Re: New Speeds - June 1st
 

that may be what you think would happen, but alas that can only be reasonably assured if the files and websites are on the internal NTL network, and if so would come down as fast as the cable modems settings allow, there are exeptions of course were the other end (seems the US is better connected to the UK than the current EU lines for instance) can supply at the higher rates.

its reasonable to assume that over time these links will themselves get faster so generally faster is good.

it may be true were the users do not want to do more than just use the network, however i think its unfair and indeed unwise to lump the majority with that label, anyone thats ever had lag in games for instance, knows something at the very least about upload rates or takes thw time to find out, after all thats what the web is great at, helping you find out new stuff every day.

thats so wrong, at least generally labeling cable as less capable in the upload department.

its simple really, as everything else in the ISP thinking its a way to maximise profit at the cost to the end user, in this case limiting upload after the dialup days was less expensive
for the ISP's of old and it continues to this day, theres no real reason to continue it today, perhaps NTL will be the first major ISP to change this trend!.

with all due respect, thats just rubbish, the STB doesnt care that its got a limited upload or backchannel as its also known as long as its fast enough for what it does,
it could do so much more and then it would need more upload bandwidth.

the 'DOCSIS' and 'EuroDOCSIS' are essently the same thing and the thing that makes EuroDOCSIS better from our POV that the fact that the US version uses 6 MHz while the EU version uses 8 MHz wide, "The wider bandwidth in EuroDOCSIS architectures permits more bandwidth to be allocated to the downstream data path (taken from a user's point of view, "downstream" is used to download data, while "upstream" is used to upload data)."

essentally that means that we can get more data into the alloted space, what does stop us having equal or at least far better up/down ratio's is the artificial cap placed on every single CM and STB modem.

for instance the US "Cablevision, serving New Jersey, New York City, and Long Island, currently offers the fastest 'basic' cable internet service (Optimum Online) in the US with 15 Mbit/s Downstream and 2 Mbit/s upstream. A premium package offering 30 Mbit/s downstream and 2 Mbit/s upstream" also "symmetrical 50 Mbit/s downstream and 50 Mbit/s upstream (using a proprietary non-DOCSIS technology from Narad Networks) is currently in beta testing and is slated for release in 2006."

weather the 'DOCSIS' and 'EuroDOCSIS' version 2 or 3 can also produce these 'symmetrical' (same both ways) speeds i cant find suitable info as yet, but its clear that its not that the cable modems cant do it but more a case of getting and giving a far better ballance in favour of uploads ready for the likes of PS3 video upload streaming etc.

yes im sure thats what got most peoples attention initally, personally i was telling fisher (paul) the old C&W highest tech exec, the same thing years ago it was in everyones interest long term, to at least begin opening up the 'symmetrical' fields also with putting Multi-casting options as standard to encurage inovation (and saving masses of bandwidth on certain types of files/traffic) , then carls 'REBOL'
became public and even P2P combined with multicasting became an easyer option for the masses as well as the corps.

if that had happened back then, then now this so called VOD and related options NTL and others are putting in place to extend their profit intake ( not for your end-user benifit BTW)
would have been so much easyer and profitable by now, as it is, their talking up the TCP/IP V6 as the thing to put muticasting everywere, but we could have it internally for use by all NTL users and indeed any other UK based interconnected ISP if they wanted to open up new markets and inovation in the UK for instance.

Re: New Speeds - June 1st
 

popper us cable isps have deployed docsis2 which is why they handling higher upload speeds. Here ntl havent spent the money so we still have docsis 1.1.

on the subject of web browsing speeds you could load a website over lan and you wouldnt even get 10meg, simply because its spending more time processing the data, you downloading dozens of tiny files rather then a sustained transfer.

Re: New Speeds - June 1st
 

really, thats just bad, iv been away from NTL BB for a few years and came back in dec, i didnt realise that the blue NTL CM here wouldnt be DOCSIS2, but still, while it appears that DOCSIS1 isnt that impressive today its still well within our current expectations and wants for better upload ratio's, 1/10 th or even 1/5 th of the available max 1.1 spec isnt asking that much of the hardware if anything substantial.

"The introduction of DOCSIS™ 2.0, the latest specification from CableLabsÂÂÂà ‚®, allows upstream capacity per channel up to 3 times greater than in DOCSIS 1.0/1.1 (DOCSIS 1.x) systems, with rates of 30.72 Mbps per channel as compared to 10.24 Mbps in DOCSIS 1.1. What this means is that with DOCSIS 2.0, MSOs can more cost-effectively offer symmetric services such as peer-to-peer networking, videoconferencing, Internet Protocol (IP) telephony, mission critical remote applications, and online gaming to their residential as well as new business clients.
http://www.cabledigitalnews.com/whit...s/paper12.html "


yea, i didnt make my point clear enough there, i was and am more concerned with larger streaming data in many forms than piddly html, my son, allan's HL2 hosted server game was swamping the 2m/256k before i told him to sack it earlyer for instance.

did anyone notice thereg story about our old friends C&W

"Bulldog doubles broadband speeds Sweet 16
Bulldog has cut the ribbon on a faster broadband service that provides speeds of up to 16 meg.

The local loop unbundling (LLU) operator - owned by Cable & Wireless (C&W) - says its decision to double the speed of its existing service makes use of ADSL2+ technology and provides upload speeds of 1 meg.

The ISP has two packages on offer - Anytime Plus which costs £15 a month and Unlimited Plus at £25 a month. A package aimed at small businesses will cost SMEs around £45 a month.

---------- Post added at 00:50 ---------- Previous post was yesterday at 23:25 ----------

and heres yet another application that will make even more demands on that upload speed, as i'v been saying over and over, theres far more coming to market to take that bandwidth than mear unicasting torrents and unicasting user P2P (its ok for for the ISP's to use multicasting and P2P to save their cashflow/bandwidth though), and i expect even more upload ratio/demand soon enough.

http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2006/04..._locationfree/
"Sony to bring net-based TV-to-PSP streaming to Europe
By Tony Smith28th April 2006 11:05 GMT
Sony will next month launch its LocationFree TV (LFTV) service in the UK and other key European territories, allowing PlayStation Portable users to receive television programmes transmitted from the home and out across the internet. Mac users are to get access to the service too.

LPTV support is included in the PSP firmware update - version 2.7 - Sony announced this week. The upgrade - due to be posted on the Sony Computer Entertainment Europe website on 25 May - also adds podcast and RSS support, and the ability to handle AAC and WMA music files.

LPTV will be launched in the UK, Germany, France, Belgium and the Netherlands, where, from next month, consumers will be able to buy Sony's LF-PK1 unit, which streams TV, DVD and other content from AV devices out onto the web. Any LFTV-compatible device can receive the stream and control what's streamed and when."

not to mention they are using that H.264/AVC EU Standards thing again for DVB-H (handheld) i'd assume.

Re: New Speeds - June 1st
 

I just went back from 2MB to the 1MB as well because in truth it was no different for me as i only play the odd game and download very little. paying an extra £7 when i was trying to cut my DD down seemed the best thing to do, nearly got rid of the TV and phone.

But 4MB for the extra and that upload sounds a good offer. I host a FM06 clan game and you can have 12 players hitting the machine so i guess the added 4MB and that upload speed might help a lot more.

pity they could not do it 2-4-10MB but then again that would make sense.

good to see there is some movment as every other isp was moving on....

Re: New Speeds - June 1st
 

well dont forget the cap is unlimited now so you would be talking unlimited 2meg for 17.99 if they upgraded it, that has the potential for serious abuse for very tiny revenue.

Re: New Speeds - June 1st
 

....

Cable systems in the UK have a range between 5 and 30MHz, 5 and 40MHz, 5 and 55MHz and in some cases 5 and 65MHz for upload use. Not all of this band is going to be usable due to the much higher ingress present in the upstream path.

The download spectrum can be as much as (in some areas) 54MHz to 880MHz.

Just a minor point that isn't as apparent as the specifications on the google searches you're doing to get the cable info.

Seems a little asymettrical to me in any case.

NTL's 2xx series modems are DOCSIS 2 compatible, they just appear to be skipping it and going to 3 instead.

I'd quite like to see higher upstream speeds, and think there should be some room there to increase them. Making them symettrical to help with torrent ratios isn't really an incredible commercial enticement to spend the required cash though.

FYI ntl's upstreams aren't even 10Mbit line rate ;) Some Telewest areas with their magnificent 384kbps upstream on 10Mbit are however.

Moral of this story - upstream use is disproportionate to downstream use, another incentive to not offer symettrical services.

BTW you forgot to mention that sustained uploading on Optimum Online tends to cause them to reduce your upload to 128kbps for a while or until you phone in. Doubt that they'd tolerate torrenting at full pelt.

Re: New Speeds - June 1st
 

James Henry from what you know it seems docsis3 is happening although I have begun to not have any faith in ntl, what sort of time do you think we may be looking at to realistically actually be going thru a docsis3 on our home connections?

Re: New Speeds - June 1st
 

I have no idea. In your case possibly never, depends if they upgrade your local network to digital.

Some areas will get it commercial I imagine around the end of this year, next year they'll probably start really rolling it out.

Telewest side are much more advanced in the analogue switch off so will probably be rolled to all the Telewest network before the ntl one.

Re: New Speeds - June 1st
 

Sounds like what I expected, they will continue to have a postcode lottery then.

Docsis3 not even capable on a analogue network full stop?

Re: New Speeds - June 1st
 

Haha not without chopping a load of analogue channels, 1 per downstream.

Considering you've already complained about the channel package you have I can't see it happening can you? ;)

If there were a spare 64MHz of downstream bandwidth I'd bet it'd be getting used for other things. Such as digital TV.

Last I knew ntl's TV people still had more of a say in where the spectrum went than internet. Internet pays the bills but TV can get punters in.

Re: New Speeds - June 1st
 

well I moan because they waste channels on ntl rolling adverts and shopping channels :) , interesting you pointed out about tv not making ntl cash, maybe they should just cut their tv service here and sort out the broadband? so cutting their losses.

Re: New Speeds - June 1st
 

i must appologise, when i said "thats so wrong, at least generally labeling cable as less capable in the upload department." it was not my intention to imply that docsis cable is infact 'symmetrical' its clearly not, hence why that US firm is trialing that Narad Networks tech.

my intent was mearly to point out that given the upload and download rates we have had available to us so far, then that ment that the current docsis1 could be considered from at least from an end-users POV as capable of appearing 'symmetrical' even if its not really, and in that sense is just a capable as others old tech.

i dont get this constant bringing up of torrents all the time, it most be possible to produce a package to sell to these people at an extra cost to offset and encurage more profit. perhaps a simple 'pay as you go' paypoint account that you top up at any local shop, then have them go to the special NTL website/server to switch their cable modems over to the seperate channel or whatever for the hour or whatever they payed for, just one option of many to make it profitable and convenient i'd think.

what about offering them a second cable modem install on a special rate with say a 512k/512k ?, and/or 1m/1m wonder if there would be takers, not to mention it might be a good way to recycle the old modems as the new ones come into service.

your also in favour of better upstream, as im i, and probably a lot more, dont you think that many of these new video streaming devices and more i'v already mentioned have the potential to match or even exeed this ISP torrent aversion in taking the available bandwidth ?.

when you said "FYI ntl's upstreams aren't even 10Mbit line rate ;) Some Telewest areas with their magnificent 384kbps upstream on 10Mbit are however." i dont get it, are you saying that for instance the wythenshawe's baguley centre nynex/C&W/NTL network or cables is in some way lacking shall we say ?, whats wrong and what needs replacing ?.

Re: New Speeds - June 1st
 

I'd take a 2mb/2Mb for the same price as my 4mb/384. The reasoning behind it is i'm sick of slow upload speeds i do alot of high file size uploading to my friends, usually movies of our last outing etc. So ,yeah, i'd go for this.

Re: New Speeds - June 1st
 

every other customer on ntl woud do the same if cud get 2 / 2 for £25 pm lol, maybe in another 3,000 years

Re: New Speeds - June 1st
 

I'm on Telewest ;) (ok, so they have merged, but still, it's this network upkept by the TW sector)

And i'm sure they could do it i they tried...

Re: New Speeds - June 1st
 

http://www.bulldogbusiness.com/

Contented Access 2MBit SDSL: From £210/mo
Dedicated IP Access 2MBit SDSL: From £250/mo

So no, I doubt its going to happen any time soon! And they're both still "up to" speeds :)

Re: New Speeds - June 1st
 

Slight difference between ADSL/SDSL and Cable though isn't there?

Re: New Speeds - June 1st
 

Slight, in that its probably easier to achieve over *DSL technology than Cable because of the way they work.

Re: New Speeds - June 1st
 

God knows where i got my information from then, i must of dreamt it... Wouldn't be the first time though ;)

Re: New Speeds - June 1st
 

would you take 1mb/1mb for same price as 4mb/384 because thats probably more realistic given the extra cost involved for upstream bandwidth.

not so sure on this sudden urge of upload speed from people, they claim it isnt for torrents yet the demand started when bittorent became mainstream so bit of a coincidence.

Re: New Speeds - June 1st
 

Yeah, I'd go along that route :tu:

we have the basic TV pack, occasionaly I get to watch the sport channel ... but more often than not junior is watching Boomerang, and that's all it gets used for. Wife watches the normal 5 channels through the aerial - not the box :rolleyes:

I can't see us being in a minority over this either, if they upgraded the basic TV pack by including some of the better channels (Bravo, Sci-Fi, and 1 movie channel for example) and got rid of the garbage (you all know the ones) and then charged a higher fee (£20 ??) I guess more would be willing to take it on and keep it. We currently have it under the 3 for £30 scheme, and I'm wondering how much "cable resources" this uses, for the give away price, that could maybe be put to better use :shrug:

Re: New Speeds - June 1st
 

i would take 1 / 1 for £25 a month, i do a lot of upload, some torrents but most to the likes of rapidshare yousendit and megaupload

Re: New Speeds - June 1st
 

Not a chance in hell of getting that service for that price, and even less of a chance if you're dumping dodgy stuff onto the web for other people to download.

£25 for 1/1 with upload that'll get hammered... Not likely at all.

However ignore me, I never understood the fascination with uploading lots, more of a client/server man myself who notes that if you want to upload lots you can rent a server in a datacentre on a 100Mbit port.

Only problem there is oh noes! that'll actually cost money, and sticking moviez gamez warez and pr0n onto the web isn't tolerated by most hosting providers.

EDIT: BTW I'm not necessarily saying that you stick illegal material on the internet with your connection, just that 9/10ths of people who want extra upload to upload large amounts are.

Re: New Speeds - June 1st
 

Isn't that what the internet is all about though, a large part of it at least ;)

Re: New Speeds - June 1st
 

i actualy was thinkin of a 100mbit unemtred server but these dont come cheap, as i am at colege and only do weekend i aint rich, and gu no need to be so agressive about it all, is it anything to do with you what i upload ?

Re: New Speeds - June 1st
 

Where did I say it was? I don't care what you do I'm just pointing out that what you do isn't liked by cable ISPs and to run a warez hub will cost a lot more than you're prepared to pay.

Fact you're being defensive tells the story nicely btw. As I said I don't care. If it's a sore point don't advertise it on internet forums by talking about how much you like to use Bittorrent and anonymous uploading services.

---------- Post added at 16:47 ---------- Previous post was at 16:44 ----------

Well no, it's a major use of it and a major PITA for service providers. However while the legal content isn't available then it's not really surprising things go as they do. Have no sympathy for people who download for the sake of it though, nor people who send out endless amounts of gack on resi lines. Pay per GB for the win ;)

Re: New Speeds - June 1st
 

Bittorrent and anonymous uploading services are the curse of all internet isp problems, ban them all

Re: New Speeds - June 1st
 

Looking at these *expletive expletive* traffic graphs and how much that poop is costing compared to how much these guys are paying I would love to.

Have to settle for throttling it I guess :angel:

Re: New Speeds - June 1st
 

ADMIN EDIT (Russ) - Offensive comments removed.

Re: New Speeds - June 1st
 

You've obviously not tried multicasting over wireless where you have multiple paths to / from your APs. Not pleasant to say the least, even with PIM-SM.

I agree. I maintain the backbone of a residential network at a University (4700 student bedrooms on it) and I have to say that the P2P traffic is the biggest PITA. It's an ongoing battle between the software the students run and firmware updates for our traffic shapers on the border. Luckily as we're essentially a closed environment, we have the power to take the students through disciplinaries involving their Personal Tutors or Head of School if they become too much of a problem ;)

One of my friends in Sweden has a 100 / 10 connection at home, delivered on fibre. Contention ratio is 50:1. It costs him 300 SEK per month (approximately £22.50) . If only the UK had been more prepared for the technological age!

On a different note, I still want to know when / if NTL will be rolling out PIM-SM or similar to their CM network. There's a lot of nice multicast content available at http://www.bbc.co.uk/multicast/channels.shtml - of course if NTL won't be doing native multicast any time soon then I'll just tunnel it on to the network at work, but that involves effort!

Re: New Speeds - June 1st
 

I was just pointing out that excessive uploading is a pain to cable networks. ntl have in the past applied upload caps to areas, Coventry comes to mind, as upload traffic outstripped download so heavily.

---------- Post added at 00:50 ---------- Previous post was at 00:46 ----------

Sweden the infrastructure was a combination of being built by Government and builders receiving tax breaks. Here we're far too busy wasting taxes to consider investing as being an option, plus we're a bit more free market than Sweden.

Native muticast isn't really going to be something that turns ntl on, as they are after all a provider of TV services. Hopefully they'll move to 'switched' CATV services which will allow more efficient use of their spectrums and permit more VoD options.

Re: New Speeds - June 1st
 

True but what a lot of people forget is that it's not just used for TV / video conferences. Software patches and the like can be distributed via this method for minimal-impact updating. Imagine if something popular like World of Warcraft was to use multicast carousels instead of bittorrent for its patches. Ok this isn't likely to happen anytime soon but technically it's a good solution.

And regarding VoD you can pretty much guarantee that:

1. It'll either be STB only, or:
2. Will involve lots of DRM which breaks horribly
3. Won't work under MacOS
4. Won't work under Linux
5. Probably won't work under Windows either because it'll keep crashing.
6. They'll use M$ services rather than something decent (hmm... BT springs to mind here too).

Anyway don't know why I'm still up and ranting on the forums... off to bed for me.

Re: New Speeds - June 1st
 

VoD is and will remain STB only to be honest.

The idea of people having fast P2P connectivity won't appeal to ntl as they like most other providers of their type want to be a bit more than just a dumb pipe bandwidth supplier, they like some element of control over what is going through their bandwidth.

In ntl's case if people all start doing P2P trading of tv shows it means potentially less TV revenue, and P2P VoIP means less telephony revenue, so there really is no incentive there.

Besides ntl's network will become more defined when they move to a deeper metro ethernet model which shouldn't be too far off.

http://www.broadbandreports.com/faq/12279

Is the Comcast US deployment of deep ethernet into their cable system, Converged Regional Access Network they call it, but same thing deeper ethernet segmentation on network.

BTW The stuff about doing a CRAN stylie deep ethernet metronet meaning that you can with very little work upgrade to billions of megabits per second isn't the case ;)

Re: New Speeds - June 1st
 

you are such a tease ;) :D :cool:

Re: New Speeds - June 1st
 

They probably don't think it is a waste of channels since they now own some of the most successful shopping channels such as Bid.tv, price-drop.tv, speedauction.tv and screenshop.

Re: New Speeds - June 1st
 

they dont have to provide a news group service, its an extra

Re: New Speeds - June 1st
 

I bet, whats your thoughts on the rolling ads tho? Give you an idea.

Analogue base pack only 14 channels. 2 are ntl adverts and e4 is ads 9 hours a day so over 5% allocated to ntl advertising.

Re: New Speeds - June 1st
 

So, one thing I'd like to know.

If they are upgrading 2 meg users to 4 meg, what are they going to give us STB users who are paying £34.99 for 5 meg?

Hopefully free upgrades to Cable Modems.

Re: New Speeds - June 1st
 

I'd be willing to bet they'd simply be offered downgrades if they're not happy with the level of service :)

Re: New Speeds - June 1st
 

True. :(

Re: New Speeds - June 1st
 

interestingly thereg mentions it today
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/05/02/ntl_broadband/

but what gets me is the link i most have missed before relating to the Virgin takeover.

how does Jame's view and insight into the NTL tech and managment mindset, in post 133 and the Virgin's "keep punters happy" approach, find common ground were with the paying users unheeded need/wants (even if many dont realise they do yet) in the near future such as that BBC multicasting H264 SD content above we cant currently use but others can.

also see http://www.surfnet.nl/info/en/artike...tnumber=100815 and notice how the total lack of british companys or Universitys in that list, and that was uncompressed HD content....

it would be great if NTL could inovate and come upto, or at least aproach surfnets level if not partner with them so help bring the UK upto scratch or better, but no real hope of that, even with Branson as a major
shareholder today apparently (at least so far).

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/04..._ntl_customer/
Admin Edit (Stuart): Please don't post the whole article. The link is fine.

Re: New Speeds - June 1st
 

So when you read on here that the people complaining are "just a small untypical bunch of whingers", it seems there were more than 1 or 2 besides just a little unhappy.
"NTL's lack lustre customer service" thats not fair, its just lacking. ;)
And i mean that only in tech support terms, never really had that many CS problems except in that area.

Re: New Speeds - June 1st
 

Bit of a typo at the Reg article here methinks:

'At the same time the firm is to ditch the 750 gig usage limit on its 10 meg service'

I don't think it would have been an issue had it been that high !

Re: New Speeds - June 1st
 

Aha 170,000 complaints from a customer base which now approaches 5 million punters - that is 0.03% approximately, absolutely massive ;) :D

Seriously, when people, on here, mention those complaining, I think they mean the ones who complain on here, which as a support site, inevitably is untypical of the customer base as a whole.

The above figure suggests that 99.97% of NTL customers are happy & don't complain, which I'm sure you would agree is also unrepresentative.

However, I don't think anyone who has had contact with NTL, could truthfully argue there isn't considerable room for improvement and I hope that some of the people affected by some of the worst problems - e.g. parts of Leicester & Southampton, finally get something done. :)

What is not constructive is polarised opinion which states 'NTL are crap' or 'I've never had any problem', we should recognise where there are issues, and make sure they are communicated to NTL, something I feel this forum succeeds with :tu:

Re: New Speeds - June 1st
 

Some valid points there m8. ^^ ;)

Re: New Speeds - June 1st
 

Hrm now now, those were complaints against 'original' ntl not against the ntl and Telewest combo.

The 170k complaints is probably more accurate than the 1,700 who did actually bother to complain to Watchdog too :p:

Re: New Speeds - June 1st
 

see, I was trying to give a balanced view by overestimating both figures :p: :D

Re: New Speeds - June 1st
 

You can guarantee that at least some would have complained because its still a cap (oops! I mentioned cap :Yikes:)

Re: New Speeds - June 1st
 

You forgot to CAPitalise it ;)

Re: New Speeds - June 1st
 

I don't know if this has been mentioned on this thread as I haven't read it all yet, but I was speaking to an NTL customer relations rep today who told me that some time in the "near future" everyone with NTL BB will be on 10 meg. :)

Re: New Speeds - June 1st
 

Being on 10 meg and actually getting 10meg, are poles apart for a lot of customers.

Re: New Speeds - June 1st
 

Sorry about this ramble, but, I am on 2 meg at the moment and reasonably happy, now from what I have read on this forum.

A: My sacm the 100 model may well not support 10 meg if and when it arrives.

B: The problems that other people have had when they have been upgraded have been horrendous.

C: Why am I so concerned about being upgraded when it should be a good thing ?

D: If they try and charge me to upgrade my rented modem I shall leave NTL and take my other services with me !

E: This upgrade should be a thing to be anticipated and enjoyed so why have NTL made such a pigs ear of it ?

Re: New Speeds - June 1st
 

An interesting point from Rone "ADSL user". However, I was reviewing our business broadband the other day and found an offering for 8 MB Business ADSL (@£79/month). This is from a well known provider who is reknown for having adequate bandwidth (at their end at least). Their service (limited by BT) is for up to 8 MB down, up to 832k up. They are very honest in what they offer as in the footnote it says:

* Please note:
- Actual download speeds will be no higher than 7150kbps.
- Average download speeds recorded to date by BT average between 5-6Mb.
- Fluctuation in line speed is expected to occur within the first 10 days before the line speed adapts.
- It is likely that speeds of around 2Mb will be achieved at peak usage times.

I think this truely reflects what current ADSL can offer, at least for those that are providing it over BT lines and shows that, when working, the NTL 10 MB service is not that bad. It is only a pity they don't offer anything above 1.5 MB/s to business customers!

APS

Re: New Speeds - June 1st
 

Truly reflects what some BT Wholesale only areas enjoy and is Zen being pragmatic possibly pessimistic.

I see full line rate 24x7x365, 940kB/s which when ADSL2+ is released by my ISP will become 2MB/s, as do most on LLU services barring the occasional capacity issue or fault.

BTWholesale isn't the only ADSL provider, LLU is as available as cable :)

When ntl cover as much of the population as BT Wholesale do then I'll enjoy seeing the comparison between the two ;)

That withstanding you are right, BT could have handled their Max rollout a lot better ;)

Re: New Speeds - June 1st
 

Speaking as an ex NTL customer [again], my adsl has never dropped below 6meg, its average speed is nearer 750kbps, with ntl my average "upto" 10meg [but hardly ever] was nearer 4-6 meg, but quite often 2meg.
Dont know about upload, i dont upload anything bar a jpeg to a webpage, but i'm sure its more than adequate thanks. :)
So you think ntl is the better deal? Maybe for some, but not all.

Re: New Speeds - June 1st
 

All I am saying is that the grass is not always greener etc, etc, especially when it comes to ADSL.

The 10 meg service from NTL should, theoretically be better than ADSL because there is no line length issue, however, as some (but not all) have reported there are some implementation and congestion issues in some areas which NTL have to sort out before it can universally be said to be better.

We should also remember that both services are contended, i.e. you share some component of the bandwidth with others so you can't expect to run at full speed all of the time.

APS

Re: New Speeds - June 1st
 

i always read all these pages and don`t post much but all ican say is that i nearly always get the full 10 meg i dl from newsgroups @1200kps approx

Re: New Speeds - June 1st
 

/agree

weeeeeee

i suppose we are the lucky ones, so wonder when us 10mb users get this 1mb upload?

muuhaha :D

Re: New Speeds - June 1st
 

thats assuming everyone who doesnt directly complain is happy of course. In my opinion an unfair assumption to make.

---------- Post added at 18:18 ---------- Previous post was at 18:16 ----------

Why are people seeing this as a good thing?

Its purely for marketing keep cramming more customers in and current poor speeds will just go down more. With all 3 tiers on 10meg people currently on 1 meg will probably see no real speed increase in the evenings.

Re: New Speeds - June 1st
 

absolutely, which was why I said

"The above figure suggests that 99.97% of NTL customers are happy & don't complain, which I'm sure you would agree is also unrepresentative"

:)

Re: New Speeds - June 1st
 

Re: New Speeds - June 1st
 

so the 4 MEG get 400k

and

10 MEG 512k

Thats fair hows?

10 Meg up 1Meg Down

Why do they do something different sent themselves apart from other UK ISP

Re: New Speeds - June 1st
 

How isn't it fair? You get a higher download speed (more than double) and some extra upload speed for your money :confused: For a tenner more a month.

Re: New Speeds - June 1st
 

The two adsl connections i had -
1meg down, 256k up
512k down, 256k up...

that isn't fair either is it ;)

Re: New Speeds - June 1st
 

Has there been any info on wether the new speeds are just a modem reboot or will people need to wait for a cfg file area by area?

Sorry if this has been asked already.

Re: New Speeds - June 1st
 

See the link in post 161 of this thread- it sounds like it will be done area by area as it says the upgrades will be completed by the end of june.

Re: New Speeds - June 1st
 

Lets hope they can meet that target.Last thing in the world NTL need is another rollout fiasco.

4MB seems like a nice speed for me,10MB is wasted for the odd download and gaming and will save a few £ÃÆ ’‚£Ãà¢Ã¢â€šÂ¬Ã…¡Ãƒâ€šÃ‚£.

Re: New Speeds - June 1st
 

*Shrug*

Well if you will choose a company as innovative and envelope pushing as ntl to supply your DSL...

Re: New Speeds - June 1st
 

Nitce the * next to the 10meg? I wonder if ntl are going to put effort in making sure 4meg stays at 4meg in evenings and keep the upto policy for 10meg so 10meg speeds are allowed to drop.

Re: New Speeds - June 1st
 

I am looking forward to these nice upgrades & unlimited services, which as far as i am concerned is what broadband should be. Personally i will also be keeping an eye on what sky are offering as premium package users look to be going to get free broadband. NTL upgrades seem to be following on from whats going on with carphone warehouse with their offer at present, long may these continue pushing each other as we the customer benefit from this

Re: New Speeds - June 1st
 

As far as being upgraded to 4Mbps goes, as long as I get at least 2Mbps, Im not going to complain too much. After all, we originally paid the same £24.99 for 512K, then 600K then 750K, then they leaped to 2Mbps. 2Mbps is fast enough for the average user. 4Mbps is just a bonus ;)

Re: New Speeds - June 1st
 

Thats isn't the attitude to have if we want better; nothing is good enough!

Re: New Speeds - June 1st
 

True but the way NTL act we should be greatful we even get 2Mbps these days, let alone 4. They really need to get their act together.

Re: New Speeds - June 1st
 

Just thinking about it maybe upgrades to 4 meg will be beneficial for us all. The people on 10mb who are getting 4-5 mbps might as well save some cash and switch down to 4mb, same with those who have samsung boxes for BB, seeing more people on 4 meg services so the overall demand on the network will be reduced if the number of subscribers on the 1 and 4 meg services remian the same?

Maybe wrong though.

Re: New Speeds - June 1st
 

I may be wrong but I think putting 2meg->4meg will be a lot more demanding then the top tier speed increase because a lot more users are on the middle tier.

Re: New Speeds - June 1st
 

speak for yourself

Re: New Speeds - June 1st
 

I just got an email from NTl with free up from 2MB to 4Mb. It says subject to User Policy. I clicked the User Policy link but it doesn't refer to 4MB so I can't tell if it's capped or not. 2MB's not capped though.:confused:

Re: New Speeds - June 1st
 

the email I just got says it is uncapped.

but happening at end of june

ik

Re: New Speeds - June 1st
 

I will thanks ;)

Re: New Speeds - June 1st
 

They want people to not sign up for the 1MB service which is why they are not upgrading it to 2MB, they want them on 4MB or 10MB since on their Broadband Plus site it says something like, Broadband Plus is free on 2MB(soon to be 4MB & 10MB so you might as well save yourself some cash and sign up to 4MB.

Re: New Speeds - June 1st
 

I just went back as well to 1mb. The offer has made me think more about keeping NTL although the phone I have never gets used as the BT and mobile are my main phones and the cable TV (that is up stairs)has got less and less on it as im only on the basic package plus it keeps loosing its sound which my mate says is being done to cause people to go to digital.... in his view. well its annoying anyway.

so i might go to this 4mb and get rid of the phone and TV.

Re: New Speeds - June 1st
 

As far as I know, the 'User Policy' is just a fallback for unlimited tariffs. It means that they might act on a user if they throttle the top speed continuously 24/7/365. I'm sure it's available on the website and will make an entertaining read if you've got a spare hour or two.:dozey:

Frankly I think people should be allowed to leave a connection running at full speed 24/7 if their tariff is described as 'unlimited'. Of course the fact this affects other 'lighter' users should be reflected in the price of this tariff.

Realise that the internet is becoming a real medium in transferring media and entertainment, both legal and illegal. Streaming and downloading whole files is going to get become more and more widespread and, in a few years time, I can see many people having thier media streamed PC playing on their 40" LCD TVs playing streamed or downloaded HD content all day long like people leave their TVs and radios on all day. This is going to cause problems to ISPs concerned about people 'maximising' their connections for long periods.

Re: New Speeds - June 1st
 

thanks.i was just confused because they put a link to the user policy but it didn't have the 4mb on it! it is unlimited subject to the usual. see what its like when i get it i guess.

Re: New Speeds - June 1st
 

Maybe my brain isn't working today as no one else has pointed it out, but it seems to me that 170,000 complaints from 5 million customers is 3.4% not 0.03%.

Re: New Speeds - June 1st
 

twas a slip of the digit, it was actually 1700 complaints

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/04..._ntl_customer/

- which is 0.034% of 5 million.

- well spotted, though :)

Re: New Speeds - June 1st
 

it aint realy that much...

Re: New Speeds - June 1st
 

True, just the ones who realise they do have a problem. ;)

Re: New Speeds - June 1st
 

i wish they'd reduce contention ratios then voip might be worth a go

Re: New Speeds - June 1st
 

Not even ntl themselves know what contention ratio they are running, varies from area to area, street to street, there's no target contention ratio and it changes depending on your package anyway.

Re: New Speeds - June 1st
 

they used to advertise it as 20:1

Re: New Speeds - June 1st
 

I vaguely remember mention of 15:1 somewhere and 20:1 in Northern Ireland.

No chance of that now, besides you've different contention ratio upstream and downstream and 10Mbit customers have rather unpleasant sounding ratios ;)

Re: New Speeds - June 1st
 

I agree and this is why i think you will see that ntl have a better structure to do this on than BT's dated system.

Re: New Speeds - June 1st
 

That entirely depends, what do you describe as being BT's dated system, the core networks that transport the data or the exchanges, both of which are undergoing huge upgrades at present?

If you're referring to that last mile of copper it could be said you're wrong there as well, as the last mile on DSL isn't shared, only the bandwidth from the exchange is.

However in theory ntl should be able to offer the better options, so long as they tend and upgrade their network appropriately. At the moment ntl certainly aren't capable of offering that sort of scale of VoD due to the limitations of their network at present. No guarantee of upgrades happening though, BT have money to spend ntl don't.

Re: New Speeds - June 1st
 

ntl current setup is worse then BT from what I know.

the virtual pipes in bt exchanges after the redesign I believe are much larger then the 27mbit ubrs that ntl uses.

Re: New Speeds - June 1st
 

Not really, and you're comparing apples and oranges there.

Re: New Speeds - June 1st
 

i gather standard residential network contentioons can be as high as 50:1 whereas business networks like Griffin can be around 1/10 of that. im no expert but seems to me lowering contentions will be vital if voip is to take off in the residential market.

Re: New Speeds - June 1st
 

Are these upgrades happening nationwide on the 1st? Or will it be done area by area and the upgrades wil finish on June 1st?
Anyway you look at it - 4Meg sounds really good. We originally signed up for 750K went to 2 Meg, then 1 Meg and now 2 Meg again to become 4 meg and cheaper too!
Hope all goes well regarding updates!

Re: New Speeds - June 1st
 

rolled out region by region- starting on 1st march and aiming for completion by end of june

Re: New Speeds - June 1st
 

pure speculation, but I believe it will be more likely to start on June 1st & be rolled out incrementally on an area basis. This was what was supposed to happen with the 3meg to 10meg upgrade, but a lot of people jumped the queue by using the online upgrade link - I wonder if that will be available as an option?

and yes, 4Meg does sound good, in fact that will 'do' me, as neither my router, nor modem will do 10meg. :)

<edit> I bow to Chris W's info, he sounds pretty positive about it :tu:

Re: New Speeds - June 1st
 

And I bow to Bob who posted this link earlier in this thread:

http://www.ntlworld.com/helpsupport/..._3may_2006.php