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etccarmageddon
26-04-2004, 09:58
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/3646825.stm

"Rival cable net provider NTL is also doubling the speed of its broadband services at no extra cost"

erm doubling speeds at NTL - is this true or a misprint?


ok later in the article it quotes Simon Duffy as saying the speeds will be 300 to 1.5 mbps - still not bad though!

Mat-d-rat
26-04-2004, 09:59
According to the BBC website http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/3646825.stm Dated Today (Mon 26th Apr)

"Rival cable net provider NTL is also doubling the speed of its broadband services at no extra cost."

Paul K
26-04-2004, 10:02
According to a report on the BBC site NTL are to upgrade all customers speeds by 50% for free :)

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/3646825.stm


Broadband battles

It is the latest salvo in the broadband battle, which has seen fierce competition between ADSL providers, which offer broadband over the phone line, and cable firms.

Speed and price have been the biggest issues as service providers offer paired down services, discounts and set caps on bandwidth.

Not wishing to be left behind, Telewest rival NTL is also upping the speed of its net connections for free.

Its services will start at 300Kbps, priced at £17.99, with the top end at 1.5Mbps costing £37.99.

"Our customers want more speed, better e-mail access and more newsgroups to enjoy, and that's what we're delivering," said NTL chief executive officer, Simon Duffy.

NTL has some one million residential customers and accounts for a third of the UK's broadband market.

Whether the speed upgrade will go smoothly is another question but the last one did for me. Here's hoping that the competition continues to heat up ;)

ikthius
26-04-2004, 10:10
So does this mean that we (NTL BB'ers) will get an increase of speed for not a penny more???
If so.........About time too.

ik

erol
26-04-2004, 10:11
and will they be upping the usage cap by 50% as well ?

Lew
26-04-2004, 10:15
Interestingly enough the BBC article states the following about the Telewest service:

There will be no bandwidth cap on any of the services.

Paul K
26-04-2004, 10:15
and will they be upping the usage cap by 50% as well ?
Always the optimist Erol ;) Who knows? We will have to await an official statement from NTL on that but I would expect not. More likely is a 50% increase in email problems :D

Paul
26-04-2004, 10:16
1.5 Mbps - oh well, I was hoping for 2M but it's a start. :D

McMav
26-04-2004, 10:17
free upgrade dont be silly 1mbit service is going up to 37.99 but you get extra.5mbit speed increase so you'll hit the 1GB cap that bit quicker :D

150k service up to 300 k and 600k to 750 to match BY upgrade of their 512k service

tw posting price at 25 for 750k so ntl would be mad not to match it. (NTL MAD bot to what am I saying>>>) :D

Derek
26-04-2004, 10:19
1st I've heard of it.

Doubt the BBC would get it wrong and attribute a quote to Simon Duffy.

Hopefully it'll be true. It will make the £3.00 hike for the 1Meg a bit easier to take.

Mat-d-rat
26-04-2004, 10:50
I'd like to see higher upload sppeds as well... 256 up would be nice!

BizBo
26-04-2004, 10:53
BBC Tech News (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/3646825.stm)

worth a look, seems NTL is a bit behind in the top line speed! But we will have to see what NTL offers, however the *free update of speed seems nice.

*although they are bumping up price I don't mind paying that little extra for 1/2 meg more. However of course it all depends on NTL's infrastructure will it be stable enough... :rolleyes:

BizBo
26-04-2004, 10:55
ok so I am late posting, and should have scanned the forums.

I am ****, forgive me

andygrif
26-04-2004, 11:08
It's certainly an interesting and welcome development...is there any official line on this anyone? (Apart from the BBC of course who don't seem to be to work out that 50% increases are not double..LOL)

fluds
26-04-2004, 11:13
Ok so maybe I will stick with the 1MB line, what will the upload be on this. Still 256k or a bit more. And why is uplaod so far behind, is this where the bandwidth goes?

Marge
26-04-2004, 11:14
Yep is all true :tu: just had email

ozziestu
26-04-2004, 11:18
Well, from my point of view this is a positive move. Of course we all have reservations, but for now - WELL DONE NTL (even if you were beaten to it by Blueyonder).


Found the official release here: http://uk.biz.yahoo.com/040426/183/erzi8.html

Oh and one other thing - sort out the cap!

andygrif
26-04-2004, 11:27
More info here...

http://www.ntl.com/mediacentre/press/display.asp?id=702

The bit about the flexible bandwidth sounds a little ominous - but on the whole good news!

EDIT: Oh, sorry same as above.

Chris
26-04-2004, 11:27
[cynic mode]
Of course, by announcing a price increase on their 1mb tier this month, and then later announcing an increase in speed to 1.5mb (but without the price rising further), they will be able legitimately to claim that they are increasing the speed of the service without increasing the price. :dozey:
[/cynic mode]

That said, at £34.99, 1mb was costing 3.4p per kbit - at £37.99, 1.5mb would cost 2.5p per kbit, which is considerably better value.

Enterian
26-04-2004, 11:34
ARE they increasing speeds by 50% though? The official press release does not seem to specifically state how much the increase is going to be - it may be only 1%!!!!

APS
26-04-2004, 11:36
When someone "in the know" gets the detail of this I would be interested to know if the same speed increases will apply to their business broadband customers too whom pay approx X2 the cost in price anyway with little extra benefit in provision or service.

APS

Marge
26-04-2004, 11:39
150 to 300
600 to 750
1mg to 1.5 mg

Enterian
26-04-2004, 11:41
150 to 300
600 to 750
1mg to 1.5 mg
Do you know if people on NTL STB 1meg will get the upgrade? It seems those on Telewest will not!

Marge
26-04-2004, 11:42
not read the mail properly yet lol, hang on

Chris
26-04-2004, 11:46
ARE they increasing speeds by 50% though? The official press release does not seem to specifically state how much the increase is going to be - it may be only 1%!!!!Press release says:

ntl is boosting its three broadband services to higher speeds, at no extra cost to customers. This will provide a significant competitive advantage, offering the highest speeds in the high volume entry-level and mid-tier sectors, while at the high end, ntl will offer 50% more speed than the main providers of ADSL.

So, if you're on 1mb, (high-end) you get a 50% increase to 1.5mb; if you are on 150k (entry-level) or 600k (mid-tier) you will get an unspecified increase. However they do say that their 150k and 600k services will become the 'highest speeds in the high-volume entry-level and mid tier sectors'. If they are comparing themselves with Telewest here, then it would appear they must be upping 150k to at least 256 and 600 to at least 750.

What concerns me a little is this sudden use of the phrase 'high-volume'. As we know, at the moment ntl does not currently offer different options for high- or low-volume users. This might signal a move towards such services. Alternatively, the phrase might be used simply because there are certain rival low-volume mid-tier services that will still be faster than ntl after the speed increase.

EDIT - aha, thanks Debs, got there first :)

Chris
26-04-2004, 11:50
:Yikes: Hey mods! Somebody merge this thread before the board gets over-run with ntl speed increase threads! :Yikes:

dremmel
26-04-2004, 11:52
at last, something to stop me cancelling my 1meg, wonder if 'someone' is taking note of the comments posted both here and elsewhere about downgrading/cancelling. ? Any comment Azaid ?

Chris
26-04-2004, 11:56
at last, something to stop me cancelling my 1meg, wonder if 'someone' is taking note of the comments posted both here and elsewhere about downgrading/cancelling. ? Any comment Azaid ?
Now that would be interesting. Was it Mr Hussein who suggested that most people on his precious 1mb service are leechers and warez monkeys? (a paraphrase, of course :D ) If so, giving them an extra 512k with which to engage in their antisocial and possibly illegal activities is an odd step to take. :rolleyes: :rofl:

Not that I'm complaining of course. Ntl might just have prevented me moving to ADSL after our house move.

Lone Star
26-04-2004, 12:04
Doesn't seem like a particularly good deal for 600k customers - 150k gets a 100% boost, 1meg gets 50% and 600k gets a relatively measly 25% increase!

dremmel
26-04-2004, 12:05
Now that would be interesting. Was it Mr Hussein who suggested that most people on his precious 1mb service are leechers and warez monkeys? (a paraphrase, of course :D ) If so, giving them an extra 512k with which to engage in their antisocial and possibly illegal activities is an odd step to take. :rolleyes: :rofl:

Not that I'm complaining of course. Ntl might just have prevented me moving to ADSL after our house move.
This is Azaid we re talking about :rolleyes: , stranger thing have been known to happen to a persons 'outlook' when the threat of a merger/job loss looms even closer and a possible P45 landing in his in tray.;)

MovedGoalPosts
26-04-2004, 12:09
Now that would be interesting. Was it Mr Hussein who suggested that most people on his precious 1mb service are leechers and warez monkeys? (a paraphrase, of course :D ) If so, giving them an extra 512k with which to engage in their antisocial and possibly illegal activities is an odd step to take. :rolleyes: :rofl:
Get's my calculator out. 1meg service cap threshold reached after around 2.5 hours flat out downloading (rarely achievable on ntl I know), 1.5 meg service you can use it for what 1.45 hours?

And everyone is jumping for joy at faster downloads, but I don't think the upload is changing (it isn't for Telewest), so the service gets more disproportionately assymetric.

Nemesis
26-04-2004, 12:10
:Yikes: Hey mods! Somebody merge this thread before the board gets over-run with ntl speed increase threads! :Yikes:OK, OK, OK please remember it's Monday morning :D

orangebird
26-04-2004, 12:11
Doesn't seem like a particularly good deal for 600k customers - 150k gets a 100% boost, 1meg gets 50% and 600k gets a relatively measly 25% increase!

It's still free..... :rolleyes:

Chris
26-04-2004, 12:14
Doesn't seem like a particularly good deal for 600k customers - 150k gets a 100% boost, 1meg gets 50% and 600k gets a relatively measly 25% increase!As a 600k customer I should be the first to agree with you, however: 150k was a little slow even as an entry-level product, so needed a big boost to remain competitive; 1mb was looking positively awful after that big price hike, so needed a big shot in the arm to make it attractive again (I still think ntl have pulled a fast one on this by incresing price and then speed, in order to be able to claim it is a 'free' upgrade); whereas 600k was already faster than the most common mid-tier speed which has always been 512k. At 750k, ntl's mid-tier is now quite significantly faster than the comparably-priced packages you get on ADSL, which is their potential competitor.

edit ... OB, it's 'sort-of' free. As I said above, I think ntl has effectively increased the cost of 1mb by £3 a month to pay for this and has used dishonourable (but sadly quite legal) means to hide the fact.

Lone Star
26-04-2004, 12:17
As a 600k customer I should be the first to agree with you, however: 150k was a little slow even as an entry-level product, so needed a big boost to remain competitive; 1mb was looking positively awful after that big price hike, so needed a big shot in the arm to make it attractive again (I still think ntl have pulled a fast one on this by incresing price and then speed, in order to be able to claim it is a 'free' upgrade); whereas 600k was already faster than the most common mid-tier speed which has always been 512k. At 750k, ntl's mid-tier is now quite significantly faster than the comparably-priced packages you get on ADSL, which is their potential competitor.

I don't actually disagree with anything you've said (I'm on 600k too). But given the choice I would have opted to remain on 600k and have a 25% price reduction :)

Chris
26-04-2004, 12:19
I don't actually disagree with anything you've said (I'm on 600k too). But given the choice I would have opted to remain on 600k and have a 25% price reduction :)
I hadn't thought of that ... actually, I would probably do the same!

Enterian
26-04-2004, 12:20
Towny - you're assuming that this speed increase was planned by NTL. I suspect it may have been forced upon them by the need to be seen to be keeping pace with Telewest.

Chris
26-04-2004, 12:27
Towny - you're assuming that this speed increase was planned by NTL. I suspect it may have been forced upon them by the need to be seen to be keeping pace with Telewest.
I wasn't consciously thinking one way or the other, really. However if Telewest is their concern, it would likely be streamlining of services in the event of a takeover that would be the order of the day, rather than 'keeping pace' with them, as they are not a competitor.

That said, if they truly want to keep pace, they will have to introduce a new top tier offering at the very least a 2mb download.

mcmanic
26-04-2004, 12:28
still no news for STB owners?,

will they get the free upgrade or are they gonna be let down.....and just out of interest will they be paying same price as those who get the free speed increase,cos if they have to pay the same i think there is gonna be alot of disgruntled ntl STB owners!

MovedGoalPosts
26-04-2004, 12:30
Towny - you're assuming that this speed increase was planned by NTL. I suspect it may have been forced upon them by the need to be seen to be keeping pace with Telewest.
Yep I'm convince Telewest are very much the cable market leader brand, and ntl are just desperately trying to hang on in there. After all this forum had rumours last week of the Telewest increases, but ntl absolutely zip.

I dunno with the cap in place, the 1.5meg offering doesnt seem that useful to me. Ntl need now to review that policy and at least apply some realistic guidance tiers related to the service speed. If the cap remains then ntl would have been better off cutting prices, yet I suspect the flicking of the switch option for faster speeds is in fact cheaper for them in the short to medium term.

MovedGoalPosts
26-04-2004, 12:31
I wasn't consciously thinking one way or the other, really. However if Telewest is their concern, it would likely be streamlining of services in the event of a takeover that would be the order of the day, rather than 'keeping pace' with them, as they are not a competitor.

That said, if they truly want to keep pace, they will have to introduce a new top tier offering at the very least a 2mb download.
Telewest' top tier is now 3meg as that went up from 2 meg @ £50.00.

Enterian
26-04-2004, 12:32
I wasn't consciously thinking one way or the other, really. However if Telewest is their concern, it would likely be streamlining of services in the event of a takeover that would be the order of the day, rather than 'keeping pace' with them, as they are not a competitor.

That said, if they truly want to keep pace, they will have to introduce a new top tier offering at the very least a 2mb download.Agreed that TW are not a competitor but the "NTL are increasing prices whilst TW are increasing speeds" scenario was not going to get them any good publicity, and was likely to put Aizad under some pressure!

Can the NTL infrastructure provide 3 meg?

scoobydoo[uk]
26-04-2004, 12:35
Whats the difference for STB owners?, ive read a few posts on here, people asking if the speed increase is going to be implemented for STB owners.

I would of thought so, I cant see any difference for us STB peeps..

Can anyone confirm this?.

Enterian
26-04-2004, 12:39
']Whats the difference for STB owners?, ive read a few posts on here, people asking if the speed increase is going to be implemented for STB owners.

I would of thought so, I cant see any difference for us STB peeps..

Can anyone confirm this?.
a.f.a.i.k. the Telewest speed increases specifically exclude STB customers on the 1 Mb service (something to do with the STB being unable to cope with higher speeds) I, like you, would like to know if similar issues apply to NTL.

macstevejb
26-04-2004, 12:39
still no news for STB owners?,

will they get the free upgrade or are they gonna be let down.....and just out of interest will they be paying same price as those who get the free speed increase,cos if they have to pay the same i think there is gonna be alot of disgruntled ntl STB owners!

What difference does it make whether you take your broadband via SACM or STB?

Surely these new speeds will be applied across the board and there will be no
discrimination!

I cant understand where you are coming from here?

mcmanic
26-04-2004, 12:39
i ask cos with telewest there not increasing it for STB owners,so i would guess that NTL would follow suit,if thats the case their should be a reduction in price because you cannot have STB owners on 1 meg and cable users on 1.5 at the same price surely,after all its not the STB owners fault

dremmel
26-04-2004, 12:41
']Whats the difference for STB owners?, ive read a few posts on here, people asking if the speed increase is going to be implemented for STB owners.

I would of thought so, I cant see any difference for us STB peeps..

Can anyone confirm this?.IMU its all down to the config file sent to the 'modem', be it SACM or the STB, so if and when the 'magic happens' all NTL will do is send out a new bronze/silver/gold config file at the next DHCP renew request with all the needed info to allow for the 'new' and FREE speed update

Nikko
26-04-2004, 12:42
Am I the only one to think this is actually good news?

Everyone whinges when the price of 1 out of 3 service levels got a modest increase for the first time in ages - and complain ntl do nothing to justify it. When ntl DO do something positive everyone still manages to concentrate on percieved negatives!

I accepted the £3 rise on 1MB as being reasonably in line with general price rises - so to get a 50% speed hike FREE sounds good to me!

If beer went up from £3.50 a litre to £3.80, and then suddenly you got a 1.5 litre glass for the same price would you moan?

mcmanic
26-04-2004, 12:44
Due to technical limitations, upgrade will not apply to 1Mb customers receiving service via TV set-top box

thats on the telewest site,so i presume NTL will be the same techical limitations.....i hope not,otherwise NTL are just forgetting us mere mortal STB owners

Enterian
26-04-2004, 12:44
Am I the only one to think this is actually good news?

Everyone whinges when the price of 1 out of 3 service levels got a modest increase for the first time in ages - and complain ntl do nothing to justify it. When ntl DO do something positive everyone still manages to concentrate on percieved negatives!

I accepted the £3 rise on 1MB as being reasonably in line with general price rises - so to get a 50% speed hike FREE sounds good to me!

If beer went up from £3.50 a litre to £3.80, and then suddenly you got a 1.5 litre glass for the same price would you moan?
I'm a STB user - if I get it i'll be happy, however if SACM users get it and I don't and we all end-up paying the same I shall be seriously pi$$ed off!

Chris
26-04-2004, 12:45
Agreed that TW are not a competitor but the "NTL are increasing prices whilst TW are increasing speeds" scenario was not going to get them any good publicity, and was likely to put Aizad under some pressure!

Can the NTL infrastructure provide 3 meg?
Cable broadband can provide speeds well in excess of 3 meg. However, without knowing the technical details of all this, I would imagine they would have to lower the contention ratio so that fewer subscribers are sharing the same chunk of bandwidth. If they did not, 3 meg users would fairly quickly notice they were not getting the bandwidth they have paid for.

I know that there are costs for ntl if they lower contention ratios, but someone else will have to explain how that works.

Tech_Boy
26-04-2004, 12:46
AFAIK stb's are a bit flakey when you get up to 1 meg, so if you want the top speed go for a sacm.

dremmel
26-04-2004, 12:46
If beer went up from £3.50 a litre to £3.80, and then suddenly you got a 1.5 litre glass for the same price would you moan?NTL selling beer, the mind boggles at the thought,

"Sorry Sir, we don't know when the dray will appear, but it will be coming shortly"

Stephen
26-04-2004, 12:48
When will this upgrd happen? am in CS and not heard of this till just now!!!

Derek
26-04-2004, 12:51
When will this upgrd happen? am in CS and not heard of this till just now!!!

Front page of intranet has all the details you need.

Chris
26-04-2004, 12:51
Am I the only one to think this is actually good news?

Everyone whinges when the price of 1 out of 3 service levels got a modest increase for the first time in ages - and complain ntl do nothing to justify it. When ntl DO do something positive everyone still manages to concentrate on percieved negatives!

I accepted the £3 rise on 1MB as being reasonably in line with general price rises - so to get a 50% speed hike FREE sounds good to me!

If beer went up from £3.50 a litre to £3.80, and then suddenly you got a 1.5 litre glass for the same price would you moan?
It is good news, but don't kid yourself that you are getting a free upgrade on the 1mb service.

For a start, the price increase was about 8.6%. Inflation in the UK is currently below 2%. The increase was nothing short of huge. Secondly, is it a coincidence that they increase the price one month, then trumpet a 'free' speed increase the next? I think not. You are not being given anything for free, you are being forced to accept an upgrade for which you are paying.

The reasons they have done this are entirely for PR, I concede, because 1.5mb for £37.99 is still better value than 1mb for £34.99. But it's not as good as 1.5mb for £34.99.

dremmel
26-04-2004, 12:53
When will this upgrd happen? am in CS and not heard of this till just now!!!The new speeds are being rolled out across the ntl cable network to existing and new customers. Customers will receive communication in advance of the speed increase.

from http://www.ntl.com/mediacentre/press/display.asp?id=702

so from the wording it would appear that the upgrade is already undeway. My bold

mcmanic
26-04-2004, 12:54
ok,if STB are flakey and your in a ex C&W area where they don't give you a cable modem UNLESS you have a problem via STB with your 1 meg service (like i did and now have a cable modem),will NTL send out cable modems to these people or will they be forced to pay the same as those on 1.5 meg if no-one is any wiser and don't mention it,do you see my point?

macstevejb
26-04-2004, 12:57
AFAIK stb's are a bit flakey when you get up to 1 meg, so if you want the top speed go for a sacm.

well if that's the case I can see a whole host of subscribers wanting SACM's for the increaded BB speeds in addition to their STB's which they will retain for digi tv use only.

andygrif
26-04-2004, 12:59
The new speeds are being rolled out across the ntl cable network to existing and new customers. Customers will receive communication in advance of the speed increase.

Indeed...it is 'coming soon' ;)

Mick
26-04-2004, 13:06
I've e-mailed ntl's director of internet this morning asking if ntl is now going to review the current 1GB cap limit that is in place with the announcement of the speed increases. I will post back any response I get.

Nikko
26-04-2004, 13:07
It is good news, but don't kid yourself that you are getting a free upgrade on the 1mb service.

For a start, the price increase was about 8.6%. Inflation in the UK is currently below 2%. The increase was nothing short of huge. Secondly, is it a coincidence that they increase the price one month, then trumpet a 'free' speed increase the next? I think not. You are not being given anything for free, you are being forced to accept an upgrade for which you are paying.

The reasons they have done this are entirely for PR, I concede, because 1.5mb for £37.99 is still better value than 1mb for £34.99. But it's not as good as 1.5mb for £34.99.


IIRC didn't 1MB used to cost £49.99?

Whichever way you look at percentages, I see the overall speed/price as a good move. I am not looking to argue, Towny - just stating my viewpoint. I am certainly not 'forced' to accept it - but accept it I do, happily. I still see it as a 50% speed increase for an 8.6% price increase.

Salu
26-04-2004, 13:16
I don't actually disagree with anything you've said (I'm on 600k too). But given the choice I would have opted to remain on 600k and have a 25% price reduction

I hadn't thought of that ... actually, I would probably do the same!

I would have liked to have seen this too....

You won't see this simply because NTL is a local monopoly. There are rarely cable companies that compete locally (like there are in the USA) in this country.

If there were then NTL would be forced into a price war, just like Tescos, ASDA etc...are.

I bet Singapore and US etc are "aving a larf" at us getting dizzy on such a piffling speed increase (welcome as it is). They surf on much higher speeds and would view our broadband as baby-broadband.....

garethfowler
26-04-2004, 13:17
What I want to know is: can I get a better upload rate? I'm currently on the 600K (750k) package with 128k upstream. Will NTL upgrade this inline with the upgrade with downstream, or is there an option to pay a little extra a month for a better upstream, even 256k would be better.

Have fun.

Rgds.

G

Stephen
26-04-2004, 13:17
By the end of the summer, This will happen.

Defiant
26-04-2004, 13:19
Well I'm glad that they have announced this. I think its pretty sad that it take's Telewest to force there hand mind you. I know there not in direct competition with them but it would look very bad if they didn't copy the move.

Now call me paranoid but I also think NTL will make us all pay for this next year. Look at there track record and then try and disagree.

On a separate note I'm interested on the true speed the 300 service will be on the stb's. They get 250 now so what will it be after this change ?

Paul
26-04-2004, 13:19
I am happy with the change :D

I am not at all surprised that the 600k is only going to 750k - after all - if it got any higher (like 900k) then a lot of current 1M customers would probably think "I don't really need 1.5M, a slight drop to 900k will do me" and downgrade - with the resulting drop in revenue for NTL.

Salu
26-04-2004, 13:21
Do we know when the increases are going live?

Stephen
26-04-2004, 13:23
What I want to know is: can I get a better upload rate? I'm currently on the 600K (750k) package with 128k upstream. Will NTL upgrade this inline with the upgrade with downstream, or is there an option to pay a little extra a month for a better upstream, even 256k would be better.

Have fun.

Rgds.

G
Good point. Nothing has been mentioned. of the upload speed yet. Any more info?

MovedGoalPosts
26-04-2004, 13:23
I've e-mailed ntl's director of internet this morning asking if ntl is now going to review the current 1GB cap limit that is in place with the announcement of the speed increases. I will post back any response I get.
Look forward to seeing the reply, but the cynic in me says that reply will be "coming soon" so I'm not holding my breath.

Marge
26-04-2004, 13:23
Do we know when the increases are going live?


Late summer is all we've been told :shrug:

Chris
26-04-2004, 13:23
IIRC didn't 1MB used to cost £49.99?

Whichever way you look at percentages, I see the overall speed/price as a good move. I am not looking to argue, Towny - just stating my viewpoint. I am certainly not 'forced' to accept it - but accept it I do, happily. I still see it as a 50% speed increase for an 8.6% price increase.
As I said earlier, you are now paying 2.5p per k, compared to 3.4p previously. You won't get any argument from me, it is definitely a good deal. My only grumble is with the way ntl has managed its announcements to better its chances of a positive headline. You can't blame them for trying, but it still niggles - must be the ex-hack in me. :) :Peaceman:

andygrif
26-04-2004, 13:24
By the end of the summer, This will happen.

What will? The upstream? Do you know this for sure or are you guessing?

MovedGoalPosts
26-04-2004, 13:26
Good point. Nothing has been mentioned. of the upload speed yet. Any more info?
As far as I know, and Telewest certainly are not changing, uploads stay the same as before and so get even more disproportionately out of sync with the download speeds.

As for criticism over ntl raising the 1meg price to £37.99 last month and now throwing the "free" speed increase into the hat, anyone recall they did a similar stunt with their base 128k service @ £14.99 went up to £17.99 and then they upped the speed to 150k "for free"?

SMHarman
26-04-2004, 13:30
I would have liked to have seen this too....

You won't see this simply because NTL is a local monopoly. There are rarely cable companies that compete locally (like there are in the USA) in this country.
<snip>

They all use the same cable, bit like ADSL in the UK. You have different resellers of CM product over the CM network.

AOL/NTL is an example of this starting in the UK.

Stephen
26-04-2004, 13:30
What will? The upstream? Do you know this for sure or are you guessing?
The speed changes will happen in the summer. The d/s speed will change no word on wether the u/s speed will go up accordingly.

MovedGoalPosts
26-04-2004, 13:30
Late summer is all we've been told :shrug:
Ah so this is "coming soon" then :rolleyes:

Cooper
26-04-2004, 13:31
Dosent matter how fast they say the service is, or will be, if the infrastructure supporting the network is a shambles as it was in my area when i was with NTL's 600/1mbit service.

I had NTL broadband for 14mths in total and had no more than 2mths trouble free usage. UBR's constantly oversubscribed making online gameing a complete waste of time, unless between the hours of 2am-7am, and download speeds of between 20-30k on a 1mbit line.

Contrast that sorry tale with my current ADSL service with Pipex (1mbit) and i havent had a single outage or an online gaming ping of over 50ms in nearly 11mths and with the 256k upstream i can even host limited, but reliable games.

i would like to come back to NTL, i really would, simply in order to have an intergrated Digital TV/Broadband service, but my faith in the companys network has been shattered and simply cant face the thought of spending countless hours on the phone to tech support just to get nowhere.

Marge
26-04-2004, 13:33
Ah so this is "coming soon" then :rolleyes:

Just reading the mail now and yeah late summer so take your pick when that is :D

Defiant
26-04-2004, 13:35
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/04/26/ntl_telewest_broadband/

A spokesman for NTL said the announcement to double the speed of broadband services - on the same day that Telewest announced the same plan - was "pure coincidence".
Of course it was. They must think were as stupid as there board.

Nemesis
26-04-2004, 13:36
Dosent matter how fast they say the service is, or will be, if the infrastructure supporting the network is a shambles as it was in my area when i was with NTL's 600/1mbit service.

I had NTL broadband for 14mths in total and had no more than 2mths trouble free usage. UBR's constantly oversubscribed making online gameing a complete waste of time, unless between the hours of 2am-7am, and download speeds of between 20-30k on a 1mbit line.

Contrast that sorry tale with my current ADSL service with Pipex (1mbit) and i havent had a single outage or an online gaming ping of over 50ms in nearly 11mths and with the 256k upstream i can even host limited, but reliable games.

i would like to come back to NTL, i really would, simply in order to have an intergrated Digital TV/Broadband service, but my faith in the companys network has been shattered and simply cant face the thought of spending countless hours on the phone to tech support just to get nowhere.
Welcome to the site ... Sorry to hear about the problems you have had, but also pleased that you have found us here.

If you were to consider moving back to NTL, there is a wealth of knowledge on here, with many who are quite willing to help out where they can. We have a number of NTL techs on here, so we can only try and sort out any problems that you might have.

Nemesis
26-04-2004, 13:37
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/04/26/ntl_telewest_broadband/


Of course it was. They must think were as stupid as there board.


Strange how we had heard the rumours from TW, but not a squeak from NTL ...

scoobydoo[uk]
26-04-2004, 13:37
Any info in the email about us STB users, dont think its looking good for us, as Telewest who cant upgrade 1meg STB customers, basically use the same ST boxes!.

How difficult is it to change over to a modem, a friend of mine has a spare NTL modem lying around after he moved house.

Hell's Child
26-04-2004, 13:45
I've had a chat with my marketing dept.


In answer to a few questions.

This will be releases "late summer" which is expected to be around July.

This should, unlike telewest, work on STB customers. If not, customers have the option to switch to SACM, although this would tie them into the broadband contract for 12 months.

Cap limit to be reviewed in line with the issue that the cap will be reached more easily with the increased speeds, more notablly with the 1.5mb and the 750k lines.

Upload to stay the same for now although switch upgrades are being looked into to allow ntl to increase upload speeds.

Hope this helps!!!

McMav
26-04-2004, 13:45
As far as I know, and Telewest certainly are not changing, uploads stay the same as before and so get even more disproportionately out of sync with the download speeds.

As for criticism over ntl raising the 1meg price to £37.99 last month and now throwing the "free" speed increase into the hat, anyone recall they did a similar stunt with their base 128k service @ £14.99 went up to £17.99 and then they upped the speed to 150k "for free"?
That price hike happened when the speed was increased. you didnt go to 17.99 at 128 it was 17.99 and 150. So not quite so similar they just did the price rise and speed increase together.

MovedGoalPosts
26-04-2004, 13:53
That price hike happened when the speed was increased. you didnt go to 17.99 at 128 it was 17.99 and 150. So not quite so similar they just did the price rise and speed increase together.
I'm pleased to be corrected :dunce:

Nemesis
26-04-2004, 14:29
We have received this Official Announcement from an Internal NTL source

DrAwesome
26-04-2004, 14:36
Here is another link businesswire.com (http://home.businesswire.com/portal/site/google/index.jsp?ndmViewId=news_view&newsId=20040425005017&newsLang=en)
(with regards to NTL Increasing BB Speeds)

matrix
26-04-2004, 14:38
this is great news :)

erol
26-04-2004, 14:46
Am I the only one to think this is actually good news?


I think this is excelent news for NTL customers and for internet users in general in the UK. Well done NTL (even if does still look like a reactive strategy and not a proactive one)

Now where's the announcment from BT Wholesale? :)

Cable broadband can provide speeds well in excess of 3 meg. However, without knowing the technical details of all this, I would imagine they would have to lower the contention ratio so that fewer subscribers are sharing the same chunk of bandwidth. If they did not, 3 meg users would fairly quickly notice they were not getting the bandwidth they have paid for.

I know that there are costs for ntl if they lower contention ratios, but someone else will have to explain how that works.

Actually the higher the bandwidth for end users the more contended they can be without any noticable effects. This is because in general people tend to do pretty much the same with more bandwidth as they did before with less (at least for an intial period of time). When the file/email/etc takes 100minutes to download that is 100minutes you are using your slice of the shared resource and thus blocking others. When that same download takes only 10 minutes your are blocking the shared resource for 1/10 of the time and thus more people can be 'loaded' onto that shared resource. That is why in dial up terms contention ratios of 10-15:1 were considered 'high' but with BB contetnion ratios of 20:1 and 50:1 are feasable.

DrAwesome
26-04-2004, 14:47
this is great news :)

Not really there is still a restriction in place :(
plus .5 of a meg extra is it really worth £3???

DeadKenny
26-04-2004, 14:50
edit ... OB, it's 'sort-of' free. As I said above, I think ntl has effectively increased the cost of 1mb by £3 a month to pay for this and has used dishonourable (but sadly quite legal) means to hide the fact.

Exactly, and I'm quite annoyed at this.

Firstly because of the price hike anyway (have they written to me?... have they heck :( )
Secondly because of their "claim" that it's "free" :rolleyes:
Thirdly because Telewest are offering 1.5mbps for £35 but NTL have seen fit to use it as an excuse to bump the top tier up by £3.


I'll be downgrading to 750kbps as the 1.5mbps is now too expensive (I only want it for 256kbp upstream anyway, which is a high cost to pay)... that's if I don't get 512/256 ADSL instead.

Come on NTL... offer a full 2 or 3Mbps package (24/7), and increase the upstream! :banghead:

orangebird
26-04-2004, 14:52
Not really there is still a restriction in place :(
plus .5 of a meg extra is it really worth £3???


I can't believe you've asked that!!!! :Yikes:

1meg = 34.99
1.5= 37.99...... :dunce: :rolleyes:

orangebird
26-04-2004, 14:54
Exactly, and I'm quite annoyed at this.

Firstly because of the price hike anyway (have they written to me?... have they heck :( )
Secondly because of their "claim" that it's "free" :rolleyes:
Thirdly because Telewest are offering 1.5mbps for £35 but NTL have seen fit to use it as an excuse to bump the top tier up by £3.


I'll be downgrading to 750kbps as the 1.5mbps is now too expensive (I only want it for 256kbp upstream anyway, which is a high cost to pay)... that's if I don't get 512/256 ADSL instead.

Come on NTL... offer a full 2 or 3Mbps package (24/7), and increase the upstream! :banghead:

You think another £3 a month for an extra 500k isn't reasonable??? ...... :erm:

Nemesis
26-04-2004, 14:55
These were interesting too in that doc

Upgraded Newsgroup platform now being rolled out. Live from May. Customers will experience a faster more reliable service.

Upgraded email service to be rolled out in May. Customers will experience more reliable service.

ntl has successfully completed a trial of new technology that will allow new Broadband services to be developed in the future e.g with features such as †˜turbo buttonââ‚Ã⠀šÃ‚¬ÃƒÂ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¾Ã‚¢ which will allow customers to increase their speed on demand (no date for launch).

A new content provider has been added to Broadband Plus. The †˜Photoboxâà ƒÆ’¢â€šÂ¬Ã¢â€ žÂ¢ service allows Broadband Plus customers to manage and print digital photos online (date to be confirmed).

DeadKenny
26-04-2004, 14:59
You think another £3 a month for an extra 500k isn't reasonable??? ...... :erm:

I think being forced to pay an extra £3 a month is unreasonable.

I'd rather stick with 1Mbps at £35 or drop to a lower tier (which I will be doing). The extra 500Kbps doesn't make a huge difference anyway as most the net stuggles to even give you a decent 1Mbps delivery. All it will do is shave a few minutes off downloads if you manage to get one at max speed.

During the trials I monitored my usage and discovered that 99% of the time I'm barely using even half the 1Mbps capacity. I can live with a slightly longer download time for a fraction of the price rather than being made to pay more.

LostintheNW
26-04-2004, 15:01
Just out of curiosity why "if" I can't get the upgrade on the STB, why would I have to go on another 12 month contract for switching to a SACM? I have had BB over 3 years, no way I would go back on a 12 month contract again - surely they can't expect customers to be tied up again for something that is not their fault?

Not moaning just asking!

erol
26-04-2004, 15:04
They all use the same cable, bit like ADSL in the UK. You have different resellers of CM product over the CM network.

AOL/NTL is an example of this starting in the UK.

Actually there is a massive difference between the reselling of internet service (like AOL does here with NTL) and competitors being given access to cables cos infrastructure (what happens generally in the US).

A|ex
26-04-2004, 15:06
they say all this stuff about highing the speed but the thing is they have already or will be going to higher the pricing of broadband so it all makes sence. Another thing is whats the point in highering if it they are still going to have that 1GB cap?

dremmel
26-04-2004, 15:06
as usual let us "wait and see"

!perhaps! this speed increase will work without the whole network suffering a meltdown.

!perhaps! the "Upgraded Newsgroup platform now being rolled out" will enable those of us who suffer from resticted NG access to use a 'proper' service.

!perhaps! the "Upgraded email service to be rolled out in May" will not suffer from the usual complaints regarding the NTL email service

!perhaps! those pigs I have in the hangar will at last be able to fly ;)

seaneeboy
26-04-2004, 15:08
I'd just like to say:

YAY!

I thank you. It's nice to get something for nothing once in a while...

Mick
26-04-2004, 15:11
Another thing is whats the point in highering if it they are still going to have that 1GB cap?I have e-mailed the ntl director of internet asking for an official stance and if they are going to review the 1GB cap. Someone has already mentioned ntl intend to review the cap. Waiting for some official response on this matter.

DrAwesome
26-04-2004, 15:26
I can't believe you've asked that!!!! :Yikes:

1meg = 34.99
1.5= 37.99...... :dunce: :rolleyes:

All posts take a different meaning when only part of it is read/referred to. :)

andygrif
26-04-2004, 15:32
I think being forced to pay an extra £3 a month is unreasonable.


I think this is a simple case of left hand not knowing what right hand is doing - a classic ntl move!

I would bet that the £3 increase was going to happen anyway, but then another department was planning the increases in speeds - and the two just happened to co-incide (almost)

I guess it all depends on how you look at it but I think I would take it as (if I were on 1mb) as seeing some value for the extra cash - and let's face it - £3 a month is pretty good value for the extra 50% speed.

andygrif
26-04-2004, 15:35
I have e-mailed the ntl director of internet asking for an official stance and if they are going to review the 1GB cap. Someone has already mentioned ntl intend to review the cap. Waiting for some official response on this matter.

Mick, I know this has probably been done to death, but if you have 50% more bandwidth, are you seriously going to download 50% more (i.e more than 1gb a day)?

I think the net result (no pun intended) is that you'll maybe browse more websites (becuase they will load faster, but you will probably spend the same amount of time browsing) but you're unlikely to download more software, videos, music etc - I may be wrong, but this seems logical to me.

zoombini
26-04-2004, 16:08
Bullpoop!

Its all big bullpoop. No matter what NTL say they are going to do, the service will always be rubbish, the computer will always make those billing errors & the red button is never ever going to work.
Increasing the speed will still be crappier than ADSL no matter how fast they think its going to be.
Email will often go down as will the newsgroups.

I'm glad I'm getting out of it.

DeadKenny
26-04-2004, 16:18
Mick, I know this has probably been done to death, but if you have 50% more bandwidth, are you seriously going to download 50% more (i.e more than 1gb a day)?

I think the net result (no pun intended) is that you'll maybe browse more websites (becuase they will load faster, but you will probably spend the same amount of time browsing) but you're unlikely to download more software, videos, music etc - I may be wrong, but this seems logical to me.


Exactly. During the trials I monitored my usage and found although it makes it slightly nicer for downloads in that they come down quicker sometimes (if you can get a download that will run at full speed), and sometimes graphics intensive web sites seem to load a little quicker, when I looked at the graphs my average usage for 99% of the time was little more than a couple of hundred kbps on downstream. The vast majority of the 1Mbps capacity was being unused, so the extra 50% (for "free"... my arse!), makes naff all difference to me.

I'd rather not be paying £3 extra for the "free":rolleyes: 500kbps extra and they keep 1Mbps at £35.

What justification does NTL have for hiking the 1Mbps fee anyway, when Telewest have it lower and many ADSL ISPs are competing to reduce or maintain prices not increasing them?

orangebird
26-04-2004, 16:27
<SNIP>

What justification does NTL have for hiking the 1Mbps fee anyway, when Telewest have it lower and many ADSL ISPs are competing to reduce or maintain prices not increasing them?


Just to point out - Telewest 1meg is only cheaper if you have more than one service with them. Therefore if you have BB only with either Telewest OR ntl, you'll pay the same price (£37.99 pm). :)

Mick
26-04-2004, 16:51
Mick, I know this has probably been done to death, but if you have 50% more bandwidth, are you seriously going to download 50% more (i.e more than 1gb a day)?

I think the net result (no pun intended) is that you'll maybe browse more websites (becuase they will load faster, but you will probably spend the same amount of time browsing) but you're unlikely to download more software, videos, music etc - I may be wrong, but this seems logical to me.
I know what you are saying andy, but I feel that people will think that if they have more speed they can download more and with a 1.5MB connection it does open the scale up more, which is why I think personally, ntl need to review the cap for at least the 1.5MB customers.

erol
26-04-2004, 16:59
Just to point out - Telewest 1meg is only cheaper if you have more than one service with them. Therefore if you have BB only with either Telewest OR ntl, you'll pay the same price (£37.99 pm). :)

maybe purely by 'conincidence' of course NTL will start to offer 1MB BB at £35pm provided you take at least one other NTL service ;)

orangebird
26-04-2004, 17:01
maybe purely by 'conincidence' of course NTL will start to offer 1MB BB at £35pm provided you take at least one other NTL service ;)


Myabe they will. They're bound to merge anyway, so may as well get things such as tariffs on the same level while they can.. :)

Mick
26-04-2004, 17:05
maybe purely by 'conincidence' of course NTL will start to offer 1MB BB at £35pm provided you take at least one other NTL service ;)
Wouldn't ntl be taking a step backwards doing that?

Remembers the days when you had to have Digital TV to qualify for BB.

Florence
26-04-2004, 17:11
Just to point out - Telewest 1meg is only cheaper if you have more than one service with them. Therefore if you have BB only with either Telewest OR ntl, you'll pay the same price (£37.99 pm). :)

Yes but if you have TV or Telephone from Telewest you get 1mb for £34.99 hence all who downgraded wouldn't have if NTL had adopted the sime logic. I have telephone and used to have 1mb but now on 600K giving NTL £10 less per month.

orangebird
26-04-2004, 17:13
Yes but if you have TV or Telephone from Telewest you get 1mb for £34.99 hence all who downgraded wouldn't have if NTL had adopted the sime logic.

That's what I said..... :erm:

I have telephone and used to have 1mb but now on 600K giving NTL £10 less per month.

Which IMPO is what ntl wanted people to do....

erol
26-04-2004, 17:14
I know what you are saying andy, but I feel that people will think that if they have more speed they can download more and with a 1.5MB connection it does open the scale up more, which is why I think personally, ntl need to review the cap for at least the 1.5MB customers.

There is both a 'lag factor' and a correlation between BB capacity to user and volumes downloaded.

The 'lag factor' is that people do not immediately start to download more as their connection speed goes up.

There is also however a very real relationship between the speed of an end users connection and the voulmes they download (and upload) once the 'lag factor' is worked through. After all when TW (and shortly after NTL) finally start to offer 10mbs symetrical connections at the same price as 1mbs connections are now (in about say 3 years) people will not just grab all their data in 13.5 mins (by my very rough / quick calculation of a 1 gig cap) and be done with it. They will use more volumes up and down. :)

Or to put it another 'more realistic' way people DO download more with BB than they did with dial up - once they have worked through the lag factor. A mere 50% increase in speed may not make this obvious but once you start getting into 'true' digital economies of orders of magnitude (10* and 100*) increases then the realtionship becomes a lot clearer.

jigman
26-04-2004, 17:24
what i want know is why we have to wait when the telewest people get it at the end of next month surely i cannot be that hard to do !!!!

orangebird
26-04-2004, 17:27
what i want know is why we have to wait when the telewest people get it at the end of next month surely i cannot be that hard to do !!!!

We have a lot more customers, network and billing systems to deal with than telewest. Also, I don't think we thought about this for as long as telewest have either... ;)

Neil
26-04-2004, 17:28
Looks like the upload will be staying the same after all.....

Note: Customers on the new 300K service will not be able to use Broadband Plus or the Games Consoles services.

So....all of a sudden the people who had cr4ppy connections/poor browsing/high pings/non existant email etc, are now happy because ntl have increased their download speed? :erm:

*Thinks*-poor battered network to begin with, increase in speed=poorer/more battered network. :rolleyes:

Nemesis
26-04-2004, 17:28
Also, I don't think we thought about this for as long as telewest have either... ;)*cough* 24 hours *cough*

jigman
26-04-2004, 17:30
point taken but i think i would have been far better to announce it when it was about to happen

orangebird
26-04-2004, 17:34
point taken but i think i would have been far better to announce it when it was about to happen


Can't leave it that long - ntl would've got more than their regular hammering if they'd waited a couple of months to annouce matching telewest... :shrug:

td444
26-04-2004, 17:35
If only they applied the changes sooner rather than later...by the time this arrives, ill be at Newcastle uni in september and have no need for the extra bandwidth, let alone the connection

grindkid25
26-04-2004, 17:38
btw, when is this speed upgrade actually going to happen:confused:

jigman
26-04-2004, 17:40
" late summer "

Mick
26-04-2004, 17:40
If only they applied the changes sooner rather than later...by the time this arrives, ill be at Newcastle uni in september and have no need for the extra bandwidth, let alone the connection
I think ntl would be risking their neck and their network if they were to apply these changes, sooner, rather than later. :disturbd:

Nemesis
26-04-2004, 17:40
Can't leave it that long - ntl would've got more than their regular hammering if they'd waited a couple of months to annouce matching telewest... :shrug:
But I thought it was coincidental ;)

The Register

A spokesman for NTL said the announcement to double the speed of broadband services - on the same day that Telewest announced the same plan - was "pure coincidence".

orangebird
26-04-2004, 17:43
But I thought it was coincidental ;)

The Register

uh-huh. Yeah, right... :D:D

grindkid25
26-04-2004, 17:44
late summer, roughly what time is that?

Neil
26-04-2004, 17:45
We have a lot more customers, network and billing systems to deal with than telewest.
And still (more than 3 years after they bought C&W), ntl haven't got their act together on the billing front-I really feel sorry for TW customers.

Also, I don't think we thought about this for as long as telewest have either... ;)

Noooooo-I don't believe you! :angel:

jigman
26-04-2004, 17:45
exactly !!!!!!!!!

orangebird
26-04-2004, 17:47
And still (more than 3 years after they bought C&W), ntl haven't got their act together on the billing front-I really feel sorry for TW customers.

To be fair, ntl have bought plenty more copmanies after C&W, so it's not quite three years since they started the project to merge the billing systems....still a poor show though.



Noooooo-I don't believe you! :angel:

:rofl: :rofl:

grindkid25
26-04-2004, 17:51
roughly what month will the upgrade happen?

Florence
26-04-2004, 18:04
We have a lot more customers, network and billing systems to deal with than telewest. Also, I don't think we thought about this for as long as telewest have either... ;)

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/a.stanfield/images%20/smillies/4_6_201%5b1%5d.gif If only NTL had thought things through better instead of always jumping in feet first and making a :juggle: of it. They wouldn't keep doing this :dig:

Neil
26-04-2004, 18:04
roughly what month will the upgrade happen?

If you read through the thread, it says 'Late Summer'.

Hell's Child
26-04-2004, 18:08
Looks like the upload will be staying the same after all.....

People on 300k not having access to bb plus is nothing to do with the slow upload speed.

As for the mail etc, you will also notice that in the same post it also mentions that the mailing systems are being upgraded, and we are working with two of the largets internet "help" teams in the world in order to make the mail more reliable etc.:tu:

As for "when" is... July is the ETA this is what is considered "late summer" although my main worry is that this was a reaction to telewests announcement. :td:

Do I hold much hope??!!! Well the new "harmony" central system was meant to be up and running everywhere by "spring 2004" and here we are and now we know it's "christmas 2004". So don't be suprised when "late summer" turns into "late autumn" then "christmas" :shocked:
Yeah I'm being cynical, and yes I work for ntl but by not putting a time on it, it makes me think.....

Must say though, to find people complaining about it is worrying. You are getting more, for nothing (except 1mb users) and I imagine the majority of users on this board are 600k/1mb users. Think of the 150k customers having their service doubled. This leaves ntl faster than bulldog/pipex etc for only a couple of quid more.... a real marketing plus, which should only help drive speed up and price down IMHO.:angel:

Ramrod
26-04-2004, 18:09
http://www.onlineblog.com/archives/2004_04_25_onlineblog_archive.html#108289950109186 218Once again, Britain's two cable companies act as one. NTL Broadband has just announced a raft of changes similar to those unveiled by Telewest earlier today (below), although the fact NTL's website hasn't been updated, at the time of writing, suggests this was a hurried move. NTL's 150Kb product will now run at 300Kb, for £17.99 a month. Its 600Kb service will move up to 750Kb for £24.99, and the top-end 1Mb service will go at 1.5Mb, for £37.99. The company also says it has completed trials of a "turbo button" function - essentially, the ability to up your bandwidth for a specific (short) amount of time for an added fee. There's no news on when it'll be released into the wild.

Posted by Neil McIntosh at 10:56 AM | Comment | permalink

Telewest ups broadband speeds
Good news if you live in a Telewest area - the cable company is upgrading three of its four broadband products for nothing. The 512Kb product will now run at 750Kb, but still cost from £25 per month. The 1Mb service moves to 1.5Mb, for the current price of £35 per month, while the 2Mb service becomes what the company is claiming is "the UK's first residential 3Mb service" from £50 a month. [Update: Reader Nick Miners makes the very good point, in the comments below, that Bulldog has faster broadband services already available - just not at 3Mb.] The "entry-level" 256Kb service, costing £17.99, remains unchanged, making it look even worse value for money than before.

It's an interesting move from Telewest which - like fellow cable company NTL - needs to keep its revenues up. By increasing speeds, rather than lowering prices, it keeps everyone paying the same while sidestepping direct comparison with many of its ADSL-based rivals. That's likely why they've not improved the 256Kb service - for fear that too many customers, thinking they were previously quite happy at the 512Kb, might take the opportunity to save a few quid each month by "downgrading" to the product they were previously on.
Posted by Neil McIntosh at 8:56 AM

Defiant
26-04-2004, 18:27
although the fact NTL's website hasn't been updated, at the time of writing, suggests this was a hurried move.
Like I've said before I think there hand was forced by the Telewest move myself

Mr_Burns
26-04-2004, 18:31
I heard this rumour at least a month ago.

Paul
26-04-2004, 18:37
I heard this rumour at least a month ago.

Then why didn't you share it ?

leeswin
26-04-2004, 18:38
LMFAO


"Our customers want more speed, better e-mail access and more newsgroups to enjoy, and that's what we're delivering," said NTL chief executive officer, Simon Duffy.

yh right well supply it then - also notice telewest is uncapped

Emperordalek
26-04-2004, 18:38
To be honest I'd rather have higher upstream and no/higher cap figure than an increase in speed.

I'll be down grading to 700 from 1m because I don't really see the point in the higher speed. There isn't much difference in 700k and 1m anyway. And the benefit of 1.5m is lost because of the cap.

Mr_Burns
26-04-2004, 18:40
Then why didn't you share it ?

Because I was asked not to by the person who told me - and it would have looked very bad if I had decided to share it and was shelved for some reason or another.

Cable Guy
26-04-2004, 18:50
Keep the cap as it is, some fud in my street thought he was amazing by downloading films and music 24/7 and it made my 1mb connection as slow as dial up. Thankfully he got booted off the service and everyone in the neighbourhood is happy again. In all honesty 1gb is more than enough for the average punter.

Defiant
26-04-2004, 19:00
Keep the cap as it is, some fud in my street thought he was amazing by downloading films and music 24/7 and it made my 1mb connection as slow as dial up. Thankfully he got booted off the service and everyone in the neighbourhood is happy again. In all honesty 1gb is more than enough for the average punter.
Thats complete rubbish. Check out the ntlworld website again. NTL are enticing people to download and why not at the end of the day its what were paying for.

Download a few movie trailers a few game demo's and your already over the 1GB cap!

Paul
26-04-2004, 19:04
Thats complete rubbish. Check out the ntlworld website again. NTL are enticing people to download and why not at the end of the day its what were paying for.

It's not rubbish at all. 1Gb is more than enough for the average user.

"Power" users who spend their time downloading tons of stuff are not your typical user and a relativly rare overall.

Defiant
26-04-2004, 19:06
It's not rubbish at all. 1Gb is more than enough for the average user.

"Power" users who spend their time downloading tons of stuff are not your typical user and a relativly rare overall.Well Pem why do you think we have 1,2 & now 3MB service's for home users in this country. Do they have them just for the sake of it. Do people get broadband just to surf the net. I dont know anyone like that. I can surf the net on dialup just fine. We have broadband to download plain and simple ;)

leeswin
26-04-2004, 19:13
well i dont agree with the cap but were not going there are weeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

ntl home lol - should be just ntl cant see them being aimed a home there gettign as bad as BT and that is saying something :shocked:

Paul
26-04-2004, 19:15
Well Pem why do you think we have 1,2 & now 3MB service's for home users in this country. Do they have them just for the sake of it. Do people get broadband just to surf the net. I dont know anyone like that. I can surf the net on dialup just fine. We have broadband to download plain and simple ;)

We have them because Telewest (& NTL) just gave us them. :) - as I recall the majority of TW & NTL customers are on the lowest speed (I think the report quoted 10% of TW on 1MB+ ?).

Most people do not have BB to download lots of "stuff" - they have it because it's a faster response time on the same web sites, because it is "always on" and because it doesn't interfere with the use of the phone.

Defiant
26-04-2004, 19:17
We have them because Telewest (& NTL) just gave us them. :) - as I recall the majority of TW & NTL customers are on the lowest speed (I think the report quoted 10% of TW on 1MB+ ?).

Most people do not have BB to download lots of "stuff" - they have it because it's a faster response time on the same web sites, because it is "always on" and because it doesn't interfere with the use of the phone.
Well your going to have to get used to the fact that people like broadband to download. Check out the european speeds. They leave us standing. Its not a time to start going backwards but forwards :cool:

paulyoung666
26-04-2004, 19:20
Well Pem why do you think we have 1,2 & now 3MB service's for home users in this country. Do they have them just for the sake of it. Do people get broadband just to surf the net. I dont know anyone like that. I can surf the net on dialup just fine. We have broadband to download plain and simple ;)


do we , i am on 600 k service , i went down to 150k service and it felt like being on a slower than dial up service , i guess i have just got used to being on 600k , and no i dont download a great deal of stuff , what i do download comes at a good enough rate though :)

Defiant
26-04-2004, 19:28
do we , i am on 600 k service , i went down to 150k service and it felt like being on a slower than dial up service , i guess i have just got used to being on 600k , and no i dont download a great deal of stuff , what i do download comes at a good enough rate though :)I've been on 128 , 150 & 600 there's no difference in browsing speed!

Ramrod
26-04-2004, 19:33
I've been on 128 , 150 & 600 there's no difference in browsing speed!I've been on 512,600 & 1mb and I have noticed a difference in browsing and multiplayer gaming speeds :)I dont know anyone like that. I can surf the net on dialup just fine. We have broadband to download plain and simple ;)I hate surfing on dialup and on 1mb I get single digit pings on multiplayer now.

Richard M
26-04-2004, 19:38
I've been on 128 , 150 & 600 there's no difference in browsing speed!

I've been on all those plus 1MBit, there is a big difference, especially between 150 and 600.
The thing that helps the most in my experience is a fast browser and fast CPU to render the content -- I'm on 100MBit here at work but can't really take advantage of it due to running a 500Mhz P3. :pp

Defiant
26-04-2004, 19:38
I've been on 512,600 & 1mb and I have noticed a difference in browsing and multiplayer gaming speeds :)I hate surfing on dialup and on 1mb I get single digit pings on multiplayer now.
Gaming is a little different wouldn't you say to normal web browsing. I mean some of the latest pc online games seem to be asking for much more too

mcmanic
26-04-2004, 19:40
still no news for STB owners?

come on NTL,make a statement on this like telewest have and their STB non compatible for free upgrade service..

or are you just gonna forget the minority to please the majority

Charlie_Bubble
26-04-2004, 19:41
I think it's a positive move at last by NTL, even if it was forced on them. Not sure how their network will hold up if their newsgroup servers ever arrive and hold binary groups. I can see people with 1.5Meg lines making the whole network grind to a halt downloading 24/7! :D

Not sure whether this announcement would have done anything to stop me leaving if it had been made a few weeks earlier. On the balance of things, probably not. I took part in the trials for increased speeds of up to 3Meg and extra speed isn't something I'm too bothered about. When I saw what the trial was, I was a tad disappointed to be honest. People need reliability and service, not speeds. Believe me, people will probably not notice any difference in the normal usage, but they are being charged an extra £3. When I had the 3meg cable on trial I did notice some differences, but then it was 3 times what I had normally. An extra 50% won't make any difference on general browing etc for 1 Meg users.

If I was staying with NTL I would downgrade my service to 700 and save myself a tenner. :)

Charlie_Bubble
26-04-2004, 19:44
I've been on all those plus 1MBit, there is a big difference, especially between 150 and 600.
The thing that helps the most in my experience is a fast browser and fast CPU to render the content -- I'm on 100MBit here at work but can't really take advantage of it due to running a 500Mhz P3. :pp

Yes, between 150 and 600 there would be a difference, but between 1 and 1.5meg, the difference won't even be noticeably, unless you are doing a constant download of a big file, or several big files in the case of newsgroups. I'd say a lot of "average" 1meg users will downgrade rather than have a fraction of a second off their webpage appearing, besides, they still have those nasty proxy servers anyway! :)

poolking
26-04-2004, 19:49
still no news for STB owners?

come on NTL,make a statement on this like telewest have and their STB non compatible for free upgrade service..

or are you just gonna forget the minority to please the majority
Have you read the whole of this thread? If you had, you would have seen a post stating that this would be for STB BB as well.

Defiant
26-04-2004, 19:50
I'd say a lot of "average" 1meg users will downgrade rather than have a fraction of a second off their webpage appearing, besides, they still have those nasty proxy servers anyway! :)
I can see this too and well this is what NTL wanted anyway. The fact that Telewest already had the 2MB soon to be 3MB (There Flagship) doesn't seem to matter to NTL. I can see both companies getting more customers now mind. The stupid thing is though someone at NTL is going to get a pat on the back for this when it wasn't there idea. They don't have any:erm:

Charlie_Bubble
26-04-2004, 19:54
I wait to see what 'late summer' NTL style is. Personally, I consider late summer to be the end of August/beginning of September. :)

mcmanic
26-04-2004, 19:57
Have you read the whole of this thread? If you had, you would have seen a post stating that this would be for STB BB as well.
that was just be the staff here,i would like a full statement on the fact on a NTL website under their terms&conditions on this new free offer before i believe this,its not mentioned like telewest has,if STB cannot handle 1meg too well (already mentioned in theis thread) then wouldn't it be better to make an announcement on their main pages that people who are on STB can contact NTL for a cable modem to benifit the free speed offer.

Again the left hand don't know what the right hand is doing!

Florence
26-04-2004, 19:57
It's not rubbish at all. 1Gb is more than enough for the average user.

"Power" users who spend their time downloading tons of stuff are not your typical user and a relativly rare overall.

I listen to a friends music stream and it put sme over the 1gig sometimes, I am not copying them just listening. Also I have noticed the increased spam also takes up my capped Bandwidth. When you have in exccess of 300 emails all spam over a few NTL accounts it does use a fair bit every day. If they want the capped they have to exclude emails for starters also it does need to be highered a little so others like me who listen to streams while they working online can do so.

I am not a power users havent got the drives for it only a 40 gig drive and I manage to last 12 months between reformats. Yet I can easily go over with the family sharing the connectioin that was the main reason I went for 1 mb trying to be fair to the company and paying more sometimes than I used.

magpie
26-04-2004, 20:01
I wait to see what 'late summer' NTL style is. Personally, I consider late summer to be the end of August/beginning of September. :)
To be fair, the only official announcement, posted by Nemesis here http://www.cableforum.co.uk/board/showpost.php?p=201396&postcount=87 , says the upgrade will happen later in the summer, not late summer. This could be read as ntl saying "it'll happen later - sometime in the summer".

In fact, didn't someone mention July earlier?

Ramrod
26-04-2004, 20:12
Gaming is a little different wouldn't you say to normal web browsing. I mean some of the latest pc online games seem to be asking for much more too
I agree with you regarding the gaming but I have found that normal browsing is excellent on 1mb and average on 600.still no news for STB owners?

come on NTL,make a statement on this like telewest have and their STB non compatible for free upgrade service..

or are you just gonna forget the minority to please the majority
The general gist of all the literature I have read (especialy Nem's insider contribution) indicates that stb owners, like me, will get the upgrade as well. :)

Hell's Child
26-04-2004, 20:13
as I recall the majority of TW & NTL customers are on the lowest speed (I think the report quoted 10% of TW on 1MB+ ?).

Most people do not have BB to download lots of "stuff" - they have it because it's a faster response time on the same web sites, because it is "always on" and because it doesn't interfere with the use of the phone.
To add some facts and figures to this one, the following is ntls approx % for each speed.

150k - 66%
600k - 29%
1MB - 5%

5%, it's a very small %. And, tends to be gamers, people who download for profit (i.e download games/dvd's and sell them!!) and small buisnesses. I am not saying ALL 1mb users are the above but the majority are.
Most of ntl's broadband customers are people who are fed up of slow dial up, which ties the phone line up. Especially when you can get broadband for 17.99 with ntl (or 15.99 with pipex/bulldog etc) when on average dial up is around £15-£16 (bt 16.99, aol 15.99, freeserve 14.99).

Also, why should ntl be worried about telewest having a 2mb line? They are not competition. They do not operate in the same areas and so in theory, do not need to compete. Takeup of a 2mb line would be fairly small, as the UK does lag behind europe/usa with regards internet takeup.

leeswin
26-04-2004, 20:13
lol who else noticed they increased the price quick enough without increasing the service? :mad:

Hell's Child
26-04-2004, 20:16
In fact, didn't someone mention July earlier?
I am told by marketing that July sort of time is the expected roll out date. Not definate but that's the ETA

Ramrod
26-04-2004, 20:18
As far as I am concerned the price increase is fine. The reason I took up the 1mb service was that it dropped down from £50ish to it's present level. Even after the increase, it will still be a lot cheaper than £50 and we get 1.5mb thrown in. I'm plenty happy still :D

Defiant
26-04-2004, 20:30
Also, why should ntl be worried about telewest having a 2mb line? They are not competition. They do not operate in the same areas and so in theory, do not need to compete. Takeup of a 2mb line would be fairly small, as the UK does lag behind europe/usa with regards internet takeup.
This is one of the main problems I think. They should be competition. Everyone goes on about BT holding the broadband market back in this country yet the cable operators don't have to compete against each other. That's just wrong. I think NTL would get a BIG shock if they had to go in direct competition with Telewest!

Defiant
26-04-2004, 20:32
lol who else noticed they increased the price quick enough without increasing the service? :mad:
Another reason why I think they had to rush this through to show they were not being left behind even more by Telewest. They normally have shown any speed increase's with this price rise

Hell's Child
26-04-2004, 20:39
This is one of the main problems I think. They should be competition. Everyone goes on about BT holding the broadband market back in this country yet the cable operators don't have to compete against each other. That's just wrong. I think NTL would get a BIG shock if they had to go in direct competition with Telewest!
Possibly yes. The reason they don't compete is due to the cable contracts. Ntl have manchester/london/teeside etc telewest have liverpool etc.

After a company installs cables, and puts themselves BILLIONS in debt because of it, to have someone come along and say ok you must let X cable company use your lines would be shocking.

And having just got out of/ to be just getting out of chapter 11 (both ntl and telewest) neither could afford to cable new areas en masse even if the goverment did open it up. So.... merger... means only one cable company effectivley which means bt vs ntl:telewest, in which case there is no chance of cable companies competing against each other.

Charlie_Bubble
26-04-2004, 20:46
Yes, if they opened up the cable networks and had to compete against each other it would be very interesting. How mant TW customers would go to NTL and how many the other way...? ;)

Maggy
26-04-2004, 21:07
Well thank you NTL!

Just as long as 'coming soon' doesn't translate into the usual 18 month wait.I remember waiting for free dial-up:(

Mr_Burns
26-04-2004, 21:12
Yes, if they opened up the cable networks and had to compete against each other it would be very interesting. How mant TW customers would go to NTL and how many the other way...? ;)

But even if they did (and I don't think it will ever happen) you'd still be connecting to ntl's/TW's network so the only thing that would be different is the customer service number - why bother? Any service issues you had with ntl/telewest would still be present if you jumped ship to the other supplier.

monkey2468
26-04-2004, 21:12
I think the speed increase is an excelent idea.... especially for people on the 150k service

Defiant
26-04-2004, 21:12
Yes, if they opened up the cable networks and had to compete against each other it would be very interesting. How mant TW customers would go to NTL and how many the other way...? ;)
Yes the otherway thats what I would find interesting. Anyone want to start a poll on this. I know it wont happen but it would be interesting

wheeliebin
26-04-2004, 21:20
Another reason why I think they had to rush this through to show they were not being left behind even more by Telewest. They normally have shown any speed increase's with this price rise

Please show how it was rushed through?

Anyone who lives on this planet by now knows that the two are soon to become one. Is it not just possible to accept that such strategies may have been discussed by both companies and rolled out on very similar time scales.

What has Telewest got to gain by looking better than NTL if the two are to merge?

Defiant
26-04-2004, 21:25
Please show how it was rushed through?

Anyone who lives on this planet by now knows that the two are soon to become one. Is it not just possible to accept that such strategies may have been discussed by both companies and rolled out on very similar time scales.

What has Telewest got to gain by looking better than NTL if the two are to merge?
Oh that would explain why there TV packages are much better value. How they always give there customer's much better deals.

Oh and how Telewest had already updated there website in the early hours of last night with this information.

Seen anything on the NTL website yet ?

DeadKenny
26-04-2004, 21:50
Just to point out - Telewest 1meg is only cheaper if you have more than one service with them. Therefore if you have BB only with either Telewest OR ntl, you'll pay the same price (£37.99 pm). :)

Good point, but I've got two services with NTL but get no discount, so on comparison, Telewest is cheaper for the same packages.


5%, it's a very small %. And, tends to be gamers, people who download for profit (i.e download games/dvd's and sell them!!) and small buisnesses. I am not saying ALL 1mb users are the above but the majority are.

I'm only on 1Mbps because of the 256kbps upstream (makes my web server and remote VPN/ssh connections run faster). I'd much rather 256kbps upstream was offered on lower tier services though as I don't use even a fraction of the 1mbps download capacity.


Well thank you NTL!

Just as long as 'coming soon' doesn't translate into the usual 18 month wait.I remember waiting for free dial-up:(

Or the years we had 'coming soon' for digital TV (so many that I gave up and went with Sky Digital instead).

And I'm still waiting for Caller Display :(

th'engineer
26-04-2004, 23:10
Our customers want more speed, better e-mail access and more newsgroups to enjoy, and that's what we're delivering," said NTL chief executive officer, Simon Duffy.
So all on the way good old NTL, Neil are you coming back:angel:
Might have to amend my sig soon

erol
26-04-2004, 23:21
NTL and TW do not compete for customers but they do compete for investors (as well as to a degree for commercial partners)

Matth
26-04-2004, 23:23
It surely doesn't take much to change the speeds - remember when they gave the 150k (or was it 128k then?) users a month's trial of 600k? - click, you're up, click, you're down!


I'll rake over a couple more points from way back in this thread...

You CANNOT compare contention ratios between dialup and cable - a 15:1 ratio on dialup is the ratio of user who could actually CONNECT, whereas on cable, it's bandwidth usage.
They could double all the speeds, and also double the bandwidth contention, then if it get's busy, you're back where you started!

It's obvious to anyoune with any sense, that the cap/warning for the 1.5Mbit tier needs to be raised pro-rata to 1.5 Gb, as the 750k tier will allow you to burn your entire quota in a short enough time anyway - and yes, it's clear whay the 600k gets the smallest increase, any more and people aggreived at the 1Mbit price rise wouldn't hesitate to downgrade to a service not much slower than what they had ... would you notice a 25% drop?

If they make the news and email finally work as they should, that's also most welcome.

ian@huth
26-04-2004, 23:38
To add some facts and figures to this one, the following is ntls approx % for each speed.

150k - 66%
600k - 29%
1MB - 5%

5%, it's a very small %. And, tends to be gamers, people who download for profit (i.e download games/dvd's and sell them!!) and small buisnesses. I am not saying ALL 1mb users are the above but the majority are.
Most of ntl's broadband customers are people who are fed up of slow dial up, which ties the phone line up. Especially when you can get broadband for 17.99 with ntl (or 15.99 with pipex/bulldog etc) when on average dial up is around £15-£16 (bt 16.99, aol 15.99, freeserve 14.99).

Also, why should ntl be worried about telewest having a 2mb line? They are not competition. They do not operate in the same areas and so in theory, do not need to compete. Takeup of a 2mb line would be fairly small, as the UK does lag behind europe/usa with regards internet takeup.

I would guess that over 90% of customers will continue to do the same after their speeds have been increased as they do now so they will not put any extra strain on the system. There may be quite a number who reduce their speeds in order to save a bit of cash.

I wonder what will happen with the AOL customers who use NTL broadband? At the moment they charge customers £27.99 for 512k supplied either via ADSL or NTL broadband. I can see the ones that have their supply via NTL broadband moving direct to NTL for an extra 238k download and £3 per month cheaper.

This may reduce the chance of customers leaving NTL to go the ADSL route and may even tempt some ADSL users to move to NTL. Time will tell.

Hom3r
26-04-2004, 23:47
I'm looking forward to the speed increase:D , I hope thay improve/add spam filters for their e-mails as well:confused: :confused:

Rik
26-04-2004, 23:53
Not really there is still a restriction in place :(
plus .5 of a meg extra is it really worth £3???
Do u realise that is a extra 500K?
If the answer is yes then you are a very silly billy for asking that question :)

ian@huth
26-04-2004, 23:54
I'm looking forward to the speed increase:D , I hope thay improve/add spam filters for their e-mails as well:confused: :confused:

I have heard it said that NTL have been filtering spam for a while now. If they have they must have requested known spammers to put their system to the test as I seem to be getting more and more over the past few weeks. :(

dev
26-04-2004, 23:57
i can't wait for people to start complaining about speed problems, remember you asked for the speed increase so dont complain if you have speed problems :)

Ramrod
27-04-2004, 00:49
http://www.adslguide.org.uk/newsarchive.asp?item=1639
(fyi)

Neil
27-04-2004, 01:01
i can't wait for people to start complaining about speed problems, remember you asked for the speed increase so dont complain if you have speed problems :)

Well said. :tu:

DeadKenny
27-04-2004, 01:03
Do u realise that is a extra 500K?
If the answer is yes then you are a very silly billy for asking that question :)

Yeah, but when you're on 1Mbps, an extra 500kbps doesn't seem like much. In fact the way the net works generally, over 1Mbps that 500kbps isn't much of a difference anyway. At these speeds you're likely going to be using broadband to an extent where the next step that's worthwhile will be an extra 1Mbps or much more. If you're not using it to that extent you probably don't need 1Mbps (as I've found).



This may reduce the chance of customers leaving NTL to go the ADSL route and may even tempt some ADSL users to move to NTL. Time will tell.

Perhaps but they're blind to the fact that ADSL has the huge benefit of a 256kbps upstream on 512kbps downstream. I'd much rather have 512/256 than 750/128. Then there's NTL's customer service... :eek:

td444
27-04-2004, 01:20
i can't wait for people to start complaining about speed problems, remember you asked for the speed increase so dont complain if you have speed problems :)
There appears to be a lot of spare capacity on my area - everytime ive checked the node, there's only been a max of 13mbits/30mbits of downstream used....

However, I feel sorry for many others...

esdxc37
27-04-2004, 01:46
as a telewest customer on the 1 mb service paying 35 quid a month it is excellent news for me. :)

Jonboy
27-04-2004, 01:50
these upgrades are most welcome but what do they say beware of strangers bareing gifts i smell a rat nibbleing away in the back ground just my 2p's worth

Tristan
27-04-2004, 01:52
Perhaps but they're blind to the fact that ADSL has the huge benefit of a 256kbps upstream on 512kbps downstream. I'd much rather have 512/256 than 750/128. Then there's NTL's customer service... :eek:

Why is this a huge benefit to me, the Average Broadband Customer(tm)? The only thing I send, bar page requests and ack packets, are e-mails and IM messages (and posts to web forums ;)). The difference between 128k adn 256k upload wouldn't be noticeable for me.

But whereas I don't upload a lot of stuff, when I choose to download, I like it to be nice and swift. The extra speed announced by the cablecos today benefits me... I really can't see why people are being so negative. It seems to be a case of attack NTL no matter what, even when they're upping the speeds for the same money.

Of course, there is the issue of whether NTL have the capacity to up the speed for all customers. But I've heard it said many times over that it's the upload capacity that's the problem, rather than download. And in any case, ex-CWC areas should fair quite well, given the extra downsteam capacity they have on each UBR compared with Langley and Telewest, so I'm not worried :cool:

Chrysalis
27-04-2004, 06:52
Ok here is my take on it

First of all I think this is excellent although I am 90% sure NTL were pushed to this by telewest (same day announcement long delay before it happens) 500kbit extra traffic for £3 is a bargain.

My say on customer's usage, at the moment the uk is lagging our internet usage pattern is different to other countries because of this as in we do more web browsing rather then volume usage so we are still on bursty usage patterns, whilst globally people tend to do activities that have sustained transfer's more like streaming and downloading, although only a small % of ntl's customers are on the top tier I would say a large % of those customers are probably doing volume usage (i wouldnt justify spending an extra £10 a month just for nippier web browsing) so obviously in this case when you downloading large files 1mbit to 1.5mbit is a great boost, I also think NTL have no backbone capacity problem the only problem they have is with some ubr's so the backbone will cope fine with 1.5mbit especially if they keep the same cap, I really hope the cap gets reviewed in line with the speed so its more realistic and fairer to those who are paying more money.

So things that would be interesting to know

exact date of deployment?
will cap be raised for the high end users?
will price not be raised until deployment?

and to the guy who said that guy leeching 24/7 was making everyone miserable that is a terrible exaggeration I doubt 1 person maxing a 1mbit connection alone is going to affect a 30mbit ubr a huge amount.

erol
27-04-2004, 08:20
You CANNOT compare contention ratios between dialup and cable - a 15:1 ratio on dialup is the ratio of user who could actually CONNECT, whereas on cable, it's bandwidth usage.

With dialup there is 'contention' issue in terms of establishing a connection (how many recieving modems there are to a given number of cutomers) which is not comparable with BB as BB is an always on technology (ie there is a 1:1 ratio on establishing a connection). However in addition to this form of 'connection contention' with dial up there is also the 'normal' issues of 'bandwidth contention' which is comparable to dial ups. Whether this contetion with dial up mainfest itself from an ISP's central modem rack to it's external bandwith connection, or to the (more analgous to BB) senario with wholesale products like surftime and their ilk where the modems live in the exchange and then their is a contended pipe from the exchange back to the ISPs pop.

The point I was trying to make is that generally the faster the end users connection the higher you can run bandwidth contention (in any section of the connection). I will try and explain this a bit clearer (but probably fail).

If X is the amount a user downloads in a given time period and Y is the size of the users pipe as long as Y increases proportionaly greater than X then contention ratios can be higher without any noticable effects relative to the lower connection speeds and higher contention.

(PS guess who is currently reading "It must be beautiful - great equations of modern science) :)

DrAwesome
27-04-2004, 08:42
Do u realise that is a extra 500K?
If the answer is yes then you are a very silly billy for asking that question :)

And you are another forum member who doesnt read all the post, re-read the whole post as it was intended & not just half of it, then & only then you will find enlightenment.

Paul
27-04-2004, 09:42
as a telewest customer on the 1 mb service paying 35 quid a month it is excellent news for me. :)

Did you mean to post this in the Telewest topic by any chance ?

This thread is about the NTL speed increases. :)

NitroNutter
27-04-2004, 09:52
/me ponders
Is this enough to retain any part of NTL services?

NTL BB:
300k/???k 17.99 whats the up here?128
750k/128k 24.99
1.5mb/256k 37.99
all capped to a 1GB guidance, not that ive ever recieved a letter I know on occasions my households 3 comps do take us over and Im just waiting for the dreaded letter to drop on the mat.

ADSL BB:
256k/???k 19.49
512k/256k 22.49
1mb/256k 26.99
2mb/256k 35.49
Unrestricted. here is the key difference as it makes NTL's lowest plan non-competetive. The higher plans NTL still really falls short in price speed and cap, so I deduct now is still a good time to give adsl a play.

Hell's Child
27-04-2004, 12:27
Is this enough to retain any part of NTL services?

NTL BB:
300k/???k 17.99 whats the up here?128
750k/128k 24.99
1.5mb/256k 37.99
all capped to a 1GB guidance, not that ive ever recieved a letter I know on occasions my households 3 comps do take us over and Im just waiting for the dreaded letter to drop on the mat.

ADSL BB:
256k/???k 19.49
512k/256k 22.49
1mb/256k 26.99
2mb/256k 35.49
Unrestricted. here is the key difference as it makes NTL's lowest plan non-competetive. The higher plans NTL still really falls short in price speed and cap, so I deduct now is still a good time to give adsl a play.
256k/???k 19.49 Vs. 300k/???k 17.99 whats the up here?128

£1.50 less for a quicker service.... how does this make ntl's low end plan non-competetive?

512k/256k 22.49 Vs. 750k/128k 24.99

Ok so ntl's is dearer by £2.50 however the majority (based on facts and figures) of 600k (750k) users have the speed to download not upload. So, again look at it.. 512k @ 4.3p per K (also not forgetting most 512k services are charged at 27.99), 750 @ 3.32p per K.

Which is better value for money? an extra £2.50 for an extra 238k, which the supplier you mention (for 256k, which is there or there about) charges £19.49 for?!

Top end I cannot arguee with but for the bottom 2, which accounts for 95% of ntl's customers it is nothing but good news.

Ok the upload's are a problem, and, as I've said previously, these are being looked into.
I still fail to see how this speed upgrade, at no extra cost (1mb users aside) can be looked upon in a negative manner!!!
How can people expect the company to improve, if everytime they do something good (which this is) there are people who try and find a way to shoot the company down?

Neil
27-04-2004, 13:08
How can people expect the company to improve, if everytime they do something good (which this is) there are people who try and find a way to shoot the company down?
Because ntl take 1 step forward (speed increase), & 2 steps back (price increase & capped service) that's why.

etccarmageddon
27-04-2004, 13:16
For an extra £36 a year 1mb users now get 50% more or alternatively can downgrade to 750 and pay £10 less - sounds like a fair deal to me - apart from the upload speed being pants at the 750 level.


...Ok the upload's are a problem, and, as I've said previously, these are being looked into...

cant see where you have commented on this previously??? so do you have it on authority that NTL will improve the upload speed to ADSL levels? or is this just you speculating?

NitroNutter
27-04-2004, 13:16
256k/???k 19.49 Vs. 300k/???k 17.99 whats the up here?128

£1.50 less for a quicker service.... how does this make ntl's low end plan non-competetive?

512k/256k 22.49 Vs. 750k/128k 24.99

Ok so ntl's is dearer by £2.50 however the majority (based on facts and figures) of 600k (750k) users have the speed to download not upload. So, again look at it.. 512k @ 4.3p per K (also not forgetting most 512k services are charged at 27.99), 750 @ 3.32p per K.

Which is better value for money? an extra £2.50 for an extra 238k, which the supplier you mention (for 256k, which is there or there about) charges £19.49 for?!

Top end I cannot arguee with but for the bottom 2, which accounts for 95% of ntl's customers it is nothing but good news.

Ok the upload's are a problem, and, as I've said previously, these are being looked into.
I still fail to see how this speed upgrade, at no extra cost (1mb users aside) can be looked upon in a negative manner!!!
How can people expect the company to improve, if everytime they do something good (which this is) there are people who try and find a way to shoot the company down?
The move is not negative for sure, but is it positive enough. This was just a comparrison to 1 adsl isp.
The 300k increase could be construed as giving nothing but a speed increase as permitted usage has not increased, which was my point. £1.50 imo is way better to pay over NTL's price for the entry band service for no restriction.
the new 750k has yes still the same permitted usage and lesser upstream speed.
adsl still offer a 1mb service @ considerably reduced cost in comparrison to NTL, with no usage maximum.
The adsl 2mb service is considerably lower than NTL's 1.5mb also with no maximum usage.
As ntl have recently started sending usage letters this has and will probably become more of an issue than it has been since the cap was introduced.
There are other adsl providers offering lower prices for restriced services similar to NTL's and/or out of hours service, ie bulldog primetime.
NTL would have been far better off just doubling all packages and increasing the cap, with maybe a small fee increase of £2-3 on each the higher tiers, which they have done on the 1mb.

When comparing you have to look at all aspects of the service comparrison.

price speed what restrictions/caps

Ramrod
27-04-2004, 13:17
Because ntl take 1 step forward (speed increase), & 2 steps back (price increase & capped service) that's why.Hmmmm.....they are running a business after all.

Hell's Child
27-04-2004, 13:41
Because ntl take 1 step forward (speed increase), & 2 steps back (price increase & capped service) that's why.
Fair enough if the cap was introduced AFTER the speed change, but it wasn't. It has been here for a year + now.

They haven't announced the cap after the speed increase so therefore ntl has taken a step back... then one forward?!

Hell's Child
27-04-2004, 13:44
cant see where you have commented on this previously??? so do you have it on authority that NTL will improve the upload speed to ADSL levels? or is this just you speculating?
This is my marketing dept. telling me that it is being looked into. That's enough of an authority for me at the moment. I am not saying they will up the cap but that they are looking into the possibility.

ian@huth
27-04-2004, 13:58
The speed increases can only be seen as a positive measure by NTL as its broadband customers will have up to 100% extra download speed.

I see that their press releases do mention doubling of speed but you have to look further to see that this only applies to 150k customers and as far as I know those that are getting their broadband through the STB already get up to 256k so 300k isn't that much of an increase.

What does this increase in speed actually mean to users and what does it cost NTL to give it?

The vast majority of users will still continue to do the same things at the same time and will hardly notice that their speed has been increased. Most users do not continually download large files so they will notice that any such download is quicker and they will take up the available download bandwidth for a shorter period of time.

It is largely game players who want to host games that should benefit along with users who want to download files 24/7 for whatever reason. Also households with more than one computer networked to use the one connection should benefit where the users are all online at the same time and using bandwidth hungry applications.

It will probably cost NTL very little to implement these new speeds and they may recoup what it does cost by retaining users that may have thought of leaving or recruiting new users. If I was an AOL customer using their broadband via the NTL network I would certainly think about going direct to NTL for it and save £3 a month and have a potentially faster service.

The one big question that needs answering is that of the alleged cap. Will NTL suddenly start enforcing this more in order to throttle back the heavy users who will have more bandwidth available. Will they use this speed increase as an opportunity to admit that the "cap" was not thought out very well and to adjust it more in line with suggestions made through these forums.

As with most things in life, we will have to wait and see what transpires, only time will tell.

macuser_e7
27-04-2004, 14:03
It's not that I'm ungrateful for NTL's gesture in increasing download speeds, but from my point of view an improvement in upstream speed would have been more beneficial.

Given the choice between a 750/128 service or a 600/256 option I would take the latter, every time.

Neil
27-04-2004, 14:04
Fair enough if the cap was introduced AFTER the speed change, but it wasn't. It has been here for a year + now.

They haven't announced the cap after the speed increase so therefore ntl has taken a step back... then one forward?!

But they haven't (in true ntl style) addressed the issue of the cap. :dozey:

All they have effectively done, is increase the time in which their users can exceed the cap-great move (not)

I would say that is two steps back on it's own-not forgetting that TW charge £35.00 for 1MB (1.5MB soon), & ntl charge........ÂÂà ƒâ€šÃ‚£38.00. :rolleyes:

Another step back methinks.

Paul
27-04-2004, 14:09
But they haven't (in true ntl style) addresseD the issue of the cap

All they have effectively done, is increase the time in which their users can exceed the cap-great move (not)

I would say that is two steps back on it's own-not forgetting that TW charge £35.00 for 1MB (1.5MB soon), & ntl charge........ÂÂà ƒâ€šÃ‚£38.00. :rolleyes:

Another step back methinks.

LOL, what would we do without you to dampen our joy eh Neil ;)

Didn't I read somewhere in here that if a TW customer only takes BB then they have to pay a bit extra so there price difference disappears ?

trebor
27-04-2004, 14:10
i can't wait for people to start complaining about speed problems, remember you asked for the speed increase so dont complain if you have speed problems :)

the only sort of speed problem I ever had with NTL was the stopped kind.
it never went just slowly it always had to stop working :LOL:

but having said that if they do increase the speed and sort a few other things out as well, like, billing,telephone wait times, capped services,email servers, news servers, proxy servers, general reliability of the network, have I missed anything? I may consider having just the broadband service off them again ;)

Neil
27-04-2004, 14:16
The speed increases can only be seen as a positive measure by NTL as its broadband customers will have up to 100% extra download speed.
Agreed.

I see that their press releases do mention doubling of speed but you have to look further to see that this only applies to 150k customers and as far as I know those that are getting their broadband through the STB already get up to 256k so 300k isn't that much of an increase.
PR BS I'm afraid-I personally find it insulting to ntl customers that they emphasise the 100% increase, when that will apply to very very few customers.

What does this increase in speed actually mean to users and what does it cost NTL to give it?
It means that customers will be able to hit/exceed the cap faster.

I don't know how much it actually costs ntl.

The vast majority of users will still continue to do the same things at the same time and will hardly notice that their speed has been increased. Most users do not continually download large files so they will notice that any such download is quicker and they will take up the available download bandwidth for a shorter period of time.
Again, agreed. :)

It is largely game players who want to host games that should benefit along with users who want to download files 24/7 for whatever reason. Also households with more than one computer networked to use the one connection should benefit where the users are all online at the same time and using bandwidth hungry applications.
Not really, as it is upload that is important to those people you have descrbed above, & that appears to be staying the same.

It will probably cost NTL very little to implement these new speeds and they may recoup what it does cost by retaining users that may have thought of leaving or recruiting new users. If I was an AOL customer using their broadband via the NTL network I would certainly think about going direct to NTL for it and save £3 a month and have a potentially faster service.
The AOL service hasn't been running long enough for customers to be able to get out of their 1 year contract I don't think, & why opt into a new

The one big question that needs answering is that of the alleged cap.
It's not an 'alledged' cap at all Ian, it's very real.

Will NTL suddenly start enforcing this more in order to throttle back the heavy users who will have more bandwidth available. Will they use this speed increase as an opportunity to admit that the "cap" was not thought out very well and to adjust it more in line with suggestions made through these forums.
ntl will not admit what a c0ck up they made with the cap IMHO, & they will continue to treat their customers poorly as that is their attitude at the top.
As with most things in life, we will have to wait and see what transpires, only time will tell.

Agreed-again!!

orangebird
27-04-2004, 14:20
LOL, what would we do without you to dampen our joy eh Neil ;)

Didn't I read somewhere in here that if a TW customer only takes BB then they have to pay a bit extra so there price difference disappears ?

Yes, it does indeed. :)

Hell's Child
27-04-2004, 14:23
The 300k increase could be construed as giving nothing but a speed increase as permitted usage has not increased, which was my point. £1.50 imo is way better to pay over NTL's price for the entry band service for no restriction.
Can you realisticly say this will affect the "average" user? The majority of 150k (300k) use it because it is comparable on price with dial up, but they get a faster service that doesn't tie the phone up. The cap is irrelivant as, not only would it be difficlut to hit the 1GB limit, but also very unlikley!
If it's your opinion, i'm not arguing with it, I am not saying you are wrong i'm just pointing out that when you add some figures to the equasion, the number of people it would have a detrimental effect to or make worthwhile to go to adsl is quite small.



the new 750k has yes still the same permitted usage and lesser upstream speed. Again, this will not affect the avarage user who tend to use the 600k service for DOWNLOADING.

adsl still offer a 1mb service @ considerably reduced cost in comparrison to NTL, with no usage maximum. The adsl 2mb service is considerably lower than NTL's 1.5mb also with no maximum usage.

These are the people it does effect.. i've already admitted that!!!


As ntl have recently started sending usage letters this has and will probably become more of an issue than it has been since the cap was introduced.

There are other adsl providers offering lower prices for restriced services similar to NTL's and/or out of hours service, ie bulldog primetime. Bulldog....ÂÂƚ£15.99 a month for 150K?? why not pay £2 more and get double the speed??? To me, at least IMO, it doesn't seem logical that somebody would do that.

NTL would have been far better off just doubling all packages and increasing the cap, with maybe a small fee increase of £2-3 on each the higher tiers, which they have done on the 1mb.

When comparing you have to look at all aspects of the service comparrison.

price speed what restrictions/caps
I have already mentioned my marketing dept. has told me the cap will be reviewed in line with the speed upgrades so I have looked a the picture.

We only have 3 teirs... why should they double the 600k for example to 1.2meg and only charge £25-28 when the other cable co's charge £35?
They have doubled the lower end and not increased the price.
You seem happy with what they have done with the 1mb, but are unhappy with the cap. But, with greatest respect, this isn't a discussion about the cap, it's about the increase in the speeds.

Hell's Child
27-04-2004, 14:30
PR BS I'm afraid-I personally find it insulting to ntl customers that they emphasise the 100% increase, when that will apply to very very few customers.
But it isn't. I have already posted on here that 66% (approx.) of ntl's customers are on the 150k (soon to be 300k) service, so in fact a MAJORITY of the customers will get a 100% increase.

66% of 1million... 660,000.... that isn't a few!!!! (haha I still needed a calculator to work that out ;) )

Neil
27-04-2004, 14:37
But it isn't. I have already posted on here that 66% (approx.) of ntl's customers are on the 150k (soon to be 300k) service, so in fact a MAJORITY of the customers will get a 100% increase.

66% of 1million... 660,000.... that isn't a few!!!! (haha I still needed a calculator to work that out ;) )

Which makes a total mockery of ntl's claims that they have 1 million broadband customers (they have always been very tight lipped about how many are on 150k, but now we know thanks to you!!)

So according to you (& Oftel/Com), ntl only actually have 330,000 high speed broadband customers (I.E over 512k)?

Not a very good showing really is it? & you have just confirmed my 'ntl PR BS' comment by admitting their statement of 1m BB customers is in fact little more than BS.

Thanks! :D

[Edit]

NTL reckons it's top dog for broadband after announcing today that it has become the first UK ISP to rack up one million broadband customers.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/03/03/ntl_notches_up_1m_broadband/

Said the cableco's chief exec, Simon Duffy: "NTL continues to be the driving force behind the growth of broadband in the UK. We are proud to be the first ISP to have over one million homes connected to broadband

Not quite Mr Duffy-660,000 150k customers & (therefore) 330,000 600k/1MB customers does not equate to 1m BB customers I'm afraid. :nono:

the quality of our service sets the standard in the UK. We have rapidly become the European standard bearer for broadband cable."

What a complete joke/load of BS-ntl are nowhere near the standard bearer they make out to be-if that were the case then they would have announced the speed increases & TW would have copied them out of panic (not the other way round ;) )

That may the case, but there are plenty of people who question NTL's claim.
With good reason too.

The reason is that NTL flogs a high-speed 150k service that many consumers and industry insiders in the UK reckon just isn't broadband.-

It isn't.

Thanks for ending the speculation behind ntl's BS tho 'HC', much appreciated. :)

SMHarman
27-04-2004, 14:40
But it isn't. I have already posted on here that 66% (approx.) of ntl's customers are on the 150k (soon to be 300k) service, so in fact a MAJORITY of the customers will get a 100% increase.

66% of 1million... 660,000.... that isn't a few!!!! (haha I still needed a calculator to work that out ;) )

Which is a pretty significant increase - 5-6 times faster than dial up (lets face it you normally connect at about 52k). I would imagine there are users who will downgrade from 600k to this and others that now will not upgrade.

orangebird
27-04-2004, 14:46
Which makes a total mockery of ntl's claims that they have 1 million broadband customers (they have always been very tight lipped about how many are on 150k, but now we know thanks to you!!)

So according to you (& Oftel/Com), ntl only actually have 330,000 high speed broadband customers (I.E over 512k)?

Not a very good showing really is it? & you have just confirmed my 'ntl PR BS' comment by admitting their statement of 1m BB customers is in fact little more than BS.

Thanks! :D

Not quite Neil.....

As per the Ofcom ruling, 150k is not highspeed bb, but it is indeed bb... :angel:

Nemesis
27-04-2004, 14:47
/gets chair and popcorn :D

orangebird
27-04-2004, 14:49
/gets chair and popcorn :D


Don't forget how you wasted your popcorn last time... ;)

Hell's Child
27-04-2004, 14:55
Which makes a total mockery of ntl's claims that they have 1 million broadband customers (they have always been very tight lipped about how many are on 150k, but now we know thanks to you!!)

So according to you (& Oftel/Com), ntl only actually have 330,000 high speed broadband customers (I.E over 512k)?

Not a very good showing really is it? & you have just confirmed my 'ntl PR BS' comment by admitting their statement of 1m BB customers is in fact little more than BS.
To be fair, this isn't about whether ntl have 1mill HIGHSPEED broadband customers is it?!?

But as ob stated, 150k is recognised as broadband, and for certain 300k will be so the claim is valid. the satement says 1mill broadband customers, not once does it state "1 million high speed broadband customers"

NitroNutter
27-04-2004, 15:08
Can you realisticly say this will affect the "average" user? The majority of 150k (300k) use it because it is comparable on price with dial up, but they get a faster service that doesn't tie the phone up. The cap is irrelivant as, not only would it be difficlut to hit the 1GB limit, but also very unlikley!
If it's your opinion, i'm not arguing with it, I am not saying you are wrong i'm just pointing out that when you add some figures to the equasion, the number of people it would have a detrimental effect to or make worthwhile to go to adsl is quite small.


Again, this will not affect the avarage user who tend to use the 600k service for DOWNLOADING.


These are the people it does effect.. i've already admitted that!!!


As ntl have recently started sending usage letters this has and will probably become more of an issue than it has been since the cap was introduced.

Bulldog....ÂÂƚ£15.99 a month for 150K?? why not pay £2 more and get double the speed??? To me, at least IMO, it doesn't seem logical that somebody would do that.


I have already mentioned my marketing dept. has told me the cap will be reviewed in line with the speed upgrades so I have looked a the picture.

We only have 3 teirs... why should they double the 600k for example to 1.2meg and only charge £25-28 when the other cable co's charge £35?
They have doubled the lower end and not increased the price.
You seem happy with what they have done with the 1mb, but are unhappy with the cap. But, with greatest respect, this isn't a discussion about the cap, it's about the increase in the speeds.1. I would have thought NTL wasnt just after keeping customers but gaining more and hopefully some from adsl.
2. Bulldog primetime was an example directed at the higher tiers not the lowend package. remember theres a lot more adsl providers than there are cable. You can get unrestricted 256k ADSL from other providers @ £1.50 over NTL's future 300k.
3. Obviously everyone will look forward to increased cap and increased upstream but till theres any official announcement they are just nothing more than maybe we would get them.
4. As for the 600k sorry, Iv allways known it as 512 even though I allways had 600k when I was on that tier. so to double it I meant double 512.
5. I fail to see why NTL should be comparing against other cable providers, who currently bear no competition against NTL. ADSL is your competition and so you need to be looking @ what adsl is offering.

As I said its a move in the right direction, but I had 1mb before I dropped to back to the middle tier. I see now after looking that I can get adsl 1mb for £26 no restriction. And as I can hook up for 3 months contract with line activation at £29 it may well be worth me trying it. And then as long as my line can take it I can get 2mb later when I need it at less £'s than NTL's 1.5mb. Then theres the potential of the 4mb and 6mb tiers thats becoming available, although currently only in central london. We of course hope this spreads further afield and look forward to a future lowest tier of 500k from both cable and ADSL.
So despite this increase ADSL seems to remain ahead of cable.

as for announcing any raise in the cap how long does it take to work out that as downstream speed has increased by 25%-100% that the guidance cap should also be increased with in the same region at least. meaning at max you would increase the guidance cap to 2GB. The cap is NTL's worst point and therefore they should have kicked the increase round the table of ideas at the same time. The whole threads response would have been far more positive if they had.

etccarmageddon
27-04-2004, 15:25
This is my marketing dept. telling me that it is being looked into. That's enough of an authority for me at the moment. I am not saying they will up the cap but that they are looking into the possibility.

ok, cheers, thanks for claritying that.

SMHarman
27-04-2004, 15:42
5. I fail to see why NTL should be comparing against other cable providers, who currently bear no competition against NTL. ADSL is your competition and so you need to be looking @ what adsl is offering.


Because although they are not the competition the blueyonder has done a lot to market BB takeup in the UK and innovation on their network promotes questions from NTL users as to why NTL cannot offer the same.

Similar I suppose to comparing an American Airlines flight from LHR to NY to a Thai Airways flight from LHR to Bankok. You cannot use the alternate carrier, but you can compare the service you get for your money.

erol
27-04-2004, 15:45
With dialup there is 'contention' issue in terms

OK first off I'll get the appologies out of the way :)

appologies for replying to my own post.

appologies if this is off topic and should go somewhere else (please move it as appropriate)

appologies if this is of no interest to anyone.

I was thinking some more about ways to explain the idea that higher speed connections generally can support higher contention ratio. I think I have a way that helps make the point clearer (and some other about contention) - that uses my favourite tool - an analogy (analogy warning - analogy are not exact comparisions but ones designed to highlight a particular aspect only. Outside of that aspect they usualy break down horribly).

So in the analogy imagine that

The shared resource of a contented data pipe (where ever that contetion might be - first/last mile, middle mile or external connectivity) is a public toilet.

A users connection speed relates to how quickly they can 'evacuate' themselves. A 1mbs users takes half the time to 'evacuate' as a 512kbs user.

Contention then becomes when you go to use the toilet and it is already in use and you have to wait.

Once you do this then the point (that the more you increase a users speed the more contention you can stand) becomes (I hope) much clearer. Because people spend less time doing their doings (as their connection/ evacuation speed increases) they are in and out of the toilet quicker and thus the chance that when you go to use the toilet it is already occupied is lower. Thus you can increase the number of people sharing the toilet when you increase their evacuation speed. This of course has the implicit assumption that just because people can now evacuate quicker they do not decide to evacuate more.

This analogy (imo) is also useful a looking at some other contention ideas. Like the idea that contending more people on a larger pipe has less impact on users than less people on a small pipe at the same contention ratio.

If you imagine a public toilet with a single bowl being shared by say 20 people - giving a TCR (toilet contention ratio) of 20:1
and then imagine a public toilet with 10 bowls being shared by say 200 people - giving the same TCR of 20:1

In the first example a single indivdual that takes ages and ages to evacuate is all it takes to cause severe blockage (possibly not the right term given the anaology used). In the second example it would take 20 such 'long time' evacuators - all evacuating at the same time, which is a lot less likely than there being one. Thus in general terms the bigger the shared pipe, shared by more users is, at constant contention ratios the less impact (relative to small pipe with less users at same contetion)

The analogy can also be used to look at the CAP and heavy / abusive users as well.

In this analogy data volumes downloaded (or uploaded) relate to amount evacuated.

NTL currently define toliet abuse as being based on the amount people evacuate. However there may be a user that whilst they evacuate 10 or even 100 times more than the 'average' user they always do so between the hours of midnight and 5am in a massive evacuation session, and in a public toilet of say 20 bowls shared between 400 people (TCR 20:1). This user NEVER causes another persons usage of the public toilet to be blocked - yet by NTL's definition they are an toilet abuser. This then is the most basic (but not only) flaw with the NTL cap as it currently exists.

I hope that this 'toilet' approach to some issues surrounding contention makes the issues both easier to understand and a little less 'dry'

:)

Salu
27-04-2004, 15:52
There once was a time when Cable was cheaper than ADSL. Now it just claims a better speed to £ ratio.....

Money talks...It seems that they think that speed is more desirable to the majority than cost. I think that they are wrong.

ian@huth
27-04-2004, 16:01
But it isn't. I have already posted on here that 66% (approx.) of ntl's customers are on the 150k (soon to be 300k) service, so in fact a MAJORITY of the customers will get a 100% increase.

66% of 1million... 660,000.... that isn't a few!!!! (haha I still needed a calculator to work that out ;) )

But how many of the 660,000 customers are getting their service via the STB and are already getting 256k?

Changing subject slightly, has anyone noticed that on Pipex's capped services the bandwidth per month allowed includes both downloads and uploads combined.

MovedGoalPosts
27-04-2004, 16:11
But how many of the 660,000 customers are getting their service via the STB and are already getting 256k?

Changing subject slightly, has anyone noticed that on Pipex's capped services the bandwidth per month allowed includes both downloads and uploads combined.
:notopic: Yep it's becoming common place with these introductory services that the caps are now data transfer based, not just one way traffic. ispreview.co.uk has recently done quite a good analysis on the creeping introduction of basic capped services.

bazza
27-04-2004, 19:14
Great news that NTL are going to upgrade my 600K to 750K for nothing. I know several people on 512K ADSL who are now looking at moving to NTL for the faster connection for similar money. For me the upload speed doesn't matter, I'm not fussed how long it takes me to upload to my webspace or VPN. If I wanted a 1M service I would have to go to NTL as I'm too far from an ADSL exchange for anything higher than 512K. Well done NTL

mrmassive
27-04-2004, 19:33
I have one stupid question if ntl struggles now to keep up speed and leases bandwith to AOL and sometimes its impossible to play online games to bad pings. Wheres all this bandwith comming from???????

mrmassive
27-04-2004, 19:33
i ment bandwidth sorry

paulyoung666
27-04-2004, 19:57
I have one stupid question if ntl struggles now to keep up speed and leases bandwith to AOL and sometimes its impossible to play online games to bad pings. Wheres all this bandwith comming from???????



sometimes it is impossible to play onlne , i honestly havent had any major problems with ntl , i wonder if it is dependant on where you live :confused:

homealone
27-04-2004, 20:02
Great news that NTL are going to upgrade my 600K to 750K for nothing. I know several people on 512K ADSL who are now looking at moving to NTL for the faster connection for similar money. For me the upload speed doesn't matter, I'm not fussed how long it takes me to upload to my webspace or VPN. If I wanted a 1M service I would have to go to NTL as I'm too far from an ADSL exchange for anything higher than 512K. Well done NTL

well at least someone is pleased this will happen - :welcome: to the forum bazza :) I mainly only download on my 600k connection - and the extra 150k will help with sharing it with my son using a router :tu:

DeadKenny
27-04-2004, 20:38
I really can't see why people are being so negative. It seems to be a case of attack NTL no matter what, even when they're upping the speeds for the same money.

Fair enough on the 150kbps and 600kbps tiers, but for me as a 1Mbps user I'm being made to pay £3 more (£36 a year) for a service I don't want or need, or pay £10 less for a lesser service (slightly slower download and very much slower upload). That's why I'm unhappy, especially when they claim it's something for nothing, which it is not.

If they kept the 1Mbps as well as an option at £35 I'd be happy (but happier still with 600/256 :D)

If I was a Telewest customer I wouldn't be paying any more.

For an extra £36 a year 1mb users now get 50% more or alternatively can downgrade to 750 and pay £10 less - sounds like a fair deal to me - apart from the upload speed being pants at the 750 level.


I refer to my comment above ;)

trebor
27-04-2004, 20:42
has there been any official announcement by NTL yet as to when this speed increase will happen?

ian@huth
27-04-2004, 20:49
I have one stupid question if ntl struggles now to keep up speed and leases bandwith to AOL and sometimes its impossible to play online games to bad pings. Wheres all this bandwith comming from???????

Most customers will not use any more bandwidth than they do at the moment even though more is available to them.

The ones that do use the extra bandwidth may find themselves being talked to by NTL for breach of the AUP.

It is very easy to give something away whilst you are restricting its use.

Neil
27-04-2004, 20:58
has there been any official announcement by NTL yet as to when this speed increase will happen?

Yes-the answer has been posted several times in this thread.

Racingdick
27-04-2004, 21:00
Ok so maybe I will stick with the 1MB line,
you will automatically go to 1.5Mb

mrmassive
27-04-2004, 21:16
If you are married and have kids or whatever and you network a few pcs and they all share the same broadband connection you have. The xtra bandwidth will be used. There goes the AUP. But there again thats another matter. With families like this and I can Name a few the xtra Bandwidth will help sort out slow browseing ect .But as for the Newsgroups being sorted out thats a joke

Chris W
27-04-2004, 21:19
If you are married and have kids or whatever and you network a few pcs and they all share the same broadband connection you have. The xtra bandwidth will be used.


remembering of course that you agreed in the t&cs that you would only use 3 devices (excluding router/ hardware firewall) on your BB connection. ;)

Paul
27-04-2004, 21:27
remembering of course that you agreed in the t&cs that you would only use 3 devices (excluding router/ hardware firewall) on your BB connection. ;)

Of course .... :erm:

mrmassive
27-04-2004, 21:31
like 1 pc 1 monitor and 1 keyboard and the mouse. Id better disconnect my printer lol

Tristan
27-04-2004, 21:37
I'm still confused. I reckon I'm 99% of the way to being the Average Broadband User. I surf the web. I send e-mails. I use instant messengers. I play XBox Live, and even the occasional game of Counter-Strike on the PC. I download MP3s (legal of course), video files and game demos. I can honestly say that the oh-so-terrible cap has never crossed my mind.

Please could somebody explain to me how NTL's announcement is a bad thing for me? Because for all I can see, it's positive. And yet here we are, with 17 pages of people complaining. I just don't get it.

and®ew
27-04-2004, 21:47
Incase people didnt know.

Everyones Broadband connection will be getting a 50% speed increase this summer free of charge.....

please click on the link for more information.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/04/26/ntl_telewest_broadband/

;)

Paul
27-04-2004, 21:53
And yet here we are, with 17 pages of people complaining. I just don't get it.

:nono: not everyone is complaining ....

Florence
27-04-2004, 21:58
Incase anyone hadn't noticed 50% isn't being given.

150K goes to 300K yes 100% extra. double....

600K goes to 750K if my maths is right you are not getting 50% more.. this needed to be 900K so come on NTL are 600K getting 50% more or is this the short change..

1mb goes to 1.5mb ==== 50% more...

mrmassive
27-04-2004, 22:12
No one here complains???????

You get offered something for free
You pay for it
Then your told you cant use it to its fully potentional

No one here complains

No Never

Ramrod
27-04-2004, 22:24
No one here complains???????

You get offered something for free
You pay for it
Then your told you cant use it to its fully potentional

No one here complains

No NeverBut to use it to it's full potential (24/7 downloading) you either have to have very deep pockets or be infringing copyright laws all the time. Lets take a wild guess at which of those two options is most likely to be occurring :pp . You are, in effect, saying that people should be bitching because they are not being allowed to break the law as much as they would like to :D

paulyoung666
27-04-2004, 22:34
But to use it to it's full potential (24/7 downloading) you either have to have very deep pockets or be infringing copyright laws all the time. Lets take a wild guess at which of those two options is most likely to be occurring :pp . You are, in effect, saying that people should be bitching because they are not being allowed to break the law as much as they would like to :D


:tu: , nuff said , rep is on its way for that :D :D :D :D

mrmassive
27-04-2004, 23:05
But to use it to it's full potential (24/7 downloading) you either have to have very deep pockets or be infringing copyright laws all the time. Lets take a wild guess at which of those two options is most likely to be occurring . You are, in effect, saying that people should be bitching because they are not being allowed to break the law as much as they would like to

Did I say That!!!!!!!!!! .Or did I could it be a few game demos a few movie trailers maybe some anti virus update maybe windows update and then maybe some online gameing or perhaps new drivers for me 5950 ultra card . This is going off the topic lets get back on it.

Its good to have a increase in bandwidth whether you use it or not or how you use it. The xtra speed might help when your on ebay and put in that final bid 15 secs before it finishes