1GB Cap Letter!!!!

[Sociable]

The problem for NTL is that it wants to attract new customers with the "promise" that they will be able to do everything they want. They even compound this by linking all the "extra" things broadband can do when selling the entry level package let alone the higher tiers.

The reality is that most of the "extras" are only possible by paying the premium for the 600k or 1 Meg service.

If, having paid a premium, the customer then finds there is some small print that limits access to those extras, they have every right to question the fairness of this.

Some basic facts are clear:

1. No domestic network can sustain 24/7 use at max speed for all users.

This is why there has to be some control to balance individual use so that it does not unfairly impact on others hence the need for an AUP.

2. If a premium is charged for a higher level of service the extra usage of that service must be reflected in what is seen as "acceptable use".

One size fits all clearly does not meet this requirement and so the Cap if any should be tiered based on the level of service.

If not the advertising should clearly state that one is paying for extra speed alone and not extra content.

(NTL can't have its cake and eat it on this one.)

3. The prime problem, as defined by NTL not us, is that the network is at times congested at peak times. i.e. The problem is not the total throughput but how that is balanced between users and over the 24 hour cycle.

The AUP should, therefore, reflect the need to balance load over time as this is the most effective way to reduce congestion at peak times and prevent degradation of the service whilst still allowing the extra use paid for as part of the premium for the higher levels of service.

As for the recent comments, along the lines of "If you don't like it you don't have to stay with NTL", whilst this is certainly true it hardly helps either NTL or any of its customers to take that attitude.

[etccarmageddon]

don't know of that many places that offer cable but not ADSL options now. If ntl is your only choice then you either take it or go on dial-up

where you're too far from the exchange or your line has 'problems' then you cant have ADSL even if BT have enabled your exchange. dial up isnt an alternative as it isnt comparable to broadband.

Originally Posted by Sociable

As for the recent comments, along the lines of "If you don't like it you don't have to stay with NTL", whilst this is certainly true it hardly helps either NTL or any of its customers to take that attitude.

Asdf suggested dial up as an alternative to NTL if you cant get BT ADSL... in my opinion, dial up should be phased out.

[andygrif]

I agree with you, dial up is a pretty ineffecient way of connecting to the internet. But BT do claim that they will have near on 100% coverage by the end of next year - which will be pretty impressive if they make it.

[etccarmageddon]

you might get coverage mate but even with coverage that doesnt guarantee your phone line to the exchange will pass the tests.


anyway.... back to NTL's 1gb per day business model.... will the products of the future force change:-

http://news.zdnet.co.uk/communicatio...9146599,00.htm

I suspect they will!

[Peach]

The AUP should, therefore, reflect the need to balance load over time as this is the most effective way to reduce congestion at peak times and prevent degradation of the service whilst still allowing the extra use paid for as part of the premium for the higher levels of service.

Like I said before, Ntl broadband is a product for the masses. If ntl don't want to cater for those that want a custom service, the only thing that's likely to persuade them is customers leaving in droves, which hasn't happened yet - which implies that most people find the service acceptable as is.

As for the recent comments, along the lines of "If you don't like it you don't have to stay with NTL", whilst this is certainly true it hardly helps either NTL or any of its customers to take that attitude.

I realise it's not helpful. But when have Ntl ever listened? If you keep banging your head against a brick wall, sooner or later you end up with a sore head!

[dizziblonde]

Jumping in after reading this yesterday (amazing what you'll read in the persuit of work avoidance) with my 2p worth.

What concerns me is where we'll go from here... long ago before I moved I was on the parents' BT internet connection. £15.99 a month for "anytime dial-up" (they lived out in the middle of nowhere so that was all there was - dial-up). It started off fine - a 2 hour kick off I could cope with. Then we got the 12 hours a day max or we boot you onto a (practically unuseable) high-users number. Since I moved out I hear that it's now got to a 150 hours maximum a month or we shift you onto pay as you go when you go over that - the initial change in the policy was the start of a very slippery slope.

I moved house recently and one of the factors was that it was into a cabled area (we can't get ADSL - BT haven't done the exchange) and broadband was on my list of priorities to get. Between me and my fella we are probably "normal" users of the service - mainly web-browsing, software patches, the fella plays online CM network games... we don't hammer the connection - but there are weeks when we'd go over the 1 gig limit (I don't have monitoring software - just going on the size of some update files and demo files - the Unreal Tournament one that was mentioned recently). The file sizes seem to have got massive with the explosion of broadband - software manufacturers do seem to be bloating the size of their patches, updates etc because they feel file size doesn't matter as much because "most people have broadband now anyhow." We do - but we're going to be limited - and I can see 6 months or so down the line that NTL WILL start enforcing this limit more strictly - they've left it a year before starting to mention it - once we get used to the friendly letters and stop complaining about that - they'll move onto the next step.

Like I say - I don't download excessively, I don't have streaming radio on all day and night, but I do go over the 1 gig level on more than a few occasions - especially when I'm off work... I'm not a P2P fanatic (got sick of wading through the junk on the networks) - but the cap concerns me because of the precedent it's setting to move the goalposts further in the future.

[asdf]

Originally Posted by etccarmageddon

where you're too far from the exchange or your line has 'problems' then you cant have ADSL even if BT have enabled your exchange. dial up isnt an alternative as it isnt comparable to broadband.

If you don't like ntl then you'd put up with dialup.

[Peach]

because they feel file size doesn't matter as much because "most people have broadband now anyhow." We do - but we're going to be limited - and I can see 6 months or so down the line that NTL WILL start enforcing this limit more strictly - they've left it a year before starting to mention it - once we get used to the friendly letters and stop complaining about that - they'll move onto the next step.

And if they do, this could be the thing that pushes all the 'average' users over the edge. NTL will shoot themselves in the foot, by being the only UK broadband ISP that has and enforces a cap.

[rodd]

Originally Posted by etccarmageddon

but at the end of the day... do our opinions (including Justanother's) make any difference? decisions on this subject are made by people who arent interested in customer feedback (power user group) or simply are 'too busy'?

That is a similar point I was going to make today, myself. We wasted 6 months over on dot com, saying the same things about the cap, and getting nowhere. The points on the cap have now been made, and for long enough to make the point, as they were over on dot com.

We have given the good sensible reasons for changes, and how the changes can be made in how the cap operates. It is management, willing to listen, that we now need to be talking to.

Though the position of the management, when meetings were held with them in dot com days was set, as set of some of the ntlees here.

To continue going round in circles, repeating endlessly the same points to ntlees, and getting nowhere, I feel is wasting our (the customers), valuable time, while the ntlees get paid for doing so (apart from the weekend when they vanish).

We have now shown again that we will not take ntl's poor management and ntl's closed minded decisions quietly. We have also dealt with some of the mindset and attitude here.

Perhaps we should now concentrate more on other aspects of ntl's poor management, there's plenty of it.

[Sociable]

Originally Posted by Peach

Like I said before, Ntl broadband is a product for the masses. If ntl don't want to cater for those that want a custom service, the only thing that's likely to persuade them is customers leaving in droves, which hasn't happened yet - which implies that most people find the service acceptable as is.

Until all customers are informed directly that the Cap exists and is being implemented/enforced your assertion can not be made that people do not object to it.

Interesting proposition for you:

What if the A.S.A. and/or OfCom link the current activity enforcing the Cap to current advertising by NTL and force NTL to include a disclaimer detailing the Cap in all advertising?

Do you think the customers might well decide it is time to move on to pastures new in "droves" and that new customers will decide NTL are not for them either?

Would NTL's position be better if they could, instead, show they have listened to valid comments and suggestions from users and reached a fair and equitable AUP that protected all users whilst honouring the "promise" of being able to use the service as advertised?

This is just a proposition, but maybe just maybe, worthy of consideration by yourself and perhaps more importantly NTL management, to consider when looking at the AUP and its enforcement.

[MovedGoalPosts]

Originally Posted by dizziblonde

Jumping in after reading this yesterday (amazing what you'll read in the persuit of work avoidance) with my 2p worth.

What concerns me is where we'll go from here... long ago before I moved I was on the parents' BT internet connection. £15.99 a month for "anytime dial-up" (they lived out in the middle of nowhere so that was all there was - dial-up). It started off fine - a 2 hour kick off I could cope with. Then we got the 12 hours a day max or we boot you onto a (practically unuseable) high-users number. Since I moved out I hear that it's now got to a 150 hours maximum a month or we shift you onto pay as you go when you go over that - the initial change in the policy was the start of a very slippery slope.

I moved house recently and one of the factors was that it was into a cabled area (we can't get ADSL - BT haven't done the exchange) and broadband was on my list of priorities to get. Between me and my fella we are probably "normal" users of the service - mainly web-browsing, software patches, the fella plays online CM network games... we don't hammer the connection - but there are weeks when we'd go over the 1 gig limit (I don't have monitoring software - just going on the size of some update files and demo files - the Unreal Tournament one that was mentioned recently). The file sizes seem to have got massive with the explosion of broadband - software manufacturers do seem to be bloating the size of their patches, updates etc because they feel file size doesn't matter as much because "most people have broadband now anyhow." We do - but we're going to be limited - and I can see 6 months or so down the line that NTL WILL start enforcing this limit more strictly - they've left it a year before starting to mention it - once we get used to the friendly letters and stop complaining about that - they'll move onto the next step.

Like I say - I don't download excessively, I don't have streaming radio on all day and night, but I do go over the 1 gig level on more than a few occasions - especially when I'm off work... I'm not a P2P fanatic (got sick of wading through the junk on the networks) - but the cap concerns me because of the precedent it's setting to move the goalposts further in the future.

I think you've summed up my main concern with caps quite well. What might seem like an appropriate restriction today, will be inappropriate tommorrow, especially with the way all IT stufff gets bigger as it "improves" with time. Thus the prcedent of a cap is potentially dangerous - it doesn't immediately affect me now, based on my current use patterns, but if it the limit remains set in stone and unalterable, it will catch up with me, and any "average user" one day.

ntl by thier attitude and outdated sysnopsis of what 1GB actually means (10,000 pictures = 1GB - what of a white cat in snow as my fellow anticap colleague recently suggested, what about modern 4 megapixel cameras which are now common place), show a level of intransience, and a dark ages attitude to the real world.

[Peach]

Any customer who is an excessive user, will get informed of the cap. Those that don't come anywhere near exceeding it won't care about it.

Interesting proposition for you:

What if the A.S.A. and/or OfCom link the current activity enforcing the Cap to current advertising by NTL and force NTL to include a disclaimer detailing the Cap in all advertising?

So what if they do, as a consumer I can choose to terminate my contract if I'm not happy with what I'm offered.

Do you think the customers might well decide it is time to move on to pastures new in "droves" and that new customers will decide NTL are not for them either?

Yes, I do. If the cap were strictly enforced or reduced, I'd be unhappy. As it is, it doesn't affect me.

Would NTL's position be better if they could, instead, show they have listened to valid comments and suggestions from users and reached a fair and equitable AUP that protected all users whilst honouring the "promise" of being able to use the service as advertised?

Ntl would be in a better position. But clearly, they don't care what the complaining, heavy using few have to say.

P.S. I work for www.eds.com and am nothing to do with ntl.

[Florence]

Originally Posted by Chrysalis

increased content comes from various things, streaming on the net is increasingly better quality (higher bitrate) maning bigger filesizes, within a year we will see some download a movie online rental sites, if its dvd images then we are talking 4 gig a peice although I expect it to be more likely compressed 1-2 gig size. The future is the problem, every day that goes by is making a 1 gig cap more and more outdated.

The BBC are now working towards opening up their archives top broadband customers. The talks are taking place now with BT and if a deal is struck the cap would mean NTL customers are being discriminated against. By paying NTL the set rate capped by 1gig a day these customers could never watch or download this content. I know it will be over p2p..

[Peach]

The BBC are now working towards opening up their archives top broadband customers. The talks are taking place now with BT and if a deal is struck the cap would mean NTL customers are being discriminated against. By paying NTL the set rate capped by 1gig a day these customers could never watch or download this content. I know it will be over p2p..

So go with BT then? ADSL isn't available in your area? How is this NTLs fault?

[Sociable]

Originally Posted by Peach

So go with BT then? ADSL isn't available in your area? How is this NTLs fault?

Strange as it might seem the purpose of this forum (and this thread) is to try to improve NTL and our combined experience of the services they offer.

Not everyone who complains about the Cap are heavy users some just feel the way the Cap was introduced and is being implimented is wrong for ALL users.

Not everyone that complains about NTL is anti NTL we just want our supplier NTL to be the best THEY can be as this benefits all of us.

I could move to the competition yes, but I choose to stay and fight for a better service from NTL as that is what this site is about.