[ian@huth]

The speed increases can only be seen as a positive measure by NTL as its broadband customers will have up to 100% extra download speed.

I see that their press releases do mention doubling of speed but you have to look further to see that this only applies to 150k customers and as far as I know those that are getting their broadband through the STB already get up to 256k so 300k isn't that much of an increase.

What does this increase in speed actually mean to users and what does it cost NTL to give it?

The vast majority of users will still continue to do the same things at the same time and will hardly notice that their speed has been increased. Most users do not continually download large files so they will notice that any such download is quicker and they will take up the available download bandwidth for a shorter period of time.

It is largely game players who want to host games that should benefit along with users who want to download files 24/7 for whatever reason. Also households with more than one computer networked to use the one connection should benefit where the users are all online at the same time and using bandwidth hungry applications.

It will probably cost NTL very little to implement these new speeds and they may recoup what it does cost by retaining users that may have thought of leaving or recruiting new users. If I was an AOL customer using their broadband via the NTL network I would certainly think about going direct to NTL for it and save £3 a month and have a potentially faster service.

The one big question that needs answering is that of the alleged cap. Will NTL suddenly start enforcing this more in order to throttle back the heavy users who will have more bandwidth available. Will they use this speed increase as an opportunity to admit that the "cap" was not thought out very well and to adjust it more in line with suggestions made through these forums.

As with most things in life, we will have to wait and see what transpires, only time will tell.