*ALL* ntl Cap Discussion Here Please.

[jtwn]

300k on the 15.99 tier

That was mentioned somewhere early in the thread ( and, I think, possibly in the Investor report), but I've not seen it mentioned in the more recent leaked memos. These just say that users on 300K will not be automatically upgraded, as they may wish to keep the current cap.

[jtwn]

It is in the investors report and i got a flyer with my bill saying new bb customers can sign up to the £15.99 tier already.

Question: Where abouts in the chain will the systems which track your usage be? TIA

[Rone]

Originally Posted by jtwn

It is in the investors report and i got a flyer with my bill saying new bb customers can sign up to the £15.99 tier already.

Question: Where abouts in the chain will the systems which track your usage be? TIA

Let me guess, you just bought a soldering iron.

[jtwn]

Haha, stop, you are giving me ideas

[Horace]

Plusnet's usage policy is how "capping" should be done.
http://www.plus.net/features/usage_guide.shtml
Hopefully NTL have something similar in mind but somehow I doubt it.
ADSL is going to be head and shoulders above cable soon and with me getting better pings on an ADSL line to a server in the U.S. I use a lot and already having a BT line about half a mile from the exchange.NTL better give me and the half dozen friends I pimped NTL to when the 600k service first started a good reason to stay or at least no reason to leave. All including me are easily out of contract too.

[ian@huth]

Have you read #9 of http://www.plus.net/support/faq/broa...sage_faq.shtml ?

The Plusnet idea may be OK if you want to stay up until 1:00 am to start your downloads and make sure you stop them by 8:00 am . If you don't and you are heavily downloading then your peak time usage may soon hit the cap. Your peak time usage (17 hours a day) will be restricted and have to be watched.

Who knows how soon Plusnet will have to change their usage model, especially if all the NTL heavy users move over to them?

[Hans Gruber]

Originally Posted by ian@huth

.

Who knows how soon Plusnet will have to change their usage model, especially if all the NTL heavy users move over to them?

And who knows how soon NTL will have to rethink their overpriced, undercapped service? With Nildram's new Broadband2 usage caps it makes NTL's look pretty pathetic. Not only do you get an extra 20gb per month, you also get unlimited usage for 8 hours every night.

With the choice of that and an uncapped 1mbit service from Pipex I'm sure I'm not alone when I say NTL will have to fight to keep my custom.

If NTL's new tariff's weren't competative when they were announced they certainly won't be when they finally get round to rolling out.

edit: Here's the info on Nildram's new tariff for people unfamiliar with it. Off-peak hours are from 12-8am. http://broadband.nildram.net/view_pr...oup=broadband2

Originally Posted by ian@huth

The Plusnet idea may be OK if you want to stay up until 1:00 am to start your downloads and make sure you stop them by 8:00 am .

Or you could just configure your download manager to grab stuff only during these hours. Given that it is virtually no trouble to ensure that big downloads only occur within these hours without having to stay up I can`t see any problem with that service at all.

[DieDieMyDarling]

And anyone using P2P doesn't really expect a maxed out service anyway, so they'd happily share it with other people doing the same thing, and probably not notice any drop in speeds, even if there were a lot of people doing it at the same time.

[Chrysalis]

Originally Posted by ian@huth

Have you read #9 of http://www.plus.net/support/faq/broa...sage_faq.shtml ?

The Plusnet idea may be OK if you want to stay up until 1:00 am to start your downloads and make sure you stop them by 8:00 am . If you don't and you are heavily downloading then your peak time usage may soon hit the cap. Your peak time usage (17 hours a day) will be restricted and have to be watched.

Who knows how soon Plusnet will have to change their usage model, especially if all the NTL heavy users move over to them?

Flawed argument, since even at peak time plusnet have matched ntl's cap.

So you could argue ntl's cap is enough which in that case you dont need to stay up late do you?

Whats funny is their is claims one minute the ntl needs to get these heavy users off, then the next minute we told its only coupld of hundred users to maybe couple of thousand, NTL have what a 3gig+ network, 2000x1.5mbit doesnt come close to that, someone has lied what gives?

[Horace]

My own "heavy" downloads are usually via usenet so I can easily schedule downloads overnight. In fact I aready do since it allows me to play online games without extra lag in the early evening.Nothing I download is that urgent. I don't even get close to the soft cap now but it's a psycological thing and Plusnet have recognised that. No need to watch how much you're downloading since you get 3 warnings and then clampdown is if your usage is over on 3 consecutive months, I'd never breech that, especially with the overnight usage allowances. If the suggestions that caps will apply over a 24 hour period on NTL are correct I can't see me stopping a day longer than I have to since I know I *occasionally* download over a gig day (mostly overnight at that). I'm not a heavy user by any means. In the last 11 days, since I restarted logging downloads on Netlimiter I've downloaded 7 gig, 3 of those days went over 1gig by 1-200,000 k. I'd have been stuck on 56k for those days even tho' on other days I downloaded less than 200,000k. Hopefully these are just rumours or ideas floating about and when the hard caps are imposed NTL will see sense or borrow Plusnet's ideas.

[monkey2468]

dont know if this has already been posted
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/03...roadband_hogs/

[Rone]

Yep its true, this is from the Nildram press release.:

News & Press Releases > Nildram addresses 'capping' issue with clear...
Nildram has introduced a fair usage policy as part of changes to its new broadband services, announced today1, to address the issue of heavy Internet usage and provide users with 'head-room' for downloading. To ensure that it is able to provide all of its customers with a continued high quality service, Nildram is introducing a usage limit of 50GB per month for non-business customers, which applies between 8.00am - midnight. Outside of this time, no usage limit will apply.

From July, customers that exceed the 50GB limit will still be able to continue their service at 64kb for the rest of their billing month or buy extra bandwidth at 99p per GB. Users that do not exceed their 50GB allowance will be able to carry over unused usage to the following month.

That was decided yesterday, they are however cutting the £44pm for 2 meg to £25pm.
Better off at Bulldog imo 4meg and a phoneline, no cap, for £39 pm.
Like someone said on here a while back [might have been Ignition] it looks like caps are being introduced across the board.

[Hans Gruber]

I could completely live with Nildram's cap, It seems like they actually thought about it and really suits everyone apart from ridiculously heavy downloaders. If you need/want to you could get well over 200gb a month, without affecting anyone's browsing. It's the kind of cap NTL needs to think about inplementing.