*ALL* Speed Upgrade Discussion In Here Please (Part 2)

[scrotnig]

Originally Posted by astra_lestat

Then why go to all the pain and introduce 2 and 3 M with crappy caps, while
"great, massive, overwhelming majority of customers are on 300k", and they don't need faster lines so they are pretty happy with what they have, while those who does need faster, are on 750/1.5 but they cannot use 2/3M to its full extent with the caps?

The product needs to be kept competitive.

I am not a spokesman for ntl. I don't personally agree with capping, and I feel the 3gb cap is far too low. However, they were made a harsh reality of life for the self same imbeciles who caused the 'online time limits' that appeared on most unmetered dialup services.

Frankly, it was a bit naive of all the ISPs not to assume the same thing wouldn't happen.

it's all the CD burners.....selling them in pubs. They should be in prison, never mind on the internet.

[jtwn]

Marketing. So they can say stuff like 'send your photos 10 times as fast!!1!!!1' when the speeds they are increasing has nothing to do with sending (BT's ad ).

Just about what looks better i guess, who offers the better service. Capping will always be small print, the 'catch' to the service; all the big companies seem to have gone all out on maximising customers with capping.

But, ic24, i still remember the days of relentless redialing and the joy of when i got through

[astra_lestat]

Originally Posted by jtwn

i still remember the days of relentless redialing and the joy of when i got through

I remember that time too. I didn't even know what is "downloading" then.

[cr80123]

Scrotnig, whilst selling copyrighted material in pubs may possibly be a criminal offence, the sort of thing you're complaining about most certainly isn't. I can download music/films etc. 24 hours a day without any fear of arrest or santion under criminal law.

Originally Posted by cr80123

Scrotnig, whilst selling copyrighted material in pubs may possibly be a criminal offence, the sort of thing you're complaining about most certainly isn't. I can download music/films etc. 24 hours a day without any fear of arrest or santion under criminal law.

- how much of what you download, do you watch ?

[scrotnig]

It's all about 'fair and reasonable use' these days. The service is designed and built around ordinary, residential use. Downloading 24/7 is excessive and not deemed to be 'normal' use.

It's the same contentious issue as the unmetered time caps, and for exactly the same reason. People will never agree on it because they will always claim that any restrictions are a bad thing. Fair point, but the companies will claim that if people hammer the connection 24/7, then they lose money by providing it and the price would need to increase so much to cover that, that it would price ordinary users out of it. Also a fair point.

So, in all reality, here in the real world, the best we can hope for is that caps will be enforced reasonably and realistically. ntl have so far done that, (apart from the somewhat sneaky way they were intoroduced, which I think they learned a lesson over), whether that continues, only time will tell.

[cr80123]

I don't download any copyrighted material, I was just pointing out that it's not a criminal offence.

[ian@huth]

Originally Posted by cr80123

Ian what do you mean by this ?

"I think that you know as well as I do that most broadband customers have a usage below 7 Gb a month (the industry average) and most of them use less than 3 Gb a month."

I assume you're saying the mean usage is 7GB per month but the mode usage is much less, in fact less than 3GB per month?

Quite correct.

The industry has determined that the mean average is around 7 Gb per month. However AFAICR less than 10% of users consume over 60% of bandwidth. If you were to remove the usage of that top 10% then the mean average would fall below 3 Gb per month.

This is why the introductory level of the ISPs that have a 1GB or 2Gb per month cap for around £17.99 are so popular. The users on them have enough bandwidth for their requirements. These introductory level products are gaining customers all the time which makes nonsense of the claims that NTLs caps will result in large customer losses. Broadband users and potential users within NTL cabled areas will be attracted to a service which has an higher cap, albeit only 3 Gb per month, and a higher download speed for the same £17.99. The new 2 Mb and 3 Mb services from NTL will win a lot of customers from ADSL that cannot get more than 512k from ADSL.

[slowcoach]

Originally Posted by ian@huth

Quite correct.

This is why the introductory level of the ISPs that have a 1GB or 2Gb per month cap for around £17.99 are so popular. The users on them have enough bandwidth for their requirements. These introductory level products are gaining customers all the time which makes nonsense of the claims that NTLs caps will result in large customer losses. Broadband users and potential users within NTL cabled areas will be attracted to a service which has an higher cap, albeit only 3 Gb per month, and a higher download speed for the same £17.99. The new 2 Mb and 3 Mb services from NTL will win a lot of customers from ADSL that cannot get more than 512k from ADSL.

I would have thought it more the price that attracted the users to the introductory levels, I would assume that most new users haven't a clue what 1 or 2 Gb allowance actually means in real terms, in fact I would think that all most people see in the adverts is the price, I mean it's not as if ISP's go out of their way to draw attention to the usage allowances.

If interest rates start to rise after the election it will be the users on the lower levels who cancel their connection simply because they will not be able to justify the expenditure for a service they do not make full use of.
Both my neighbours are on the lowest tier with NTL and after playing around with the Internet initially neither of them hardly ever use it anymore, these are the types of user who will cancel when the mortgage rate rise further.
__________________

Originally Posted by cr80123

I don't download any copyrighted material, I was just pointing out that it's not a criminal offence.

I think it is really wonderful that there are so many honest, god fearing people on this forum, they are a credit to their parents.
........IF they are telling the truth that is.

[Wiggz]

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)

[Neil]

Originally Posted by Wiggz

I for one would seriously consider jumping ship if there was a lazy alternative

There is-do you not realise just how easy it is to change to a DSL provider? http://www.cableforum.co.uk/board/sh...78&postcount=1

[JumpyJim]

Excellent link to switching, thanks for sharing

[Horace]

Are there any statistics on the breakdown of users on the different tiers? Not that I'm saying you're wrong Scrotnig but it's just hard to believe. I would of thought the majority of users are on 750k, having been upgraded from 600k since the lowest tier (128k) didn't come in till much later. Maybe something about the profile of 300k users makes them much more likely to call CS should they have any problems ?

[scrotnig]

Originally Posted by Wiggz

<Snip>

Why, why, why, can people not grasp the basic maths of this?

Your option 2 is correct. The company, like most broadband providers, don't want high usage customers, end of. To upgrade the network to accommodate these people, who are a tiny, tiny minority, would cost hundreds of thousands of pounds, and for what return? A few thousand customers (if that!) spending £38 a month? I really don't think so!

The network is already perfectly stable in my area thank you very much...except when some numbskull starts downloading thousands of music tracks and/or movies to burn onto disc and sell in the pub. Why the frig should the cost of my service increase to pay for a network upgrade to allow such people to carry on with that activity?

And please, can nobody jump in and say they download thirty Linux distributions a week.....no sane residential user needs to do that. If you need to do that, then you need to pay a higher price for your service.

In an ideal world I am not in favour of caps, however, historically these numbskulls will abuse the service until it dies. There is no case for a highly profitable company accommodating these people at standard price, so there is certainly no case for ntl doing it, given the fact they have no money and are not making any.

What amazes me is that these high usage people keep threatening to take their business elsewhere, thinking the company will be crippled when they do. Can you people not understand, this is exactly what the company WANT you to do, so please, stop bleating and clear off!

[astra_lestat]

ian@huth



This is why the introductory level of the ISPs that have a 1GB or 2Gb per month cap for around £17.99 are so popular. The users on them have enough bandwidth for their requirements. Broadband users and potential users within NTL cabled areas will be attracted to a service which has an higher cap, albeit only 3 Gb per month, and a higher download speed for the same £17.99. The new 2 Mb and 3 Mb services from NTL will win a lot of customers from ADSL that cannot get more than 512k from ADSL.


You are wrong about a couple of things.

It is popular because there is no other choice. I have talked to a friend who has subscribed to BT 512kbps 5G monthly cap for 17.99.
He is very unhappy with the service. He doesnââ‚ƚ¬Ã¢â€žÂ¢t need this kind of speed for surfing the Internet and e-mails. So, basically he pays money for the speed he doesnââ‚ƚ¬Ã¢â€žÂ¢t use/need and he has no better option.
Ppl who are attracted to 3/5G monthly cap has to pay so much money for speed they do not need.

The new 2 Mb and 3 Mb services from NTL will win a lot of customers from ADSL that cannot get more than 512k from ADSL.
No, it will not attract new customers who is not happy with 512 DSL. Simply because ppl who need better speed they, in most cases, consume more than these ridiculous 30G/40G caps, so there is no point for them to have these higher speeds and pay for them, if they cannot really use them.

scrotnig

A few thousand customers (if that!) spending £38 a month? I really don't think so!
You see? You are wrong. In a particular case with NTL it works very differently, because NTL cable customers also pay for phone line rent and for phone bills and for digital TV. So, it is much more then just 38.

except when some numbskull starts downloading thousands of music tracks and/or movies to burn onto disc and sell in the pub.
You must be kidding. Maybe this happened in the past, a few years ago or so. Nowdays people who sell pirated disks in a public place would be arrested at once, let alone people who buys from them are dolts.

What amazes me is that these high usage people keep threatening to take their business elsewhere, thinking the company will be crippled when they do. Can you people not understand, this is exactly what the company WANT you to do, so please, stop bleating and clear off!
NTL is an Administrator on its own huge network. Admin is deciding what its user can or cannot do. It is clear and simple as this. This means that if NTL wanted people who uses more than 30G per month to leave they would get rid of them long time ago with a snap of fingers.