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Originally Posted by ray_uk
I might be willing to pay about 60 to 70 a month for a 2 or 3 mb unlimited download.
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Methinks you are enjoying the newsgroups, Torrents, DC networks whatever far too much. If you can afford 70 quid a month on an internet connection buy the blinking stuff you're downloading!
That sort of package would have an uptake of next to nothing, the only people who are likely to take it are those downloading then selling stuff for the most part (not that I'm implying you do).
Just FYI 70 quid a month still won't cover your costs if you are using your connection to its' fullest capacity, which I'm thinking you do or fairly close to it, on 3Mbit you can download 900GB in a month. When you factor in bandwidth prices to ntl, which although lower than most due to scale will still be there, along with fixed costs of their own network capacity, the local cable networks capacity.
To be honest I seriously doubt 70 quid covers the external bandwidth, let alone the far more expensive internal bandwidth.
On the other hand if there's a 'top up' facility released at some point with a charge per GB once you go past your limit, and your usage isn't that insane you may find a reasonable compromise and price point. Unfortunately there are very few ISPs that cater to the all you can eat market particularly. Bulldog tried it and managed to thoroughly overload their core an local networks. Plusnet are trying it but are creaking a bit under the load, while performance to MOST users isn't being harmed yet some are getting sub-standard performance at times.
As I've probably said a ton of times before, Japanese and Swedish for example may have uncapped services, however they also have congested networks. Japanese on 100Mbit rarely see more than 2Mbit of throughput once they are outside their own country. Swedes it's a similar issue unless the traffic is going to certain destinations their ISP is directly connected to. Also at some points in their core networks problems may arise..
The other thing to bear in mind is that most of these had Government assistance in some way. In the case of Sweden tax breaks for the people doing the infrastructure and in the case of Japan a very competition friendly Government that allowed the local equivalent of BT, NTT to install fibre wherever they felt the need on condition they allowed anyone who paid to use it, which NTT did as they are a forward looking company happy to make investment now and see the returns over a longer period. UK people complain like crazy if they aren't getting full throughput on their connection, hate packet loss, hi pings. Without contending the networks madly speeds like that on an unlimited basis just aren't an option. Oh and you forgot to mention that a number of those unlimited ultra quick providers traffic shape (control bandwidth usage) and block certain ports and applications.
Check out the situation in the UK, LLU still in its' infancy, BT's fastest wholesale product is 2Mbit/256k and has been since 2000 public release and 1996 in trials.
What's the point in ntl busting their backs and throwing loads of money on a solution to take on everyone? These deals are better than anything offered by the biggest 3 ADSL players (BT Retail, Tiscali, Wanadoo) and from the point of view of raw connection speed the fastest home connections in the UK outside of 35 Central London Bulldog enabled exchanges.
You can't please everyone all the time, but ntl are doing good business and pleasing the vast, vast majority with this deal. Not much more you could ask really.