[Update] A request - do NTL traffic shape? (Yes, they do)

Originally Posted by FCC

OK, let's wait and see. I guess the "big boss" is an NTL one and not a cableforum boss.

Yep a very Senior Member of NTL who's virgin on being crazy for getting involved with NTL. Wonder if he likes the company he is involved with lying to customers, Changing the level of service without telling his customers. Introducing a system that affects the level of service a customer has without telling them, And of course not adding it to there AUP so the average user does not know they have had there service level changed.

The long and short of this is that a customer is ineffect having the level of service adjusted depending on the time of day but still paying for a full service..

[SnoopZ]

Originally Posted by Bill C

The long and short of this is that a customer is ineffect having the level of service adjusted depending on the time of day but still paying for a full service..

This must be happening in congested areas only then as i currently haven't had any restriction on my speed.

Originally Posted by SnoopZ

This must be happening in congested areas only then as i currently haven't had any restriction on my speed.

This is what i have been informed is supposed to be happening. I do think something has been done as my speed is back to the norm for this area which i do not have any complaints about. I don't mind Shaping due to the fact that if its done CORRECTLY then it is beneficial to all users in peak demand times. If they feck it up then a light house in the desert is of more use.

Didn't get chance to query this yesterday due to work commitments. I will try later.

[ziggycat]

Ive just had an engineer out to replace my modem due to speed issues.
Heres what I'm noticing re. traffic shaping

Normal web browsing is fine, I downloaded sp2 for office03 from the microsoft website a 100meg file(twice), and got a consistant speeds of 1196kbps.

P2P Bittorrent, on a site I use regularly were my dl speed usually averages 900kbps+. I now receive only a quater of my bandwidth 230-240kbps (200+ seeds, 11 Peers) this has been happening since last week.
Also when I'm using p2p web browsing is affected too.

Ive spoken with CS and found there are 5200 subscibers on the UBR, so I know for a fact they have introduced it here (Bournemouth), and as for peak time shaping I dont see evidence of this, morning/daytime/evening my speed does not increase beyond 240kbps on p2p.

Does this breach the NTL's TAC, Im going to try to cancel my contract now and go with a provider that doesnt make sly underhand changes like this.

I hope someone in NTL's management does read these boards, sit up and take notice because once people realise whats going on they'll have a revolt on their hands.

I can get 16meg bb adsl unlimited from Bulldog for £10 less than I pay now.

(Jumping sinking ship now) byen bye ntl and your unscrupulous tactics, thats £70 a month you wont be getting from me anymore.

I appologise for the rant...

well P2P sucks and blows at the same time anyway

Originally Posted by zinglebarb

well P2P sucks and blows at the same time anyway

agreed

[squirrel1970]

I've noticed something this last couple of weeks and that is our 4mb connection keeps dropping - but only in the evenings!
I did have zonealarm installed until recently (the other day in fact LOL) and it's made absolutely no difference to anything... our router plops off and on again - usually only a matter or a split second or two, but it's enough to throw our two comps offline. My comp is 6 years old and my partners is just under 6 months old... so it's NOT the computers fault, nor is it the router as we've connected seperately and it still drops in the evening. There's usually three or four drops between 7pm and midnight usually.. sometimes, I can stay connected, other times, there's a delay before I'm booted...

Well, you wanted an answer, we have an answer. They traffic-shape.

http://www.cableforum.co.uk/article/...on-its-network

I think you knew that already though.

[TheCrow]

I think they are traffic shaping. When i was on 4mb i never had a problem. I upgraded to 10mb two days ago.

Now like downloading new game demos, etc. All is fine for a while, even in peak hours, but as soon as i reach a couple of gb downloaded my connection goes rubbish.

Tonight is another classic example! All fine and now look!

Wed, 04 Oct 2006 22:23:57 GMT

1st 512K took 21687 ms = 23.6 KB/sec, approx 194 Kbps, 0.19 Mbps
2nd 512K took 29766 ms = 17.2 KB/sec, approx 142 Kbps, 0.14 Mbps
3rd 512K took 9140 ms = 56 KB/sec, approx 461 Kbps, 0.45 Mbps
4th 512K took 24969 ms = 20.5 KB/sec, approx 169 Kbps, 0.17 Mbps

Overall Average Speed = approx 242 Kbps, 0.24 Mbps
They are taking the ****! If they think they are getting paid this month they can f**k off.

---------- Post added at 23:38 ---------- Previous post was at 23:33 ----------

[quote]
These measures do not affect surfing, email or newsgroups or usage outside of peak hours
[quote]

Have they not seen the alt.binaries on there newsgroup servers, there better than p2p!

[themelon]

[QUOTE=smucks;34126690]

Originally Posted by Bill C

hopefully other members that read the posts here and the phones going over to BT in the mean time.

To be fair having used BT Line based Broadband on 3 Seperate ADSL Providers which I fell out with earlier this year whilst waiting for my house sale to complete (living in rented acomm with no ntl)

I have to say that it seems that a few big name ADSL products do not need traffic shaping for them to be crap, normally living 3 Miles from you local exchange is sufficient for the connection to be randomly fluctuating and drop off at random periods, only to be told later that your Broadband service needs to be downgraded to a lower speed as you live 'too far' from the exchange and this will lead your connection to be unstable. (Why the heck did you sell me it then Muppets) I was sold 8mb and Ended up with 1.5Mb sometimes when lucky.

More needs to be done to stop this false Broadband Advertising in this country, if they can not provide it then they should not advertise it. If people are paying for 10mb Broadband they should get it or near as damn it 99% of the time. If the can not provide to a certain percentage of cuystomers OFCOM should stop them advertising it as the theoretical maximum (subject to blah, blah, blah and blah). Over 50% of people with a BT line can not get anything like the maximum speed.

Very Misleading indeed.

[brundles]

OK, so "NTL: Telewest" has admitted to traffic shaping but there are a couple of things I'm hoping someone here can clarify...

1. Are they traffic shaping NTL areas, Telewest areas or both?
2. The article refers to web, e-mail and newsgroups not being affected. What about VOIP and the RTP streams? Or VPN tunnels where they can't identify the traffic type at all? What worries me is they only clarify the traffic they allow rather than the traffic they shape...

[FusionXN1]

Well i have noticed bad speeds now i got ntl abotu a month ago was great until 3 days ago now its 6mb or lower even sometimes 1mb!!

I wonder whats happening.. and shame about the traffic shaping

If the shaping is done correctly then it will benefit customers of NTL. If they feck it up, well i leave that to you to decide how that affects you. To be honest we have already seen it.


Hate to say i told you so

[Gordon_30]

Well so far I haven't noticed it affect me