[merged] Price increase

[Charlie_Bubble]

Originally Posted by Nikko

There are some very valid points made here.

My local Council pride themselves on being state of the art - ( they have an e-mail addy) Given the hardware/connection charges/bandwidth/software charges for this have (allegedly, according to contributions above) reduced, why then is my council tax demand above the rate of inflation?

Do you actually, seriously believe your local council tax is made up entirely of the IT budget of your local council?

[Nikko]

Originally Posted by Charlie_Bubble

Do you actually, seriously believe your local council tax is made up entirely of the IT budget of your local council?

Of course not!

They also empty my bin unless its a week that falls anything within 3 months of a bank holiday

But seriously, inflation is the salient point of my post above. Costs for aspects of network provision may be relatively lower, but Staffing, fuel, general overheads are nevertheless higher.

[DVS]

And at best I'd bet the two equate quite nicely, ie inflation driving up costs and network savings, so why a £3 increase?

[Charlie_Bubble]

Originally Posted by Nikko

Of course not!

They also empty my bin unless its a week that falls anything within 3 months of a bank holiday

But seriously, inflation is the salient point of my post above. Costs for aspects of network provision may be relatively lower, but Staffing, fuel, general overheads are nevertheless higher.

However, NTL are in the technology business, so if the majority of their investments are in technology-related products, which have prices reducing/power increasing, then they should see overall savings or at least increasing returns on their investments. NTL have just announced they are making about 1500 people redundant, primarily in the expensive south and relocating them to the relatively cheaper north, presumably reducing their staffing costs.

I don't think that people would have too much trouble with a slight increase in various products if they though that they were getting a good deal in the first place, but when you sit on NTL broadband with a gig a day cap, crap email servers, non-existant newsgroup servers, pages not loading and you see that you are already paying slightly more than someone on a similar product to you provided by one of NTL competitors, who has all these features working properly and then you get told your product is going up over 8.5%, then you begin to think you're being taken for a ride.

[erol]

Originally Posted by Nikko

There are some very valid points made here.

My local Council pride themselves on being state of the art - ( they have an e-mail addy) Given the hardware/connection charges/bandwidth/software charges for this have (allegedly, according to contributions above) reduced, why then is my council tax demand above the rate of inflation?

Well it's either because they have NTL connections or because the vast majority of the councils functions are not subject to or follow the trends of 'digital economics'

Maybe when you can remove trash (or house people or any other 'real world' function of the council) over a digital network you might be able to start expecting a year on year decrease in cost (or year on year increas in the amiunt of trash removed at same cost)

[etccarmageddon]

if it was about increased costs and/or about generating more revenue then the price for the 600k service would have been increased.

£1 on the 600k monthly cost would generate more cash than £3 on the 1mb service.

[Florence]

Originally Posted by etccarmageddon

if it was about increased costs and/or about generating more revenue then the price for the 600k service would have been increased.

£1 on the 600k monthly cost would generate more cash than £3 on the 1mb service.

Well instead of getting £3 more they are now getting £10 less off me. Will not bother going back to 1mb unless they return it to the old price or use the same type of deal that Telewest use. Another product of them you only pay £34.99 I have the phone for now but considering stopping that and all using our mobiles.

[ZrByte]

Originally Posted by Mauldor

When i went back to BT (phone) it was like a breath of fresh air - yes i never thought i would say that about BT but wait - my overall bill per month is cheaper and when i had downtime they gave me back £20 - this for 4 days when my line was out of action.

Though that £20 sounds good for a mere 4 days of phoneline outage, in the 7 years of having a cable phone (Was Nynex first, then CW, now NTL) we have never had any outages.
Dont know about you but personally I would rather not have any outages at all.

Though I do agree with most of your other points (Wich I didnt bother to quote to keep my post short)

[Mauldor]

Originally Posted by Nikko

There are some very valid points made here.

My local Council pride themselves on being state of the art - ( they have an e-mail addy) Given the hardware/connection charges/bandwidth/software charges for this have (allegedly, according to contributions above) reduced, why then is my council tax demand above the rate of inflation?

Ahh councils - ive worked in a few of them and they buy from whatever supplier they have picked - regardless with the fact that its normall 10x higher than everybody else in the world. To give a example - one council i worked in were happy to pay £110K for a wiring job - i came in to take over the project and once i had shopped around and compared quotes etc i reduced this bill down to £50k. Same goes for the line they were going to buy in from BT - they were very close to buying a 2mbit Leased line from BT - when i checked around and Telewest were prepared to offer a 45mbit line for £145 (yup thats right) a month + Vat like....

[poolking]

I downgraded from 1Mb to 150k on Friday, I was going to downgrade anyway, price rise or not.

[ynwa]

Originally Posted by Neil

I am already with Pipex, & am certain that you won't be disappointed.

Thats where i am off to now. Save a few quid on the one meg, plus the money i have to pay for a proper news service.

[kronas]

i saw the leaflet sent to a freind of mine yesterday with his bill, the one that is in pdf format on here........as soon as i get mine ill be complaining

and proberbly be changing suppliers if i can get a decent effficently working ADSL ISP on 2meg

[Florence]

Originally Posted by kronas

i saw the leaflet sent to a freind of mine yesterday with his bill, the one that is in pdf format on here........as soon as i get mine ill be complaining

and proberbly be changing suppliers if i can get a decent effficently working ADSL ISP on 2meg

The only 2mb packages around now are the datastream ones they take a while to set up as BT do thair bit then the other telco either Tiscali or Mediways has to sort out their bit before the ISP can give you your details.

BT are about to launch 2mb later this year but its rumoured it will be dear so best wait and see or if you are lucky enough to live in bulldogs area then you are laughing they will have more speed than any other ISP soon. They seem to be the only forward thinking company about.

Originally Posted by Mauldor

when i checked around and Telewest were prepared to offer a 45mbit line for £145 (yup thats right) a month + Vat like....

I want one of them .....

[Defiant]

Originally Posted by Pem

I want one of them .....

That would be nice even if a few shared