Sorry - been trying to keep out of this but I can't.
What are the reasons for capping then? Is it to curb the downloading of copyright material? Is it to curb the technical queries that the nice people at NTL receive each and every day, or is it in fact, like most cable/telcos, that they do not wish to spend a large amount of budgeted cash on the upgrade of various networking linchpins in order to provide a much more stable, and speedy environment.
I wager that the latter is closest. NTL have never been a company who place Customer Service high on their agenda as far as Continuous Improvement goes. And to be totally honest I don't blame them.
The idea of Broadband caps, and Broadband speed increases is ridiculous, and such a blatant marketing scam it's just bordering on the naive for people to think this is a step forward.
The caps are aimed at customers for two reasons:
1) They don't have, or want to have a definitive plan for upgrading of network infrastructure to handle the 'constant' speeds they claim to offer in advertisments (whatever medium they are in)
2) They want to get rid of High usage customers. End of.
When you look at an average month, Microsoft updates combine to represent approximately 100MB downloads (give or take). Say then that you only use your llink for browsing the Web. The amount of downloadable clips, music, and other media from sites now is immense (and growing). the 3GB cap will easily be breached. Online gaming is another thing....I can seriously see another tier being brought in for Gaming needs (going back to the dark days of pay as you play subscriptions to servers etc.....)
All these posters talking about NTL not losing much customer base - how correct you are. NTL have, without a shadow of a doubt, most customers by the short and curlys. What Cable options do we have to jump to from NTL? Anyone? That's correct - none. The Cablecos have generously divided the country into sections, and for the most part, youhave a choice of 2-3 providers.
OK, so we can jump to ADSL. Of course we could, but the majority of users, (as most of you say) are just happy having everything (TV, Telephone, Net access etc..) all under the one (laughable) Customer Service Umbrella. And again, I cannot blame them for this either....the fact is that NTL are taking advantage of their Customer's shallow technical abilities, and also the fact that the majority of users, are in fact, lazy buggers. (like myself)
So taking all of that into consideration, you would have thought that NTL, knowing they have a loyal (for whatever reason) customer base, could see there way clear to actually giving something back. Their sugar coated delivery of Speed Increases seem great on those cheesy-ditty Adverts and Customer Service lines, however in reality, technical users (or just those with common sense perhaps?) see the Speed increases as a sweatner to ease us into the Hard Cap age.
It is true that other ISP's are following suit.....but we are not interested in other ISPS. Blueyonder don't currently cap. AOL don't. So please don't sit there and post crap about making "NTL a competative product" - utter nonsense.
The point is, most users either don't agree with this, don't want it, or just don't know/understand about it yet.
I for one would seriously consider jumping ship if there was a lazy alternative
By the way, one little question of my own - I saw recently on these forums about NTL possibly charging £1.99 per GB over the cap? What is the story with going over Caps then...or will it simply not be possible due to Hard Capping (in whcih case, Modem config editing is bound to be rife again - or WiFi piggy-backing will increase)
Cheers
Wiggz (apologies for spelling errors, 'tis early)
