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Originally Posted by ianathuth
That must be the quote of the century. If you think that they are not being left behind in any way just look at the past twelve months.
Sky have brought the cost of Sky+ down and introduced dual recording. Where is the NTL personal video recorder and the ability for NTL customers to record two different Sky channels using only the one box?
You can get 2Mb broadband on Telewest cable and DSL, but where is the NTL 2Mb service?
You can get caller display on BT lines but how about NTL?
You can get eight different European Championship games on one Sky channel but how many can you get on NTL?
You have a (theoretical) cap on NTL broadband services but none on most competitors service.
You have a company in NTL that doesn't listen to its customers and prefers to push things under the carpet or forget about them (power users group for example). Closing the dot com site can only be seen as progressive behaviour by the idiots that did it. Can you honestly say that the closure was in NTLs or their customers interests.
Most of NTLs competitors are reducing the price of their broadband services but NTL have increased the cost of their lowest broadband tier.
I am sure that other site members can add to this list of reasons why NTL are falling behind. Perhaps you can list the areas where NTL are catching up?
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Sky+ is again a Niche market, it is still out of range of the majority of people of either have no need for it or cant afford it £199 is still a lot of money. Ntl are bringing out VOD (Video on Demand) which offers similar flexibility to PVR (Ordering a show when you want it) Sky are left behind in this?? no they just choose a different route which is fair enough, customer choice is a good thing!
How many DSL Providers have 2mb services?? About 3-4 maximum i can see currently, is their sufficient demand for such services currently??........probably not if you completely honest the majority of people arent on fast services, they are on low/mid tier packages, high speed is something of a Niche market. Most of ntls broadband customers are on 150k and are more than happy with this over dial up at £2 more than various dial up providers.
You can get caller display on parts of the ntl network perfectly fine.........I for one can, I dont have a great deal of use for it anyway most of the time. This is again down to different networks, BT had their network paid for by the tax payer.......yet they still cant provide me with a line free of crackles in 2004, my priorities lie with clear calls as opposed to caller id and such like...........get the basics right first!! My BT line was/probably still is practically useless for all services, it cant get ADSL because of the noise.
Sky Sports Extra has only just been added, Theoretically Sky Active can be added to Sky Sports on Cable should Sky desire to, they may not want to as its a selling point for them. Apparently Sky and ntl are talking of porting Sky Active to cable when cr3 is ompletely rolled out.
BT Are and ntl competitor and have a cap as do Virgin ADSL services, more will soon have to follow suit, the UKs archaic network isnt up to the task of everyone being on broadband and without serious investment by ntl and BT, we can never look beyond 8Mbs and services will become crippled once contention to exchanges is on maximum limit.
ntlworld shouldnt have been closed, but BT and Sky have actually forced legal action on various sites of a similar capacity, at least there are alternatives.
ntl have increased the cost of the lower broadband tier, firstly they have increased the speed by 22kbs which is the diference between a 14kbs modem and a 36kbs modem...........which was considered quite a major difference a few years back and can make a significant difference to surfing. Another reason for the increase could be to port customers from 150k to 600k services enabling them to phase out 150k.........and who knows bring in that illusive 2mb service that millions of screaming customers want!! A lot of ADSL prices remain static BT starts at £27.99 which has been at that level for some time for a 512k service, as is AOL and most of the big name companies. ntl isnt competeting with smaller ISPs like Pipex. Also lets not forget even with the cheapest ADSL Service of £18.50 a month, you have to pop the BT line rental of £9.50 on top, whether or not you use a telephone so the cheapest ADSL Service in my eyes is £28.