Rumour from The Bloke in the Pub
 

"The Bloke in the Pub" said that there will be different BB tariffs, to suit different users needs, later in the year. Actual prices will be announced nearer the launch and will depend on the market at that time, but they will be very competitive and will contain capped and unlimited options (subject to not causing degregation of the network).
Prices of capped services will be aimed at attracting new customers i.e. super value.
Current users will be able to change to the tariff which suits them best.
This is all part of the new NTL strategy to make NTL the best choice for people living in cabled areas.

Re: Rumour from The Bloke in the Pub
 

So we're going a bit like the Mobile phone tariffs then?

Loads of choice, bolt on extras, buggered if I can work 'em out :D

Re: Rumour from The Bloke in the Pub
 

Nice thought, but the world is full of rumours, I think I will wait for more evidence before rejoicing ...... :)

Re: Rumour from The Bloke in the Pub
 

Stiil, need plenty of trips to the pub to find out more rumours :D

Re: Rumour from The Bloke in the Pub
 

He was spot on with the Speed Update date so he has some credibility.

Re: Rumour from The Bloke in the Pub
 

Metered BB will be unlimited.............

:rofl:

Re: Rumour from The Bloke in the Pub
 

"The Bloke in the Pub" said:
Capped tariff will be metered, buy more bandwidth as you need.
Unlimited will be, well, unlimited (subject to T&C).
Prices under consideration are current price less 25% for capped tariffs and 10% more than current price for unlimited tariffs, but this will depend on market prices nearer the time.

Re: Rumour from The Bloke in the Pub
 

Wow does this mean NTL have actually begun to accept that competition = alternative services available in the same areas as opposed to cable equivalents in a non competing area ?

Churn figures must be going up some

wonder how they are going to deal with...

bulldogbb rolling out 4meg/400k unlimited @ 28.50
plusnet rolling out 8meg/??? 39.99 unlimited yet to be publicly announced but existing customers have had mail for it
ukonline rolling out 8meg/400k 29.99 500GB

Re: Rumour from The Bloke in the Pub
 

Just before we get fixated with the grass is greener on the other side of the fence approach, have a read of this, re Plusnet:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/04/25/plusnet_fup/

They too are having trouble with the concept of truely unlimited!

APS

Re: Rumour from The Bloke in the Pub
 

Plusnet policy is fine, they are actually moving away from hard caps.

Re: Rumour from The Bloke in the Pub
 

Or moving to hard and unspecified caps, if one takes the time to try and decode the disinformation.

Contention ratio of 30:1 will be entertaining especially when people see it gives a worse service that the normal '50:1' services.

Re: Rumour from The Bloke in the Pub
 

I meant the metered BB they are planning to introduce (no monthly fee pay as you go) will not be capped............... because the more you use the more you pay.

It was a joke ........... nearly :D

Re: Rumour from The Bloke in the Pub
 

Sorry, I missed it in all my excitement. :dunce:

Re: Rumour from The Bloke in the Pub
 

I heard "in the pub" that they are introducing a kind of turbo/boost facility - so you can be on a lower band and have this boost thing (paid for with use) to download stuff - movies etc :dozey:

Re: Rumour from The Bloke in the Pub
 

That was trialled ages ago...you mean that is being brought in?

Re: Rumour from The Bloke in the Pub
 

As jtwn said that was trialed a long time ago when the basic BB package was 128kb and the boost would get you 1Mb.

Now, though the basic pack is already 1Mb and ISPs have realised that it makes more sense charging for download capacity rather than speed. So I do not think we will see the turbo feature ever becoming standard.

Re: Rumour from The Bloke in the Pub
 

Could have just been read on the pdfs that have alluded to flexing of bandwidth and pay per GB. These are in the public domain.
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That's not the case, there were flexing options for all custs, including 1.5Mbit.

You refer to download capacity, there's plenty of options there for higher rate charging for the higher speeds, this is already being done by satellite operators, pay more per GB for higher speeds.

Re: Rumour from The Bloke in the Pub
 

at the time of the Guilford trial the entry level was 150K more detail on the trial is here http://www.chetnet.co.uk/portal/foru...ead.php?t=2140 it was great at the time, first uk 3Meg service

Re: Rumour from The Bloke in the Pub
 

Was just thinking about this, raising the prices for an uncapped tier, surely this will cause outrage in some and with the ever increasing BT exchanges being enabled they are going to have to hold fast the customers they have with an extra incentive....speed upgrade?

Re: Rumour from The Bloke in the Pub
 

I think a uncapped/high capped 3mbit is worth more then say a low capped 8mbit. If you keep increasing speeds without raising caps with it then there is next to no advantage. Also judging from feedback on these forums quite a few people have already stated they would pay more.

Re: Rumour from The Bloke in the Pub
 

Being one of those people who live less than 2km (as the crow..) from the BT exchange and still only be able to get max 512Kb/s with ADSL my NTL 3MB connection suits me just fine. Downloading a Linux ISO in 30 mins is good enough for the foreseeable future, it's not as if I can't get on with something else during the download.
Personally I would be quite happy to pay a little more for a 3MB service with the caps ambiguity removed.
What I don't want to see is NTL following some other ISP's offering high speed unlimited for peanuts as that is only going to eventually result in degraded speed and reliability.

Re: Rumour from The Bloke in the Pub
 

Is it safe to assume that the next speed/cap upgrades will take place before hard-capping is introduced? I'm still on the 300k and would like to upgrade to 1Meg but don't want to be hit by the 3GB limit later in the year.

Re: Rumour from The Bloke in the Pub
 

I don't think they have the resources or wherewithall to police it. In fact I am sure they don't

Re: Rumour from The Bloke in the Pub
 

As I understand it, the UBRs already log how much data goes through them, and which MAC address is downloading that data.

I have it on good authority that NTL already do this to monitor how much each area is utilised.

They could use this data to enforce caps (and indeed, may already be able to).

Even if they don't have the software to collate this data, it would take a couple of hours to knock up a Perl script that could do it.

Re: Rumour from The Bloke in the Pub
 

*snicker*

Re: Rumour from The Bloke in the Pub
 

who to believe :shrug: :D

Re: Rumour from The Bloke in the Pub
 

I would find it hard to believe NTL dont know who uses what bandwidth, any major isp will make sure they know whats been used and where. The fact we not been hard capped yet I think is a decision based on whats going on elsewhere not what they can do.

Re: Rumour from The Bloke in the Pub
 

there used to be a department (the one that got all "bent out of shape" about the old ntlhellworld.com site) that would look into those things - but it got the chop - there were about a dozen or so people in it - but now only 3 or 4 and they are snowed under dealing with petty and numerous complaints about spam and so on. They simply don't have the resources and all this talk of caps is akin to the wizard of oz bloke issuing decrees behind that curtain if you see what I mean. As for the "any major ISP will know" aspect of it - remember this is ntl we are talking about and all that is cared about or counts is a snappy excel spreadsheet repoting profits arriving, by way of attatchment, in some lawyers office in new york. There, I've said it!

Re: Rumour from The Bloke in the Pub
 

Wonderful things are computers, aren't they? :D Computer programs make them very useful as they can be made to monitor certain events and take action based on the results without any human interaction. I was programming them to get usage statistics over 40 years ago and boy, have they moved on since then. :D

Re: Rumour from The Bloke in the Pub
 

Looking back through some old threads about people receiving letters asking them to calm down their usage ages ago I see no mention of said department.
You may want to take a look at http://www.broadbandreports.com and the ISPs who cap there. Various things being used from a simple automatic email right the way through to 'walled garden' solutions where users are redirected to a web page indicating that they have broken their allowance and are required to click a button indicating that they will take it easy for the rest of the month.
If you think that ntl lack the resources or wherewithall to implement either of these you're kidding yourself sir.

Ooo, edit, the personal kicker for me is OptimumOnline's solution, if you upload too much in one hit they send a new config file to your modem dropping the upload from 1Mbps to 150kbps until you either wait for it to be removed automagically or phone them up and promise to behave.

Re: Rumour from The Bloke in the Pub
 

ian@huth is quite right - it doesn't actually take that much effort programmatically speaking to monitor people's bandwidth - it's storing the data that's more of an issue, but the cost of storage is coming down all the time.

I know what I'm talking about - about 95% of my job is things like bandwidth monitoring (although my team haven't actually got that particular responsibility, we do similar things).

Re: Rumour from The Bloke in the Pub
 

theres a bloke who lives right by me who, apparently, regularly clogs the node with his uploads and downloads and I was told "nothing could be done about it" when I mentioned my constant lacklsutre 2meg connection to an agent

I don't do much apart from browse and the occasional go on an online game and am seriously thinking of going over to a BT/Adsl setup when my "retention" package comes to an end

Re: Rumour from The Bloke in the Pub
 

You sure this guy is causing congestion? You sure that your 'lacklustre' connection is due to congestion?

I certainly wouldn't say nothing could be done about it, more likely the guy isn't actually causing an impact to others' service at this time.

Re: Rumour from The Bloke in the Pub
 

yeah - it's a known issue! I know a bloke who used to work in "networks" in ntl and he said they used to talk about this particular node. I have the node numbers of the congested node and there are lognotes associated with it somewhere apparently

Re: Rumour from The Bloke in the Pub
 

PM Me your IP Address, there are VERY few congested nodes now thanks to the extensive resegmentation and breaking down of areas.

Off the top of my head I can only think of a couple of areas that aren't scheduled to be relieved of the congestion within weeks.

Re: Rumour from The Bloke in the Pub
 

ok - cheers - will do. Am not actually at the machine in question at this present time, but I do have the node numbers here. The IP address I have there is some kind of hexadecimal goobledegook for some reason that evades me, but I am sure there is some site that lets you know what it is - I think I saw it on some other part of the forum

edit: it might be the case, of course, that I am mistaken in what I am saying, but would appreciate the second opinion etc

Re: Rumour from The Bloke in the Pub
 

Assuming your PC is connected straight to the cable modem or STB, the IP address is not difficult to determine.

Click "Start", "Run". Type cmd, press Return. Then type "ipconfig /all" and return. You may see multiple network interfaces listed (Windows uses "virtual network interfaces" for certain purposes), but look for one called "Local Connection" (or something similar). Your IP address will be listed under there.

Re: Rumour from The Bloke in the Pub
 

It would'nt bother me to still have the 3mb dl but increased upload speed, 300k is just not enough.
Not for FTP/Web server but for hosting games on XBox Live, especially certain games were the UK can only host 10 people, would be nice to host 16.

If your an XBox Live gamer, you'll know what I mean.

The UK is so behind on it's broadband service, it's a joke really. Especially as Hong Kong have rolled out 1gb broadband.

Re: Rumour from The Bloke in the Pub
 

I suspect you will get an increased upload. NTL will have to. A 300K upload would probably not be able to handle the anounts of Acknowledgement packets needed for 10 meg.

In case anyone didn't understand that, TCP/IP (the protocol used for data on the Internet) transmits data in bursts (called "packets"). The server sends several numbered packets to the user's computer, then the user's computer has to send a packet back stating which it has recieved. The server then sends the next batch, and re-sends any not recieved. The server will wait for the acknowlegement before it sends the next batch. It's entirely possible the amount of Acknowledgements needed would swamp a 300K upload, so NTL will probably be upgrading that too.. We haven't been told yet though.

Re: Rumour from The Bloke in the Pub
 

What about UDP, RTP, etc? :)

Re: Rumour from The Bloke in the Pub
 

Hey, I was trying to keep it simple...People have written whole text books on the various Internet protocols. As I understand it though, they have similar (if not exactly the same) limitations.

Re: Rumour from The Bloke in the Pub
 

haha well you forget the bottom tier has 100k upload and will get the 10mbit so that will have to be upgraded a nice fair whack. I would take a guess and predict an upload somewhere between 0.5mbit and 1.5mbit.
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Ignition is LE3 part of Leics well equipped for 10mbit service, or some nodes which not ready?

Re: Rumour from The Bloke in the Pub
 

I would take a guess that your range of possible upload speeds is far too optimistic. ;)

Re: Rumour from The Bloke in the Pub
 

I didn't, actually. But my point still stands, as if 300K isn't enough, 100K certainly isn't.

Re: Rumour from The Bloke in the Pub
 

Erm...

The maximum payload of a TCP/IP packet is around 1500 bytes. I'm not sure of the exact size of an ACK packet (including headers) but let's make it easy and say 15 bytes. That's a 100:1 ratio.

Then note that, if implemented efficiently, each ACK packet can acknowledge more than one data packet. The number it can simultaneously acknowledge is limited by the size of the 'window' - which is, in turn, limited by the buffer space inside the receiver.

Some peeps report that their upload speed limits their download capability. What is usually happening is that they are uploading loads AT THE SAME TIME. When this happens, the ACK packets are held up by the outgoing data packets.

IMHO for normal surfing, 100kbps upload will be entirely adequate for 10Mbps download.

Re: Rumour from The Bloke in the Pub
 

If the cap remains a soft cap the upload speeds defenitly wont be that high but if NTL have everything in check stopping people raping it on p2p its quite possible. I would think tho 384kbit would be the lowest needed to allow good performance.
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Downloading at 2mbit uses up about 5kB/sec for me so approx 25kB/sec imo is needed, bearing in mind I optimised my connection I think normally it requires more acks so I will say 30-35kB is needed for someone who doesnt need to upload at the same time on stock tcp window settings. Or have I got this wrong and you dont multiply upload the same ratio as download?

Re: Rumour from The Bloke in the Pub
 

Sounds about right to me, I've asked this before and been told the ACKs required use very little of the US BW.