PDA

View Full Version : New To NTL Broadband from aDSL (Reluctantly!) - Few questions...


garethdphillips
09-02-2006, 20:40
Ive been a happy aDSL customer for years but despite recieving a great service (£17.99 for 2Mbps with 256K upstream) I slowly began to grow more and more frustrated by the fact that I was force fed a BT line which I didnt want. Myslef and My girlfriend have mobiles, and Id very much like to jump on the Voip bandwagon. Unfortunatley any potential for savings via Voip would have been wiped out by the fact that I had to pay BT £11 for a PSTN line in addition to £17.99 for aDSL (from a 3rd party)

I have decided to take 1Mbps broadband from NTL and have made the decision to do without a land line. I am going to use a SIP based Voip service from SIPGATE to get a local number for free (mainly for inbound calls)

I may live to regret this as Ive never had cable before and Im going to have to dig up my garden, and have a dirty great cable installed for this service!

Does anbody know of NTL plan to improve their offering in terms of speed and price? aDSL seems to be getting faster and faster, and cheaper and cheaper with everybody generally having 2Mbs for the price of NTL's 1MB offering, with NTL offering less than half the uplpoad speed. Surely they will be wanting to keep up?

Have I done the wrong thing? I fugured it was worth it to save on the BT rental. Is the 100Kbps upload going to cause me problems with Voip?

I have had to sell my Netgear aDSL wireless router and have purhased the Cable / generic broadband version. Is there any configuration of the provided ethernet modem, or is this pre-configured?

How often will my IP change?

Do NTL block any inbound ports?

Is the 3GB monthly usage cap strictly enforced (another weakness of this package compared to my last, what have I done! ?)

Ive taken out a 12 month contract, what happens if I try to cancel, will they charge me the full year?

The install happens on Wed next week, what is the presentation into my building? a coax?

Thanks

UncleBooBoo
09-02-2006, 20:53
I may be able to offer you some advice because your going to do what I am doing, First of all there is no cap with NTL on their 1Mb & 2Mb teirs.

Second of all NTL's 1Mb service offers a crappy 100k upload which may not be enough for some voip companies so you may end up having to get their 2Mb teir as that has a 200k although still lower than adsl but that is what I have the 2Mb and it works well with voip.

Ok about sipgate, forget them they are crap, when people call your number half the time they will get a message saying "your call cannot be connected" so I would recommend voipfone. That is who I use as I found sipgate had to many probs, not to mention their voicmail speaks to you in about five different voices! :dozey:

NTL will put you on a 12 month contract, and if you cancel early you will be billed for any outstanding term.

Cable BB is supplied via a coax cable and not a telephone line!

I doubt you will live to regret it but I could be wrong, I have never had any issues with my BB. Well until I tried the 10Mb, that was crap speeds all over the place!

I have tried there 1Mb & 2Mb services and all has gone well on them.

ADDITION: Just to let you know that sipgate also don't allow DTMF dialling so if you call say NTL and you try pressing 5 to speak to anyone through it then it won't work. This can be a problem if voip is your only way of communication.

homealone
09-02-2006, 20:58
Does anbody know of NTL plan to improve their offering in terms of speed and price? aDSL seems to be getting faster and faster, and cheaper and cheaper with everybody generally having 2Mbs for the price of NTL's 1MB offering, with NTL offering less than half the uplpoad speed. Surely they will be wanting to keep up?

plan is to upgrade the speed later this year, but no details yet.

Have I done the wrong thing? I fugured it was worth it to save on the BT rental. Is the 100Kbps upload going to cause me problems with Voip?


sorry, don't know - allegedly 64Kb/s is sufficient

I have had to sell my Netgear aDSL wireless router and have purhased the Cable / generic broadband version. Is there any configuration of the provided ethernet modem, or is this pre-configured?

there is a registration procedure when you first log in, otherwise it will pretty much work 'out of the box'.

How often will my IP change?

hardly ever - but it isn't truly static

Do NTL block any inbound ports?

not sure on this one

Is the 3GB monthly usage cap strictly enforced (another weakness of this package compared to my last, what have I done! ?)


1Mb is now 'unlimited'

Ive taken out a 12 month contract, what happens if I try to cancel, will they charge me the full year?

yes

The install happens on Wed next week, what is the presentation into my building? a coax?

yup, coax to a 'box' on the wall, then clipped round to the modem location

- good luck :)

Chris W
09-02-2006, 21:03
Does anbody know of NTL plan to improve their offering in terms of speed and price? aDSL seems to be getting faster and faster, and cheaper and cheaper with everybody generally having 2Mbs for the price of NTL's 1MB offering, with NTL offering less than half the uplpoad speed. Surely they will be wanting to keep up?



firstly :welcome:

ntl are increasing all the time, 150k went to 300k then 1meg with 3gig cap, now 1meg unlimited, so i am sure there will be more increases in the future.

Have I done the wrong thing? I fugured it was worth it to save on the BT rental. Is the 100Kbps upload going to cause me problems with Voip?

I have had to sell my Netgear aDSL wireless router and have purhased the Cable / generic broadband version. Is there any configuration of the provided ethernet modem, or is this pre-configured?

I think 100kbps is a little low- some VOIP providers that i have seen recommend 128kbps so you might be better off going for the 2meg package (£24.99 pm) which has a 200kbps upstream.

How often will my IP change?

If you keep the modem switched on all the time it will be very rare for the ip to change- when i had ntl service mine only changed about once every 6 months.

Do NTL block any inbound ports?

NTL do block a small number of ports to prevent the spread of viruses (there is a list somewhere on this site which i will find soon) 135 is one of them that i can remember.

Is the 3GB monthly usage cap strictly enforced (another weakness of this package compared to my last, what have I done! ?)

The 1meg package is now unlimited.

Ive taken out a 12 month contract, what happens if I try to cancel, will they charge me the full year?

yes

The install happens on Wed next week, what is the presentation into my building? a coax?

Thanks

You should find that outside your house is a small square cover in the pavement, the cable in the street runs to this, then from here under your garden to your house. If ntl have serviced the house before there will be a small brown/ grey box on the front of the house (omnibox) where the coax cable comes in.

Hope that helps :)

garethdphillips
10-02-2006, 09:30
THanks for all your help. I had noticed a few problems with SIPGATE but assumed these were mainly down the their soft client. I have purhchased the Netgear Voip adapter so I will go ahead and give it a go with that after my install, and If I see the problems you mention I will certainly give those others a go. Do you forsee any problems getting the Netgear adapter working on their service? (I assume it is SIP based?)

It's a shame that VoipPhone dont offer a local geographical numbers. However one thing I am not going to enjoy is the "pre pay" nature of SipGate. Do you know if Voipphone or any other providor offer a "proper" monthly bill in arrears, and via DD perhaps?

Thanks for all your help. I guess worst case I can get a BT line but straight back, and sit through 12 months of cable!

Id be very happy to see them make the 1MB up to 2MB with a 200k or 300k upload! - At least then Id feel i was getting value for money ! - But if it all works out I cant complain about not being force fed a line from BT !

---------- Post added at 08:30 ---------- Previous post was at 08:26 ----------

Thanks for all that.

I didnt realise the service was unlimited, that makes me a lot happier as I will be making 100% of my voice calls over the link.

I may need to consider what a few of you guys of said about upload speed, but Ill hold off as long as possible as I want to keep my standing costs down compared to what they were, or the move was poinltess!

I am a sky + customer (and a very happy one!, I wont be considering a move to NTL's digital platform! :-) ) - Does anybody know if the modem will work via a Voip adapter? In theory it will, but I dont know if the "simulated" line will support a high enough BAUD rate? - This isnt too important as I do not need to have it connected, but it would be nice to be able to watch the odd Box Office movie.

Thanks again

uknutz
10-02-2006, 12:33
When I NTL Broadband at my previous address, I couldn't get of any of my sky boxes (Including SKY+, nightmare, but thats another story lol.) to connect over VOIP, some have reported to have had limited sucess. Things may have changed recently, but luckily, like you, I didnt need to have them connected. And now I am free from BT / Sky and better off too.

garethdphillips
10-02-2006, 12:49
SO do you think the cable TV offering is better than Sky digital / Sky Plus?

I thought the platform from a technical point of view (cable) was not a patch on Sky's but maybe I shoudl re-investigate?

I think Sky + is a fantastic product (yes expensive) and cannot fault it at the moment. What benefits do cable have if we exclude price?

Thanks RE: the Modem via Voip issue. Im hoping it will work, but can live without.

SLM
10-02-2006, 13:04
People on here will be able to tell you the differences between them but ntl are getting the equivalent to sky+ later this year, but by all accts 10 times better as it "should" have PVR (private video recorder) and VOD (video on demand) so while ntl do not have it at the mo it is just around the corner!

Pia
10-02-2006, 14:24
:erm: No landline? What if there's an emergency with power cut, and your mobile just happens to run out of battery?;)

handyman
10-02-2006, 14:52
Don't change from sky+ just yet, there is nothing ntl offer that beats it. If you have the full sky package have a look at sky by broadband whichj offers 300 movies to download with a 1 week drm license. theres sports and other stuff on it as well and its free.

SMHarman
10-02-2006, 15:53
I am a sky + customerThen you cannot go VOIP only. The Sky+ box refuses to connect to sky central at anything less than 64k (so how it works on a DACSed line I don't know). It will not connect on a VOIP line.

http://www.vonage.co.uk/help.php?article=922&category=

Can I use Vonage with my Sky or Sky+ box?

At this time, it is not possible to use Vonage Service with Sky or Sky+ box. In order for it to work, Sky needs to reduce the modem speed of the box and allow of prefix of *99 to be dialled. Vonage has requested Sky to make these changes but they have not yet provided a commitment date.

garethdphillips
17-02-2006, 12:58
Hi

I got the service installed on Wed this week. I live very close to NTL's operations building for my area so I seem to be getting speeds at the very top end of what you would expect from a 1MB service so Im happy. I didnt use my aDSL (2Mbps) to its full potential very often, so to be honest I havent really noticed much difference. Im pretty happy.

I run my own mail and we server, and often connect into the server via remote desktop from work, so I notice this has degraded due to the much slower upload speed, but its workable.

Voip works a treat. I suspect that whilst in a call there is very little "room" left on the link in the upstream direction, but I notice no problems. With QOS turned off on my Voip adapter, the person I am speaking with hears me break up from time to time as an email arrives, but with QOS on all seems well.

I can confirm therefore that the 1MB service IS ok for Voip, but just dont try and do anything with the link (if it uses the upstream direction) without some QOS.

Direction
Actual Speed
True Speed (estimated)
Downstream
964 Kbps (120.5 KB/sec)
1041 Kbps (inc. overheads)
Upstream
91 Kbps (11.4 KB/sec)
98 Kbps (inc. overheads)