Re: [merged] Price increase
 

I think the problem with that is even though this is the first time since its launch it has gone up in price, it was higher than a lot of other providers anyway before the increase. Its just not a smart move from NTL, Id go as far to say another dumb move in a long running chain of dumb moves in the last year or so.

Re: Confirmation of Price upgrade
 

Hmm, I would have thought that one of the primary aims of any business hoping to be successful would be to make their customers happy. That's why most businesses has a customer service department.
Happy customers means:
(1) A constant income from them, with a low customer turnover.
(2) Low customer turnover means less money has to be spent trying to keep customers and attract new ones, to replace those leaving.
(3) A good reputation, which draws in more customers with no costs to the business.
(4) Unless you are are in a monopololistic position anyway, you should at least keep your market share.

So, although it's not the only aim, it should be a major factor in a companies strategy. If you're not a monopoly, don't make an essential product and you can't make your customers happy then you won't be in business too long.

Re: Confirmation of Price upgrade
 

I quite agree with the stuff about keeping customers happy being the best way of making money.

However whilst NTL is not a monopoly, it is a duopoly with BT with regard to last/first mile physical access in the areas it operates in and maybe that is what NTL is 'banking' on?

Re: [merged] Price increase
 

I phoned on Tuesday to lower my internet from 1mb due to the coming increase. The person Whose name I have, asked me to wait then said it was done. He also said in his parting remarks I hope you enjoy the new speed. This had me worried and as the modem didn't reboot I spoke to JustAnotherNoob in the chatroom who rebooted the modem. Still 1mb today I asked a CS member of staff of these forums to check for me. Little after the time they started work the modem rebooted and I am now on 600k bit it works at 440K max. So I am dissapointed that the instructions wasn't followed and the speed isn't what it should be. ADSL 512K customers are getting faster downloads.

I feel its time to monitor and in a few months if things are no different look to moving over to ADSL.. I know Vispa are averaging 470K for 512K speed.

Re: [merged] Price increase
 

Likewise I contacted CS to reduce from 1meg to 600K.

Just done speed check 550/570K O'K for me.
Brian

Re: [merged] Price increase
 

I am only getting 440K not looking good

Re: [merged] Price increase
 

I assume you have evidence of all these claims ?

Re: [merged] Price increase
 

Which of them do you doubt? Tell me and I will try and find some evidence for you.

Re: [merged] Price increase
 

apparently hardware doesent get any cheaper.......i mean remember the pentium 4's when they first came out they were £120 werent they :rolleyes:

Re: [merged] Price increase
 

Pem paste quoted all of them.

Re: [merged] Price increase
 

But then other's do and come out cheaper too like AMD ;)

Re: [merged] Price increase
 

Erol, what you fail to of taken into account is that ntl are still making a loss at the moment, as with any company they need to make money!

Re: [merged] Price increase
 

I am perfectly aware that NTL have yet failed to make a penny in profit. My post was in response to pems line

"You cannot expect something to stay at the same price forever."

I was pointing out that MY expectations in digital arenas, is the revesre of this statement (if the statement means 'you cant expect the price of anything to not go up forever')

I expect to get more GB of storage from a HD bought this year, than one bought last year at the same price.

I expect to get more MHz of processing power for a CPU bought this year, than one bought last year at the same price.

I expect to get more MB's of memory for a memory chip bought this year than one bought last year at the same price.

I expect to get more resolution and inches of screen space for a monitor bought this year than one bought last year at the same price.

I expect to get more resolution and pages per minute from a printer bought this year than one bought last year

I expect to get more resolution and storage from a digital camera bought this year than one bought last year at the same price.

I expect to get more fps from a graphics card bought this year than one bought lats year at the same price. etc etc etc

Yet according to pem I should not expect this with regard to my BB service. Well sorry to disapoint you but I do expect to get more, year on year from my BB service at the same price.

If BB was mined from the ground as BB ore and then processed into BB in a refinary then perhaps I would not expect to get more each year for the same price. BB / bandwidth is a 'digital' resource not a physical one. EVERY other digital resource is falling year on year. Thus my expectation for BB is the same.

Re: [merged] Price increase
 

OK

I guess I am struggling here because I find it hard to believe that the statements I made are not 'self evident'.

Does anyone here really doubt that the cost of cable modems, networking equipment and computer hardware has not fallen over say the last 5 years?

Does anyone here really doubt that NTL's interest payments have not reduced massively since comming out of bankrupcy?

As to the cost of bandwidth I could produce endless studies of the falling cost of bandwith. Here is just one that I found by searching 'cost of bandwidth' on google. I do not know it's providence but the graph it shows is in line with everything I understood so far from people than know and from 6+ years of doing my best to understand these things.

http://www.thebusinessedge.com/rerun...hol/sld006.htm

As to staff costs I did put in a presumably. I guess someone could if they could be botherd dig out company accounts and see what the staff costs are for say last 5 years. It seems unlikely to me however, in absense of such research, that staff costs are going up, against a background of continual redundancies and outsourcing, but I guess I could be wrong on this one and would be happy to reconsider if anyone wants to produce evidence to the contrary.

Re: [merged] Price increase
 

The cable modems are only cheap that is what I have been told due to the number they buy at one time. The cables how often do they completely replace them. some havent been replaced in years hence they have already been paid for.

Re: [merged] Price increase
 

Kitty, I've just ran a speed test on my new modem and got this

Fri, 16 Apr 2004 22:06:35 UTC
1st 128K took 1823 ms = 71899 Bytes/sec = approx 598 kbits/sec
2nd 128K took 1813 ms = 72296 Bytes/sec = approx 602 kbits/sec
3rd 128K took 1822 ms = 71939 Bytes/sec = approx 599 kbits/sec
4th 128K took 1823 ms = 71899 Bytes/sec = approx 598 kbits/sec

so my speed does seem ok

Re: [merged] Price increase
 

Volumes do not matter. The point is 100,000 cable modems purchased today cost considerably less than 100,000 bought five years ago, just as one bought today costs considerably less than one bought five years ago. The ADSL modem I was given by BT when on the original BT DSL trial in 96 cost well over a £1000. You can buy the equivalent today in dixons for about £50

As for replacing the cables - the short answer is they do not replace the cables (unless they are cut or something). They put them in once and thats it. End of story. Just as you do not replace the cat5 cables in your office when you upgrade from 10mbs to 100mbs or to 1gbs. Some of the copper pairs used by BT for telephony were put in 50-80 and even 100 years ago and still work fine.

Re: [merged] Price increase
 

For several years I managed a computer company and during that time the average cost of a system dropped every year but the power of the systems increased dramatically. It is only ten years ago that we were selling 32Mb Fast Page memory for £800. Every item of computer hardware has reduced in price over the years and increased in power.

I was paying several hundred pounds per month for 28k dial-up internet access some ten years ago and would never have dreamt then that you could get todays speeds and at the price they are today.

Not only are computing prices falling every year but they are also getting more powerful. If prices stayed the same they would in reality be cheaper as average wages rise year on year.

Re: [merged] Price increase
 

I think you maybe forgot something else to factor in (though maybe this has been said - dont know) - The initial cost of making any item is great at the start, thus why the latest CPU etc cost more but as the costs are made back over a period of time the costs drop.

The more people they sign up equals more money to pay for the backlink, equipment and so forth. Now ive had CM for easily 4 years i think and always been on either 600 or 1 meg - combine that with the fact that the cable in the street are also used to carry telephone and TV stuff - so not like they put a special cable purley for Broadband. Now on the other end of the line they need to buy equipment and pay for lines to various suppliers but this cost a certain amount for the year regardless if they have one person of 10,000 people using it.

The other factor is pay for the staff which in a company like NTL is wide and far reaching (call Centre etc). Now after a certain number have joined up and pay each month - over the years some costs will have gone as the equipment is paid for in full (unless they leased the equipment which would be madness). So you would expect to happen (as in ADSL for example) that for the price we pay now - we would have more features or greater speeds.

Take for example one service providor - they offer for £29 a month (and your not locking in for a year - if you want to get out you pay £59 - fair enough to me) a fixed IP, 1mbit / 256, 50mb webspace, on the said web space have PHP, Perl etc and so forth. There is even a mention that the connection has NO CAP at all - they offer a cheaper package with a cap but the price reflects this - so if your a light user - ideal you buy the very cheap indeed package and live with a lower level of service.

At the end of the day - as in everything in life - its about competetion - you either compete with a good price or a good package or you will soon find yourself out of the market. NTL at the moment are not in a doomed position as a lot of people cannot get ADSL but the number of exchanges that are enabled are growing by the day.

Im not saying ADSL is 10x better than cable but it would be daft to pay £37.99 for 1mbit with email not working etc when i can fork out £29 a month and have the same speeds and stuff that actually works.

When i went back to BT (phone) it was like a breath of fresh air - yes i never thought i would say that about BT but wait - my overall bill per month is cheaper and when i had downtime they gave me back £20 - this for 4 days when my line was out of action.

At the end of the day - my plan is rather simple - i will call up on monday and cancel my BB - unless they offer me a deal - then its definate that my line one month from now will cease to be - and remember - getting those customers back is HARD indeed - as i dont think i will ever come back to NTL as it seems to be getting worse and worse to me since i have been with them.

The Customer Reps on here who might chuck there 2p worth in - think about this - as more people leave might mean more jobs going - not your fault that ntl put the prices up but as always it is you guys and girls who will feel the backlash at the end of the day..

Re: [merged] Price increase
 

There are some very valid points made here.

My local Council pride themselves on being state of the art - ( they have an e-mail addy) Given the hardware/connection charges/bandwidth/software charges for this have (allegedly, according to contributions above) reduced, why then is my council tax demand above the rate of inflation?

Re: [merged] Price increase
 

Do you actually, seriously believe your local council tax is made up entirely of the IT budget of your local council? :rolleyes:

Re: [merged] Price increase
 

Of course not!

They also empty my bin unless its a week that falls anything within 3 months of a bank holiday ;)

But seriously, inflation is the salient point of my post above. Costs for aspects of network provision may be relatively lower, but Staffing, fuel, general overheads are nevertheless higher.

Re: [merged] Price increase
 

And at best I'd bet the two equate quite nicely, ie inflation driving up costs and network savings, so why a £3 increase?

Re: [merged] Price increase
 

However, NTL are in the technology business, so if the majority of their investments are in technology-related products, which have prices reducing/power increasing, then they should see overall savings or at least increasing returns on their investments. NTL have just announced they are making about 1500 people redundant, primarily in the expensive south and relocating them to the relatively cheaper north, presumably reducing their staffing costs.

I don't think that people would have too much trouble with a slight increase in various products if they though that they were getting a good deal in the first place, but when you sit on NTL broadband with a gig a day cap, crap email servers, non-existant newsgroup servers, pages not loading and you see that you are already paying slightly more than someone on a similar product to you provided by one of NTL competitors, who has all these features working properly and then you get told your product is going up over 8.5%, then you begin to think you're being taken for a ride.

Re: [merged] Price increase
 

Well it's either because they have NTL connections or because the vast majority of the councils functions are not subject to or follow the trends of 'digital economics' ;)

Maybe when you can remove trash (or house people or any other 'real world' function of the council) over a digital network you might be able to start expecting a year on year decrease in cost (or year on year increas in the amiunt of trash removed at same cost) :)

Re: [merged] Price increase
 

if it was about increased costs and/or about generating more revenue then the price for the 600k service would have been increased.

£1 on the 600k monthly cost would generate more cash than £3 on the 1mb service.

Re: [merged] Price increase
 

Well instead of getting £3 more they are now getting £10 less off me. Will not bother going back to 1mb unless they return it to the old price or use the same type of deal that Telewest use. Another product of them you only pay £34.99 I have the phone for now but considering stopping that and all using our mobiles.

Re: [merged] Price increase
 

Though that £20 sounds good for a mere 4 days of phoneline outage, in the 7 years of having a cable phone (Was Nynex first, then CW, now NTL) we have never had any outages.
Dont know about you but personally I would rather not have any outages at all.

Though I do agree with most of your other points (Wich I didnt bother to quote to keep my post short)

Re: [merged] Price increase
 

Ahh councils - ive worked in a few of them and they buy from whatever supplier they have picked - regardless with the fact that its normall 10x higher than everybody else in the world. To give a example - one council i worked in were happy to pay £110K for a wiring job - i came in to take over the project and once i had shopped around and compared quotes etc i reduced this bill down to £50k. Same goes for the line they were going to buy in from BT - they were very close to buying a 2mbit Leased line from BT - when i checked around and Telewest were prepared to offer a 45mbit line for £145 (yup thats right) a month + Vat like....

Re: [merged] Price increase
 

I downgraded from 1Mb to 150k on Friday, I was going to downgrade anyway, price rise or not.

Re: Price increase
 

Thats where i am off to now. Save a few quid on the one meg, plus the money i have to pay for a proper news service.

Re: [merged] Price increase
 

i saw the leaflet sent to a freind of mine yesterday with his bill, the one that is in pdf format on here........as soon as i get mine ill be complaining :D

and proberbly be changing suppliers if i can get a decent effficently working ADSL ISP on 2meg

Re: [merged] Price increase
 

The only 2mb packages around now are the datastream ones they take a while to set up as BT do thair bit then the other telco either Tiscali or Mediways has to sort out their bit before the ISP can give you your details.

BT are about to launch 2mb later this year but its rumoured it will be dear so best wait and see or if you are lucky enough to live in bulldogs area then you are laughing they will have more speed than any other ISP soon. They seem to be the only forward thinking company about.

Re: [merged] Price increase
 

:eek:

I want one of them .....

Re: [merged] Price increase
 

That would be nice even if a few shared

Re: [merged] Price increase
 

thats a damn shame :(

my exchange is already overcrowded, i knew it was, and it was confirmed when i tried getting 2 mbit and ran in to contention issues :(

but.......

but its £42.99 for 2 mbit, suppose i should not complain if i get the speed for that price........

Re: [merged] Price increase
 

Just some general info on BT based DSL products. This may not be the right / best place for this info so mods please move it if you think appropriate.

BT based ADSL services fall into the following categories depending on the BT wholesale product used by the ISP in question.

BT IP Stream based services
BT Data Stream based services
LLU based services

BT IP Stream.

This wholesale product essentially moves data all the way from an end users house to a central POP for the ISP concerned (typically it moves it to telehouse but not always). The connection from the end users house to the local exchange is uncontended. From the local exchange to the ISP's POP it is contended. BT offer two _maximum_ contention ratios for this section fo the connection (though in reality the actual contention is much lower) and they offer two speeds. So you end up with four options

512/256 @ 20:1
1024/256 @ 20:1
512/256 @ 50:1
1024/256 @ 50:1

The majority of ADSL ISP's use the IP Stream product. The wholesale price for these products id 'flat rate' (that is there is no usage charge element for the ISP)

BT Data Stream

This wholesale product essentialy moves data from the end users house to the local exchange. The ISP then has to pay BT or a third party supplier to move the data from the local exchange to their POP. The ISP is free to contend this section of the journey to any level they see fit. This product is also the same price for the ISP regarldess of what speed service they actualy supply to the customer. That is the datastream cost to the ISP is the same for a 512 user as for a 1meg user. The datastream product still uses BT's DSLAM* in the local exchange, but then allows for the data to be moved onto a competitors network from there. As such the products that can be offered via this system are limited by the capabilites of BT's DSLAMs

LLU

Local Loop Unbundling was a regulator (EU) mandated product that BT was required to offer. With this system the ISP put's their own DSLAM into a local exchange. They pay BT for 'space' in the exchange and they also pay BT a fixed fee for each phone line attached to thier DSLAM. They also have to pay someone (BT or 3rd party) to move the data from local exchange to thier POP. As the ISP owns and specifies their own DSLAM they can offer services that are not available using BT's DSLAMs (like SDLS and others). There are basically only two companies using LLU for commercial/retail services atm. Easynet (aimed at business users) and Bulldog (aimed at reidential and business). These 'extended' services can only be offerd on those exchanges where the ISP has put a DSLAM in. In areas where they have not put in their own DSLAM they use datastream.

So basically with IPStream the ISP is dependnet on BT as to what services they can offer and the contention ratios of these services. With IP Stream the ISP get a bit more flexibility but is still limited to what the BT DSLAMs can support. With LLU based systems the ISP has ultimate flexibility in the serivces they can offer. This is why Bulldog's products (where they have put a DSLAM in the local exchange) are so different from all the other ISP's offering (excpet for easynet which also use LLU).

Re: [merged] Price increase
 

That is cheaper than what we seem to think BTs will be.. they are talking about £35 for the wholesale price + vat..

Re: [merged] Price increase
 

An excellent post Erol :tu:

Does this mean that if Kronas goes with Bulldog (like me) he shouldn't have contention issues (other than bulldog independent ones) like the rest of the customers on his exchange as he isn't using the same equipment? If that all makes sense!

Re: [merged] Price increase
 

Essentially yes. In an exchange where bulldog have their own equipment (DSLAM), then any contention issues that that exchange experiences re BT IP Stream based products should not apply to bulldog based products. Of course Bulldog may itself be heavily loaded as well, but its entirely seperate from the BT IP Stream based products.

PS Where my rep point then ? :)

Re: [merged] Price increase
 

No reason to move it - but I have created a copy of it - as it is very informative. :)

Re: [merged] Price increase
 

I've heard bad things about Bulldog recently though. I'm looking around for a decent ADSL ISP and I heard that bulldogs 2Meg off-peak tends to drop to 1Meg at weekends rather than the full 2. The other thing that puts me off them is they don't have their own news service so I'd still have to fork out for my aditional news access.

Re: [merged] Price increase
 

The speeds you will get will Bulldog do depend on what exchange you are on, and what the other Bulldog users on your exchange are doing..

Of course, if you are in Central London on an LLU exchange, then you are foolish not to get it - virtually zero contention and 400K upload then

Though, Bulldog do seem to upgrade the bandwidth available, when they notice their are sustained speed issues and/or an exchange gets more Bulldog users

I personally (on my exchange) have no problems on their Primetime 2000 product and get over 200K when downloading..

During the day, when my product is supposed to be capped to 512K/60k - I often exceed this and get up to 100k :)

As for news access - you are right, they don't have their own newserver.

I use http://news.individual.net/ (free) for text groups and ClaraNews for binaries and it seems to work quite well for me.

If anyone does want to join Bulldog, can they drop me a PM - I have a referral code somewhere :)

Sunil

Re: [merged] Price increase
 

They will have to hurry up as Bulldogs Adsl prices will soon change as their special offers come to an end :)

Re: [merged] Price increase
 

thanks for the explination erol, makes it clearer to differentiate between 'IP' based and 'datastream' based products :)

as for bulldog im considering it......the 'alltime' 2mbit' but is there a way of checking how many users are on bulldog connected to my exchange (i dont think so but worth an ask)

at the moment (special offer) its £37.99 per month with £1 connection* (*geographically dependant to qualify for £1 connection fee)

the only thing i dont like is if i want a monthly contract i have to pay an additional fee, i just dont want to be stuck with a service that may not be a good enough quality for me, interms of speed browsing etc.......

EDIT: just had a look though the order process and 2mbit 'alltime' is not available on my exchange yet, all other services are :confused:

Re: [merged] Price increase
 

The only way your going to get a 24/7 2mbit service then (if your local BT exchange covers upto 2mbit) is an isp that will supply you with a Telefonica datastream (which i have tested) & a 3 month opt out contract. @ £39.99 a month inc vat (price includes 4gig a month Giganews usenet access) and no other restrictions also included Server-side email anti-virus protection, Email anti-spam prevention, 200 megs of webspace, Unlimited POP email addresses, Webmail and National Rate Technical Support which is the best 2mbit price package i have come across so far...

Re: [merged] Price increase
 

Well the reason I guess it was so cheap was mainly as the Main Telewest building was near enough up the road and the council had a lot of services already through them as it was (phones etc). Now the sad part was that this 45mbit line was installed to give TWO people in a library internet access by the way - so you can see they would not scratch the surface of that 45mbit line. I asked at the time (as had good relations with TeleWest there) if i lived in the area could i also have such a thing as a home user and the answer was "Yes" - im guessing the same applied when NTL trialed that Fibre to that london place and one guy had like 155mbit line all to himself - which never lasted but good while it did.

I think NTL maybe should start thinking about people close enough to a central exchange (as was the case with Telewest then) to offer a more flexible service in terms of speed vs price and maybe have more than one product on the table to choose from, such as light user, heavy user etc...

Re: [merged] Price increase
 

sorry I havent read the whole thread but incase it hasnt been posted ntl have announced their new prices

http://www.ntl.com/customerupdate/pdf/price_list.pdf

The shock is analogue tv prices are actually frozen, and digital is going up, they also sneaked in a pay as you go dial up price increase.

Re: [merged] Price increase
 

What do you think this thread is about!? :erm:

Re: [merged] Price increase
 

correction to erol and kits post's , although erol made a outstanding post.

The BT Ipstream product has a 20:1 2048/256 package as well, although it isn't cheap but it is uncapped and reliable. The datastream variant is cheaper but speeds are very incosistent due to the high contention and low user volume.

Anyone here thinking of moving over to ADSL needs to know the dangers of datastream, almost all the low priced 1mbit and 2mbit prices on ADSL use datastream, so research before you order if LLU or IPStream performance should be fine.

Re: [merged] Price increase
 

:LOL: :dunce: :rofl:

Re: [merged] Price increase
 

I know what its about but I noticed it was in response to a letter someone receieved, but this is the entire list of ntl price changes, which I dont know if were already posted or not, I already noticed 1 thing that was different as before we had romours of analogue tv price rises and digital been frozen when in fact the opposite has happened.

As for my 1mbit internet connection I am yet to decided on if I am downgrading or not, I dont mind a price rise if its all the way but ntl instead of adding £1 to each broadband package chose to just add £3 to the 1mbit and freeze the other 2, it looks to me they are wishing they never released the 1mbit product and they are trying to push customers off it, the packages are already unfair with the traffic limits, they could have raised all 3 or just raised the 1mbit and increased the cap at the same time, but no they just raised the price, thats just arrogance. Ntl will get away with this tho, worser things are going on in the ADSL sector at the moment adslguide announced changes that are going to happen in novemeber which are going to effectively double contention on adsl ipstream products and make them capped, early indications are they are going to be capped more heavily then ntl although we wont know until it happens.

Re: [merged] Price increase
 

actually I had already (with help from sunil) created a more complete / accurate version of that post which can be found here.

http://www.cableforum.co.uk/board/sh...131#post196131

Esseniatly all the IP (and datastream for that matter) products are uncapped. It is upto the ISP to decide to cap usage or not. The real difference to an end user of an IPStream based solution vs a DataStream based one is that with IPStream they know explicitly what the maximum contention between their local exchange and their ISP is (either 20:1 or 50:1 depending on the product used by the ISP). With datastream they do not know what the maximum contention is in that section. It may be better or it may be worse.

What is true of datastream (that you do not know what the contetion ratio is between local exchange and ISP) is also true of LLU. It is only with IPStream based products that you know what the maximum contention ratio is between local exchange and ISP is. DataStream (or LLU) based products are not inherently better or worse that IPStream products, its just you have a bit more knowledge with IPStream re contention. Having said that there are (generally selling business based services) ISPs that offer datastream based products where they do guarantee a contention ratio (I have seen as low as 5:1) from local exchange to ISP, but they obviously cost more than those with higher or unkown contention is this section.

Re: [merged] Price increase
 

You can always look at the £3 increase on NTL's 1mb service another way, they reduced their xbox tech support by £3 & added it onto their 1mb tier making sure that all NTL 1mb subscribing customers pay the increase regardless of wether they subscribe to XBL.. the NTL xbl tech help was slated as a waste of money by some, maybe NTL decided to get what they lost as a result another way.

Re: [merged] Price increase
 

sorry about my mistake yes all ipstream and datastream are currently uncapped unless capped by the isp.

erol well the datastream packages do state contention levels, I believe bulldog is 40:1, but the problem is datastream is going down a small virtual pipe and not shared between isp's like ipstream so eg. Bulldog might have 2 2mbit customers on a exchange so they get a 2 mbit virtual pipe (they wouldnt get a 4mbit virtual pipe they already losing money on the 2mbit pipe), now if both of these users use the connection the contention is going to be very noticeable speeds will be halved but the contention is only 2:1, on ipstream users on the same exchange but different isp's are bundled together on a virtual pipe that bt maintains, this normally means a bigger pipe, usually a 10mbit pipe in this case it would take 21 512kbit users downloading to start contention of and then it would be less noticeable then the above case it would need 40 for half speed, in short ipstream means contention is much less noticeable and in most cases you wont suffer from it, but datastream is littered with contention problems, isp's such as bulldog,tiscali, and netcentral use datastream and hence the low prices, Pipex,nildram and plusnet use the ipstream so are better quality isp's but of course cost a bit more.

Re: [merged] Price increase
 

I understand what you are saying and generally you are right that the more people that are contended on a larger pipe (at same contention ratio) the less such contention tneds to affect users. You are also right that with IP Stream all ISPs with users on that exchange are contended by BT onto a 'big pipe'. However it does not necesarily mean that a datastream or LLU will naturaly have greater contention or the same contention as IP stream on a smaller pipe. If you take easynet for example, they (generally) have their own physical network built out to exchanges they have DSLAMS in. As it costs them pretty much the same to put a small pipe into an exchange as a massive one, the chances are they have ample capacity, both in terms of actual contention and in terms of the size of the pipe for a given contention.

You are right that bulldogs quoted contention of 40:1 may have more impact on a users as an IP stream product at 50:1 contention (because of the effect of size of pipe and also because in general BT does not actually run anywhere near its maximums. As ever the subject of 'contention' is a complicated one (even contentious you could say). Personally I would not discount an ISP just because they use Datastream (or LLU) rather than IP Stream. A good ISP using Datastream will ensure that they have sufficent capacity from an exchange to their pop. It' s true however that for an ISP that wants to load users beyond the BT 50:1 contetion in the IP stream products would look at datastream as a means of achieveing this, as well as the general idea that their connection from echange to themselves will tend to be less users on a smaller pipe than IP stream services on that exchange.

Re: [merged] Price increase
 

:notopic: WTF has this got to do with this thread which is abt price increases? :disturbd: :shrug:

Re: [merged] Price increase
 

I agree - please wander back on topic guys.

There are other, more relevant threads, to discuss contention rations in.

Re: [merged] Price increase
 

Having just read through most of this thread, I will not tolerate a price increase on the 1Mb I've got. We've been with NTL for 26months which is since they started BB in my area. NTL only got my custom initially because they beat BT to BB by 4 months.

I upgraded to the 1Mb from 600kb purely for the 256kb upload and the faster downloads (average a couple of GB per month), I can get the 256kb upload from ADSL but not from 600kb NTL. I have my own domain & email elsewhere because NTL is so unreliable, not to mention all the ****e I get on my NTL email accounts which makes it totally unsuitable for my kids use.

So essentially, NTL can either not charge me the £36 extra per year or lose £1200+ per year, because I'll dump the lot, & if they think I'm bluffing, they'll soon find out the hard way.

Re: [merged] Price increase
 

You can be quite sure that NTL will not make an exception for anyone - so you had better start looking for your alternatives.

Re: [merged] Price increase
 

That's the thing though Pem-if there' sone thing that ntl are good at-it's being inconsistent.

I'll bet you a pound to a penny, that Biggus will speak to 5 different people at ntl, about his plan above to go, & he will receive 5 different responses.

Those responses will probably range from ''an I don't really give a feck-go to BT/Sky if ya like", right through to someone who genuinely cares about customers, & would do all he/she can to retain the custom.

Re: [merged] Price increase
 

What a daft PDF file, how the heck are we supposed to print out that price rise document?

Its blooming massive!

Re: [merged] Price increase
 

Well you could just wait till you get your bill.

Then Ntl will have done all the printing for you.

Re: [merged] Price increase
 

True, I think it's just the PDF that they send to the printers, rather thena reversioned one....

To save you the trouble, these are prices that have changed - first price is the current price, second is the new price, third price is the difference.

Telephone Packages
Phone & Surf £28.50 £30.99 (Up by £2.49)

Call Features
Call Barring £1.00 £1.50 Up by 50p
Call Divert £1.00 £1.50 Up by 50p
Call Waiting £1.00 £1.50 Up by 50p
Caller Display £1.00 £1.50 Up by 50p
Reminder Call £1.00 £1.50 Up by 50p
Voicemail Plus £1.00 £1.50 Up by 50p
3 Way Calling £1.00 £1.50 Up by 50p

Calls to mobiles....they claim every price (except those to '3') have been reduced, but they don't say by how much. This was a directive from the regulators not long back.....give with one hand, take with the other!

Internet
1Mb Broadband Internet £34.99 £37.99 Up by £3.00 per month.
Xbox & PS2 Service - down from 5 quid to 2 quid per month
Dial-up Unlimited Internet £10.00 £12.49 Up by £2.49 per month.
PAYG Dial-up (per min) Daytime 1p 3p 2p / Evening 1p 2p 1p / W/End same

Digital TV

Lots of changes here....to summarise:

Every no premium package (base, mid & family packs) has gone up by a quid a month.

Sky Sports channels up by 50p

Sky Sports Collection, up by £2

Sky Movies 1 up by a quid, but Sky Movies 2 DOWN by a quid (duh?)

Sky Sports & Movies Collection up by £2

All other premiums (language, adult channels etc.) price stays the same, apart from the Hangama Pack which is up by £1

Analogue subscribers - prices held, which is crazy becuase they receive some of the Sky channels too, and they should be encouraging customers to move to Digital. Muppetry!

Oh, and your Radio Times sub is going up by 13p!

Oh and if you read the small print, those who get their second phone line for £6 (like me) will now be paying £7.50 per month. Very clever, a 20% increase! One second phone line about to be cancelled!

On the whole, I can see that these rises, although small, will make a big difference to their operating cash. The telephony increases are the most serious (calling feats, second line etc) are all very low cost items to provide, yet will yield them a good deal of additional revenue (as they increased in price by 50% in some cases).

Anyone else feeling shafted?

[Edit] (Neil)-Great post Andy-I've just highlighted the price rises to make it easier for peeps. :)

Re: [merged] Price increase
 

I already have done. :pp

Reconnect to BT = FREE
1Mb ADSL with F2S = £35.49p m & NO CAP + fixed IP (already have a router)
Sky+ = £199 (I was seriously considering this anyway)

So costs for moving are minimal (to me), + I'll get a lot more for my money, but if NTL don't increase my BB cost, they get to keep my business for a while longer.

I read somewhere that the £3 increase to 1Mb BB is basically subsidising the £3 drop in the Xbox Live & PS2 subscription, I don't use that, nor do I intend to, so why should I (& others) help pay for it?

Re: [merged] Price increase
 

Re: [merged] Price increase
 

We don't need The Register to confirm ntl's price hikes-we gave you the details yonks ago!! :angel:

Re: [merged] Price increase
 

It was posted on ISPr over a week ago with the redundancies..

Re: [merged] Price increase
 

ntl confirmed the price changes themselves on the 7th anyway!!!! - wakey wakey people!!!!! :shocked: :Yikes:

Re: [merged] Price increase
 

Well we get a lot less channels and it is a bit unfair if digital isnt an option so the price freeze was fair in my opinion.

Orangebird I dont remember seeing the full list of price changes anywhere on the 7th? so I think this list is quite useful to a lot of people, 3 weeks ago I had the impression 1mbit internet was going up along with analogue tv and only half of it turned out to be right.

Re: [merged] Price increase
 

So are ntl in danger of becoming uncompetetive, with their BB charges, so that their cash cow falters?

Ntl 150k broadband = £17.99
Tiscali 150k = £15.99
today Pipex launch 150k @ £15.99

The 1meg service increase also prices ntl out of that market.

Yes I know that for most ADSL services you have to pay the quarterly phone rental charge, but most BT based customers are doing that anyway for their normal phone use? I know ntl provide a modem, ADSL customers might have to buy one. But the average punter just sees the monthly headline figure.

For new customers, in an ADSL area, I know what I'd be choosing, and that's bad news for ntl and ultiimately the customer. Fewer ntl signups and customer churn will result in less not more revenue, meaning less money to invest and less profits so a deteriorating service.

Ntl, being in total control of their own network should be abe to provide services cheaper than the BT based system, where all so many different organisations each need their slice of the action - BT wholesale, the ISP, etc. NTL should be able to undercut this competition, even where BT is being forced by ofcom to keep it's prices down. ntl aren't competetive, why not?

Re: [merged] Price increase
 

NTL TV customers also pay for there phoneline rentel ;)

Still they ask people to pay them more than the competition:mad:

Re: [merged] Price increase
 

Because they can. If you can undercut your competitor by just 5-10% and still subscribe your region pretty well, I dont see why they should reduce costs :D

....unless most people who are out of an 12months agreement start to walk out suddenly, but for that to happen, there needs to be alternatives. Some people simply dont have that choice.

1Meg price hike coming
 

Heard a rumour that 1 Meg NTL service is getting a £3 monthly hike which is huge about 9%.
if its true what was the strategy here, take up failed miserabley so drop it to attract more then hike it.

adsl has several providers doing 2Meg unrestricted for £35 so how can this new NTL move be competetive ?

EDIT:
oops see we allready got a thread on it :)
been looking at alternatives, seems this hike is because not enough have took up the console addon as they can use routers so they will charge you anyway without assigning the extra ip.
ADSL is about a lot more now, having looked into it today theres plenty of adsl modems that have an ethernet connection so hooking up to your existing router shouldnt be a problem, dlink have one up to 8Mbs adsl.

Re: 1Meg price hike coming
 

your late, we already know this, somewhere in this big thread is the price list in .pdf format, it will tell you about the price rise as well as other rises......


NTL adjust prices to suit them, not the consumer so as long as they have alot of subscribers to thier internet service, they wont be bothered by losing any customers to ADSL.

Re: 1Meg price hike coming
 

that depends adsl is twice as fast for same money as old NTL 1Meg BT phone packages are cheeper so NTL are pricing themselves away from new customers and risk losing existing customers
Definatly glad I dropped to 600k now, guess as more do or leave the next hike will be on 600k

Re: [merged] Price increase
 

If they increase 600K I will change to ADSL especialy as BT are trialing upto 10KM and 60dB for ADSL 500K with trials perhaps coming for 1mb and 2mb over longer lines. I might have achance to have 1mb back.

Re: 1Meg price hike coming
 

it isnt competitive but perhaps they arent aiming to be!

I agree - if you can get ADSL and you're close enough to the exchange the ADSL 2mb is a better option as it's roughly the same price if you shop around.

Re: 1Meg price hike coming
 

What are they 'aiming to be' then if they're not trying to competitive? :erm:

ntl will alienate a lot of customers with this latest price rise IMO, & as DSL is becoming more & more widely available, this could hurt them badly (not that ntl really give a hoot about how happy their customers are)

Re: [merged] Price increase
 

they're aiming to be the premier uk 'inertia' broadband supplier - ie. they rely on people not shopping around and general consumer inertia.

the market they're aiming for is the same kind of customers who buy from BT even though with a bit of shopping around you can get it cheaper elsewhere.


yes but only the 1mb customers will be alienated? the massive number of 600 and 150 customers who pay £25 a month probably dont care?

what we need is broadband applications which make 1mb more popular or a necessity. we need something which will bring to the broadband masses what SMS brought to the mobile phone masses - then you'll start to see real competition.

Re: [merged] Price increase
 

But sadly not on the Cable Forum Front page or the Cable Forum News Page... If visitors need to know about the price increases they have to come here into the forum and hunt/search through this 33 page thread.

Price hike on 1mbit service
 

:mad: Disgusting, 1mbit jumps to £37.99, my mum went ballastic over it, and downgraded us to 600K service!
(still advertised online at the old price).
NTL can't keep either its mail or new servers working properly - making the price increase ludicrous.
The market trend is for broadband subscriptions to fall, not rise!
Other countries have much cheaper pricing and higher bandwidth for the buck.
More NTL users should downgrade or switch provider to tell NTL where to get off.

Darren

Re: [merged] Price increase
 

I've since found out by trawling through NTL.COM that the caps will be upped, 300K, 750K and 1.5Mb (from 150K, 600K and 1mb)?
But the price increases come well before the new speeds will be implemented!!
And no increase in service quality/availability!!!!

Re: Price hike on 1mbit service
 

Correct,

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/3686989.stm


I'd like to see the cable operators forced to open up there networks myself

Re: [merged] Price increase
 

Still sucks either way. The change to 1.5Mb just masks the fact they've increased the top tier package above that of Telewest's 2nd from top package and there's no explanation as to why they need to increase the price by £36 a year for their premier customers and yet let the majority continue at the same price :(.

Personally I'm downgrading as having looked at my usage with PRTG I rarely go above 600kbps typical speeds and the lower tier will become 750kbps anyway. I'll miss the 256kbps upstream though, but I could do with saving some money.

I just need a means of downgrading without having to phone them as that's a pain in the arse.

Re: Price hike on 1mbit service
 

I remember suggesting that about four years ago on another forum and I was widely derided 'never happen, private companies, not like electricity .. '

Re: [merged] Price increase
 

The speed of the service is increasing, not the download limit/cap on them though.

Re: [merged] Price increase
 

I find it remarkable that that people can afford 35 quid a month, but 38 quid totally annihilates their family budget?

Come on, how daft is that? I really am interested in any rational explanation - is the £3 monthly price adjustment really the straw that broke the camel's back?

Re: [merged] Price increase
 

Well, it's a bandwidth cap really rather than a download cap ;)

In my case the extra £3 makes me realise just how rediculous it is paying even £35 a month for a service I don't make full use of, and although people think it's a small rise it's just that little too much on what is a very expensive service anyway. If anything with competition I expected prices to drop, not go up!

Though I can afford it, I've got better things to spend the money on. Now if NTL offered a 2 or 3Mbps service, that's another matter ;) (better still if they upped the upstreams).

Re: [merged] Price increase
 

So if you do not make full use of 1meg, what use is 2 or 3 meg?

Nothing personal, you are the only response (so far)

Re: [merged] Price increase
 

yeh its hard enough justifying £35 for a internet connection, £38 a month on a internet connection is over the top imho

I just look at it this, if i want to download a cd/dvd im gonna be doing it overnight as most people play games stream music etc in the day. So what ever i want is usally finished by the time i get up anyway(i even go work then aswell), the only difference of 1Mb/1.5Mb is that it will be done sooner in the morning leaving the pc idle

750K is fine, you only really need 1mb+ if your at home all day with no job :P

Re: [merged] Price increase
 

So you are saying I am at home all day with no job ?

Re: [merged] Price increase
 

Thanks for the input. From your sig. you are on 600K, so presumably the increase to 750K is welcome at the same outlay, and from your comments the extra cost regardless of the odd £3 is not an issue anyway at your level of usage.

Re: [merged] Price increase
 

Probably not much either, but if I could find a reason they'd be more attractive services than 1.5mb at £38.

i.e. 750kbps is more attractive at £25 compared to 1.5mbps at £38, but if 2Mbps was say £40 then that would be a better deal and worth the step up (better still if it was £38 or even £35, or 3Mbps for £40).

But 750kbps is likely to be okay for me as it's not much of a drop from 1Mbps (though it's the 256kbps upstream I really wanted out of the 1Mbps service, oh well).

Re: [merged] Price increase
 

I have to agree, although I want more speed, I also need to look at value for money and the fact that ntl havent touched the pricing on the other 2 tiers and the cap wasn't changed means it is now quite likely I will downgrade, 128kbit upload will be annoying but I can live with it, and now 600k has gone upto 750k it will be more bearable.

Re: [merged] Price increase
 

Having watched people's reactions/comments-I would suspect it is the straw that broke the camel's back.

ntl's 'service' does not seem to be improving, yet they are putting their prices up while they really should be going down due to competition.

Also taking into account Aizad Hussain (MD of ntl) said to myself & Ben that he didn't want to offer 1 2MB service as it would only attract heavy downloaders (leechers I think was the expression he actually used). Now because Telewest have increased their speeds by 50%, ntl have done the same & although they are not offering 2MB speeds, they are very nearly there with 1.5, so are these the customers Aizad does not want?

£38.00 per month is too much money IMO for a 1 meg BB connection (cable or DSL) Everyone else seems to be hovering at the magic pricing point of sub £35.00, but ntl are goingin the opposite direction, & I believe that people are not prepared to continue paying increased pricing for no increase in 'service' in this day & age.

Just my take on things.....

Re: [merged] Price increase
 

You are getting 1.5mbps for £38 per month. Once the upgrades take place in the next couple of months. Which IMO is a !!GOOD!! deal.

Re: [merged] Price increase
 

There is no IP Stream ADSL ISPs offering that sort of deal!!!

and before you mention Bulldog!!!!!! Bulldog is not using IP Stream services its using datastream and datastream has a lot of problems with speed.

Re: [merged] Price increase
 

andrew yes 1.5mbit for 38 a month but please take these 2 points into consideration and I think most will agree with me.

there was no price increase on the 2 lower tiers, making the gap between the packages wider which is now at £13 per month instead of £10 per month.

the traffic cap was not raised with the speed meaning as neil has said in other post's it only serves for people to hit the cap quicker.

Me personally I was already stretching my budget at £35 a month, and I would love to have a 1.5mbit connection but have decided I cant afford the 38 a month and for 13 less a month I will be on 600kbit (soon to be 750kbit), which considering the cap etc. is overwhelmingly better value for money.

Re: [merged] Price increase
 

There was no need to increase the price on the lower tier as they are much more competative with the lower prices.

An extra 750kbps for £13 a month is not a bad deal. Everyone keeps talking about this CAP when there is NO CAP! Not one person has been disconnected by NTL for excessive downloading and some people download in the region of 10gb per day. The 1gb per day is just a guideline.

With the way cable modem services work (AND ADSL) you can not have customers maxing out their connection everyday minute of the day as it affect other customers. No matter how good you network is!