1GB Cap Letter!!!!

[garyparson]

Originally Posted by monkeybreath

Going back to ians car analogy- i might buy a car which can do 0-60 in 6 seconds, doesn't mean that i am going to that every time i accelerate, but if i am late, it might come in handy once in a while. This car would cost me alot more than a model that takes 20 seconds to do 0-60 but if i am willing to pay extra, then that is my choice.

Here's your NTL Ferrari, you can do 200mph. (bandwidth)

Here's your £1 of petrol. (cap)

Enjoy.

NTL.

[chickendippers]

If you look at the BT, Wanadoo and tiscali bandwidth limits and compare with ntl's - ntl still comes out on top.

However when ntl start introducing bandwidth caps, they should be peak-time caps, so that your usage is limited during the day/evening but is unlimited at night. As that is the true purpose of the limits.

[purenuman]

Originally Posted by garyparson

Here's your NTL Ferrari, you can do 200mph. (bandwidth)

Here's your £1 of petrol. (cap)

Enjoy.

NTL.

Oh dear! That NTL Ferrari must be sick..........
It's making a sound like somebody grasping at straws

Anyway seeing as these comparisons with cars seem quite popular in here I feel I must correct you

It is more like:

"Here's your NTL Ferrari, you can do 200mph (bandwidth).
Here's your full tank of petrol.
Please don't use more than a quarter of a tank every day (no cap just a guide).
If you do and you keep doing it AND your excessive use of the petrol stops others using the NTL Ferrari we will have to ask you not to use so much."

That's more like it and it doesn't sound so bad now

[jonifen]

Aye, unlimited usage at evening time would be better and cap it (1gb) during the day between say 7am and 10pm. Most people download the bigger files overnight as they hate waiting.

[astra_lestat]

Originally Posted by purenuman

Oh dear! That NTL Ferrari must be sick..........
It's making a sound like somebody grasping at straws

Anyway seeing as these comparisons with cars seem quite popular in here I feel I must correct you

It is more like:

"Here's your NTL Ferrari, you can do 200mph (bandwidth).
Here's your full tank of petrol.
Please don't use more than a quarter of a tank every day (no cap just a guide).
If you do and you keep doing it AND your excessive use of the petrol stops others using the NTL Ferrari we will have to ask you not to use so much."

That's more like it and it doesn't sound so bad now

"Here's your NTL Ferrari, you can do 200mph (bandwidth).
Here's your Hightway with speed limit 200mph.
Please don't drive any farther than 1 mile per day (no cap just a guide).
If you do and you keep doing it AND your excessive use of highway stops others using the NTL Ferrari we will have to ask you not to use so much."

That's more like it.

[cr80123]

Well, to continue with the ridiculous car analogy, it actually works out that you can do about 160 miles.

[purenuman]

Originally Posted by astra_lestat

"Here's your NTL Ferrari, you can do 200mph (bandwidth).
Here's your Hightway with speed limit 200mph.
Please don't drive any farther than 1 mile per day (no cap just a guide).
If you do and you keep doing it AND your excessive use of highway stops others using the NTL Ferrari we will have to ask you not to use so much."

That's more like it.

You mean it suits your argument better

It is nowhere near that restrictive if it was then NTL BB would be next to useless.
The vast majority of NTL BB users would not even notice if NTL had a hard cap as they don't get near that amount of data and most are glad of the extra speed............hardly useless is it?

You need some more straws............

Originally Posted by cr80123

Well, to continue with the ridiculous car analogy, it actually works out that you can do about 160 miles.

the reason the car analogy doesn't work, is because it is not possible to allow the car to continue while the driver is absent.

With broadband you can set up your downloads & walk away & leave it running.

What might work is a train analogy - i.e. with a 'dead man' switch - as soon as you leave your pc it shuts off

[purenuman]

Originally Posted by cr80123

Well, to continue with the ridiculous car analogy, it actually works out that you can do about 160 miles.

[brits]

All i can say is get a mini and £1.00 goes a lot further....

[jonifen]

Originally Posted by homealone

the reason the car analogy doesn't work, is because it is not possible to allow the car to continue while the driver is absent.

could always stick a brick on the accelerator and jump out? :P

Getting a mini using this car analogy is like dropping to the slower package to make the cap last longer. However, the 1Mb connection has a 3Gb cap per month which is worse... like having 20p worth of petrol in the mini

[Rakhal]

Just pondering another solution for the congestion problem. I'm not sure how techically possible this is, but is it possible to make one users traffic 'low priority' traffic. In other words their packets would only get delivered if no non-low priority packets are being delivered.

If so, then after a given user has used their limit for the day, they don't get their speed reduced, but they get put onto the low-priority list for the remainder of that day.

That way if there's no congestion they will still get their 3MB, but if the pipe fills up it will be the heavy users that will get degraded service first. Only if the pipe is totally filled by non low-priority customers will they see any degradation (which should be rather rare). And if that does happen the heavy users will basically be shut out of the net altogether (til it quietens down a bit)

A more advanced solution would be to allow a user that's gone over the daily limit a small amount of normal priority traffic (say 56K worth), with the balance being low-priority traffic. That would be harder to do, but would be nicer on the heavy users, allowing them to do normal email/browsing even at peak-time congested periods.

Is this feasible at all. Would anyone go for it?

--Rakhal

[SMHarman]

Could it be done? Probably if the hardware has QoS parameters that could be easily changed, realistically it would be difficult.

[jonifen]

Originally Posted by Rakhal

Just pondering another solution for the congestion problem. I'm not sure how techically possible this is, but is it possible to make one users traffic 'low priority' traffic. In other words their packets would only get delivered if no non-low priority packets are being delivered.

If so, then after a given user has used their limit for the day, they don't get their speed reduced, but they get put onto the low-priority list for the remainder of that day.

That way if there's no congestion they will still get their 3MB, but if the pipe fills up it will be the heavy users that will get degraded service first. Only if the pipe is totally filled by non low-priority customers will they see any degradation (which should be rather rare). And if that does happen the heavy users will basically be shut out of the net altogether (til it quietens down a bit)

A more advanced solution would be to allow a user that's gone over the daily limit a small amount of normal priority traffic (say 56K worth), with the balance being low-priority traffic. That would be harder to do, but would be nicer on the heavy users, allowing them to do normal email/browsing even at peak-time congested periods.

Is this feasible at all. Would anyone go for it?

--Rakhal

How would they enforce this? It seems a difficult solution to a problem they have already found their own preferred fix for (a "usage policy"). They'd need the UBRs (or connected devices) to monitor each connection and then sort out priorities. Would be easier to force a slower connection and I think they'd go for that in the long run.

I think so anyway...

[Rakhal]

Well, monitoring they'll have to do anyway, if they want to introduce a 'hard' cap. Something must know when you've hit the limit in real-time so your connection can be cut/slowed down in a timely manner. All that would change is that instead of cutting/slowing your connection, your connection is made 'low priority' instead. The only question is, does the UBR hardware support the concept of traffic priority?

The reason I sort of like this is that it will actually reduce peak-time congestion. Heavy users will automatically get shunted as the bandwidth required increases and the normal users should only rarely see a degradation on their service. Especially since peak-time tends to be in the evening, when the heavy users have likely already used their gig for the day.
Also if for some reason 'off peak' periods become congested as well, the same effect will automatically apply, so you don't get the problem of a free-for-all period making the network unusable for light users.
On the plus side foe heavy users, if the network is NOT congested they can blast away as much as they like (may have to add a small external transfer charge if the amount they transfer incurs unreasonable charges to NTL due to this)