[Now Official] More ntl speed changes

[Ignition]

Originally Posted by BBKing

You're so sharp you'll cut yourself. Indeed, not all ntl people are herded into on-net areas

That's on the roadmap for 2006 isn't it next to world domination?

[Stuart]

Originally Posted by Ignition

That's on the roadmap for 2006 isn't it next to world domination?

So it's not just "coming soon" then?

[Chrysalis]

On the argument of subsidising, its a way of life.

Road tax is better value for those who travel hundreds of miles a day and worst value for someone who uses their car rarely, but its life.

Most internet type services work the same way, datacentre's who sell servers and allow 1TB traffic per month would obviously be in a lot of trouble if all their customers were using that kind of traffic but most of their customers use under 200gig, with just a small % using the full allocation, another example.

Why should residental broadband be excluded from this type of marketing? Personally my average usage is approx 30gig/month, I have peaked at 46 gig and some months I have used as low as 8 gig, but I would expect my average usage to go up. In all forms of marketing to gain market share involves having less profitable customers, even some that make a loss, what hasn't been mentioned here and taken into account is what happens if this 5% customers stop reccomending ntl to people and instead bad mouth ntl, the effect is less total customers to ntl and less turnover, the rule of business is to keep all customers happy if possible. I am sure it wouldnt be too hard for ntl to accomodate people who use more traffic at a reasonable price point. The top tier is almost 50% more expensive then the middle tier and it allows 33% more traffic. Giving that high speeds is only truly useful for file transferring you would want the extra traffic to go with it and this is why I think out the 3 tiers the top one stands out by far as the worst value.

[AdamD]

Did any of you guys/gals see the "NTL Freedom" dial up/broadband packages being offered for BT Subscribers?
Reason I Ask is, their broadband offering is 512k and has a 5GB per month allowance/cap

[ian@huth]

The thing that I don't understand is the idea some people have that doubling the speed of a tier should automatically double the usage allowance. I subscribe to the idea that doubling speed means that I will get what I want in half the time. I can't see the point in thinking that I have to download twice as much simply because I have the ability to do so.

[DVS]

I don't believe anybody has said they expect to download twice as much when the speed doubles? What has been said is that people want to continue downloading what they do now.

As to doubling the usage allowance I don't believe we currently have one. We have a usage guideline not an allowance. Obviously we don't yet know wether the figures so far divuldged by NTL regarding the service teirs next year wil be a guideline or a hard cap.

[etccarmageddon]

Originally Posted by Chrysalis

On the argument of subsidising, its a way of life.

Road tax is better value for those who travel hundreds of miles a day and worst value for someone who uses their car rarely, but its life.

on the roads you wont find 5% of all road users making 67% use of the road network! and those that use the roads most will pay the most in petrol taxes - the road tax element is a fraction of the cost to the road user.

Originally Posted by Chrysalis

...In all forms of marketing to gain market share involves having less profitable customers, even some that make a loss...

if the stats are right then these arent less profitable customers - these are customers that are paying the same as everyone else but using 10 times as much. there's no way a set of customers who are taking that much of the service are 'less profitable'.

No service provider wants a minority such as 5% sucking out 67% of the service they offer. see this http://www.staywarm.co.uk/pages/defa... a montly rate note at the bottom "Powergen Staywarm is designed for households that do not use very large amounts of energy, some households may therefore not qualify to join." Also note that some Staywarm customers who are considered 'heavy' users have been forced to leave or pay a higher tarriff.

Originally Posted by Chrysalis

...what hasn't been mentioned here and taken into account is what happens if this 5% customers stop recomending ntl to people and instead bad mouth ntl, the effect is less total customers to ntl and less turnover...

a drop in the ocean as you still have 95% on board and word of mouth isnt as effective as dropping leaflets through doors offering 3 months free etc...

...the rule of business is to keep all customers happy if possible.

true but not if 5% are taking up most of your resources. assuming these stats are true then if you get rid of the 5% (50,000 customers) you can replace them with another 500,000 without any network upgrading.

...I am sure it wouldnt be too hard for ntl to accomodate people who use more traffic at a reasonable price point....

I think the only way to go for high users is making them pay per extra GB above 40GB and only available on the 3mb service. when they start paying it will encourage people to only download what they need.

The top tier is almost 50% more expensive then the middle tier and it allows 33% more traffic. Giving that high speeds is only truly useful for file transferring you would want the extra traffic to go with it and this is why I think out the 3 tiers the top one stands out by far as the worst value

and the middle tier is 40% more than the low tier but gives you 100% more - so the middle one is the best value. I suspect the top tier will come down to £35 and is priced so highly because they think the people who go for it are willing to pay a premium.


going back to this 'statistic' - 5% use 67%... it could simply be that the 95% is made up of people who hardly use the internet! ie. they just browse for a couple of hours a day.

[Neil]

Wouldn't it just be a good idea to wait & see what ntl confirm about the new caps/guidlines?

Be grateful for small mercies I say-those of you who have a good BB service from ntl have had a right result, those who don't have that have a choice....

But at the end of the day, (like the original cap scenario), there's really not that much to discuss anymore until ntl make the next announcement IMO.

Originally Posted by Neil

Wouldn't it just be a good idea to wait & see what ntl confirm about the new caps/guidlines?

You read my mind!

[Stuart]

Originally Posted by etccarmageddon

if the stats are right then these arent less profitable customers - these are customers that are paying the same as everyone else but using 10 times as much. there's no way a set of customers who are taking that much of the service are 'less profitable'.

Therefore, the variable costs associated with these customers also go up 10 times, and so the customers would be less profitable.

[SMHarman]

Originally Posted by etccarmageddon

on the roads you wont find 5% of all road users making 67% use of the road network! and those that use the roads most will pay the most in petrol taxes - the road tax element is a fraction of the cost to the road user.

And road tax for the really heavy users (HGV's, coaches etc) that are on the road more of the time is higher, they pay a business level road tax, not a personal road tax.

Originally Posted by etccarmageddon

a drop in the ocean as you still have 95% on board and word of mouth isnt as effective as dropping leaflets through doors offering 3 months free etc...

But dropping these 5% improves life for the other 95% so you get 95% of your customers raving and recommending, not complaining about pings etc.

Originally Posted by etccarmageddon

true but not if 5% are taking up most of your resources. assuming these stats are true then if you get rid of the 5% (50,000 customers) you can replace them with another 500,000 without any network upgrading.

Someone famous said you can keep most of the people happy most of the time, that is what this will do.

[DieDieMyDarling]

But dropping these 5% improves life for the other 95% so you get 95% of your customers raving and recommending, not complaining about pings etc.

That will only work when the ntl service actually works better. Getting rid of heavy users won't fix that. I've been very happy with the pricing of my 1.5mb connection, with only a guideline that sometimes i go over, i've never had a problem with speeds, always getting my top download speed when wanted, but the fact remains that the email servers are unreliable, the news servers are mostly unobtainable, and the tech support takes forever to get through to, probably because there are so many other people having problems.

I don't think i've ever heard of an Ntl customer raving and recommending the Ntl service! I've heard MANY slate it though, and i've seen MANY posting on here about the countless problems they've had, most of which can't be explained away as being the fault of heavy users.

[ian@huth]

The trouble these days is that a number of people want the world, and a little bit more, for nothing. They want the biggest slice of the cake but aren't prepared to pay their fair share for it.

There are complaints with NTL about email and newsgroups not being up to scratch and long waits for assistance on the phone. These things could be remedied quite easily if enough money is thrown at them, but where is this money to come from?

NTL have spent a lot of money in recent times in upgrading the network, but how much of this has been spent to ensure that the really heavy users don't impact on the average user? It is easy for a heavy user to say that they never have problems so there is nothing wrong with trying to max out their connection, but they don't know if NTL have spent an extra £8,000 or whatever a UBR card costs to eliminate the impact of their heavy use.

[SMHarman]

Originally Posted by DieDieMyDarling

That will only work when the ntl service actually works better. Getting rid of heavy users won't fix that. I've been very happy with the pricing of my 1.5mb connection, with only a guideline that sometimes i go over, i've never had a problem with speeds, always getting my top download speed when wanted, but the fact remains that the email servers are unreliable, the news servers are mostly unobtainable, and the tech support takes forever to get through to, probably because there are so many other people having problems.

I don't think i've ever heard of an Ntl customer raving and recommending the Ntl service! I've heard MANY slate it though, and i've seen MANY posting on here about the countless problems they've had, most of which can't be explained away as being the fault of heavy users.

True, I've given up on news (a lack of time helps here too), and use iweb for email, so don't see the poor mail service. But as a fat pipe to my house they are great.

[etccarmageddon]

Originally Posted by ianathuth

The trouble these days is that a number of people want the world, and a little bit more, for nothing. They want the biggest slice of the cake but aren't prepared to pay their fair share for it.

There are complaints with NTL about email and newsgroups not being up to scratch and long waits for assistance on the phone. These things could be remedied quite easily if enough money is thrown at them, but where is this money to come from?

NTL have spent a lot of money in recent times in upgrading the network, but how much of this has been spent to ensure that the really heavy users don't impact on the average user? It is easy for a heavy user to say that they never have problems so there is nothing wrong with trying to max out their connection, but they don't know if NTL have spent an extra £8,000 or whatever a UBR card costs to eliminate the impact of their heavy use.

I dont see how there's any way to accomodate a 5% user section (if) it uses 67% of the resources. Simply because there's no way these people are going to pay around £250 a month for their usage (10 times £25). I think the answer will be a GB charge over the 40GB allowance which will make these people cut down their usage to a more realistic level - obviously if they want to use 240GB a month and are willing to pay say £100 for the extra bit then everyone's happy but it's most likely that the 'over eaters' will cut down their consumption.