*ALL* Speed Upgrade Discussion In Here Please (Part 2)

[sms.e]

goto www.webattack.com

And get Netmeter

[Lee]

There seems to be much talk on both threads about the reasons for NTL capping users. So far I havent seen anyone mention what I think is the most obvious reason for capping.

NTL are protecting their interests. Funnily enough, so are BT too. What do they have in common? Well, they both provide telecommunications and/or TV services and it would have a huge impact on both of them if they were to lose that revenue.

So people using VOIP, or watching TV/Films via the internet is gonna hurt NTL hard, especially when they become more mainstream.

VOIP is starting to really take off now. You can buy a phone to put on the wall, plugged into a network socket instead of a NTL Phone point, and get very cheap, if not free, phone calls. No complicated techy stuff to setup.

It will get even more easier I suspect, with wireless VOIP phones so you dont even need the network point.

As bandwidth is getting cheaper (and will continue to do so) its fairly obvious to me that NTL aren't capping people because of the cost of bandwidth, but because of the potential threat to their business of people being able to get their phone & tv from a different source, cheaper.

There is a case going through the courts in the US, where an ISP (who also provided telecoms) was allegedly, corrupting the data packets of VOIP calls to stop people using this technology.

All capping does is hurt the future of the internet - although funnily enough NTL will now benefit from bandwidth hungry applications like online TV by charging for the bandwidth.

Who wants to wager that NTL will bring out their own VOIP/Internet TV service, which doesnt count toward your cap.....

or am I just being cynical?

[robtufts]

I'm against the cap, not because I would go over it regularly, but on the odd occasion where I would, I wouldn't like to be penalised.

Maybe it would be better if it were a rolling cap where if you don't use it you can carry over the unused usage? Much like mobile phone companies where the free minutes is essentially their version of usage and I'm able to carry mine over for upto 2 months if I don't use them.

Also I'm not complaining about the free upgrade, anything extra free is good, but why are the 1.5 mbit users getting the least (by percentage) upgrade? 300k 233% increase, 750k 166% and 1.5 only an extra 100%

[seaneeboy]

By actual speed though, the 1.5 meg people get the most - 300k get an extra 700k, 750 get an extra 1.25m and 1.5 get a whole extra 1.5m - Rather than looking at what the difference is as far as the deal goes, looking at it in real terms means it's a much better deal.

That's the thing with facts - you can prove most points you want to with them, just doesn't neccessarily mean they're right

[willie]

Originally Posted by seaneeboy

By actual speed though, the 1.5 meg people get the most - 300k get an extra 700k, 750 get an extra 1.25m and 1.5 get a whole extra 1.5m - Rather than looking at what the difference is as far as the deal goes, looking at it in real terms means it's a much better deal.

That's the thing with facts - you can prove most points you want to with them, just doesn't neccessarily mean they're right

Another way to look at it is
300k get over 3 times increase
750 get over double increase
1.5 get double

[robtufts]

Originally Posted by seaneeboy

By actual speed though, the 1.5 meg people get the most - 300k get an extra 700k, 750 get an extra 1.25m and 1.5 get a whole extra 1.5m - Rather than looking at what the difference is as far as the deal goes, looking at it in real terms means it's a much better deal.

That's the thing with facts - you can prove most points you want to with them, just doesn't neccessarily mean they're right

Oh don't get me wrong I know the actual amount is greater, just was kind of putting it into perspective.

[astra_lestat]

The problem is that BT and NTL are not the only ISPs in the UK.

But when you leave BT for another ADSL, you only hurt them internet payment wise, when you leave NTL for another ADSL you also hurt NTL phone bills by turning to BT.

Then arises the question, why to stay with NTL?

Just a small example. TalkTalk ISP - 20 pounds - 256/512, 25 pounds 256/1024, both unlimited.

I pay 25 pounds to NTL for 128/750 with a soft cap of 1G per day.

Please give me one good reason why to stay with NTL?

It is just one example, there are more adsl companies that advertise more attractive packages for the same price or lower without ANY caps.



I have decided to stay with NTL anyway, for some reasons I cannot explain even to myself, I prefer to pay my phone bills and support NTL, not BT. But as I said a couple of pages before, the moment NTL enforces soft or hard caps, it is going to be the last nail in the coffin. I like to use the Internet without thinking about traffic. It doesn't really matter whether I go over 1g per day or not. Sometimes I have 3g, sometimes 0.5. Why should I bother about it when there are offers out there that could relieve me from this kind of problems for the same amount of money?



P.S. So far, NTL was very fair to me and never enforced 1g per day cap on me despite that there were times when I just subscribed to NTL and got access to the fast Internet and my traffic was something like 3-5G per day for months.

[Chrysalis]

Originally Posted by Lee

There seems to be much talk on both threads about the reasons for NTL capping users. So far I havent seen anyone mention what I think is the most obvious reason for capping.

NTL are protecting their interests. Funnily enough, so are BT too. What do they have in common? Well, they both provide telecommunications and/or TV services and it would have a huge impact on both of them if they were to lose that revenue.

So people using VOIP, or watching TV/Films via the internet is gonna hurt NTL hard, especially when they become more mainstream.

VOIP is starting to really take off now. You can buy a phone to put on the wall, plugged into a network socket instead of a NTL Phone point, and get very cheap, if not free, phone calls. No complicated techy stuff to setup.

It will get even more easier I suspect, with wireless VOIP phones so you dont even need the network point.

As bandwidth is getting cheaper (and will continue to do so) its fairly obvious to me that NTL aren't capping people because of the cost of bandwidth, but because of the potential threat to their business of people being able to get their phone & tv from a different source, cheaper.

There is a case going through the courts in the US, where an ISP (who also provided telecoms) was allegedly, corrupting the data packets of VOIP calls to stop people using this technology.

All capping does is hurt the future of the internet - although funnily enough NTL will now benefit from bandwidth hungry applications like online TV by charging for the bandwidth.

Who wants to wager that NTL will bring out their own VOIP/Internet TV service, which doesnt count toward your cap.....

or am I just being cynical?

I didnt think of this, but this makes a lot of sense, we all know BT have deals with sky so would like to protect TV market and of course their own phone market, NTL are of course in the same boat. Then you look at isps such as plusnet (no cap during night) nildram (no cap) pipex (no cap) bulldog (no cap) easynet/ukonline (no cap/500 gig) these are all independant isp's and so have different interests in mind. The exception to this is telewest but maybe they just have adopted a different attitude where they feel it doesnt threaten their tv revenue.

IF they feel threatened then they need to make radical changes to the way UK people get treated, look at the motivation to download of the internet. One can get a High Defenition version of a TV episode before it even premiers in the UK so it is quite obvious what is wrong, similiar problem with the film industry, music industry is over cost of music and quality of songs so is a different matter.

1 - TV companies here pay more for show such as stargate,csi,24 etc. so its aired at same time as usa.

2 - We adopt HDTV technology so we have the same quality.

The solution is to remove the need to download stuff not to try and fight it because they will only lose. Their is isp's out there with no TV market to protect so they dont care about the situation. UK also has the highest tv downloading in the world we download 1/5th of all tv episodes downloaded worldwide.

[Hans Gruber]

Originally Posted by Lee

There seems to be much talk on both threads about the reasons for NTL capping users. So far I havent seen anyone mention what I think is the most obvious reason for capping.

NTL are protecting their interests. Funnily enough, so are BT too. What do they have in common? Well, they both provide telecommunications and/or TV services and it would have a huge impact on both of them if they were to lose that revenue.

So people using VOIP, or watching TV/Films via the internet is gonna hurt NTL hard, especially when they become more mainstream.

VOIP is starting to really take off now. You can buy a phone to put on the wall, plugged into a network socket instead of a NTL Phone point, and get very cheap, if not free, phone calls. No complicated techy stuff to setup.

It will get even more easier I suspect, with wireless VOIP phones so you dont even need the network point.

As bandwidth is getting cheaper (and will continue to do so) its fairly obvious to me that NTL aren't capping people because of the cost of bandwidth, but because of the potential threat to their business of people being able to get their phone & tv from a different source, cheaper.

There is a case going through the courts in the US, where an ISP (who also provided telecoms) was allegedly, corrupting the data packets of VOIP calls to stop people using this technology.

All capping does is hurt the future of the internet - although funnily enough NTL will now benefit from bandwidth hungry applications like online TV by charging for the bandwidth.

Who wants to wager that NTL will bring out their own VOIP/Internet TV service, which doesnt count toward your cap.....

or am I just being cynical?

I'm sure I said that somewhere

It certainly does make sense

[Dobbo]

Will the speed upgrades happen on march 14th or is that the first day you can ring ntl and request the upgrade?

[bigitup_j]

hoho!
march 14th. well guess what happens the next day?

financial results! ntl sure know how to please investors and shareholders. lol. and they first annouced the speed upgrades in their last results, i suppose they have to make it look like they have made some progress since the last financial results...

i wonder what ntl have in store for us over the next quarter? 100mb broadband?

[martikus]

Originally Posted by bigitup_j

hoho!
march 14th. well guess what happens the next day?

financial results! ntl sure know how to please investors and shareholders. lol. and they first annouced the speed upgrades in their last results, i suppose they have to make it look like they have made some progress since the last financial results...

i wonder what ntl have in store for us over the next quarter? 100mb broadband?

And free computers to go with that!!!! lmfao

Originally Posted by Hans Gruber

I'm sure I said that somewhere

It certainly does make sense

Frankly as the TV content is cr@p and the films they have on pay per view are frankly disappointing they will have to make a vast improvement on both those issues before it will be worthwhile to anyone.

[DocDutch]

just a quick question here....does any1 know yet a time plan for all these upgrades...last time NTL upgraded I was left out for around 2 months due to a "fault" on their side..

am living in the Northamptonshire area

It's rumoured to be a 'big bang' this time - on 14th March. The only exception is if you are on 300K, in which case you might want to stay on that with the 30GB cap rather than going to 1MB with the 5GB cap (or is it 3GB - I've lost track), or if you are on 750KB and are getting BB through a PACE STB, in which case you'll need an upgrade to a Samsung STB. In either of these cases, you'll have to ring CS to arrange an upgrade.

Still no 'official' announcement though.