View Full Version : My super amazing plan for ntl cable broadband
Ron Jeremy
14-04-2004, 20:59
Here is my plan for ntl cable modems:
Get rid of ntl email (give people say 3 months to get off it, and telling them of the excellent alternatives †“ e.g. hotmail, yahoo mail etc.).
Get rid of ntl newsgroups (give people say 3 months to get off it, and letting them know about google groups, and paid sources of newsgroups).
Get rid of ntl web space (give people say 3 months to get off it, let them know about alternative services, free and paid).
Abolishing ntl email, newsgroups, and web space would I would have thought save two or three pounds a customer each month.
Abolish tiered services. The only speed would be 1024k down/ 256k up. The monthly charge would be £25/month including cable modem rental.
It could work but wouldnt ever happen - NTL wouldnt be a "complete" service provider...
On the other hand, they should really make the Email, Newsgroup and Webspace "optional package" as its really hardly any use to me.
Hmmm-you mean get ntl to accept that their product is poor, their network is overloaded, & they simply can't cope with the amount of customers they have?
The thing is what you are proposing is wrong on principal.
Why should people have to go to the trouble of finding new email addresses, informing everyone they know of their new address, & do the same for their webspace & newsgroups, just because ntl & their network can't cope?
ntl will never be able to offer a fully functional service IMO, as the money they need to do it just can't be found-that coupled with the reputation they have for deceiving customers-why would anyone in their right mind go through the aggro you have described just to stay with ntl? :confused:
Easier to just switch to a more reliable supplier methinks.
Here is my plan for ntl cable modems:
Get rid of ntl email (give people say 3 months to get off it, and telling them of the excellent alternatives †“ e.g. hotmail, yahoo mail etc.).
Get rid of ntl newsgroups (give people say 3 months to get off it, and letting them know about google groups, and paid sources of newsgroups).
Get rid of ntl web space (give people say 3 months to get off it, let them know about alternative services, free and paid).
Abolishing ntl email, newsgroups, and web space would I would have thought save two or three pounds a customer each month.
Abolish tiered services. The only speed would be 1024k down/ 256k up. The monthly charge would be £25/month including cable modem rental.
Right ...... :erm:
It could work but wouldnt ever happen - NTL wouldnt be a "complete" service provider...
They are not a 'complete' service provider now IMO.
Florence
14-04-2004, 21:11
Here is my plan for ntl cable modems:
Get rid of ntl email (give people say 3 months to get off it, and telling them of the excellent alternatives †“ e.g. hotmail, yahoo mail etc.).
Already have another email address through my domain name. it has less spam..
Get rid of ntl newsgroups (give people say 3 months to get off it, and letting them know about google groups, and paid sources of newsgroups).
Never use them so wouldn't miss them. Seems they don't always work acording to posts here.
Get rid of ntl web space (give people say 3 months to get off it, let them know about alternative services, free and paid).
I have 200mb I can use for all my needs so the 55mb of NTLs wouldn't be missed.
Abolishing ntl email, newsgroups, and web space would I would have thought save two or three pounds a customer each month.
They could abolish the proxies and start a hosting company with the redundant servers from email/websites and proxies. So earn money from this alongside the NTL internet service.
Abolish tiered services. The only speed would be 1024k down/ 256k up. The monthly charge would be £25/month including cable modem rental.
Could still have the 600k down/125k up at a reasonable fee £15 a month including cable modem.
Also adjust the cap to match the tier 1 gig 600K 2 gig 1024K.
NTL has resources that are being used incorrectly and in this process they are losing money..
:notopic: On a side note-why did you fel the need to make a post with size 3 text? :notopic:
They are not a 'complete' service provider now IMO.
To you and me , there not. To joe public with little computer skills, they'll judge NTL as "complete" in the sense it has the normal Email services etc etc . I have to admit, my actual cable BB connection is very good (low latency, always good downstreams). Just the Auxiliary services that come with it are .... pants.
ntl customer
14-04-2004, 22:39
Get rid of ntl email (give people say 3 months to get off it, and telling them of the excellent alternatives – e.g. hotmail, yahoo mail etc.).
You call Hotmail an excellent alternative? A paltry 2Mb of storage and tons of adverts unless you pay? :erm:
Same with Yahoo - OK so the uptime maybe better but the email isn't - you only get 6Mb of storage and adverts.
Get rid of ntl newsgroups (give people say 3 months to get off it, and letting them know about google groups, and paid sources of newsgroups).
Ok so they may not work but that's ntl's fault for not investing enough and for letting the big fat cats at the top that get to go home in their Jags and Mercs with million pound bonusses. Same with the email - they cannot cope with the amount of customers.
And why should I pay more on top of what I already do each month for binary newsgroups when other providers can offer a decent service in their packages? :mad:
Why should people have to go to the trouble of finding new email addresses, informing everyone they know of their new address, & do the same for their webspace & newsgroups, just because ntl & their network can't cope?
Same here. It is a pain in the neck when you have to inform people of changes to your email address - esp. if you buy stuff online with it as some places will not allow you to change your email address without ditching the whole account details (e.g. order history, returns etc).
However I do agree with ditching the proxies. I get sick to death of playing musical caches everytime I want to pay for my bleedin' items on ebay - last time I had to change proxies 4 bloody times just to get to stage 1! :fit:
Then use the computers that were proxies to use them as news and email servers. Or as someone else says run a paid webhosting service from them.
Rather than axing services and staff it should be time that ntl was shook up and the pay of the diectors axed considerably - and that used to fund improvements to the service. I'm sure £15 million wopuld go quite far in improving it. :tu:
Newsgroups - never used them.
eMail - gave up on it months ago. All our ntlworld addies have long since been redirected to our excellent @mac.com account.
Webspace - never used it. My Apple iDisk gives me 100mb and integrates seamlessly with Mac OSX for publishing our family homepage.
I'm currently paying £25 for 600k down/128k up. I'd love to get 1024/256 for the same price. However I (reluctantly) don't think it can or should happen. It can't, because ntl can't be seen to be offering less than the competition - Joe Average Punter knows little about these things and throwaway statistics about the number of email addresses you can have sounds impressive. It shouldn't, because Joe Average Punter shouldn't have to go setting things up separately all over the place. The internet is meant to be getting easier, not more complicated.
The blatantly obvious solution would be for ntl to get its act together. Whether they will or not ... well, I'm waiting to see. :)
paulyoung666
14-04-2004, 22:56
Newsgroups - never used them.
eMail - gave up on it months ago. All our ntlworld addies have long since been redirected to our excellent @mac.com account.
Webspace - never used it. My Apple iDisk gives me 100mb and integrates seamlessly with Mac OSX for publishing our family homepage.
I'm currently paying £25 for 600k down/128k up. I'd love to get 1024/256 for the same price. However I (reluctantly) don't think it can or should happen. It can't, because ntl can't be seen to be offering less than the competition - Joe Average Punter knows little about these things and throwaway statistics about the number of email addresses you can have sounds impressive. It shouldn't, because Joe Average Punter shouldn't have to go setting things up separately all over the place. The internet is meant to be getting easier, not more complicated.
The blatantly obvious solution would be for ntl to get its act together. Whether they will or not ... well, I'm waiting to see. :)
and me as well :(
Please don't get me wrong, I am not an Ntl stooge, but I have never, ever had to specify a proxy and I am in the Manchester area, I will admit that 6 months ago the e-mail was pants, but mine has been fine for a long time. I do not use newsgroups so don't suffer problems with them ( I have a Zen dial up account I could use for that if needed) . What I am trying to say is that there will be many thousands of people out there that have had no problems whatsoever with Ntl.
Circumstances in the near future may mean that I have to go to Sky/Zen ADSL/BT, but if that comes to pass it will a decision based purely on financial/ logistics (no cable) grounds, not due to any fault of Ntl.
Edit. I have also had to start using Mailwasher on my Zen account, it gets far more spam than my Ntl address, possibly due to that fact that has been the same for over 8 years.
homealone
14-04-2004, 23:32
I am on a Nottingham proxy.
e-mail works, most of the time :pp
news.ntlworld works, most of the time :pp
- for some reason I had to re-boot my cable modem/router/computer, earlier, though :)
I'm with iadom on this.The email is ok these days as is the BB,the phone(never had any problems with it) and apart from the crappy red button issue,the DTV is ok-even the disappearing sound issue seems to have gone,so all in all I'm reasonably happy.
However I know this is not the case for everyone.However if NTL won't listen to those who have a beef with the level of service(I wonder how many just swap to another company and never tell NTL why) then they will just bleed customers.Mind they seem to still be getting new ones.
slimshady
15-04-2004, 09:34
My feelings are than just an internet connection at a lower price would be of value to some people but it would be the minority on the majority. I use my ntl mailbox's but I will eventually be moving over to a hosting package with www.123reg.co.uk, www.estratospherehosting.com or some other company. I also don't use the ntl webspace, and i've not been used newsgroups for sometime, and if I did need them I would either pay money to subscribe to one or erm use the newsgroups in work, theres a newsgroup server downstairs connected to SuperJanet 4 (that'll do nicely!)
But I do feel that a cut down internet service for a few pounds less would be of benefit, I would find another IP address/IP lease more useful than mail, news, and webspace.
Slim.
andygrif
15-04-2004, 10:28
Hmmm...a bit of cross posting going on. I'll post what I replied over at DS:
I see your point, but I don't feel this is the answer - on a number of levels:
1. Added value services that cost very little money per subscriber to provide (like the ones you mentioned) improve the chances of getting more customers and retaining those you already have. Although there is a strong case for a 'no-frills' tier of service, removing three very valuable services won't help get the customers that require these.
2. The newsgroups and the webspace maybe, but removing email for be a crazy move for ntl - surely this is one of the most used resources for most internet users.
3. I would think (although I'm willing to be proved wrong) that the actual bandwidth is the most expensive part of providing broadband to customers. So suddenly doubling capacity for everyone would not be cost efficient at the price you suggest, and I would not think that many current 600k or below customers would pay more. On top of this you'll find those that want to use web based email actually use up far more bandwidth reading their mails than those that just download it into Outlook.
4. The 150k service serves two very important roles - first and most important it boosts ntl's 'broadband' subscriber figures. Second, it provides a viable alternative for light users to the dial-up method. This also frees up a phone line allowing ntl to make even more money becuase you can make calls at the same time as surfing.
The answer is not to downgrade services becuase they are having trouble providing some of them. This is a bit like saying that we should shut the M1 at rush hour becuase of the traffic jams!
The answer is to fix what they have, make it better than anyone else's service - this will mean that more people will stick with them, and they can get new customers on-board too.
3. I would think (although I'm willing to be proved wrong) that the actual bandwidth is the most expensive part of providing broadband to customers.
I am not sure what you mean by the 'actual bandwidth' but if you mean external internet connectivity, then you are wrong I am afraid. If you really want I could try and 'prove' this to you.
I am not sure what you mean by the 'actual bandwidth' but if you mean external internet connectivity, then you are wrong I am afraid. If you really want I could try and 'prove' this to you.
I know this aspect of the cost of BB in the UK has come up in this forum before, but I've never quite got my head round it. I'd read your 'proof' if you posted it. :)
I know this aspect of the cost of BB in the UK has come up in this forum before, but I've never quite got my head round it. I'd read your 'proof' if you posted it. :)
So would I. :)
andygrif
15-04-2004, 13:39
I am not sure what you mean by the 'actual bandwidth' but if you mean external internet connectivity, then you are wrong I am afraid. If you really want I could try and 'prove' this to you.
What I mean is the actual bandwith costs associated in getting internet into and out of your house! This will include the pipe coming into your and maintainance thereof, and yes the connection to the rest of the net.
If you are doubling the size of the pipe, the pipe needs to be twice as big, therefore costs more.
Why should people have to go to the trouble of finding new email addresses, informing everyone they know of their new address, & do the same for their webspace & newsgroups, just because ntl & their network can't cope?
:confused:
Anyone who relies solely on their ntl email addy must be nuts. My email addys are permanant and can be redirected therefore using any ISP email service. I have had to change from my ntlworld addy to another isp because of the enormous amount of spam I am getting now.:Yikes:
What I mean is the actual bandwith costs associated in getting internet into and out of your house! This will include the pipe coming into your and maintainance thereof, and yes the connection to the rest of the net.
If you are doubling the size of the pipe, the pipe needs to be twice as big, therefore costs more.
The costs of 'getting internet' into your house are not generaly refered to as 'bandwidth costs' in my experience. The cost of getting a pipe / wire into your house are infrastructure costs. These are the same if you have just cable TV, 150k service, 600k service, 1meg service and beyond (if and when NTL decide to add higher service tiers).
It costs the same to NTL to deliver a 150k service as a 1 meg service - except for the external bandwidth costs (assuming a 1 meg users uses more external bandwidth than a 150k users). However these external bandwidth costs are a tiny tiny fraction of the overall costs and are falling faster than processing power is falling.
So if you double the bandwidth available to the end users, you do not have to put in a new bigger pipe - you just use the existing one. Thus cost impact is negliable (upto the limit of the pipes max capacity - which with cable is far beyond the 1 meg top tier currently offered). You may also have to upgrade the UBR's if people use more data on a higher tier service (as opposed to using the same amount quicker). Again though this would not normaly be considered a bandwidth cost but rather an infrastructure cost and the 'pipe' into your house remains the same.
I know this aspect of the cost of BB in the UK has come up in this forum before, but I've never quite got my head round it. I'd read your 'proof' if you posted it. :)
I give it a go but try a more general description of the costs of providing BB into peoples homes.
The vast bulk of costs for a digital network (any digital network) are fixed sunk costs. That is the cost of digging up the road and putting the physical wires in.
There are then fixed costs for the 'boxes' at the end of the wires and typically these 'boxes' define the maximum potential data that can be sent / recieved.
Both the above are fixed costs and do not change at all with usage (upto the maximum limit defined by the boxes at the ends of the wires). Use not at all and the cost is the same as using it to it's max capacity.
With internet provision there is one cost that is incremental on usage (ie the more the thing is used the more it costs). That cost is the cost of NTL's external connectivity to the internet. There is also incremental costs for things like email and newsgroups (the more they are used the more processor/storage etc NTL have to provide) but agaion these are minimal and falling at a phenomenal rate. I am pretty much ignoring these costs for simplicities sake.
If you take a 'typical' BB residential service at say £25 pm then in very rough terms about £20 would represent 'paying back' fixed costs of the infrastructure (putting in the wires and the boxes at the ends of the wires). The remaining £5 would include all the other costs, staff, offices and incremental costs (external bandwidth, news/email servers etc) and (hopefully) profit.
You can get a kind of 'proof' for these ratios by looking at the cost of BT's wholesale products vs the retail price of the service charged to the customer. The BT Wholesale prices essentialy represent the fixed costs (and some alledgedly regulated profit for BT) and the difference between the BT wholesale cost and the retail price essential represents the cost of 'everything else' - that is staff, office and incremantal costs as well as profit for the retailer.
I do not really have the time to dig out the current BT wholesale prices for IP Stream (the product used by many ISP's to get connectivity from a customers house to the ISP/ their peering point) but they are publicaly available to those that can be bothered to search them out. If you do look at these figures and compare them to the retail price charged for such services then it's probably about the simplest 'proof' that the incremental costs of usage are a tiny fraction of the overall costs of providing BB to peoples homes.
Or to look at it another way entirely. Imagine your networking your office from scratch. The first biggest costs is the cost of laying your cat5 cable round the office. Then there is the cost of the 'boxes' at the 'ends' of the wires (NICs, hubs, switches routers etc). Lets say we spec 10mbs boxes initally. All the costs are fixed costs, with essentialy no incremantal usage costs - upto the 10mbs. If you want internet connectivty as well as LAN then there is a fixed cost for an shared external pipe as well. If external connectivity capacity becomes an issue you can upgrade the size of your internet connection without any cost implication for your internal network (you do not need to change any of the wires or boxes in your office). If internal bandwidth becomes a problem (10mbs is not enough) then you can change the boxes at the ends of the wires from 10mbs to 100mbs or 1gig (or even 10 gig now) boxes, without needing to change the cat5 wiring. Also the chances are that the new 100mbs or 1gig boxes will be cheaper that your original 10mbs boxes (moores law). Thus hopefuly from the above it is clear that 'bandwidth' or 'incremental' (on usage) costs of a digital network are zero or near zero and the vast bulk of costs are fixed costs independent of usage. Or to put it another way, once you have paid for the infrastructure the cost of 'bandwidth' is zero (upto the maximum limit of the capacity of the boxes you chose).
I hope than makes some kind of sense ?
andygrif
15-04-2004, 17:14
The costs of 'getting internet' into your house are not generaly refered to as 'bandwidth costs' in my experience. The cost of getting a pipe / wire into your house are infrastructure costs. These are the same if you have just cable TV, 150k service, 600k service, 1meg service and beyond (if and when NTL decide to add higher service tiers).
It costs the same to NTL to deliver a 150k service as a 1 meg service - except for the external bandwidth costs (assuming a 1 meg users uses more external bandwidth than a 150k users). However these external bandwidth costs are a tiny tiny fraction of the overall costs and are falling faster than processing power is falling.
So if you double the bandwidth available to the end users, you do not have to put in a new bigger pipe - you just use the existing one. Thus cost impact is negliable (upto the limit of the pipes max capacity - which with cable is far beyond the 1 meg top tier currently offered). You may also have to upgrade the UBR's if people use more data on a higher tier service (as opposed to using the same amount quicker). Again though this would not normaly be considered a bandwidth cost but rather an infrastructure cost and the 'pipe' into your house remains the same.
I think you're misunderstanding me. Of course the cable between your house and ntl is no bigger - I mean that would be crazy if every time you upgraded your service they had to lay another cable!!
What I mean is that if you double the size of the potential capacity, you would have to assume that, even sporadically, more actual data will be consumed en masse.
This will cost ntl more money, this means the concept will not work.
Also, I don't see how providing an email server (or two) can cost more than the data transfer from ntl's provider.
I think you're misunderstanding me.
If I am it is not on purpuse and I appologise for it. I am getting a bit confused when you refer to 'bandwidth costs' but I am not sure we undersand the same thing from this.
What I mean is that if you double the size of the potential capacity, you would have to assume that, even sporadically, more actual data will be consumed en masse.
This will cost ntl more money, this means the concept will not work.
It will cost NTL more money if they have to increase how much external connectivty they buy to support users, which is a reasonable assumption. My point is that this increased costs in _minisucle_ when compared with the overall cost of providing the service. I would estimate that external connectivity accounts for around 1% or less of the total cost of provision for the service. Thus if NTL doubled eveyones connection speed overnight (and assuming that _thier_ internal network could handle this) and that everyone then double their data volume usages such that NTL had to buy twice as much external bandwidth then the overall impact on costs would be neglible, as the cost element that has doubled (though prob less than double to double their external connectivity) is tiny to start with. Then add into the equation the fact that the cost of external bandwidth is falling year on year fatser than the cost of processing power is falling.
The fact is, if external connectivty was a significant cost then you just would not see retail services at only a few pounds more than the BT wholesale IP Stream product, which only pays to get data from customer to ISP and nothing else (ie not external connectivity). The fact that many many companies can operated on BT wholesale prices + a few pounds more to cover everything else (external connectivity, staff and office costs, profit etc etc) is about the simplest clearest 'proof' that external connecivity is a tiny fraction of the cost of provision.
Also, I don't see how providing an email server (or two) can cost more than the data transfer from ntl's provider.
I would suspect that NTL pay at least as much or more for such services as they do for their external connectivity. You have machines / hardware for email servers, newsgroup servers and proxy servers. You then have software licesense for all these. You then have staff costs to configure and maintain these servers and staff costs to support the problems they cause for users. The hardware costs are falling about the same rate as the cost of external connectivity. SW is not falling so fast and staff costs are just going up (bar outsourcing to other countires). So even if NTL do not pay more for running their 'servers' than they pay for external connectivity today - they soon will do.
Ron Jeremy
15-04-2004, 19:44
erol - what a fantastic few posts. take a bow.
paulyoung666
15-04-2004, 20:05
erol - what a fantastic few posts. take a bow.
and i would agreee with that and have repped accordingly :tu:
andygrif
19-04-2004, 10:31
If I am it is not on purpuse and I appologise for it. I am getting a bit confused when you refer to 'bandwidth costs' but I am not sure we undersand the same thing from this.
Don't worry it's probably me! I'm not explaining myself very well I think.
It will cost NTL more money if they have to increase how much external connectivty they buy to support users, which is a reasonable assumption.
This is what I mean. I'm presuming that if the 150k customers suddenly had 10 times the capacity, then they would use at least a little more bandwidth than they do now.
As ntl would be paying by the mb/gb/tb then the costs would be higher to ntl.
You may be right in the fact that the additional cost would be tiny - not being an expert on the rate cards for connections through telehouse (assuming ntl go through telehouse) I wouldn't know - but I would have thought that this would be the highest cost to an ISP. But, like I said, I don't know, I'm only taking educated guesses.
The fact is, if external connectivty was a significant cost then you just would not see retail services at only a few pounds more than the BT wholesale IP Stream product, which only pays to get data from customer to ISP and nothing else (ie not external connectivity). The fact that many many companies can operated on BT wholesale prices + a few pounds more to cover everything else (external connectivity, staff and office costs, profit etc etc) is about the simplest clearest 'proof' that external connecivity is a tiny fraction of the cost of provision.
I guess that highlights what a mockery BT have made of the product! It costs more to put the line a short distance into your house than the global gigabits of lines circling the earth! Good example.
PS...I'd have repped you Erol, but it says I have to spread it round a bit, before repping you again (strange it must have been months since I last repped you!)
You may be right in the fact that the additional cost would be tiny -
I guess that highlights what a mockery BT have made of the product! It costs more to put the line a short distance into your house than the global gigabits of lines circling the earth! Good example.
Re the costs have a look here
http://www.cableforum.co.uk/board/showthread.php?p=196131#post196131
re the BT mockery - to be fair to BT (yes I do try and be fair to them as well as critisie) a transalantic cable, though expenbsive to lay is a 'single' wire. The local loops into peoples houses represent millions of 'wires'. It may seem counter intuative but actualy local distribution is more expensive then trunk route carriage.
Ron Jeremy
20-04-2004, 17:03
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/04/19/bt_broadband_250k_1mb/ (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/04/19/bt_broadband_250k_1mb/)
"BT is also planning a 250k product as an entry-level service. Trials are expected to begin in June. At £12.25 a month, the wholesale cost of the 250k service is less than a quid cheaper than the wholesale cost of BT's 500k service. "
However, I am not sure why the 2mg is so expensive - "wholesale cost of the service has been set at £38 a month".
Actaully, I do know. It is profiteering on BTâ₠¬ÃƒÂ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¾Ã‚¢s part. I suppose they think the 2mg service is brand new, a bit of a luxury, so they can get away with huge profit margins on it.
Chrysalis
20-04-2004, 17:11
NTL are actually making a profit on their broadband services, its their tv and phone thats losing them money alongside with their debt interest.
I agree about the email, newsgroups etc. make them optional extras as I use none of them, their email service is a joke taking 2 days for emails to be sent and recieved.
andygrif
20-04-2004, 17:29
I'm not sure that this is completely correct. It would be unwise for ntl to provide any service that is loss making, so I doubt that any of the three services actually do this. I think it is just that broadband is making a lot MORE profit than tv and phone services. TV is a very small profit margin, as most of the money will go to the content providers.
The debts come from (with hindsight) wild spending and acquisition frenzies, with the company totally over-commiting themselves financially. It's this that they are still paying off (albiet a lot less than they really owed) and it is this that ntl need to address - hence the rather substantial price increases.
I saw Hussein quoted somewhere, saying that the increases are in the areas where the services cost more. Call waiting now costs 50% more? A second line, having already been installed for seven years costs 20% more today? Not sure how true that is!
I'd vote for basic connectivity then pay for addons if required.
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