Couple of other things:
NTL broadband apparently has a better (lower) contention ratio than ADSL broadband generally has.
http://www.ntl.com/locales/gb/en/hom...and/what/same/
Quote:
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Having many users online at the same time will affect download speeds. Whereas ntl:home Broadband Internet guarantees only 20 users can ever use the same portion of the fibre-optic cable at the same time (called a 20:1 contention ratio). ADSL contention ratios can reach 50:1, making maximum data speeds more unlikely.
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NTL cable broadband is worse than ADSL for upload speed, though (comparing services with a similar price & download speed).
The NTL 600k service only has an upload of 128kbits/sec, whereas 512k ADSL services have an upload of 256kbit/sec.
To get a 256k upload with NTL, you need to have the (more expensive) 1meg service.
Of course, the importance of the upload speed depends on what you would use the connection for. 128k upload may be fine, it may not.
(e.g. I originally upgraded from the NTL 600k service to the 1meg service not for the extra download speed, but for the extra upload - because it's better for online gaming such as XBox Live.)