[ian@huth]

NTL cable broadband is a contended service. If it wasn't you would not be getting 10 Mbps for £37.99. A contended service relies on peoples usage fitting the profile of the target market that the service was designed for.

As there is only around 38 Mbps available on the UBR for the area of which you are a part it doesn't take much maths skills to work out that only four customers trying to max out their 10 Mbps connection will result in none of them getting the full whack. As there are probably several hundred customers on that UBR it is also obvious that there will be a fair percentage of them online at the same time, particularly in the evening and at weekends, each taking up part of that 38 Mbps. Many users will find it impossible to get the full 10 Mbps with only a very small fraction of the NTL user base on that tier. As more and more of the user base gets upgraded so the chance of getting full whack will reduce.

The saving grace is that most users will not be running applications which utilize the full bandwidth available. There will however be users who try to download the entire internet at full whack 24/7 but their usage at that rate will be short lived. Those bandwidth hogs and everyone else on the UBR that they use will suffer a deterioration in speed until such time as their usage is curtailed, which it will, one way or another.

Due to the contended nature of NTL's broadband service there will be times, many times, when users will only get a fraction of the 10 Mbps. There are no consumer laws which could be used if you find you are only getting a fraction of the tier speed that you are on. Your only recourse would be to look elsewhere for an ISP that has a product that better fits your needs if one actually exists.