[ian@huth]

One of the problems with the cost of internet connections is that many users have been so used to free this that and the other together with services being supplied at under cost price that they fail to realise what a realistic price should be. Over the past few years most ISP's have been fighting for market share and have used price points way below cost in order to tempt customers to join them. Customers have not only had below cost subscriptions but have also had very little contention affecting their service. A culture has grown up which believes that you should always get "the speed that you pay for". With the new 10 Mb service you are getting posts which complain that they are only getting 8Mb or so which they think is caused by something wrong with their modem or the NTL network. As more and more customers are upgraded, particularly those on the lower tiers this is only going to impact more with 10 Mb hardly ever being achievable.