[Now Official] More ntl speed changes
 

We have recently learned that ntl have plans for more speed changes, either at the end of this year, or early next year. These will be optional increases (and not free) and both 2mbps and 3mbps have been mentioned.

At the other end of the scale - it looks possible that the 150k service may be re-introduced (presumably at a lower price).

All this is being made possible by the current large scale upgrades to the network which started in the summer, in preperation for the current free speed upgrades.

No mention has been made of upload speeds, but it seems reasonable to assume that if 3mbps download is offered then the upload is likely to be higher than 256k (400k maybe ?).

More details will be posted if/as they become available.

Re: More ntl speed changes
 

Thank you.That is very interesting.I'm wondering of course what the charges will be but I'm guessing it won't be within my price range. :)

Re: More ntl speed changes
 

Thanks Paul looks promising for the customers..

Re: More ntl speed changes
 

Most interesting. No doubt speculation at this stage but.

One wonders in practice whether there is a much lower price that is chargeable id a 150 kpbs tier is reintroduced. The fixed costs of line provision, modem supply etc, compared to the day to day running costs and limited bandwidth needs may not actually create much margin.

As for the top end upgrades, no doubt any increase in upload speed may be desirable by some users. One does though really have to wonder at whether this will be the time that ntl revise their download guidance, now 18 months out of date, to reflect current internet volumes in terms of sizes of files, and thus adjust the overall levels to reflect increased bandwidth. At this higher level no doubt there will also be a premium fee for the service, as only the heavy data shifters would be the first subscribers.

Re: More ntl speed changes
 

Be nice to see these speed increases arrive and at better prices, with no restrictions.

The 2 meg line was rumoured to be arriving last July-Septemper from some NTL staff but it never showed.

Now when cable first started the plain truth was there wasnt much choice in broadband, if you were lucky enough to be in a broadband area it was one or the other available but not too often both. This is now very far from the truth and cable needs to revise the policy that adsl is not competition.

ADSL 2 meg line is £35-£40 depending on provider, this is the current top level adsl (except london which has 4 meg).

NTL 1.5 meg is £37.99, and is the current top cable service except in blue yonder/telewest areas that have 3 meg allready. note NTL is one of the biggest cable sections in the country, if not the biggest.
As you can see here you can allready get more for less elsewhere. You should also note at the adsl prices above the bandwidth is in no way restricted, unlike NTL's 1 GB a day policy. I mean If i was to update my Router alone it is a good 2 GB. Then we have 4 x windows update and it goes on and on.

Now for more rumours ;) ADSL is expected to drop further next year and introduce the 4 meg deal on a national basis where possibly available.
This is apparently going to be a 4 meg down 400 or 800k up and is expected to drop in around the £40 marker, doing that can only have a knock on effect on dropping the lower tiers prices if not instantly it will not be long before it happens.

Of course you should by now be able to see where I am going with this, that unfortunatly in the broadband arena NTL has fallen behind and even with rumors for next year is still behind.

I wonder how interesting the next year will be in the battle of the BB providers :)

And yes I am talking as an X NTL user who had cable since the beginning and changed all my services after several years of being with them.
Come on NTL win me back, and I'm in no way desperate to leave my current providors of com services.

Re: More ntl speed changes
 

Interesting Mr Nutter that you should discuss uncapped services especially when the current trend in ADSL provision is towards capped services due to BT increasing / changing the way they charge for backhaul bandwidth. Wanadoo, BTBroadband, both going hard capping, other providers 'looking closely' at it.

BT have no intention of introducing anything over 2Mbit at the moment at all - there is still no Home 2Mbit product, these are all based on Office products, and no rumours or announcements on an Office service over 2Mbit have been heard. Any increase in bandwidth will come from Bulldog increasing the reach of their network, this will be far from national availability though and will probably only be the inner cities / larger towns.

As far as 800k upstream goes have heard absolutely nothing at all about this one, Bulldog offer the highest residential upstream at 400k. Increasing this to 800k will limit availability of the services somewhat (as unlike cable ADSL is a distance dependent technology, if you're too far from your exchange you aren't going to get service or will be limited in the speeds you can have). Also ADSL can't do 800k upstream ;) Maxes at 768k-ish.

Sadly from your point of view unlimited services are slowly but surely becoming less and less available and capping more common place as companies try and consolidate and 'reign in' users using 3 figures GB per month.

NTL are by the way the largest cable operator in the UK by a fair margin.

Re: More ntl speed changes
 

So big boy AOL with a huge advertising campaign of no limits being its primary advert base is really just a ruse, a quick customer grab then they really intend to impose capping ? bit outragous these large companies are permitted to lie so blatantly like that if thats the case.
Euro providers are entering the country too enhancing the adsl competition even further. All offering uncapped or multi level capped or premium uncapped. The bandwidth game is indeed a huge international rip off thats going about atm.
Anyway even by .au standards today the NTL 1 GB cap is archaic to say the least
800k 768k ? at that level 32k is a bit of a hair split, but still specualtion and rumours are fun ;)
As for the sadness, I doubt it currently we are capped by speed, in the future we will surely be metered and capped by most providers but the caps will be decent and so will the lines. Dont make the future sound so bleak when really it doesnt have to be.

PS: my line is with BT but my internet most definately has nothing to do with them past my exchange.

Re: More ntl speed changes
 

Could be just to come into line with telewest prior to a merger? how much are the blueyonder packages?

Re: More ntl speed changes
 

you have to take out basic digital tv and phone but they are included in the prices.

256k - £17.99
750k - £25.99
1.5mb - £35.99
3mb - £50.00

Re: More ntl speed changes
 

But it wasn't being discussed by the people implementing the network, which suggests it wasn't actually a *true* rumour.

Re: More ntl speed changes
 

Good to see that NTL are actively developing their product.

Pity though that there is more to speed than the headline figure. I've noticed that browsing on a 512kbps 20:1 ADSL line is constently brisker than on my 750kbps cable connection.

Re: More ntl speed changes
 

But it's the hook, another reason / thing to move to BT/Sky, the product being in the house and being remotely (or user) upgradable to higher speeds.

Smart move for a cheaper lower speed IMHO.

Re: More ntl speed changes
 

But I also noticed that on my 1mb 50:1 line that it frquently struggled to get above 700k downstream and even then it didnt feel like it.

This being the standard product is where the comparison needs to come in. 20:1 is generally recognised as a business product, or premium product on DSL which you pay more for.

Currently there are probably not as many 20:1 contention users for contention ratios to cause a problem, on 50:1 contention it can be a problem depending on the area you live in, ive seen sub 56k speeds at peak times on 512k 50:1 dsl.

Re: More ntl speed changes
 

cheers. it's about time speeds were improved - particularly the poor the poor upload speed options.

Re: More ntl speed changes
 

huzzah!!

2mb looks nice, 3mb will probably too costly, in line with blueyonder. The prospect of higher upload speeds will be amazing, but considering (afaik) practically no residential connection (only bulldog in london?) has an upload >256k i can't see why ntl would change this. I hope so much they do though :) FTP is so lame with 256k upload.