[merged] Price increase

[andrew_wallasey]

From AOL's site

*You must have a BT telephone line or live
in an ntl broadband-enabled area

[Neil]

Originally Posted by andrew_wallasey

From AOL's site

And neither service from AOL (over BT phone line via DSL, or using cable modem over ntl's cable network) have a downoad cap/"guideline".

How mad is that-I could get AOL BB (over ntl) with no cap, yet in the same house I could subscribe direct to ntl BB & have a nice download cap/"guideline"...??

I'm sure ntl must have reasons for this dual offering......

[etccarmageddon]

but AOL's offering is more expensive isnt it?

[Neil]

Originally Posted by etccarmageddon

but AOL's offering is more expensive isnt it?

Yes-£27/£28 per month I believe as they offer all their own interactive 'content' from their main portal, along with 0800 Freephone Support.

[etccarmageddon]

and their 1mb price is £34.99 according to the web site - so should people unhappy with NTL's 1mb price increase or CAP should migrate to AOL?

[ian@huth]

Originally Posted by etccarmageddon

and their 1mb price is £34.99 according to the web site - so should people unhappy with NTL's 1mb price increase or CAP should migrate to AOL?

AFAIAA AOL only supply the 600k service via NTL broadband.

[zovat]

Originally Posted by ianathuth

AFAIAA AOL only supply the 600k service via NTL broadband.

according to thier website, they do offer 1M at 34.99 : http://www.aol.co.uk/products/broadb...num/index.html

[MovedGoalPosts]

So AOL might offer 1meg speeds over NTl at £34.99, i.e. cheaper now than ntl will be, but at a slower speed than ntl. Meanwhile AOL 600 k service over ntl gets even less competetive given ntls proposed speed increases.

Or are the AOL cable speeds going to get faster too? But that wouldn't suit their dial up offerrings.
An interesting conundrum me thinks.

*edit AOL may not be subject to a specific cap clause, but they do have the standard overuse / abuse type clauses which would enable them to do an ntl if needed to impose more robust use limits. However AOL did say sometime ago to anticap, when they first launched their services over ntl that they would avoid capping. However I suspect that AOL users arent really "heavy users", as most heavy users wouldn't want to be tied into AOLs proprietary browser and email stuff.

[ian@huth]

Originally Posted by zovat

according to thier website, they do offer 1M at 34.99 : http://www.aol.co.uk/products/broadb...num/index.html

The Platinum 1Mb service is only available via ADSL http://www.aol.co.uk/products/broadb...l?promo=228937

The Gold service is 512k via ADSL or 600k via NTL BB.

[DeadKenny]

Originally Posted by andrew_wallasey

Not one person has been disconnected by NTL for exceeding this limit and there is no plans to disconnect anyone! So therefore I do not see how it will affect the average user.

As I understand it NTL have written recently to a select few customers, those who are the extreme abusers of the cap, and basically told them to stop. If they continue and ignore them you can be very sure NTL have every intention to disconnect them.


NTL should stop worrying about the download speeds though and think more about the connection overload from P2Pers which is what really kills things far more than download saturation I should think.

Originally Posted by etccarmageddon

and their 1mb price is £34.99 according to the web site - so should people unhappy with NTL's 1mb price increase or CAP should migrate to AOL?

A case of which is the better of two evils?

[MovedGoalPosts]

Cap issues do drift away from the original concept of is the price increase, especially broadband, justified. Simply put no.

Caps, even if some consider them to be idle threats, perhaps make the waters more muddy and make the "capped" offerring less attractive than the uncapped. I suspect however the real issue of caps, which was not the point of this thread, was upload not download capacity, whcih ntl's capping policy failed to address.

The point is to look at the base line cost of the service. If you can get cheaper elsewhere, that's where customers will go. On that basis ntl shot themsleves in the foot.

However the subsequent announcement, nodoubt to keep pace with Telewest, of speed increases in BB speeds makes confuses issues. It will be interesting whether punters (excepting the aggravation of chaning from cable to ADSL), want extra speed but pay more, or slightly lesser speed and pay a little less.

We may need to start calculating on the basis of £ per mbps, with a separate table of £ per MB download and work out from that what we, the punter are prepared to pay.

[Mauldor]

Lets break this down - we have on offer a server of 3 speeds, for thos who can Get ADSL (and im guessing this is growing all the time i imagine) have a choice. Now the Average Person who is not well into computers does not know about P2P, News Servers and the like and they probably download or watch some Streaming Video - so im guessing they will be happy to go with either NTL 600 or even ADSL 512 sort of thing.


Now there is another bacth of users who know about such things as NewsServer, P2P and the like - or even getting Linux Distros - thats like 3-5 CD's per One. These Same people i am guessing have the 1mbit service or even the 2mbit ADSL sort of thing.

At the end of the Day though there is no enough choice on NTL as it goes to meet all the types of people out there - all three tiers all have a CAP for example - so in effect there is no POWER USER Service really. I agree that not everybody who has 1mbit service is like downloading 24/7.

Now here is my story - it wont shock you as its about right for NTL.
When the price increase came about - i was on that phone trying to cancel - the man on the other end said well - tell you what - Ill give you 1mbit for half price for 3 months. Sounded a good offer - so i stayed - i even wrote his name down somewhere. Now sure enough my Bill Came in - bugger me daft - full price - now there is a shock. I ring up NTL - who of course have no record of this but they 'claim' they will sort it. I still have the Bill and will ring up again to confirm - they say its half price for 3 months - then great, if not - they not getting the dosh - simple as that

[Neil]

Originally Posted by Mauldor

At the end of the Day though there is no enough choice on NTL as it goes to meet all the types of people out there - all three tiers all have a CAP for example - so in effect there is no POWER USER Service really. I agree that not everybody who has 1mbit service is like downloading 24/7.

Hallelulah!!

At last someone else who sees the point I have been trying to make-ntl=no choice.

Originally Posted by Mauldor

Now here is my story - it wont shock you as its about right for NTL.
When the price increase came about - i was on that phone trying to cancel - the man on the other end said well - tell you what - Ill give you 1mbit for half price for 3 months. Sounded a good offer - so i stayed - i even wrote his name down somewhere. Now sure enough my Bill Came in - bugger me daft - full price - now there is a shock. I ring up NTL - who of course have no record of this but they 'claim' they will sort it. I still have the Bill and will ring up again to confirm - they say its half price for 3 months - then great, if not - they not getting the dosh - simple as that

Been there, had that experience many times. The problem is there is no accountability within ntl-people seem to be able to say/do anything on the phone to a customer & leave no trace, & that's why the situation that you have just encountered is allowed to happen at ntl.

[Chrysalis]

if you work out £per mbit then the top tier is poor value for money

ntl=30 gig per month
30 gig perm month=average rate of 102kbit
so on the top tier you pay 37.99 per 100kbit (£370.9 9 per mbit)

Originally Posted by Chrysalis

ntl=30 gig per month
30 gig perm month=average rate of 102kbit
so on the top tier you pay 37.99 per 100kbit (£370.9 9 per mbit)