1GB Cap Letter!!!!

Originally Posted by kronas

i know of plenty of people in my area who have ADSL with the same ISP and dont have contention problems.........

in theory does NTL not have a far lower contention ratio ?

There are a lot less ADSL customers atm so it's not going to be such a problem yet. I know plenty of NTL customers who don't have contention problems, but you can never have a 100% perfect system. Let's remember that ntl have an awful lot of BB customers (800,000+ ?) so if even if only 0.5% of them have a problem at any one time then that is still 4000.

I don't know what ntl's contention ratio is, or even if you can measure it in the same way for cable.

[Stuartbe]

Perhaps some of the users on here should look up the cost of a 2mb leased line !

They may get a bit of a shock..... A leased line is the only service where I would consider constand downloading/uploading as all the bandwidth is mine.....

Theres a big difference between the two !

[kronas]

Originally Posted by pem

There are a lot less ADSL customers atm so it's not going to be such a problem yet. I know plenty of NTL customers who don't have contention problems, but you can never have a 100% perfect system. Let's remember that ntl have an awful lot of BB customers (800,000+ ?) so if even if only 0.5% of them have a problem at any one time then that is still 4000.

ADSL coverage has grown greatly so has the number of users, as other companies start to lower prices for the relative speeds more and more will join, at the moment most ADSL companies can cope, the minority on the cable system dont cause as much problems, its a gross mis calculation on NTL's part, they relied on download usage to be 'modest' rather then high upload usage, they were wrong, and download and upload usage is high.

just look at the cable systems current capabilities.......

Originally Posted by pem

I don't know what ntl's contention ratio is, or even if you can measure it in the same way for cable.

ADSL is 50:1

NTL is 20:1

although NTL's is said to be 15:1 in some areas it varies.

Originally Posted by stuartbe

Perhaps some of the users on here should look up the cost of a 2mb leased line !

They may get a bit of a shock..... A leased line is the only service where I would consider constand downloading/uploading as all the bandwidth is mine.....

* is patiently waiting for his 2mbit ADSL line be activated with unrestricted rights for download or upload

and no its NOT a leased line

[Stuartbe]

Originally Posted by kronas

* is patiently waiting for his 2mbit ADSL line be activated with unrestricted rights for download or upload

and no its NOT a leased line

That sound cool.... But what will happen when all the users on your adsl card are downloading/uploading 24/7 ????

With a leased line you are garenteed the bandwidth - you are not with a domestic line !

[kronas]

Originally Posted by stuartbe

That sound cool.... But what will happen when all the users on your adsl card are downloading/uploading 24/7 ????

well that wont happen, i think the company im going with uses its own pipe......

even if it does happen i have NTL, always been 100% with speeds i cant complain

Originally Posted by stuartbe

With a leased line you are garenteed the bandwidth - you are not with a domestic line !

and the cost rises, unless your willing to pay ? no thank you......

[Florence]

Originally Posted by kronas

* is patiently waiting for his 2mbit ADSL line be activated with unrestricted rights for download or upload

and no its NOT a leased line

Hi Kronas who are you getting the 2mbit adsl from I have a friend who has just migrated from one ISP after 3 months of hell speeds to another where he says things are great.

[kronas]

Originally Posted by Kitty

Hi Kronas who are you getting the 2mbit adsl from I have a friend who has just migrated from one ISP after 3 months of hell speeds to another where he says things are great.

hello hun

well im going with central point ADSL, there were a few other companies i could have choosen but this seemed good enough for me, i rang them a few times to ask them the relative questions i needed to know and they were instantly responded to in a polite manner, even got called back once with the information within minutes.

it costs £35.49 VAT inclusive for 2mbit

Will you introduce bandwidth capping or restrict my downloads ?

We have no intentions to restrict bandwidth, please remember that we buy this service from Telefonica.


http://www.cpbb.co.uk/

[chambece]

I've just had a look at the cost of a leased line, and wow, it is suprising!!

I don't think I use 1G a day, although I do have XBL, and don't take into account that, and am happy with my service, although I think I would get a little annoyed if it was slow.

I think the principle of the cap is a good idea, although I agree that you shouldn't get the same for 150 and 1024.

I think the only way it could ever perhaps become fair if some 'pay as you go' type thing came in - Now I know this would irk people, myself included, but why should my connection be compromised because of other people? You're right, I could download or upload more, "to get my moneys worth", but if I did that the same as the heavy users, then their connection would be affected, and the'd probably get more upset about it than me!

In fact that might be the way to go - everyone ul/dl 100% when you're not 'using the connection' ie browsing or wanting to download something, just to annoy the heavy users. Now I don't actually think that, but I'm just being Devil's Advocate. I have no problem with anyone downloading anything providing it doesn't affect me. If it does, then of course I'm gonna get annoyed - I use it 'fairly'.

Anyway I think that's my rant over - the first I've made on this issue, but once again, just bear in mind that if the heavy downloaders all switch to adsl, then that's gonna get a lot worse on adsl and better on NTL! oh look - you'll all be moving back

oh and the costs of those leased lines (with pipex, monthly...)

64K 58.25
128K 112.50
256K 216.67
512K 416.67
768K 625.00
1024K 820.83
1526K 1208.33
2048K 1625.00

So surely pipex aren't really gonna offer 'unlimited 512K' for £30 a month or whatever, if the service can't cope with it, which it wouldn't if everyone used it all the while.

And incidently how many of the 1M or 'heavy users' customers would switch over to one of these services?

[andygrif]

Sorry for reposting some of my post from yesterday which got sent off into the other thread...but some of is more relevant to this thread now than the other one.....

Here are some solutions. They ain't fool proof, but they're better than the crap that we all have to put up with right now:

1. Pay per use. Simple, take £25 divide by 30gb . you now pay 83p per gb downloaded and uploaded.

2. NTL put contingency plans in place to ensure that their infrastructure copes with demands of traffic. It is inexcusable to blame other customers 'leeching' for me not being able to have an acceptable level of bandwidth.

3. This can be backed up with SLA's (Service Level Agreements). If they do not meet the terms of the SLA, then there can be a very simple metering of percentage of bandwidth versus SLA bandwidth, and if you get half the quoted sum, then you don't pay 83p per gb, you pay 42p per gb. Just like when my commuter trains are so bad I get a percentage discount every month becuse they run below the metered standards.

4. Now I'm on shaky ground here, but I am sure some techical bod with the brain the size of a planet will be able to tell me if this can be done or not.....

Why not group these 'leechers' together and average users together and then the light users together? Would providing bigger pipes to the leechers (cos they're paying more after all now) normal pipes to most of us and smaller pipes to the light users, surely this will mean that everyone (who now pays accordingly) gets the bandwidth they need. Would this work?

5. Another shaky one....could I not elect to increase my bandwidth at a time when I knew I wanted to download lots of stuff, watch streaming videos etc etc etc?

I know that when you rent space on satellites you can do this, when you buy space on transatlantic cables you can do so on a short term basis, even minutes...but what about us mere mortals?

Why can't I select to move myself over to the 'leecher' pipe, and increase my speed to 2mb? I would then be charged accordingly, exactly the same as if I stuck with the 600k, but it would be over in one quarter of the time, which then frees up the average space bandwidth again. Would this work?

Just some thoughts from Planet Common Sense!

[chambece]

Originally Posted by kronas

well im going with central point ADSL, there were a few other companies i could have choosen but this seemed good enough for me, i rang them a few times to ask them the relative questions i needed to know and they were instantly responded to in a polite manner, even got called back once with the information within minutes.

it costs £35.49 VAT inclusive for 2mbit

Will you introduce bandwidth capping or restrict my downloads ?

We have no intentions to restrict bandwidth, please remember that we buy this service from Telefonica.


http://www.cpbb.co.uk/

Hmmm, intresting thing there and I don't know if you caught it......

Let me re-phrase....


We have no intentions to restrict bandwidth, however, please remember that we buy this service from Telefonica, and they're gonna get damn annoyed if our customers max out their connections, preventing their other customers getting a decent service


oh, and from the faqs.......

Are speeds guaranteed ?
As with all other ADSL providers speed cannot be guaranteed, however we are using Telefonica's network and they are one of the largest providers in Europe, the also provide services to other household name ISP's, so you are in good hands.

[Florence]

they look like ways around the problem but to be able to do this you need to know what you are using. Which takes you back to the other thread..

Before NTL enforce these things the need to settle the other problems. resegment bring in the way to monitor than implement these new methods to control over use.

[ntl customer]

I think that although it does state was an 'unlimited' service, it is no longer unlimited. Sure the 1Gb cap a day is rather useless as you can only get about 3 hours usage of it on 1Mb and roughly 6.5 hours usage on 600k (latter is just calculated quickly nothing scientific :pp ) but I think downloading 300Gb a month is a bit excessive - it would equate to downloading 10Gb a day - what exactly is it and what do you do with it?

Personally my usage varies throughout the week and some days can be heavy (2Gb is probably the highest I have ever used) and some days it can be light (100Mb/200Mb). It is not constant 24/7 leeching day in day out. It maybe a fast service but you've got to remember that it is contended (ie. shared) so have respect for other people using it. NTL might be at fault for not providing enough capacity at UBR level and thus the service being crap, slow and badly pinged but what people have to realise is that they have come out of bankruptcy protection, which means they will not have much if not any cash to spend on the network.

However if you think a 1Gb a day 'cap' is bad, then try living down in Australia. You have to pay for a certain level of amount of Gb's you can download per month and if you go over that, then you have to pay per Mb. Let's just hope that doesn't come to the UK.

[chambece]

Originally Posted by JustAnotherN00b

OK. I think a few things need to be said about ADSL.

Firstly, BT's ADSL network is in a lot of areas nowhere near 50:1 contention, because when they run domestic services at that contention they have problems. It's been suggested that some places they have to run as low as 12:1 - 15:1 to keep the service running at top speeds. And no ADSL isn't problem free. I'd draw your attention to http://bbs.adslguide.org.uk - search on there for 1Mbit speed problems, you'll find a fair few where the demand for bandwidth from an exchange outstrips the supply.
(

I've just had a look at the site you suggested - hmmm me thinks I'm happy with NTL!

[Florence]

You are right on some JustAnotherN00b but not all telefonica are the same some have their own network using telefonica to just get the customer to the fat pipe. Take fast 24 they have their own network with routers up and down teh country. They have games servers 1 hop from the authentication router. They do still have some speed issues on the higher end but not as many as other telefonica ISPs.

To decide to move from Cable to ADSL it really needs some research and perhaps access to the forums these ISPs use.


Like all ISPs NTL have faults communication being their worst area is communication. The charge per gig for heavy users seems good but I can see problems there and perhaps a chance for NTL to get greedy and charge everyone more.

[blue jammer]

What would people say is a reasonable amount to charge per extra GIG of data being downloaded? either totalled on a weekly or monthly basis?