculating now and the more members go on about it the more this information gets blown all out of proportion.
Sit back and wait..
orangebird
27-10-2004, 14:01
maybe we should all wait for this its no use speculating now and the more members go on about it the more this information gets blown all out of proportion.
Sit back and wait..
Very sensible, because if it doesn't turn out to be true (and judging by past experience on this board), ntl will still get all the stick... :rolleyes:
Very sensible, because if it doesn't turn out to be true
I do not think Paul would of posted this if it wasn't true. ;)
Hell's Child
27-10-2004, 14:09
Afternoon all,
I have ben away for a while as training straff is more time consuming that you might think!!!
Fortunatally it's systems training today so Whilst they complete exercise 23 I thought I'd come and say hello!!
I have sent a mail this morning to a mate who writes training process' for new implimentations..... he always gets wind of things that are happening so as soon as he comes back to me I will let you know.
Also are you aware ntl is going to start trialing VOB (voice over broadband) mid next year... for those that don't know the long term aim is to do away with telephones and use your sole broadband connection as your connection with reality. BT are worried with the technology that ntl has managed to pick up that they will loose a large majority of their customers.
It is being trialed in France at the moment by Wanadoo, but like I say the ability to do it over BT lines will still require the use of a BT phone (which negates the benefit) Given that the bandwidth is already being used it would effectivly cut the cost for telco and Broadband!!!
orangebird
27-10-2004, 14:43
I do not think Paul would of posted this if it wasn't true. ;)
That's not really the point I was making Mick. Products fail, trials don't go according to plan etc... People get all wound up about rumours that aren't ntl backed, and then give ntl crap if the rumours don't become fact.....
I,m going over to Nildram for adsl, and of course BT, my NTL cable [and phone] have been great for everything except gaming, my main internet requirement.
Again i dont really care about the speeds, its the quality of line i'm more interested in. Apart from a little downtime, and hiccups after the speed increase, its been good and the help here , pretty damn good to.
It would be nice if NTL got back to the front again, i really thought cable would be the final answer against adsl, maybe it will be, but not this year. ;)
ntlgood1
27-10-2004, 14:57
Also are you aware ntl is going to start trialing VOB (voice over broadband) mid next year... Dont they called it VOIP (Voice Over IP)
Saneboy13
27-10-2004, 15:03
Ntlgood you are right. It's called VoIP, not VOB. VoIP is already in use up in Scotland (only on Business), but there is no news of it being used anywhere else.
As for modem speeds being upgraded, I would be very surprised of a move in that direction, as NTL are more interested in getting VOD sorted out. Besides that fact, we would not be able to support the bandwidth at this point in time. Maybe when they start switching off the old Analogue system, then it will be more feesible
Hell's Child
27-10-2004, 15:09
Ntlgood you are right. It's called VoIP, not VOB. VoIP is already in use up in Scotland (only on Business), but there is no news of it being used anywhere else.
As for modem speeds being upgraded, I would be very surprised of a move in that direction, as NTL are more interested in getting VOD sorted out. Besides that fact, we would not be able to support the bandwidth at this point in time. Maybe when they start switching off the old Analogue system, then it will be more feesibleVOD is being trialed startin Jan 05 so I am told..... we have the equipment etc but need to make sure it doesn't create any probs 1st....
Ignition
27-10-2004, 15:25
So big boy AOL with a huge advertising campaign of no limits being its primary advert base is really just a ruse, a quick customer grab then they really intend to impose capping ? bit outragous these large companies are permitted to lie so blatantly like that if thats the case.
Euro providers are entering the country too enhancing the adsl competition even further. All offering uncapped or multi level capped or premium uncapped. The bandwidth game is indeed a huge international rip off thats going about atm.
Anyway even by .au standards today the NTL 1 GB cap is archaic to say the least
800k 768k ? at that level 32k is a bit of a hair split, but still specualtion and rumours are fun ;)
As for the sadness, I doubt it currently we are capped by speed, in the future we will surely be metered and capped by most providers but the caps will be decent and so will the lines. Dont make the future sound so bleak when really it doesnt have to be.
PS: my line is with BT but my internet most definately has nothing to do with them past my exchange.
Doesn't the fact that AOL are making such a selling point of being uncapped say something though?
30GB/month is hardly archaic compared to Australian providers, not to mention ntl aren't charging per MB over this level unlike most Aussie providers.
Euro providers? Well Wanadoo are a subsidiary of France Telecom, and are capping.
Your ADSL is probably still quite a bit to do with BT past your exchange, your service provider is paying BT for carrying the traffic from your exchange to either an interconnect with them, or across the BT network to a central point to interconnect with loads of other exchanges then to the ISP.
Only unbundled providers don't pay BT to carry traffic from the exchange, and even then they kind of do, as BT supply the backhaul fibre just at a fixed and more competitive rate than Option 3/4 prices as it's a dedicated link with no BT kit either end.
I'm not making the future sound bleaker than it is, just being realistic, the UK is very touchy as far as seeing contention goes and the 15 - 25:1 connections at low prices can't really go on for ever, nor can ISPs and other users subsidising people who are treating their connections as a 3:1 or better line.
It takes a lot of light users to balance out a user like that.
EDIT: People praise Japan over their 100Mbit connections - the bit people forget is that these guys rarely see over 2Mbit as soon as they get outside Japan. Fancy 10Mbit with 512k performance to the states? 1Mbit with 56k modem performance outside the UK?
The crunch point to Japanese ISPs is just deeper down the network. Maxing network at any point is bad, packet loss and high ping city. Limits are sadly an essential part of controlling network use, especially now as the gulf between light users and heavy users grows ever wider.
Check out http://www.dslreports.com/forum/cogeco - a Canadian cableco offering 5Mbit down, 640k up, with a 15GB combined cap, or 10Mbit down, 1Mbit up with a 30GB combined cap.
Anyway I'm turning this into a capping thread, which it isn't.
FWIW I'm not aware of this story but I hope it's true, would be cool.
Saneboy13
27-10-2004, 17:00
VOD is being trialed startin Jan 05 so I am told..... we have the equipment etc but need to make sure it doesn't create any probs 1st....
Yes VOD is being trialed from Jan'05, but that still means that we are going to be concentrating on VOD. My point was that looking about upgrading modem speeds was a non starter due to the VOD stuff. Couple that with the bandwidth restrictions on the system at present, hence a no go on modem speed increase...
NitroNutter
27-10-2004, 17:28
Well if they want VOB or VOIP to take off along with other premium services, ie the media streaming as well as all the regualr benefits of the internet, the open source software, all the flash games and abandonware etc etc. something has to be done about not just the speed but the cap as well. Or are we going back to stoneage comm GB where we are going to be metered again for talking, having just got us used to talking for as long as we like as long as we watch the clock.
I guess that really would be a top notch ruse and rip off looming
If Ignition is correct in ALL he says expect your communication and entertainment packages to be costing you big time in the near future.
It allready is now compared to 20 years ago the telco and licencing is taking a wacking approx 1:25 of you annual income if your on about 30K a year and you have all the packages compared to approximately a 1:52 from your annual income in the early 80's. This is before anyone buys into any extra premium services like front row or box office and extra BB premium services that on NTL you cannot use because of the CAPs.
The last thing the telco's can afford to do is price their products out of the market place, which is slowly being done, vast amounts of people cannot afford some digital subscriber services now. Keep up with the current trend of restrictions and prcice hikes, telephone BB and TV will again become for the rich only, about 10-20% or so of the country will only be able to afford the services.
I mean to say, many Industries including local and national government are currently considering huge pay cuts possibly arround 20% so wheres yer NTL and BT money gonna come from ? that will make it about 1:20 of your annual income to telco's and associated licencing. and if the current trend of price hiking is followed and introducing metering again on their services we could be looking at as much as 1:10 in the next decade to telco's, by the time youve paid your income taxes and NI and the extra pension contributions you now need to make and pay for all this communication and visual entertainment you may be lucky if you can eat at christmas, and when i say christamas I mean JUST christmas.
To sum it up
So if all this digital content which is based on technoligy and is with the trends of all technoligy supposed to get cheeper as time goes on then somethign is seriously wrong in the BB and satelite and phone industry because it isnt getting cheeper its getting dearer and more restricted.
Florence
27-10-2004, 17:39
I can see this is going way off in all directions but no guarentee as to which is correct.. Why speculate patience pays off just sit back enjoy what you have and if ever whats been posted happens it will be a bonus.
I am sitting back and waiting.
I can see this is going way off in all directions but no guarentee as to which is correct.. Why speculate patience pays off just sit back enjoy what you have and if ever whats been posted happens it will be a bonus.
I am sitting back and waiting.
Wise move
I have not heard anything about this so will wait and see.
etccarmageddon
27-10-2004, 18:03
...I mean to say, many Industries including local and national government are currently considering huge pay cuts possibly arround 20% so wheres yer NTL and BT money gonna come from?
20% pay cuts - what? where? how? who says?
Florence
27-10-2004, 18:37
20% pay cuts - what? where? how? who says?
Rumours rumours all rumours,,,,,
When it happens then I will believe it.
I agree, rumours tend to get exaggerated.
like: http://www.cableforum.co.uk/article/65/ntl-reviews-1mbps-service-price
and I even heard a rumour that my 1mb set top box would be upgraded to 1.5mb :)
I agree, rumours tend to get exaggerated.
like: http://www.cableforum.co.uk/article/65/ntl-reviews-1mbps-service-price
That was not exaggerated though - the story didn't tell you prices were coming down - it said at the time the 1MB price was under review - what exactly could be exaggerated about that I ask? :)
Er, would it be too chirlish to suggest they actually implement the speed increase they've been promising for the last 4 months before talking about yet more? :rolleyes:
That's not really the point I was making Mick. Products fail, trials don't go according to plan etc... People get all wound up about rumours that aren't ntl backed, and then give ntl crap if the rumours don't become fact.....That's absolutely right, plans can change. It may not eventually happen exactly like this, or be delayed due to other things like VOD, but as I said, if more information is available then I will pass it on.
Florence
27-10-2004, 22:28
That's absolutely right, plans can change. It may not eventually happen exactly like this, or be delayed due to other things like VOD, but as I said, if more information is available then I will pass it on.
Knowing what a large amount of NTL customers are like wouldn't this news give them fuel to throw their toys out of the pram if it fails. They are not a patient lot and well speed is like a red rag to a bull with the majority..
NitroNutter
27-10-2004, 22:44
20% pay cuts - what? where? how? who says?
incase it had escaped your notice in some areas binmen have been striking because of the threat of a 5400 annual cut of there 20K or so income :(
the housing market is slumping again and this time like every time, as the increaes have of course been larger so the falls will be harder. The economy is not as strong as the government would like to have you believe.
incase it had escaped your notice in some areas binmen have been striking because of the threat of a 5400 annual cut of there 20K or so income :(
the housing market is slumping again and this time like every time, as the increaes have of course been larger so the falls will be harder. The economy is not as strong as the government would like to have you believe.
In that case :Yikes:
were all doomed run for the hills:Sprint:
:LOL:
Sorry could not help that :)
NitroNutter
27-10-2004, 22:56
Lol @ Bill C nope were not all doomed all that will happen is what allways happens, the government will end up replaced witha new electorate that will boost things fill us with a load more lies till next time ;)
Ignition
27-10-2004, 22:56
*resigns before being made redundant as no-one will be able to afford to use the internet anymore.
Ah actually to a lot of people the internet is as or more valuable than TV or telephone. Maybe I'll rethink. :)
*forgets about resigning.
Florence
27-10-2004, 23:00
*resigns before being made redundant as no-one will be able to afford to use the internet anymore.
Ah actually to a lot of people the internet is as or more valuable than TV or telephone. Maybe I'll rethink. :)
*forgets about resigning.
:rofl: would have repped you for the laugh but have to share them around.
Glad you changed your mind about resigning
NitroNutter
27-10-2004, 23:15
*resigns before being made redundant as no-one will be able to afford to use the internet anymore.
Ah actually to a lot of people the internet is as or more valuable than TV or telephone. Maybe I'll rethink. :)
*forgets about resigning.
You only go to work because you can then afford the internet ?
unfortuantly for many they are working far too many hours to be able to really consider the internet and some could still barely afford it anyway. theres still a large chunk of the population on well below the average wage that either cant afford the luxury or have the time left for it.
Many staff are still over demanded by their employers but cant do nothing about it for fear of losing what little they have
Many people are also working long hours because the housing market is so over inflated.
Anyway, 18 quid a month isn't that much. Still a luxury though, but so were mobile phones ten years ago (and they're often way over 18 quid a month).
Florence
27-10-2004, 23:30
Many people are also working long hours because the housing market is so over inflated.
Anyway, 18 quid a month isn't that much. Still a luxury though, but so were mobile phones ten years ago (and they're often way over 18 quid a month).
We are constantly taking them of 8 - 9yr olds and these are contract phones their parents have got for their presents.
Sad thing is most are better phones than mine..
ian@huth
27-10-2004, 23:37
I don't know how NitroNutter gets the idea that internet connection is taking up a larger percentage of income than it used to. You should have seen my phone bills some 10 to 15 years ago.
The one thing that many people forget about speed increases is the obvious fact that it cuts down the time needed to transfer data. Most users will only do the same things that they are now doing when they get increased speeds so will only have the possibility of affecting others usage for a shorter length of time. Increasing speeds can have the effect of reducing congestionif users only do the same as they used to do and do not try to max out their connections. Maybe heavy 24/7 downloaders should all be put on the same UBR channel away from everyone else so they largely only affect each other.
NitroNutter
27-10-2004, 23:42
We are constantly taking them of 8 - 9yr olds and these are contract phones their parents have got for their presents.
Sad thing is most are better phones than mine..
I laugh when the mobile salesmen ring us and say "we can save you lots of money on your mobile" they go on to ask what type of phone we have and how much do we use every month. they run very quick when we tell them well my wife uses about £10 every 6-12 months and i use £5 in about the same period.
NitroNutter
28-10-2004, 00:00
I don't know how NitroNutter gets the idea that internet connection is taking up a larger percentage of income than it used to. You should have seen my phone bills some 10 to 15 years ago.
The one thing that many people forget about speed increases is the obvious fact that it cuts down the time needed to transfer data. Most users will only do the same things that they are now doing when they get increased speeds so will only have the possibility of affecting others usage for a shorter length of time. Increasing speeds can have the effect of reducing congestionif users only do the same as they used to do and do not try to max out their connections. Maybe heavy 24/7 downloaders should all be put on the same UBR channel away from everyone else so they largely only affect each other.
Uh you got the context incorrect somewhere I think.
I compared todays communication packages with that of 20 years ago.
As for internet 10-15 years ago we are looking at 386 - 486 PC's and in the majority most houses didnt own such a thing. At that time the transitonal change from BT gold if I remember correctly to real internet was occuring and to the few who even had a PC iv no doubt it was very expensive. The general trend in technology is that prices fall and fall until replaced by supposedly better technology.and the cycle starts again often at a lower introduced price than its predecessor.
Taking Internet alone it started out very dear, out of reach to most dropped to almost free then came BB that started at a reasonable cost, Cable has done nothing but increase those fees and impose restrictions. when ADSl and cable BB first started Cable was the sure winner price wise and in terms of service, today the shoe is on the other foot, for sure in the terms of price and speed and possible service aswell.
ian@huth
28-10-2004, 00:11
At the start of internet usage in the home there was no reason to cap or limit usage as there were far less users than the eqipment was designed to handle. As more and more users came on line their usage started to affect the service of others to such an extent that restrictions had to start being applied. People complain quite regularly about poor service levels but seem to forget that they don't have 1:1 contention and at peak times they could expect a possible lowering of speed.
Comparing entertainment packages of 20 years ago against today is the same as comparing apples with oranges. You could not get anything like an equivalent package 20 years ago.
NitroNutter
28-10-2004, 00:50
At the start of internet usage in the home there was no reason to cap or limit usage as there were far less users than the eqipment was designed to handle. As more and more users came on line their usage started to affect the service of others to such an extent that restrictions had to start being applied. People complain quite regularly about poor service levels but seem to forget that they don't have 1:1 contention and at peak times they could expect a possible lowering of speed.
Comparing entertainment packages of 20 years ago against today is the same as comparing apples with oranges. You could not get anything like an equivalent package 20 years ago.
There still is depending on how you read it absolutely no need to restrict the service, you yourself in a post above and NTL themselves have admitted as such. Or are you saying all the current backbones etc is actually the very same hardware that the few on dial up was using at the start.
Comparing apples and oranges is totally wrong
Today all we have extra over 20 years ago is the internet which is just another medium acting as a data carrier, for many it comes through the phone line
okay we have more channels but too boot we have at least as many times more repeats than we have extra channels so no real difference there. A phone is just that a phone.
homealone
28-10-2004, 00:55
I don't know how NitroNutter gets the idea that internet connection is taking up a larger percentage of income than it used to. You should have seen my phone bills some 10 to 15 years ago.
The one thing that many people forget about speed increases is the obvious fact that it cuts down the time needed to transfer data. Most users will only do the same things that they are now doing when they get increased speeds so will only have the possibility of affecting others usage for a shorter length of time. Increasing speeds can have the effect of reducing congestionif users only do the same as they used to do and do not try to max out their connections. Maybe heavy 24/7 downloaders should all be put on the same UBR channel away from everyone else so they largely only affect each other.
I remember buying a pc within the last 15 years, that had a 'penny a minute' rate, dialup connection, after 6pm, that was considered to be fairly competitive - working out an hour a day, (60p), for a month (60p times 365 divide by 12) = £18.25 per month.
Then work out the cost for the data transfer, (assuming 5KB/s) 1 minute = 60 times 5 = 300KB/penny
so £18.25 would buy 5475500KB - about 1/2 a gig, a month :eek:
- I liked the idea that the people who want to download the whole internet, at least twice, every night, should have their own 'channel' - nice one :tu:
Today all we have extra over 20 years ago is the internet
A pretty big 'all', considering its the first new two-way communications system since the telephone.
Yes, technology comes down in price, but we're also in a market and one where demand for permanent-on internet services is currently high and steady, which isn't going to bring down prices any time soon (particularly as you have to invest to meet the demand, and that isn't cheap for anyone). Remember when dial-up started saturating, prices plunged (and a lot of dodgy business models appeared briefly).
3Mb shouldnt cost any more than £50 with £40 for 2Mb means the others services will need looking at :)
I like the rumours about the suspected "merger" with telewest - hopefully that will bring about a further price reduction for all cable users and maybe improved speeds and services throughout the company, including phone, tv and broadband.
Only time will tell ;)
the problem is its all idle speculation, i think we all need to see some concrete evidence before making wild accusations and speculation as to what will happen in the near future, i just dont think NTL will upgrade speeds yet, because of VOD and bandwidth costs also the network tweaks needed to introduce the tiers coupled with billing etc, i know NTL are changing systems at the moment, but nothing is being seen of whether we will see faster connections anytime soon.
i suppose you can live in hope :)
Ignition
29-10-2004, 10:37
You only go to work because you can then afford the internet ?
unfortuantly for many they are working far too many hours to be able to really consider the internet and some could still barely afford it anyway. theres still a large chunk of the population on well below the average wage that either cant afford the luxury or have the time left for it.
Many staff are still over demanded by their employers but cant do nothing about it for fear of losing what little they have
Nope, I get my internet free thanks ;)
Considering how much it used to cost to spend 10 minutes on the phone to someone down the road modern Internet is really cheap.
You sound like you need a new job dude, my employer does demand a fair bit from me, however at the same time I'm paid 'reasonably' for what I do. IF your employer is shafting you that badly time to look elsewhere methinks.
Though that's another thread entirely.....
No mention has been made of upload speeds, but it seems reasonable to assume that if 3mbps download is offered then the upload is likely to be higher than 256k (400k maybe ?).
I would be very suprised if there are any upload speed increases.
3Meg download speeds would be very nice tho :)
Ill take it!
£50 Per Month sounds good!
Ooh suits you sir!!
Yes it does :)
Florence
29-10-2004, 13:00
All this speculation and putting prices to the product will not help. You are saying you will pay £50 for 3mg what if telewest reduce their 3 mg before NTL decide to start 3mg then you will be moaning its cheaper with Telewest.
The best way is to just watch out for NTL to officially release this information with prices then you can all get your hair off at what is offered.
etccarmageddon
29-10-2004, 14:52
http://www.ntl.com/mediacentre/press/display.asp?id=749
NTL have just changed their business broadband products speeds to match the residential versions.
750k for £25 a month or 1.5m for £35
This would suggest that the residential product could be in line for a price revision followed by a 2m product for £40 and a 3m product for £50 perhaps.
Chrysalis
29-10-2004, 15:01
I read a pdf document released by ntl about their LLU expansion plans and 3mbit was mentioned as a internet package, I would only assume the tier would be introduced on the cable modem network as well.
Florence
29-10-2004, 15:36
http://www.ntl.com/mediacentre/press/display.asp?id=749
NTL have just changed their business broadband products speeds to match the residential versions.
750k for £25 a month or 1.5m for £35
This would suggest that the residential product could be in line for a price revision followed by a 2m product for £40 and a 3m product for £50 perhaps.
If I remember right the 1.5mg is £37.99 not £35?
Graham F
29-10-2004, 15:42
http://www.ntl.com/mediacentre/press/display.asp?id=749
NTL have just changed their business broadband products speeds to match the residential versions.
750k for £25 a month or 1.5m for £35
This would suggest that the residential product could be in line for a price revision followed by a 2m product for £40 and a 3m product for £50 perhaps.
the business change is being discussed here (http://www.cableforum.co.uk/board/showthread.php?t=19377) :angel:
etccarmageddon
29-10-2004, 15:43
If I remember right the 1.5mg is £37.99 not £35?
correct the residential price is £38 which is why I said "This would suggest that the residential product could be in line for a price revision"
You are saying you will pay £50 for 3mg what if telewest reduce their 3 mg before NTL decide to start 3mg then you will be moaning its cheaper with Telewest.
Yes I would be quite happy paying £50 for 3Meg and I dont give a monkeys what other companies are doing tbh.
Im very happy with NTLs service and would be quite happy to pay that for a 3Meg service.
If its released next year and cheaper then hoorah!!!!
NitroNutter
29-10-2004, 20:57
Nope, I get my internet free thanks ;)
Considering how much it used to cost to spend 10 minutes on the phone to someone down the road modern Internet is really cheap.
You sound like you need a new job dude, my employer does demand a fair bit from me, however at the same time I'm paid 'reasonably' for what I do. IF your employer is shafting you that badly time to look elsewhere methinks.
Though that's another thread entirely.....
Nah thanks I retired several years ago ;) feel for the many who are in the shaft position though
Ok sorry bout that back to topic :)
Ignition
29-10-2004, 21:15
Here's something for those on DSL:
http://bbs.adslguide.org.uk/showthreaded.php?Cat=&Board=btsupplier&Number=1473252&page=0&view=expanded&sb=5&o=0
Quite clearly what BT are delivering now is all they are capable of delivering at this time.
Bummer, for me as well, 3Mbit would have been sweet :)
Florence
29-10-2004, 22:05
Here's something for those on DSL:
http://bbs.adslguide.org.uk/showthreaded.php?Cat=&Board=btsupplier&Number=1473252&page=0&view=expanded&sb=5&o=0
Bummer, for me as well, 3Mbit would have been sweet :)
I will not even bother replying to that thread on ADSL guide that is one reason I feel people should wait for the official release of the news.
It's Official
NTL have confirmed that they WILL be changing speeds - a 2MB and 3MB speed will be launching in the first quarter of 2005.
Simon Duffy, chief executive of ntl says:-
To retain our leadership position in broadband, we will be increasing our ntl:home products in Q1 2005 to 1MB, 2MB & 3MB at existing prices this decision reflects our determination to ensure that we will always have the most competitive range of broadband products in the market place.
Graham F
03-11-2004, 11:36
It's Official
NTL have confirmed that they WILL be changing speeds - a 2MB and 3MB speed will be launching in the first quarter of 2005.
Simon Duffy, chief executive of ntl says:-
To retain our leadership position in broadband, we will be increasing our ntl:home products in Q1 2005 to 1MB, 2MB & 3MB at existing prices this decision reflects our determination to ensure that we will always have the most competitive range of broadband products in the market place.
You got a link for that mick?
checks date to make sure not April 1st :D
It's Official
NTL have confirmed that they WILL be changing speeds - a 2MB and 3MB speed will be launching in the first quarter of 2005.
Simon Duffy, chief executive of ntl says:-
To retain our leadership position in broadband, we will be increasing our ntl:home products in Q1 2005 to 1MB, 2MB & 3MB at existing prices this decision reflects our determination to ensure that we will always have the most competitive range of broadband products in the market place.
does that mean that us 1.5M users will get a free upgrade to 3M :Yikes:
More Info
1MB will be priced at £17.99
2MB will be priced at £24.99
3MB will be priced at £37.99
Existing customers to pay a £25 administration fee to upgrade to these new speed changes. (Optional)
More Info
1MB will be priced at £17.99
2MB will be priced at £24.99
3MB will be priced at £37.99
Existing customers to pay a £25 administration fee to upgrade to these new speed changes.
please show me a link - I don't want to get my hopes up too much...
certainly looks that way from a 'standard english' reading (i.e not using an NTL dictionary).
Just had a quick google and the only words that are very similar came from Telewest in 2002 Q4
All new customers will be offered the three new speeds from early next year
All current customers will be given the opportunity to upgrade from their existing services for an admin fee of £25
prices and cap levels
1Mb - £17.99 (5GB monthly usage allowance)
2Mb - £24.99 (30GB monthly usage allowance)
3Mb - £37.99 (40GB monthly usage allowance)
Its all in there - NTL's 3rd Quarter results released today.
http://www.ntl.com/mediacentre/press/pdf/2004-3.pdf
And I'm going off-net in 12 days :cry:
Even so, well done NTL. Looks like somebody in that company is serious about regaining the leading postion they once held in the broadband market. Hopefully these fairly extreme, almost-free speed increases will rattle the ADSL market a little.
bottom of page 5 for those who dont like alot of reading :)
but no mention of cap levels in the pdf (using search facility)
And I'm going off-net in 12 days :cry:
Even so, well done NTL. Looks like somebody in that company is serious about regaining the leading postion they once held in the broadband market. Hopefully these fairly extreme, almost-free speed increases will rattle the ADSL market a little.
How come you are going off net?
I like the speed increase however having to pay £25 to get it seems unfair, also the cap levels are really low.
Bit miffed we being loyal customers have to pay £25 but for those speed increases you can't complain. And 30GB (for 2MB) usuage is generous that roughly works out at 1GB a day - the same as current.
I like the speed increase however having to pay £25 to get it seems unfair, also the cap levels are really low.
What I would like to know is what the £25 admin fee covers?
A person changing a digit on a computer? maybe taking 30 seconds?
So that works out as £3000 an hour! wow!
As for the cap levels, they are EXTREMELY low.
Not to get in a cap debate but if NTL are keeping the caps as guidlines then ok but if they enforce them then I really dont think I want the extra speed.
A.
It doesn't mention is what the charges would be if customers went over the 40GB level or if the upload levels will be changing.
Still good news though.
Bit miffed we being loyal customers have to pay £25 but for those speed increases you can't complain. And 30GB (for 2MB) usuage is generous that roughly works out at 1GB a day - the same as current.but 1GB per day on a 2MB connection is a lot different to 1GB per day on 1.5MB.
Fair point dezzo the upload speed better be going up as well.
etccarmageddon
03-11-2004, 12:33
More Info
1MB will be priced at £17.99
2MB will be priced at £24.99
3MB will be priced at £37.99
Existing customers to pay a £25 administration fee to upgrade to these new speed changes.
ARE YOU HAVING A LAUGH!!!!
Graham F
03-11-2004, 12:35
Bit miffed we being loyal customers have to pay £25 but for those speed increases you can't complain. And 30GB (for 2MB) usuage is generous that roughly works out at 1GB a day - the same as current.
not sure why you are unhapy abt having to pay £25 :confused: they could of simply increased the price and made the money that way. Simple really if you don't want to pay don't change!!
Can't see how they would stop you disconnecting the service and reconnecting (probably with a few free months included) as long as the service has been in for more than 12 months.
I can see this upgrade fee being waived pretty much all the time by the disconnections team though.
etccarmageddon
03-11-2004, 12:38
I like the speed increase however having to pay £25 to get it seems unfair, also the cap levels are really low.
simple - if you're on the £38 service downgrade to the £18 product for a month (or 2) then upgrade back - the saving you have made will pay your £25!
can we have an official link /indicator to the 'monthly usage' limits aka CAP, I've read and searched the pdf and there is no mention of any limits.
can we have an official link /indicator to the 'monthly usage' limits aka CAP, I've read and searched the pdf and there is no mention of any limits.
They are not in there - I was going of what DarthYoda was saying (assuming he knows working for ntl).
simple - if you're on the £38 service downgrade to the £18 product for a month (or 2) then upgrade back - the saving you have made will pay your £25!
don't think I could cope with a slow service for a month. I need my speed.:D
The current policy on usage can be found here (http://www.home.ntl.com/page/userpolicy) at the end of section 2.
etccarmageddon
03-11-2004, 12:52
so how soon before speeds are doubled again? and it'll be interesting to see how soon telewest respond in this race!
cheers for that MB, it was an official link/indicator to the proposed 'new' limits as given here http://www.cableforum.co.uk/board/showpost.php?p=331939&postcount=74.
As stated previously there is no sign of any limit in the pdf/Q3 results issued today.
Without any 'official' guidelines other than the existing limits the discussion on 'monthly usuage' in relation to the 'proposed' new speeds is pure conjecture. :)
Enterian
03-11-2004, 12:59
erm.... so I've got to pay £25 to not have a speed that is half that new customers get for the same price? Sounds like a fine on loyalty to me!
so how soon before speeds are doubled again? and it'll be interesting to see how soon telewest respond in this race!
With stong rumours of a merger - I doubt Telewest would make any futher changes. In my opinion these changes by ntl are to mirror that or to be as equal as possible to Telewest BB services, so a merger transition for both companies customers goes more smoother. But that is just my opinion... ;)
Strzelecki
03-11-2004, 13:02
So when can existing customers take advantages of these speeds? CS won't know anything about this yet, especially the £25 fee, just mentioned it to them in a call to get my password (answered in 17 seconds too!).
etccarmageddon
03-11-2004, 13:03
erm.... so I've got to pay £25 to not have a speed that is half that new customers get for the same price? Sounds like a fine on loyalty to me!
looking at it from that angle it is taking the ****. existing customers shouldnt be charged a higher price just to get the same service. expecially if you're out of your initial 12 month contract period.
what you can do though is call them and tell them you will take your custom elsewhere.
SMHarman
03-11-2004, 13:06
All new customers will be offered the three new speeds from early next year
All current customers will be given the opportunity to upgrade from their existing services for an admin fee of £25
So they will sting us all (me in this example) for a £25 fee to take us off the 1.5Mb and move us to the 3Mb? New customers will automatically get the 3Mb? Nice :mad: .
Will the admin fee exist for each change in speed? At the mo a change from 750 to 1.5 is FOC once a month, will this become £25 a significant disincentive to switch service levels.
Any change to the upstream? I would imagine 3Mb could do with a higher upstream to effectivly support the increased ACK packets.
What I would like to know is what the £25 admin fee covers?
A person changing a digit on a computer? maybe taking 30 seconds?
So that works out as £3000 an hour! wow!<snip>
A person, you can change levels on line, they are charging a fee for you to DIY.
looking at it from that angle it is taking the ****. existing customers shouldnt be charged a higher price just to get the same service. expecially if you're out of your initial 12 month contract period.
what you can do though is call them and tell them you will take your custom elsewhere.
And their response can now be where will you be taking your business to get 3Mb BB sir. I don't believe there are any other 3Mb BB service providers in Hertford.
So when can existing customers take advantages of these speeds? CS won't know anything about this yet, especially the £25 fee, just mentioned it to them in a call to get my password (answered in 17 seconds too!).
Sometime in the first quarter of 2005 That could be anytime between January or March, but no actual 'roll out' date has been mentioned yet.
So if ntl are "stinging" existing customers by intending to charge an upgrade fee, could someone please provide me a link that says they are not going to charge a similar fee to new customers? I have read the whole pdf and it mentions nothing about how much new customers will be charged in one of fees.
Currently ntl charge a £75 installation fee- but this is waived at the moment- so what is to say that they won't stop waiving this fee when the new speeds are introduced? I can find nothing to clarify this point.
Until i see some information on this matter, i am going to stick to the opinion that a group of people here take it as an opportunity for some ntl bashing, which as far as i am concerned is unsubstanciated.... but then from some people this is nothing unusual :rolleyes:
etccarmageddon
03-11-2004, 13:12
Will the admin fee exist for each change in speed? At the mo a change from 750 to 1.5 is FOC once a month, will this become £25 a significant disincentive to switch service levels.
it could be a new policy but I cant see them wanting to charge an admin fee to people who want to go upwards!
etccarmageddon
03-11-2004, 13:14
So if ntl are "stinging" existing customers by intending to charge an upgrade fee, could someone please provide me a link that says they are not going to charge a similar fee to new customers? I have read the whole pdf and it mentions nothing about how much new customers will be charged in one of fees.
Currently ntl charge a £75 installation fee- but this is waived at the moment- so what is to say that they won't stop waiving this fee when the new speeds are introduced? I can find nothing to clarify this point.
and do we know for sure this £25 'upgrade' fee does exist?
Enterian
03-11-2004, 13:15
Or I could go from 1.5 Mb for £37.99 to 2.0 Mb for £24.99 - 33% increase for £13 per month less!
Hmm what's the betting they'd make me go to 750k unless I paid the £25?
SMHarman
03-11-2004, 13:16
it could be a new policy but I cant see them wanting to charge an admin fee to people who want to go upwards!
Hmm, makes note to move to 750k in December, then request upgrade in January / when available (or will they move me to 1.5 until I pay the £25).
Good news, irritating smallprint (as with any good news).
Wait and see.
Or I could go from 1.5 Mb for £37.99 to 2.0 Mb for £24.99 - 33% increase for £13 per month less!
Hmm what's the betting they'd make me go to 750k unless I paid the £25?
But you get payback in 2 months so by month three you are saving £13 a month.
and do we know for sure this £25 'upgrade' fee does exist?
its in the Q3 report which announces the speed upgrades- last paragraph on page 5.
Ignition
03-11-2004, 13:22
As for the cap levels, they are EXTREMELY low.
I like the speed increase however having to pay £25 to get it seems unfair, also the cap levels are really low.
Any change to the upstream? I would imagine 3Mb could do with a higher upstream to effectivly support the increased ACK packets.
Am sure I remember saying like a year or two ago that the download all you want train of thought was an endangered one.
*Looks at BT, Wanadoo, A+A et al </I told you so type smug>
40GB is extremely low?
You'd love Cogeco.ca, 10Mbit/1Mbit, only 30GB/month total transfer limit. A mere 6 full length DVDs.
Last I checked contention on BT's Office products was 20:1. 20:1 share of a 2Mbit circuit is ~30GB, 20:1 of 3Mbit is 45. Hardly mean doing a 20 - 25:1 contention and it's well above what vast majority use.
3Mbit doesn't require anywhere near 256kbit of upstream to support ACKs generated, 256kbit is good for 10Mbit or more, depending on number of sources for a download that are being used simultaneously.
To be honest, I am pleased at the news - My once 512K priced at £24.99 some 3/4 years ago went from 512K to 600K at no cost - then it went from 600K to 750K at no cost and now with this news its being significantly increased (More than doubled) to 2MB and still for £24.99 per month. I will happily pay £25 admin fee for this. Small price to pay for such a huge difference IMHO.
orangebird
03-11-2004, 13:37
To be honest, I am pleased at the news - My once 512K priced at £24.99 some 3/4 years ago went from 512K to 600K at no cost - then it went from 600K to 750K at no cost and now with this news its being significantly increased (More than doubled) to 2MB and still for £24.99 per month. I will happily pay £25 admin fee for this. Small price to pay for such a huge difference IMHO.
:clap:
You could possibly on of the very few on this board that doesn't squeak when he walks... :rolleyes:
MetaWraith
03-11-2004, 13:40
NTL's entry level 300k service will be supercharged to 1Mb while still costing £17.99 a month. Its new 2Mb service will cost £24.99 while 3Mb will cost £37.99.
The speed increases will be rolled out to new customers during the first three months of next year, although existing customers must cough up a £25 "administration fee" to make the switch.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/11/03/ntl_q3_04/
I have to say the timing is great on a personal level...
We are looking at cutting costs, as we are expecting our first child in May/June next year..
One contention was the £38 for BB - I felt I needed the higher B/W for when I work from home (although I could go BT and get it paid for, that would mean new phone lines etc :( ) so I can now save money and get even more speed (2M for less than 1.5M :D )
:beer: :beer: - cheers NTLb- :beer: :beer:
as to the £25 to get the new speeds, if they do enforce it, I think it's a bit cheeky - making existing customers pay for something new customers get by default, but if they are going to start charging installation again to new customers, then its still cheaper...
berwhale
03-11-2004, 13:46
I too would be prepared to pay the £25, however this doesn't mean I won't play the "25 pounds! This is proposterous! Please cancel my telephone, TV and broadband packages immediately, etc." game with customer services first.
It would be rather shortsighted of them to loose nearly £100 of guaranteed revenue a month over one £25 payment.
BTW, I live in central London and do have plenty of alternatives, even if it would cause me some inconvenience.
MovedGoalPosts
03-11-2004, 13:47
Hmm, most interesting. Any speed increase for next to nothing, has to be welcomed. A one off £25.00 admin fee could be well worth it, assuming that you knew you would get close to the new service speed. However this admin fee, from the 300 to 1 meg service speed effectively is a payment upfront of say 3 months value.
I wonder if the upstream speeds will be increased proportionately as well as downstream. I also wonder where all this network capacity is springing from given ntl's previous concerns about "caps" (not to be another capping thread please)
To be honest, I am pleased at the news - My once 512K priced at £24.99 some 3/4 years ago went from 512K to 600K at no cost - then it went from 600K to 750K at no cost and now with this news its being significantly increased (More than doubled) to 2MB and still for £24.99 per month. I will happily pay £25 admin fee for this. Small price to pay for such a huge difference IMHO.
I agree - NTL have been slowly but surely improving their service and their pricing.
3-4 years ago we were paying £25 for a 600k service that was less than 100% reliable, and when it went wrong, took a long time to fix.
Next year we could be paying the same money for a 2M service that (if the support does not suddenly go back to its old self) is reliable, and when it breaks, gets fixed in good time.
(I never thought I would say such a nice thing about NTL's BB service :angel: )
ian@huth
03-11-2004, 14:02
A few thoughts on the subject:
Is the £25 admin fee just a way of jumping the queue and getting the upgrade faster than waiting for it to be applied across the board? With 2Mb and 3Mb speeds being available will STBs be able to handle those speeds? There must be a lot of customers on the 750k tier who have a Pace STB and all those will have to be supplied with a cable modem or Samsung STB, that is if the Samsung can handle 2Mb. My bet would be on moving everyone to SACM which would take a long time to do.
If NTL cap its customers as suggested it will mean a significant lowering of what you are able to download in a month taking into account that you can download as much as you want for a few days a month under the current advisory levels. My own view is that the new "cap" will largely affect the 24/7 warez merchants until such time as very high bandwidth streaming media is available. I hope that if NTL are considering more strictly applying this "cap" that they provide some means of checking your usage and document the consequences of exceeding.
Excellent news from NTL that can only be seen as positive, but as usual some will find something to complain about.
Ignition
03-11-2004, 14:17
Samsung comfortably does 2Mbit, and just to point out no-one has to upgrade. Note the charge BT apply and ISPs' customers pay to regrade their bandwidth...
Not that impressed with the news. I currently have 750k and a 1gb a day cap. Thats fine for me, I go over it now and then but overall I'm fine.
When these changes come into force, will I still have a 1gb a day cap ? or will I jump to the 5gb a month cap. Cos 5gb a month really isn't very much.
Oh you doubters and complainers, some people are just never happy :rolleyes:
Me - I will be happily parting with my £25 - to double my speed from 1.5mbps to 3mbps. :D
What benefit is there in having download speed which is twice as fast if you can only download the same amount mate. Its like racing in between red traffic lights.
Like the majority of people - I never get even close to 1GB a day, so the benefit is obvious - twice the speed. :)
I like the speed increase however having to pay £25 to get it seems unfair, also the cap levels are really low.
You are joking i hope. Whats wrong with a one of payment of £25.00 But you dont have to pay it. Just dont have the upgrade. Next you will want blood from a stone and expect ntl to pay for it.
Graham F
03-11-2004, 14:35
What benefit is there in having download speed which is twice as fast if you can only download the same amount mate. Its like racing in between red traffic lights.
the same reason why people buy a car capable for doing 180mph when the limit is 70mph surely?!?!
mcfc2134
03-11-2004, 14:36
Yep, same ere. Let me know when they want it and i'll pay it!
Great news!
etccarmageddon
03-11-2004, 14:37
Not that impressed with the news. I currently have 750k and a 1gb a day cap. Thats fine for me, I go over it now and then but overall I'm fine.
When these changes come into force, will I still have a 1gb a day cap ? or will I jump to the 5gb a month cap. Cos 5gb a month really isn't very much.
I'm impressed - I think it's a nice kick up ADSL's backside - it should drive down the wholesale costs of ADSL and/or increase the bandwidth BT offers via ADSL.
I suspect it wont be long before bandwidth is irrelevant as download rates increase to the max needed by the average punter - until we start getting applications which need all this bandwidth such as downloadable film rentals.
the £25 charge is just a silly distraction from the main headline which is that broadband has just taken another major step forward.
as for the 30gb/40gb limits - isnt that similar to the current 1gb guideline?
probably enough for most people for the current internet usage.
scrotnig
03-11-2004, 14:40
Brilliant news this. Utterly fantastic. Anyone who says otherwise is wrong.
Graham F
03-11-2004, 14:43
Brilliant news this. Utterly fantastic. Anyone who says otherwise is wrong.
:rolleyes:
No they aren't they just have a different opinion to you, thats the beauty of living in this country people are allowed to disagree!!
Doesn't it mean that as a 750k user I have to pay £25 unless I want to be restricted to 5gb a month ? I'm not really a power user and don't mind having a slowish speed. I just don't want to be constantly looking at my download limit and if its 5gb a month I'm gonna be doing that.
Doesn't it mean that as a 750k user I have to pay £25 unless I want to be restricted to 5gb a month ? I'm not really a power user and don't mind having a slowish speed. I just don't want to be constantly looking at my download limit and if its 5gb a month I'm gonna be doing that.
Maybe I'm missing something - but where does the 5Gb cap come from ? :confused:
Did I miss something - where are these limits officially stated ?
orangebird
03-11-2004, 14:49
Did I miss something - where are these limits officially stated ?
Yep, as far as the internal announcement is concerned, that's the limits being quoted :shrug:
I'm just reading it off the news page here (http://cableforum.co.uk/article/112/update-ntl-confirms-more-broadband-speed-changes)
Methinks that the £25 charge has more to do with introducing the cap.
Give everyone a free speed upgrade but introduce a cap and peeps will moan like hell.
Let them pay to opt in to a deal that includes a cap and they won't - (as much).
I'm just reading it off the news page here (http://cableforum.co.uk/article/112/update-ntl-confirms-more-broadband-speed-changes)
fair enough...
Are these in line with the current "caps" ?
Certainly 30-40Gb per month does not seem to be particularly low.
without getting into the whole "cap/no cap" discussion, I play CS:Source, and work over VPN quite a lot from home, and the speed difference from 1-1.5M was noticeable, so from 1.5-3M would be even more so.
I don't spend a large amount of time downloading (probably a couple of Linux ISOs a fortnight) and have never hit the cap - to me this is a no brainer...
I wonder if this speed increase will also apply to AOL users without a cap ?
They are in line with the current guidelines which are 1gb a day, except for people who 1mb (which is why I have the vague notion if I stay on a tariff below 1mb I'll be subject to the same usage restriction) which is 5gb a month. Thats pretty low when you think about if you are downloading hl2 source and the games.
I think what atlis said may be on the money though. If people are actually paying and changing their broadband plans with a cap set in place, its alot more enforceable than when NTL just decided unilaterally to impose 'guidelines'
I hope these caps are guidelines but they do seem rather prominent.
orangebird
03-11-2004, 15:03
I wonder if this speed increase will also apply to AOL users without a cap ?
Not from any announcement ntl make. That would have to come from AOL, no-one else.
Certainly 30-40Gb per month does not seem to be particularly low.
It's still an average of 1.33333 gig per day though, so there's no real change, except you will hit the cap/'usage guideline' that bit faster....
At least ntl have been a bit more open & upfront about their 'cap' this time around, it remains to be seen whether they amend the Ts & Cs to reflect 40 gig per month as a blanket monthly figure, or amend the current 'usage guideline' that they have in place.
The way I see it is this regarding the usage allowance - If someone consistantly goes over the limit and it is seriously effecting others service for customers in their region then you probably get a polite notice to alter your usage.
If someone ocassionally goes over the limit and I am pretty much sure this applies to a signifcant amount of customers, then I am sure it will be overlooked, pretty much like its doing now.
You only have to think seriously about how many customers have posted on any forum that they have been disconnected or are going to be disconnected. Since the AUP change last year I do not know of anyone who has mentioned on any site that they had their services removed or discontinued. This can only point to one thing that it is a very rare occurance when ntl does act.
I am no fan of restrictions, personally it doesn't effect me one way or the other but I didn't particularily like the way ntl introduced them, one Friday afternoon, back in Feb 2003. But looking at the time factor since that time, when has ntl ever been seen to strictly enforce this?
ian@huth
03-11-2004, 15:28
It's still an average of 1.33333 gig per day though, so there's no real change, except you will hit the cap/'usage guideline' that bit faster....
At least ntl have been a bit more open & upfront about their 'cap' this time around, it remains to be seen whether they amend the Ts & Cs to reflect 40 gig per month as a blanket monthly figure, or amend the current 'usage guideline' that they have in place.
There is a change because 40 gig per month is less than what is currently allowed.
Most users will not hit the "cap/usage guideline" faster because they will still do the same things that they usually do.
How can you say that NTL have been more open and upfront this time when they have not officialy announced any change to the guidline? :)
this is superb news just what i wanted, although the caps are not concrete i expect NTL to come down on people like a ton of bricks if they exceed future limits :(
It's still an average of 1.33333 gig per day though, so there's no real change, except you will hit the cap/'usage guideline' that bit faster....
Actually I make it 1.314204359 - 40*12/365.24 (allowing for leap years/millenia) (sorry - couldn't resist being pedantic :naughty: )
At least ntl have been a bit more open & upfront about their 'cap' this time around, it remains to be seen whether they amend the Ts & Cs to reflect 40 gig per month as a blanket monthly figure, or amend the current 'usage guideline' that they have in place.
True, it is nice to see NTL being up front about this.
I an not a fan of capped broadband, as it seems to be a bit of a misnomer. But as my usage patterns do not cause issue with the cap, I have never really had issues with NTL having them.
It will be interesting to see what happens - Maybe this is just a way of trying to get those "power users" to subscribe to a business contract in order to have unlimited downloads.
Does anyone know whether the upload will change or not - I know it has been asked, but I do not see an answer.. ;)
Graham F
03-11-2004, 15:35
There is a change because 40 gig per month is less than what is currently allowed.
Most users will not hit the "cap/usage guideline" faster because they will still do the same things that they usually do.
How can you say that NTL have been more open and upfront this time when they have not officialy announced any change to the guidline? :)
Lets be fair ntl have yet to announce this change other than in their results, which says this change will happen in Q1 2005. So nearer the time i would expect ntl to do a press release with a full PIB on it which will explain all of this to ppl... patience ppl :)
Unfortunately, it makes sense on ntl's behalf, that they drastically reduce the cap on the new 1MB service, to discourage current 750K users from "downgrading" to 1MB next year.
A lot of current 750k users may be perfectly happy with their speed, and may think that 2MB isn't realy needed.
The measly 5GB cap will probably put them off from downgrading.
ian@huth
03-11-2004, 15:47
Lets be fair ntl have yet to announce this change other than in their results, which says this change will happen in Q1 2005. So nearer the time i would expect ntl to do a press release with a full PIB on it which will explain all of this to ppl... patience ppl :)
I fully agree with what you say which is why I said "when they have not officialy announced any change to the guidline? ". :)
I think it is great news from NTL and never expected that they would come up with two significant speed increases inside a year. Let's hope that the NTL PR department make the most of this.
I'm happy with the speed but worried about how caps may be enforced, at the moment I have a 40GB a month USENET account which I use up every month, now with the current guidelines they have left me alone (no usage letters) but if it is stictly enforced then I'm buggerd as I've got my normal browsing and online gaming usage on top of that. Yes they could say 40GB is an incerase but it is avery small incerase and at 3Mb that could eaten up very quickly. Hopefully if this a move to come into line with telewest then the caps wont be enforced as they dont have any caps at all at this time it just depends on which way they go after a merger i.e. capped/uncapped.
Its a reduction really, although it looks reasonable similar. The current guidelines allow you to download say 70gb a month and stay within the rules. On the basis that you download alot on the 4 days a month you're able to exceeed the 1gb cap.
Not that thats very reasonable use of the service. Personally I don't think I go over the guidelines much. Most days I only download 50mb from basic surfing. Just abit concerned with a 5gb cap that I'll be constantly looking at what I've downloaded instead of being rather carefree.
themelon
03-11-2004, 16:13
Capped Broadband is the way everyone will go sooner or later.
As more and more people get Broadband be it ADSL or Cable, Its a choice, either let bandwidth hogs using fileshare drive our connections to 14k speeds.
At least the 1Mb service isnt as pointless as the 1GB cap services certain DSL ISPs (cough BT, Wanadoo, Tiscali) are offering.............these days you turn frigging Windows on and it downloads some rubbish service pack and a gazillion patches which right royally srews your computer and its about 200mb!
I personaly feel that a 2GB a day (i.e. 60 a month) cap on a 3Mb connection would be better, obviously it would suit me anyway lol.
I wonder if this will actually lead initially to a drop in revenue for NTL as people view this as a chance to get an upgrade and a drop in price? In other words, will people change from the existing 750K for £25pm to the 1MB option at £18. I would think that the vast majority of users will not be troubled by a 5GB cap...so NTL will lose £7 per month, per customer.
The other thing is what happens when you go over your limit? Are you charged per MB or will the same relaxed rules as now, still apply?
Also have we had news on the upload speeds?
The other thing is what happens when you go over your limit? Are you charged per MB or will the same relaxed rules as now, still apply?
No confirmation yet.
Also have we had news on the upload speeds?
Same I'm afraid.
*These have yet to be confirmed by ntl, figures provided by internal source. Itâ₠¬ÃƒÂ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¾Ã‚¢s not yet certain if the above monthly usage allowances are just guidelines, however the currently usage allowance for existing speeds, is 1GB per day †“ but this is seen as a guide only and not necessarily an enforcement. NTL has not been known to strictly enforce the current usage allowance.
http://www.cableforum.co.uk/article/112/update-ntl-confirms-more-broadband-speed-changes
in my view NTL will enforce its rules whatever they may be, they have more to lose now interms of trying to keep heavy downloaders minimal and turning over revenue to keep bandwidth bills down, so its good in the sense speeds are to increase, but bad for people such as myself who argue against caps.
All the news about the speed upgrades is great.... it sounds like NTL is actually being sensible for a change :shocked:
Now if they do bring in the caps as mentioned why dont they also add extra tiers for BIG downloaders.....
300K 1MB †“ £17.99. (5GB* usage) + £5 for unlimited usage
750K 2MB †“ £24.99. (30GB* usage) + £7.50 for unlimited usage
1.5MB 3MB †“ £37.99. (40GB* usage) + £10 for unlimited usage
As I have said before I'm more than willing to pay extra money for extra usage. Why not even charge a little more for more upload too!!!
Give poeple more choice for more money and poeple will either choose to pay it or not!! And I for one will pay!!!
How about 8mb/1mb for £75!! gimme gimme!!! :D
How about 8mb/1mb for £75!! gimme gimme!!! :D
:LOL: if only.
in my view NTL will enforce its rules whatever they may be, they have more to lose now interms of trying to keep heavy downloaders minimal and turning over revenue to keep bandwidth bills down, so its good in the sense speeds are to increase, but bad for people such as myself who argue against caps.
But NTL are not alone with there caps, and they are by no means the worst. I could live with 40 gig :)
andrew_wallasey
03-11-2004, 16:56
Anyone know when it will be possible to upgrade to the new speeds?
Anyone know when it will be possible to upgrade to the new speeds?
first quarter of 2005
And you may join me at the front of the Q
ian@huth
03-11-2004, 17:02
With speeds being at least doubled next year will you stay on the same tier as you are now on or change to another tier?
It would also be interesting to know how your internet usage may change, if indeed it does, when you get this extra speed.
Yes ... or I would if I wasn't moving house off the network :cry: Sorry to keep banging on about it, but I'm really going to miss my BB, and now I'm going to miss it more than ever!
I would also pay the £25 if necessary, but I don't believe in paying for things if you can get them legally for free, so I'd have a look at a swift downgrade/upgrade if that's what I had to do to avoid the charge. :)
hmm I'd like to just stay on 750k with a 1gb a day limit. I would have clicked downgrade to 1mb from 750k but the 5gb a month limit is too low and I'd go over that, so I'd have to go with 2mb which I don't need. So I'm gonna have to pay £25 to stay with a usage restriction that I currently have. So much for this being an improvement.
andrew_wallasey
03-11-2004, 17:12
Yes Please :D
hmm I'd like to just stay on 750k with a 1gb a day limit. I would have clicked downgrade to 1mb from 750k but the 5gb a month limit is too low and I'd go over that, so I'd have to go with 2mb which I don't need. So I'm gonna have to pay £25 to stay with a usage restriction that I currently have. So much for this being an improvement.
My thoughts exactly. For a lot of people on 750 this is not much of an improvement. But then again, I'm on Telewest 750k, so I'll have to wait an seen what they do...
ian@huth
03-11-2004, 17:22
My thoughts exactly. For a lot of people on 750 this is not much of an improvement. But then again, I'm on Telewest 750k, so I'll have to wait an seen what they do...
You must be joking :Yikes: :Yikes: :Yikes: . 750k to 2Mb is not much of an improvement? Words fail me. :confused:
You must be joking :Yikes: :Yikes: :Yikes: . 750k to 2Mb is not much of an improvement? Words fail me. :confused:
And me
:confused:
How is it that every time NTL have a go at improving there BB product. Some users just want to pick holes in it. :(
JediMaster
03-11-2004, 17:32
Chet SPAM :D
NTL have today announced that they are going to be introducing new speeds which
are: -
ntl 1Mb Broadband
ntl 2Mb Broadband
ntl 2Mb Broadband
For more information take a look at this post
http://www.chetnet.co.uk/portal/forum/showthread.php?threadid=3922
Chet
Poor Martyn was so happy he Miss-Typed the email :p:
300K 1MB †“ £17.99. (5GB* monthly usage allowance)
750K 2MB †“ £24.99. (30GB* monthly usage allowance)
1.5MB 3MB †“ £37.99. (40GB* monthly usage allowance)
GREAT News... I was on 64kb (free upgrade to 150) then went for 600kb (free upgrade to 750kb) Now to 2MB :D
Not sure on the CAP (NO not another long winded thread) lol... Just waiting to see MORE info... What if we GO over :confused: & will NTL issue us with a FREE Traffic Monitor? :confused: I use my DU Meter (but others dont)
Some days I get 300MB & others (Joey day & stuff) lol I get 1.1GB :Yikes: (NOT like some who want UNRESTRICTED bandwidth for £5 extra) lol Imagine those who download 6GB a day... :mad: We need a better limit 4 honest on Demand usrrs & one for others :p:
You must be joking :Yikes: :Yikes: :Yikes: . 750k to 2Mb is not much of an improvement? Words fail me. :confused:
What he's trying to say is that 750 is fine for his needs but he's going to have to upgrade to a speed he does not need (and pay £25) just to keep the Cap that he currently has, so in that sense he's making perfect sense (to me at any rate)
And me
:confused:
How is it that every time NTL have a go at improving there BB product. Some users just want to pick holes in it. :(
I'm not picking holes. I am happy with with 750k, and wouldn't upgrade to 2mb if it weren't for the cap. In a way, I'm forced to upgrade/'stay at 2 meg', at a (one-off) cost of £25. If it wouldn't cost me £25 I'd have no problem with it though :)
300K 1MB †“ £17.99. (5GB* usage) + £5 for unlimited usage
750K 2MB †“ £24.99. (30GB* usage) + £7.50 for unlimited usage
1.5MB 3MB †“ £37.99. (40GB* usage) + £10 for unlimited usage
:D
That makes a lot of sense to me and I'd go for the 2Mb with the extra £7.50
ian@huth
03-11-2004, 17:40
What he's trying to say is that 750 is fine for his needs but he's going to have to upgrade to a speed he does not need (and pay £25) just to keep the Cap that he currently has, so in that sense he's making perfect sense (to me at any rate)
He's on Telewest so maybe a tad jealous. :D
Anyone that is on 750k and stays on the middle tier which will become 2Mb because they want more than 5 gig a month will still pay exactly the same as they were doing but will get some things done faster.
etccarmageddon
03-11-2004, 17:43
So they will sting us all (me in this example) for a £25 fee to take us off the 1.5Mb and move us to the 3Mb? New customers will automatically get the 3Mb? Nice :mad:
So if ntl are "stinging" existing customers by intending to charge an upgrade fee, could someone please provide me a link that says they are not going to charge a similar fee to new customers? I have read the whole pdf and it mentions nothing about how much new customers will be charged in one of fees.
Currently ntl charge a £75 installation fee- but this is waived at the moment- so what is to say that they won't stop waiving this fee when the new speeds are introduced? I can find nothing to clarify this point...............
we now know from that chetnet news release that the new super speeds include free installation.
"Prices include free installation, free cable modem and free activation."
He's on Telewest so maybe a tad jealous. :D
Anyone that is on 750k and stays on the middle tier which will become 2Mb because they want more than 5 gig a month will still pay exactly the same as they were doing but will get some things done faster.
At a one-off cost of £25...
I'm on NTL ianathuth.
The thing is, I don't need it to go any faster, I'm very happy with 750k. But I now have to pay £25 to retain the same usage restriction that I currently have. Can't you see that for some people this change means paying £25 to stay the same as we don't want or need the increased bandwidth.
gary_580
03-11-2004, 17:45
To be honest, I am pleased at the news - My once 512K priced at £24.99 some 3/4 years ago went from 512K to 600K at no cost - then it went from 600K to 750K at no cost and now with this news its being significantly increased (More than doubled) to 2MB and still for £24.99 per month. I will happily pay £25 admin fee for this. Small price to pay for such a huge difference IMHO.
The question is if your happy with 750K and havent gone for 1.5M then why upgrade?
Its like having a fast car, if you cant drive it that fast whats the point in having it?
The question is if your happy with 750K and havent gone for 1.5M then why upgrade?
So that you don't go down to 5gb a month cap.
ian@huth
03-11-2004, 17:51
Maybe we should wait and see what NTL have to say about "caps" and whether the £25 admin fee is just to enable you to get the upgrade early.
andrew_wallasey
03-11-2004, 17:53
You are getting over double the speed with the same cap for a one off charge of £25 what is you problem? Stop moaning about nothing.
gary_580
03-11-2004, 17:57
So that you don't go down to 5gb a month cap.
im assuming that if you dont pay the £25 you dont get altered speed or cap
I'm on NTL ianathuth.
The thing is, I don't need it to go any faster, I'm very happy with 750k. But I now have to pay £25 to retain the same usage restriction that I currently have. Can't you see that for some people the extra bandwidth isn't worth paying £25 for ?
Nor you have said previously in this thread that you do not nowhere near download 1GB per day - so if this is the case and for many others in a similar situation like you, when the speeds are rolled out - just carry on with what your doing now, its just you will get things done online much quicker. :)
At the end of the day if you do not want to change or upgrade then the simple option it seems - is to do nothing. These speed increases are not being forced on people and existing customers do not have to pay the £25 admin fee if they do not want to upgrade.
I for one though am happy with these changes, 512K was priced £24.99 when I got BB 3/4 years ago and In the 1st quarter of 2005 I can get 2MB, almost as four times as fast for the same price. That's not bad for a company, who emerged from Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection not that long ago. :cool:
If they increase the speed, keep the price competitive, keep the cap as a threat rather than as a rule, how can anyone be upset.
Even if the 3meg isnt for everyone, its a poke in the eye for most other isp's and being able to compete by having one of the fastest speeds available in the uk will not hurt ntl's image. ;)
When i saw the speeds my jaw dropped, then i saw the caps and my heart sank. I hope, badly, that the caps are enforced like they are now (ie not enforced :D).
If thats the case, ntl must be the best bb provider in the country.
Nor you have said previously in this thread that you do not nowhere near download 1GB per day - so if this is the case and for many others in a similar situation like you, when the speeds are rolled out - just carry on with what your doing now, its just you will get things done online much quicker. :)
At the end of the day if you do not want to change or upgrade then the simple option it seems - is to do nothing. These speed increases are not being forced on people and existing customers do not have to pay the £25 admin fee if they do not want to upgrade.
I for one though am happy with these changes, 512K was priced £24.99 when I got BB 3/4 years ago and In the 1st quarter of 2005 I can get 2MB, almost as four times as fast for the same price. That's not bad for a company, who emerged from Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection not that long ago. :cool:
I understand what you're saying. Its not really possible to do nothing though. It'll cost me more to have 750k than it will cost people to have 1mb. I'll also be on a lower monthy cap than I am on currently. If I upgrade to the new packages in order to downgrade to 1mb it'll cost me £25 and I'll be on a 5gb a month usage restriction. If I upgrade to 2mb in order to keep the same usage restruction it'll cost me £25 to basically stay the same. I don't want to turn this into another lengthy cap debate, but thats more important to me really than any kind of e-p**** speed measurement.
Chrysalis
03-11-2004, 18:48
this is awesome news, for me on 750kbit I will probably stay on the same 24.99 price but change to the 2mbit package. £25 is well worth it I see little to complain about there. Some questions tho, mick and I know there is no answers yet.
1 - Will upload speed be increased on 24.99 tier?
2 - How is the traffic enforcement going to work (same as now or strict limits with overage fee's)
DeadKenny
03-11-2004, 19:01
If thats the case, ntl must be the best bb provider in the country.
Speed isn't everything an ISP must provide you know. There are many things people are forgetting about NTL and why so many of us are jumping ship and happy to steer well clear of NTL no matter what they offer.
Ignition
03-11-2004, 19:15
Speed isn't everything an ISP must provide you know. There are many things people are forgetting about NTL and why so many of us are jumping ship and happy to steer well clear of NTL no matter what they offer.
Likewise for some people it's as smooth a ride as you like with service at very least acceptable and at best brilliant. BTW I like the speed you're on with PN :D Speed does sell!
At the end of the day while there are a fair few unhappy people there must be hundreds of thousands of happy bunnies, otherwise ntl wouldn't be in business?
Regarding this issue of £25 admin fee.
Again I would point out to people that BT charge similar for service regrades (which are usually a reconfiguration job), also that no-one is forcing you to take these upgraded services. ADSL customers have to pay BT a migration fee. For a total of next to no work, just some ATM config changes.
The £25 is IMHO no punishment to current users, to provision new customers costs the same be it at 64k or 3Mbit, to move customers over will require work.
If you don't want it don't take it.
Personally I think the fastest widely available bb service in the UK for a sub-40 quid a month price point is an absolute bloody steal. I'm rather irritated I can't get it to be honest as it'll be a very long time before BT offer anything similar - last I heard there were no plans at all.
Iâ₠¬ÃƒÆ’¢â€žÂ¢m interested to read the news speed bands, I was delighted with my free upgrade to 300K which made my BB experience a lot better. 1MB for £17.99 sounds good to me :) even with that 5GB cap but then again I only browse the net , e-mail, and play the odd game so I should be fine.
I might not upgrade right off as £25 sounds a bit high to administer :td: itââ‚ ¬ÃƒÂ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¾Ã‚¢s another £25 Iâ₠¬ÃƒÆ’¢â€žÂ¢d have to find over everything else and Iâ₠¬ÃƒÆ’¢â€žÂ¢m in no rush. Iâ₠¬ÃƒÆ’¢â€žÂ¢m the poor fool who paid £50 installation cost for my BB then the next month it was free.
You are joking i hope. Whats wrong with a one of payment of £25.00 But you dont have to pay it. Just dont have the upgrade. Next you will want blood from a stone and expect ntl to pay for it.
Ok, but assume for a moment that someone was stubborn enough to refuse to pay the £25 fee, that would mean that NTL would still need to retain the cable modem configs for the 1.5Mb service as that one would no longer exist. Are they really going to let someone stay on a service tier that would effectively no longer exist. They couldn't actually force this on someone who is still within their 12 month contract.
It strikes me that in typical NTL fashion this hasn`t been thought through particularly well. As pointed out earlier, I could just downgrade a tier, pay less money and still get a speed increase to offset against the costs of then going back up to 3Mb.
With the upgrade from 1Mb to 1.5Mb this was simply making a change in a config file and then the new cable modem picking it up the next time it is rebooted. If the administration fee is valid for the new upgrades it would have been valid then, but they didn`t charge it before. All NTL are doing is tweaking a config file that is sitting on a server, I rebooted the cable modem myself to pick it up, so now work was done specifically for me.
As NTL claim they have 1,000,000 broadband customers now, this seems to me nothing than a cheap trick to try and rake in a quick £25mill ion.
cjmillsnun
03-11-2004, 19:53
not sure why you are unhapy abt having to pay £25 :confused: they could of simply increased the price and made the money that way. Simple really if you don't want to pay don't change!!
Hang on why should I pay for 750k (at 24.99 per month) when a new customer gets 2mb FOR THE SAME PRICE! This is complete $h1te.
Yes they could have increased the prices, but people would leave ntl like rats leaving a sinking ship.
Come on ntl, it would cost virtually nothing to treat your LOYAL customers who have been with you for years!
andrew_wallasey
03-11-2004, 19:56
I cant see people have 2048/128 and 1024/64. I would assume they will increase the upload across the board but would not be sure as I have been told the download is not what kripples the network its the uploading.
andrew_wallasey
03-11-2004, 20:01
Ok, but assume for a moment that someone was stubborn enough to refuse to pay the £25 fee, that would mean that NTL would still need to retain the cable modem configs for the 1.5Mb service as that one would no longer exist. Are they really going to let someone stay on a service tier that would effectively no longer exist. They couldn't actually force this on someone who is still within their 12 month contract.
It strikes me that in typical NTL fashion this hasn`t been thought through particularly well. As pointed out earlier, I could just downgrade a tier, pay less money and still get a speed increase to offset against the costs of then going back up to 3Mb.
With the upgrade from 1Mb to 1.5Mb this was simply making a change in a config file and then the new cable modem picking it up the next time it is rebooted. If the administration fee is valid for the new upgrades it would have been valid then, but they didn`t charge it before. All NTL are doing is tweaking a config file that is sitting on a server, I rebooted the cable modem myself to pick it up, so now work was done specifically for me.
As NTL claim they have 1,000,000 broadband customers now, this seems to me nothing than a cheap trick to try and rake in a quick £25mill ion.
I don't know anything about the config files but I seriously doubt it is just a quick tweak. Also, what about the costs in upgrading the network to suppose the new speed. If you are currently on 1.5mbps, 25quid is littler over 1/2 a months subscription charge for double the speed. Stop being a tight arse.
They are not forcing you to change the speed but I would rather pay 25quid and have the speed upgrade or downgrade and save the extra money but I will be surfing at 3mbit from the new year :D
I just found this on driverheaven, by the way whats Up with this USAGE ALLOWANCE :mad: , that sounds a lot like metering to me. Im definitely going to need more then 40gb a month.
*£17.99 per month: ntl 1Mb Broadband (monthly usage allowance 5GB) will offer super speed broadband for 60p a day. For the same price BT Broadband offers a basic 512K service with 1GB usage allowance.
*£24.99 per month: ntl 2Mb Broadband (monthly usage allowance 30GB) will operate at a stunning speed, but at a price thatâ₠¬Ã¢â€žÂ¢s in line with most 512K ADSL services. For the same price BT Broadband offers a 512K service with 15GB usage allowance
*£37.99 per month: ntl 3Mb Broadband (monthly usage allowance 40GB) will operate at up to 60 times faster than dial up services. BT and Wanadoo do not provide 2Mb or 3Mb services.
My apologies if any of this has already been posted.
With the upgrade from 1Mb to 1.5Mb this was simply making a change in a config file and then the new cable modem picking it up the next time it is rebooted.
It was a lot more involved than that, actually - there's more than one config file, there's more than one server, there's some areas of the country delayed, there's UBR configs to be amended, there's capacity monitoring, there's checking the work to make sure you haven't made a mistake. Was a big big job.
andrew_wallasey
03-11-2004, 20:12
I just found this on driverheaven, by the way whats Up with this USAGE ALLOWANCE :mad: , that sounds a lot like metering to me. Im definitely going to need more then 40gb a month.
*£17.99 per month: ntl 1Mb Broadband (monthly usage allowance 5GB) will offer super speed broadband for 60p a day. For the same price BT Broadband offers a basic 512K service with 1GB usage allowance.
*£24.99 per month: ntl 2Mb Broadband (monthly usage allowance 30GB) will operate at a stunning speed, but at a price thatâ₠¬Ã¢â€žÂ¢s in line with most 512K ADSL services. For the same price BT Broadband offers a 512K service with 15GB usage allowance
*£37.99 per month: ntl 3Mb Broadband (monthly usage allowance 40GB) will operate at up to 60 times faster than dial up services. BT and Wanadoo do not provide 2Mb or 3Mb services.
My apologies if any of this has already been posted.
Well if it is you will have to pay a per gb amount extra wont you :( I don't think it will be strict though.
andrew_wallasey
03-11-2004, 20:15
It was a lot more involved than that, actually - there's more than one config file, there's more than one server, there's some areas of the country delayed, there's UBR configs to be amended, there's capacity monitoring, there's checking the work to make sure you haven't made a mistake. Was a big big job.
Didn't think it was easy :( and to have to do it all over again bet ya gutted, lol.
Graham F
03-11-2004, 20:22
Hang on why should I pay for 750k (at 24.99 per month) when a new customer gets 2mb FOR THE SAME PRICE! This is complete $h1te.
Yes they could have increased the prices, but people would leave ntl like rats leaving a sinking ship.
Come on ntl, it would cost virtually nothing to treat your LOYAL customers who have been with you for years!
Your jumping the gun a bit there as you don't know all the details of if this is available to new customers etc.... :)
I just found this on driverheaven, by the way whats Up with this USAGE ALLOWANCE :mad: [/b], that sounds a lot like metering to me. Im definitely going to need more then 40gb a month.
Here's hopeing your not on the same ubr as me :scratch:
SMHarman
03-11-2004, 20:35
What benefit is there in having download speed which is twice as fast if you can only download the same amount mate. Its like racing in between red traffic lights.
Not quite, the red traffic lights go green and you get to your destination quicker with a faster connection, click on a link and it responds, no waiting.
I don't know anything about the config files but I seriously doubt it is just a quick tweak. Also, what about the costs in upgrading the network to suppose the new speed. If you are currently on 1.5mbps, 25quid is littler over 1/2 a months subscription charge for double the speed. Stop being a tight arse.
This has got nothing to do with being a "tight arse", as you so eloquently put it. It is entirely to do with a seemingly arbitrary administration fee, if they want to charge me they are going to have to justify the charge. And yes, it will just be a quick tweak to the config files. It is trivially simple to hack the config files on the cable modems if you want to give yourself a speed upgrade as it is, if you can do it (albeit illegally I`ll hasten to add) with simple tools downloaded from the net, why is it going to be that much hard for NTL staff to do it?
They are not forcing you to change the speed but I would rather pay 25quid and have the speed upgrade or downgrade and save the extra money but I will be surfing at 3mbit from the new year :D
It still remains to be seen whether this ends up being forced on customers or not. Given the trouble I foresee ahead of attempting to juggle customers who have and haven`t upgraded, as this will result in customers on the same tier but at different speeds and customers on the same speed but at different tiers, I strongly suspect that this will end up becoming mandatory.
It was a lot more involved than that, actually - there's more than one config file, there's more than one server, there's some areas of the country delayed, there's UBR configs to be amended, there's capacity monitoring, there's checking the work to make sure you haven't made a mistake. Was a big big job.
That still doesn't justify why the feel the need to charge and administration fee now but didn`t before. I still cannot perceive this as a cheap excuse to try and rake in extra cash.
why is it going to be that much hard for NTL staff to do it?
We look at the network and see if it needs upgrades to allow the new speeds. Those that upgrade there modems in that manner dont think about what they are doing to paying customers.
:mad:
AsianMan
03-11-2004, 20:48
another upgrade sounded great until i read the 5gb/month cap!!! , wont that be easly broken very easly especially with 1mb!! , ima probly stay with normal net
Hang on, before I have a heart attack wrongly, did someone say that NTL are going to offer 3Mb for £38 a month? really?
If so call an ambulance. Finally NTL leading the field, again, kudos to them if its pulled off.
PS : I certainly dont mind paying £25 for it either, thats not even a months rate for double the speed, good value in my book.
Hang on, before I have a heart attack wrongly, did someone say that NTL are going to offer 3Mb for £38 a month? really?
If so call an ambulance. Finally NTL leading the field, again, kudos to them if its pulled off.
PS : I certainly dont mind paying £25 for it either, thats not even a months rate for double the speed, good value in my book.
:clap: :clap:
ian@huth
03-11-2004, 20:54
Just think about things for a moment. How long has it taken NTL to upgrade to the current speeds and have all customers been upgraded yet? The longest wait for the upgrade is for 1Mb customers with STBs waiting to go to 1.5Mb. I would imagine that there is a considerable number of middle tier STB customers with Pace STBs that will have to be supplied with either an exchange Samsung box or SACM in order to achieve the forthcoming 2Mb service. This will take some time to do. As I have said a couple of times before, the £25 admin fee for the change may just be to jump the queue and have your new config file sent down to only you, together with a box swap or CM if needed. I would imagine that if NTL were to wait for all customers to have the right equipment needed to take advantage of the higher speeds then it would be a very long wait.
Even if the £25 is applied to all existing customers in order to upgrade then it is a small price to pay for what you will be getting. It is not that long ago that lower tier customers were paying £17.99 for 150k so effectively they are getting nearly 7 times the speed for a one off payment of £25. Middle tier will have increased from 600k to 2Mb, more than 3 times the speed for a one off £25. Upper tier will have tripled in speed for the £25.
If a year ago 1Mb customers had been offered a 3Mb service for a one off £25 payment I think they would all have said "bluddy great, I'll have that please".
Honestly, what do some people want? Will anything ever satisfy them?
Seems a bizarre way for them to go and only a 50% speed bump and a 1/3 increase in cap differentiating the last two?
I suppose 5Gb/month is generous by the standards of capped ADSL - but if I could get uncapped 512k ADSL at a similar price, bye-bye NTL - I don't think I do 5Gb/month, but I'd rather not have to watch it - 5Gb/month at 1 Megabit is less than 1/2 hour flat out per day.
Unless they were to use an automatic warning, suspending, slowdowns system, it would be unworkable - a lower speed and a "gluttons only" cap level would be better.
Ignition
03-11-2004, 20:58
I just found this on driverheaven, by the way whats Up with this USAGE ALLOWANCE :mad: , that sounds a lot like metering to me. Im definitely going to need more then 40gb a month.
Damn, not having other users paying extra to subsidise you using as much as 10 or more of them, nasty :erm: (NB 5% of users use 60+% of the average ISP's bandwidth, and no I don't give a s**t about 'congestion' vs 'usage', timing downloads, etc, etc, that's for a capping thread. Just giving facts as they are in this context.
3Mbit at that price, with that traffic alowance, take it or leave it, no-one's gonna put a gun to your head and tell you to either upgrade or stop download dodgy stuff.
No it isn't metering. Metering would be making you pay per GB downloaded, which at a guess would bankrupt you fairly quickly, this is keeping the price sane and within reach of more people while supplying a service compatible with most users requirements.
Sorry if I sound like a broken record there but that's my take, and I'm jealous of those who can avail themselves of what I think is a really really good deal.
LostintheNW
03-11-2004, 21:03
Just wondering what happens to those people who don't upgrade to the new speeds, will they be automatically pushed on to them with the cap? of will they be allowed to stay on the speed they are at without the new capping limits? (even though there is that suggestion there is one at the moment)
Florence
03-11-2004, 21:10
Hang on, before I have a heart attack wrongly, did someone say that NTL are going to offer 3Mb for £38 a month? really?
If so call an ambulance. Finally NTL leading the field, again, kudos to them if its pulled off.
PS : I certainly dont mind paying £25 for it either, thats not even a months rate for double the speed, good value in my book.
If you upgrade with ADSL you are charged an adminstration charge. If you don't like the charge you have two choices. Stay on the one they move you two never up or downgrading or move to BT.. Oh they also charge to upgrade BT charge the ISPs £15 plus Vat and the ISPs pass this on to the customer...
from £14.99 to regrade staying on the same contract term. £24.99 to go from Annual > Monthly
So you still have to pay...
After reading what NTL have offered I am really worried about what type of people NTL have attracted as customers!!
Come on guys they have offered something you have been asking for, they have made the changes without price increases. Even Telewest charge £50 for 3mb..
The old saying jumps to mind
They are Damned if they do and Damned if they don't
If you upgrade with ADSL you are charged an adminstration charge. If you don't like the charge you have two choices. Stay on the one they move you two never up or downgrading or move to BT.. Oh they also charge to upgrade BT charge the ISPs £15 plus Vat and the ISPs pass this on to the customer...
So you still have to pay...
After reading what NTL have offered I am really worried about what type of people NTL have attracted as customers!!
Come on guys they have offered something you have been asking for, they have made the changes without price increases. Even Telewest charge £54.99 for 3mb..
The old saying jumps to mind
They are Damned if they do and Damned if they don't
Here Here, hence I dont mind paying it, Sure you quoted the right person? :)
All I can say to NTL is bring on the upgrades, I cant wait to finally match my dutch friend who is on 3Mb atm, hes going to be very annoyed when he realises mine is CHEAPER too :D
andrew_wallasey
03-11-2004, 21:23
This has got nothing to do with being a "tight arse", as you so eloquently put it. It is entirely to do with a seemingly arbitrary administration fee, if they want to charge me they are going to have to justify the charge. And yes, it will just be a quick tweak to the config files. It is trivially simple to hack the config files on the cable modems if you want to give yourself a speed upgrade as it is, if you can do it (albeit illegally I`ll hasten to add) with simple tools downloaded from the net, why is it going to be that much hard for NTL staff to do it?
It still remains to be seen whether this ends up being forced on customers or not. Given the trouble I foresee ahead of attempting to juggle customers who have and haven`t upgraded, as this will result in customers on the same tier but at different speeds and customers on the same speed but at different tiers, I strongly suspect that this will end up becoming mandatory.
It is not just the config file which needs to be updated. Sending out new config files to over 1 million people is never going to be an easy task. There is also upgrades to ubr's required. The network has been being upgraded since the summer which is how we got the 1.5mbps upgrade. There is also not just one server which everyone in the UK connects to. There is various pops round the country e.g. manchester, bromley, etc.
How will it be difficult to keep customers on different speeds. It is no different to have the 3 different speeds that we have at the moment excpet there will be 6.
bigitup_j
03-11-2004, 21:28
this is all good news.
although, i don't think it's fair that 300k customers, who upgrade to 1mb (like me), will end up with a 5gb cap per month. when we currently have 1gb per day/ 30gb per month. :(
i'm sure i download more that 5gb per month. but 1mb would be very nice :Yes:
but it only costs £25 for the upgrade....so i shant complain (for a while ;) )
:D
ian@huth
03-11-2004, 21:32
What is everbody going to do with this extra speed?
Will the way that you use your connection change?
andrew_wallasey
03-11-2004, 21:36
What is everbody going to do with this extra speed?
Will the way that you use your connection change?
Probably not just make things happen quicker.
If you upgrade with ADSL you are charged an adminstration charge. If you don't like the charge you have two choices. Stay on the one they move you two never up or downgrading or move to BT.. Oh they also charge to upgrade BT charge the ISPs £15 plus Vat and the ISPs pass this on to the customer...
So you still have to pay...
After reading what NTL have offered I am really worried about what type of people NTL have attracted as customers!!
Come on guys they have offered something you have been asking for, they have made the changes without price increases. Even Telewest charge £50 for 3mb..
The old saying jumps to mind
They are Damned if they do and Damned if they don't
:clap:
and take a green rep as well :)
Florence
03-11-2004, 21:44
Here Here, hence I dont mind paying it, Sure you quoted the right person? :)
All I can say to NTL is bring on the upgrades, I cant wait to finally match my dutch friend who is on 3Mb atm, hes going to be very annoyed when he realises mine is CHEAPER too :D
Sure did we agree on the admin charge and I added the fuel that BT already charge it
;) :clap: :clap:
slowcoach
03-11-2004, 21:56
Just when everyone thought NTL was asleep, the giant awakes!!!!
One month ago I was on 512KB ADSL with no prospect of faster speeds (BT+rusty line),
today I am at 1.5MB (NTL) with the prospect of 3MB, did I make the right move or did I make the right move?
Where do I send the £25, I want to be at the front of the queue :walk:
:erm: Is it too early to start a new thread asking for even faster speeds? :Yikes:
A free upgrade to 6MB sounds about right to keep us happy throughout 2005 don't you think? ....Q2 would be good timing :D
Broadband Britain = NTL :hugs:
andrew_wallasey
03-11-2004, 22:01
yer 12mbps by Q4 next year :D
so maybe i missed it all but do i have to swap to this or can i stay on the 1gig cap thing that they dont do anything about?
what the hell am i reading here! NTL have increased speeds i applaud them for doing that, im not happy with the cap, slightly unhappy with the £25 admin fee to upgrade to the faster tiers but all in all its an excellent move, when will people get off their anti NTL horses and admit NTL have come up trumps for once, lets sit back and wait for the speeds to come through first quarter 2005, its like people want to intentionally moan at NTL and nit pick on the tiniest of things :rant:
Electrolyte01
03-11-2004, 22:12
I'll be paying the £25 fee, as I'm sick of 300K. I want 1MB!!! :p:
Graham M
03-11-2004, 22:20
Even with the 5 gig cap?
Electrolyte01
03-11-2004, 22:20
If that's per month then I don't think I'll ever use that up.
slowcoach
03-11-2004, 22:24
yer 12mbps by Q4 next year :DThat timing makes sense :D
Yes I admit I haven't read all the posts here and elsewhere
BUT
What are the upload speeds going to be? I want to be able to send big emails quickly or work from home by VPN, download isn't everything, and all ADSL seem to start at 256kb up don't they?
andrew_wallasey
03-11-2004, 23:30
256k up?
not that isnt right ... you can only get 256k upload except on llu service e.g. bulldog in central london.
256k up?
not that isnt right ... you can only get 256k upload except on llu service e.g. bulldog in central london.
nope wrong- Buldog offer higher uploads of 384kbps
as far as i know- infact, everyone i know on adsl, is on 256kb upload
nope wrong- Buldog offer higher uploads of 384kbps
as far as i know- infact, everyone i know on adsl, is on 256kb upload If you live in London that is, and the quoted speed is up to 400k up and up to 4MB down, which leaves the majority of the UK with 256k up, to be fair 3mb/256 Still is a tasty prospect.
EDIT : I Live 40 Miles from London and Bulldog can only Offer 256k upload, and 2MB down.
Those complaining about the £25 fee should spare a thought for those of us who bought our cable modems back in the early days when we didnt have a choice.
We paid about £150 for the modem and as such we have always got a £5 discount since rental became an option. However if you try and upgrade from 750k to 1.5mb they refuse to take the discount into effect and it will almost certainly be the same here.
This mean not onlt do we have to pay £25 to upgrade but we either have to stick outselves with a stupid 5GB limit or pay £5 a month more than we do now for something we dont need.
Again just another example of long term customers who helped them support the product in the early days being screwed over in favour of new customers
As for if these will be proper caps I have to say the fact they are mentioned in the press releases would suggest that they will be. Why make it such an issue otherwise. Only other reason could be as others have said they want to scare people into not downgrading in which case they wont clarify their position and will leave us to all take a risk
Its a wonderful democracy in which we live.
I have just read through this, and I have been amazed by some of the snivelling, whining, cheap, ungrateful, narrow, and unjustifiably negative viewpoints that some users seem to have contrived to aspire to.
However, for the most part the majority seem to be happy with a stonking speed upgrade that may incur a reasonable one-off admin fee to instigate, and, it seems to me, answers all of the calls for more speed/better value that have been made in recent history.
A quick summary of the Poll indicates that the large majority of resondents presently represented, are happy to suck in the extra speed and remain at their current subscribed service level.
As for if these will be proper caps I have to say the fact they are mentioned in the press releases would suggest that they will be. Why make it such an issue otherwise. Only other reason could be as others have said they want to scare people into not downgrading in which case they wont clarify their position and will leave us to all take a riskAs things stand, ntl cannot really impose caps because they have no ability to mass monitor usage in such a way that you, the user, can be kept informed as well. But I doubt this situation will last.
They are spending millions on upgrading the networks for these new speeds, and other services, and my bet is that this new equipment will be able to monitor you usage much better, and keep you informed of it.
Maybe not straight away, but I think it will come - and when it does, I suspect you will see a big change in attitude - and they will start to take action against you if you exceed your limit, either by cutting you off, or reducing your speed, or maybe charging you for the extra usage.
btw - I haven't seen this mentioned, but I am led to believe that the caps for these new speeds are 'total traffic', i.e. upload and download.
USAGE ALLOWANCE :mad:, well I wasnt expecting something for nothing, But then again lets hope that this go's the same way as which telephone deregulation has by brining in ever decreasing prices due to competition, thats what's really needed for broadband, competition.
Remember back when NTL 1st introduced the 1mb service at £49.99 sure that sounded good at the time but when you consider the sort of speeds available elsewhere at the time for example in Japan, North America and the Scandanavian and Benelux area's 10mb, 100mb or dedicated fibre optic home use connections for around the $30.00 a month. Yeah we were getting a real good deal :dunce: .
Well in retrospect "to me it seems" that they'll try to make anything fly or get away with what ever they can, just enough, Dont get me wrong its not that im complaining or even saying that its bad, on the contrary id be more then willing to pay for what I use since its the fair thing but regaurdless were still not getting a fair deal. Not when you look around and see whats available elsewhere.
P.S. this isnt a attack on anybody, Just my Opinion.
The usage restriction could be for upload & download then ? That would be positively terrible.
For all those people complaining about others complaining, spot the joke there, do you honestly believe NTL are gonna give so much without taking something ?
slowcoach
04-11-2004, 02:07
Come the New Year BT are charging £2 per Gig for going over the limit, this seems a more sensible approach rather than cutting people off, the Telco's are only in it for the money after all. :devsmoke:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Be ready for the upgrade, get that Cable Modem water cooled. :afire:
The countdown has started and until the upgrades start this forum is going to be full of speculation, just the thing to pass these dark evenings away.
:dunce: Happy days are here again!
ntl: #1
Richard M
04-11-2004, 07:11
I need to look into moving to an NTL-cabled area...or I could wait to see how the DSL providers respond.
Electrolyte01
04-11-2004, 07:51
Is the cap montly? If so I think I may be staying on my 300K with my 1GB per day :erm:
Being new to Broadband at 300k, I can only say the news from NTL is wonderful. At last the company seems to be able to offer an exciting product, the upgrade to 1 meg is very welcome and will clearly put NTL services in the lead. Having endured dial up at 54 kbps for so long believe me 300k is a dream and 1 meg would be a blessing. Caps don't bother me but certainly if people are being selfish in using up bandwidth at other customers expense then by all means cap them.
Bring it on NTL, well done NTL wise move.
:)
etccarmageddon
04-11-2004, 09:00
now we pay £25 a month for 700k or £38 a month for 1.5m - so you're getting 100% extra speed for an extra £13.
with these new speeds you pay £25 for 2mb or £38 for 3mb - so you'll only get 50% extra speed for you an extra £13!
and the price difference between the 1mb and the 2mb product will be £7 but the price difference between 2mb and 3mb is £13!
so the best value option with the new speeds will be the £25 version.
NitroNutter
04-11-2004, 09:07
And still with a 1GB a day cap on the 3Mbit and no way to monitor a family household usage ? (Unless you buy a very expensive snmp router or build your own).
If so its not tempting me to return to a new 12 month contract with NTL even if it was just for the BB. Sorry but 1 GB a day on those speeds is just ludicrous with todays internet content, in a multi pc enviroment, that NTL themselves promoted.
themelon
04-11-2004, 09:13
Its still 30gb a month at 2mb speeds which is ample for me.........It means I can get what I need quicker at no extra cost.........all good
I was once worried I exceeded the cap but on monitoring.
I do go over 1gb some days by quite a bit, but other days im out at the football etc or cant be arsed with the Internet I hardly use anything.
So It probably evens out to be quite a bit less than 30gb in a month I go over on about 10 days, 1Gb of data in a day is still quite a bit.
Unless you are running a fileshare empire!
ntl did plan to introduce 'Metered Broadband' next year according to a timescale on a presentation for investor relations. So this and new metered products may feature this when the cap is exceeded.
At the end of the day you have to make some compromises, either let all the fileshare bandwidth hogs come on and max their connections really screwing the network or impose a cap ample for the average user and bankrupt the bandwidth hogs with extra charges.
Either way
1mb for £17.99
2mb for £24.99
£37 for 3mb
all good good for the UK
Wonder if it wakes BT up, there is noway that they can possibly ever continue to sell a pishy 1GB capped 512k service for £19.99.
Is there never going to be a "pay more" d\load as much as you like scheme?
I assume business lines can, [?] its a shame theres nothing a little more flexible.
Allready the great new speed increases are over shadowed by caps and usage. Yes i know nearly every other provider has them, but most are looking to those that dont, for the time being anyway. ;)
I might be willing to pay about 60 to 70 a month for a 2 or 3 mb unlimited download.
PC_Arcade
04-11-2004, 10:02
I've got to admit I'm impressed with NTL for the first time in years with this announcement, I'm not bothered about a one off £25 charge, and I will go from 1.5 Mb to 3Mb the minute it's available.
I just hope that UK ISP's (including NTL) re-think this whole ludicrous "cap" nonsense.
Luckily NTL (for them) don't seem to actively enforce it, the second they do I will drop all my services (currently phone, toptier BB and top tier Cable TV) and switch to Bulldog, AOL or one of the MANY other ISPs that have no down/upload limits.
themelon
04-11-2004, 10:07
The majority want it cheap. ntl are aiming for the mass market who want faster speeds cheaper, the majority of the UK only browse and download occassional mp3s...........the usage pattern may change in the future. We are a nation of browsers this is the reason why 300k service and even capped 512k services are so popular because this is what the majority use and need and is perfectly sufficient.
ntl are pushing things up a level which may lead to different usage patterns in the UK.
I personally wouldnt ever consider paying more than £25 for any form of Broadband
As I understand it the old tiers are not disappearing, there are three new ones. In summary we have:
With no cap or 1GB per day soft cap or beanie:
£17.99 per month = 300kbps down; 64kbps up; ~30GB per month usage allowance
£24.99 per month = 750kbps down; 128kbps up; ~30GB per month usage allowance
£37.99 per month = 1.5Mbps down; 256kbps up; ~30GB per month usage allowance
With a hard monthly cap:
£17.99 per month = 1Mbps down; ? mbps up; 5GB per month usage allowance
£24.99 per month = 2Mbps down; ? mbps up; 30GB per month usage allowance
£37.99 per month = 3Mbps down; 256kbps up; 40GB per month usage allowance
Existing customers wishing to change from the 'slow' to the 'fast' group will have to pay a £25 upgrade charge. Any upgrading customers who access broadband through a Pace STB will get theirs swapped for a Samsung or get switched to SACM plus STB.
That is the situation as I understand it. Please correct me if I am wrong.
I was reading the info about the upgrade to speeds and was happy to see that i could get 2mb for what i am paying now.
But what worries me is the proposed caps they are looking to put on, now i run 2 pcs on a router and both are used for heavy internet gaming, one is sometimes left running for large periods of the day running a game (bot tasking) and the other general when i am playing.
Ontop of this i tend to download a lot of large update files regularly and also am currently in web design so upload to ftp's a-lot and download various things.
According to a calculation i will use my bandwith cap in 30hours just from playing the game alone, are these caps final? Can i remain on my 700k without a bandwith limit? am i gonna be gettin charged more for using to much bw?
(and no i ain't cutting down the gaming since i pay per month for it and enjoy it a-lot cept on fridays when the town and ladies is a callin lol)
PC_Arcade
04-11-2004, 10:17
I think the whole capped usage thing is ultimately destructive for ISP's, customers vote with their wallets and it will only take BT's customers being charged silly amounts for a couple of linux distros or NTL's hard enforcement of caps and people will start looking for cap free providers. The same thing happened with dial-up with people moving to free usage as soon as it became available.
Companies (like NTL and BT) that don't listen to what their customers want will ultimately lose those customers to companies (like BulldogDSL and AOL) who do.
I've been happy in the main with NTL for ~3 years now and have no intention of changing, but the SECOND they start to enforce the cap, I'm off to an ISP that has no cap :)
badnbusy
04-11-2004, 10:37
I agree that there should be an option (£5-10 on top of product price) that allows uncapped. Then ntl win both ways.
Ignition
04-11-2004, 10:43
I might be willing to pay about 60 to 70 a month for a 2 or 3 mb unlimited download.
Methinks you are enjoying the newsgroups, Torrents, DC networks whatever far too much. If you can afford 70 quid a month on an internet connection buy the blinking stuff you're downloading!
That sort of package would have an uptake of next to nothing, the only people who are likely to take it are those downloading then selling stuff for the most part (not that I'm implying you do).
Just FYI 70 quid a month still won't cover your costs if you are using your connection to its' fullest capacity, which I'm thinking you do or fairly close to it, on 3Mbit you can download 900GB in a month. When you factor in bandwidth prices to ntl, which although lower than most due to scale will still be there, along with fixed costs of their own network capacity, the local cable networks capacity.
To be honest I seriously doubt 70 quid covers the external bandwidth, let alone the far more expensive internal bandwidth.
On the other hand if there's a 'top up' facility released at some point with a charge per GB once you go past your limit, and your usage isn't that insane you may find a reasonable compromise and price point. Unfortunately there are very few ISPs that cater to the all you can eat market particularly. Bulldog tried it and managed to thoroughly overload their core an local networks. Plusnet are trying it but are creaking a bit under the load, while performance to MOST users isn't being harmed yet some are getting sub-standard performance at times.
As I've probably said a ton of times before, Japanese and Swedish for example may have uncapped services, however they also have congested networks. Japanese on 100Mbit rarely see more than 2Mbit of throughput once they are outside their own country. Swedes it's a similar issue unless the traffic is going to certain destinations their ISP is directly connected to. Also at some points in their core networks problems may arise..
The other thing to bear in mind is that most of these had Government assistance in some way. In the case of Sweden tax breaks for the people doing the infrastructure and in the case of Japan a very competition friendly Government that allowed the local equivalent of BT, NTT to install fibre wherever they felt the need on condition they allowed anyone who paid to use it, which NTT did as they are a forward looking company happy to make investment now and see the returns over a longer period. UK people complain like crazy if they aren't getting full throughput on their connection, hate packet loss, hi pings. Without contending the networks madly speeds like that on an unlimited basis just aren't an option. Oh and you forgot to mention that a number of those unlimited ultra quick providers traffic shape (control bandwidth usage) and block certain ports and applications.
Check out the situation in the UK, LLU still in its' infancy, BT's fastest wholesale product is 2Mbit/256k and has been since 2000 public release and 1996 in trials.
What's the point in ntl busting their backs and throwing loads of money on a solution to take on everyone? These deals are better than anything offered by the biggest 3 ADSL players (BT Retail, Tiscali, Wanadoo) and from the point of view of raw connection speed the fastest home connections in the UK outside of 35 Central London Bulldog enabled exchanges.
You can't please everyone all the time, but ntl are doing good business and pleasing the vast, vast majority with this deal. Not much more you could ask really.
I think the whole capped usage thing is ultimately destructive for ISP's, customers vote with their wallets and it will only take BT's customers being charged silly amounts for a couple of linux distros or NTL's hard enforcement of caps and people will start looking for cap free providers. The same thing happened with dial-up with people moving to free usage as soon as it became available.
Companies (like NTL and BT) that don't listen to what their customers want will ultimately lose those customers to companies (like BulldogDSL and AOL) who do.
I've been happy in the main with NTL for ~3 years now and have no intention of changing, but the SECOND they start to enforce the cap, I'm off to an ISP that has no cap :)
I've said this before, And I'll say it again, Uncapped ISP's are a dying breed, really, they are, because the more people who go to them because of the uncapped service, the less profit they will make.
Bandwidth is expensive, very expensive, as more and more ISPs add caps, the ones who dont, will be hit harder and harder by customers who abuse the unlimited services, which over time will force them to increase their price, or add caps, either way, anyone who downloads more than 40GB a month, costs the ISP more than they get back from them.
If the only reason to change ISP is a cap, and not quality of service, or reliability, then your reasoning is flawed.
Ignition
04-11-2004, 10:59
If the only reason to change ISP is a cap, and not quality of service, or reliability, then your reasoning is flawed.
End of the day it's his reasoning and his decision, pay your money take your choice.
I will say though that the unlimited BulldogDSL service (which my Hi-Velo service WAS backhauled through) was for 2 months nearly utterly atrocious. On a 2Mbit business line I was seeing 128k ISDN like download speeds, first hop pings of nearly 100ms and 10% or more packet loss. This was during peak times. In the middle of the night I could get about equivalent speeds to a 512k ADSL line, and the packet loss was a mere 5% or so, pings in the 40s and 50s first hop.
However if this is the kind of service you don't mind in return for unlimited downloads...
PC_Arcade
04-11-2004, 11:04
I've been looking at ADSL for a while now, enforcement of the cap would be the final push I need to move to it, my reasoning is sound.
I currently spend ~100pcm with NTL for all three services although the only one I really care about is BB, the phone would be replaced by my mobile (the only reason I have the phone is that it's free with CTV), CTV would be replaced with freeview (yeah I know, FAR less channels, but at least interactive works and I wouldn't have to reset my box EVERY NIGHT) and cable BB by Bulldog DSL or one of the other unmetered comapnies :)
It would all be cheaper as a package, BUT as I've stated before I've been pretty happy with NTL, but as BB is pretty much the only reason I'm staying with them and I don't agree with capping, I would be forced to move.
Bulldog DID have problems, but they seem to be pretty good now, however I'm only using them as an example, any ISP with no cap will do :)
Right....
firstly: :clap: to NTL - this is great news, and puts NTL back at the top of the BB table.
Secondly - "usage allowance" : IT HAS NOT CHANGED ON THE 2M or 3M (in fact the 3M will be higher). :Yikes:
Yes, the 1M has a low "CAP", but then it is aimed at people who mainly surf, that does not involve huge downloads. - if you want a higher "cap" then get a better service !!
thirdly : <rant time - sorry> :rant: I have never read so much rubbish about how this is a bad thing, and how NTL are trying to con us etc...
NTL are giving you higher speeds - something that we have been asking for for ages. :clap:
They are not charging you any more per month for this. :tu:
Ok, they say there will be a £25 admin fee - I will happily pay this - how much will they charge new users fo installation ? :angel:
If you do not want to move to the new speeds (although I personally cannot see any reason for this :erm: ) then you do not have to. :shrug:
I have been pretty anti-NTL in most of my time on this forum (under it's many names ;) ) but this is something that NTL have got right, and I think that people need to recognise that, rather than focus on the negatives :afire: ....
</rant - feel better for that :angel: >
We had a "CAP" discussion when it was first announced - and I have yet to know anyone who has been disconnected for breaking this.
If you really need to download 40+Gb per month, then get a business service, because that is the only reason I can see for downloading that amount of data every month.
As ever - these are my opinions - you may not agree - but they will remain my opinions.
yes this looks like good news. The only problem I can see is that NTL are still in debt at the moment. I don't think my 4000 STB could take 1 MB or 2 MB broadband so that would need to be upgraded. I'm sure alot of users are also in the same situation. Maybe that is what part of the admin fee is being used for.
Looks like good news and I await this happening. What with the announcement that they are also working on a PVR type box and VOD as well things are starting to move.
Loads of people on here are always saying cable has so many advantages over sat with the network and everything and it looks like NTL are starting to realise that. If we can get a stable STB and decent broadband service i'll stick with them.
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