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

Originally Posted by Incognitas

I got BB because I got fed up with the two hour cutoff on dial-up which would always screw up any downloads I was trying to get so I think my reasons for choosing BB over Dial-up are valid..

Oh the memories and the reasons why I got BB as well, what with dialup and in the days of metered dialup, no internet before 6pm , clock watching, crap download rates. Who remembers the joys of X-Stream 0800?

And then the unmetered revolution began 08004u, ezesurf, BigblueSky, IGClick, NetgamesUK etc etc I could go on but its going off this topic just a tad.

[Horace]

BT + Demon (loved those £400 phone bills and isp subscription on top)> BT + Freeserve (as before but no subs) > BT + Screaming.net/World Online (now Tiscali) (free 24/7 net access) > NTL (time will tell)
That covers quite a few years so I tend to stick with companies till they start taking the pee (hello 1gig/day cap) or someone offers enough incentive to move to them.

[jtwn]

Chrysalis, whatever. Correct me if i'm wrong but what you must find have absurd capping rules; BT and Wannado have had increasing customer base with theirs.

I remember the days of dialup, i used ic24, that mirror isp and ntls 0800 service. Awful, godawful, i never want to see those days again and if i do, I'll give up on the internet. I remember it being impossible to play an online game as i'd automatically be disconnected when joining one with ntl..

[scrotnig]

Originally Posted by jtwn

Chrysalis, whatever. Correct me if i'm wrong but what you must find have absurd capping rules; BT and Wannado have had increasing customer base with theirs.

I remember the days of dialup, i used ic24, that mirror isp and ntls 0800 service. Awful, godawful, i never want to see those days again and if i do, I'll give up on the internet. I remember it being impossible to play an online game as i'd automatically be disconnected when joining one with ntl..

Actually, I thought ic24 was great!

Although it was hell to get on, those 'free 0800 access' periods were part of the revolution that finally opened up proper unmetered access deals...in the days when broadband was still but a pipedream.

Although it didn't feel like it at the time, ic24 were one of those great pioneering ISPs of old, like LineOne and ScreamingNet. Aaah, nostalgia.

Oh God, I feel old now. I think I'm going to go in the canal!

Incidentally, ic24 is still going strong and has some ok broadband deals, although these days they are merely a Brightview brand and are nothing special...but at least the name survives! http://www.ic24.net. The page design is still identical to the 'old days' too!

[purenuman]

Originally Posted by pdjkeelan

It's more serious for NTL though if someone leaves Wanadoo or BT they usually just go to another ADSL provider. But if someone leaves NTL broadband where do they go? AOL on NTL? It's the only option and if you don't want AOL on NTL then you have to get ADSL and most people that go that route will switch to BT/SKY for their phone and digital services. So if NTL loses broadband customers they will also likely lose the customer for telephone and digital as well.

Or look at it another way and even people who are annoyed about the cap will put up with it as they will have to go to a lot of trouble to change.....

[astra_lestat]

Originally Posted by purenuman

people who are annoyed about the cap will put up with it as they will have to go to a lot of trouble to change.....

I would say it is a matter of time. Some will leave at once when they feel uncomfortable while it will take some time for others, but they will leave for a better provider sooner or later.

If you check out another topic about newsgroups. When the service went down, ppl started to complain, some went to another provider within 2 days, it took a week for others and maybe it is going to be a month for the slowest but the process is irreversible.
The same will happen with ntl if they implement caps.

[scrotnig]

Originally Posted by astra_lestat

I would say it is a matter of time. Some will leave at once when they feel uncomfortable while it will take some time for others, but they will leave for a better provider sooner or later.

If you check out another topic about newsgroups. When the service went down, ppl started to complain, some went to another provider within 2 days, it took a week for others and maybe it is going to be a month for the slowest but the process is irreversible.
The same will happen with ntl if they implement caps.

So by this theory, there will be no ISPs in the country apart from AOL, as they have no caps?

Or is it that only ntl customers will all leave, and somehow customers of other ISPs with caps won't mind?

[astra_lestat]

I was talking about custumores who are "annoyed" with the intorduction of new rules. Surely it doesn't mean that all ntl customers will be affected by or annoyed with the new order of the things.

I thought it was pretty obvious what I meant because I quoted:
people who are annoyed about the cap will put up with it as they will have to go to a lot of trouble to change.....

ntl already have a 30GB cap in place - they just don't call it that. Very few of their customers exceed it, and this will not change. People on this forum seem to forget that most people with internet access still just browse a few web sites each day and use their e-mail - they care little about their speed and are certainly not downloading Gigabytes of data each month - they will never get close to the 30GB/40GB caps. The one they may get close to is the 3GB limit.

[cr80123]

I think some people will definitely exceed 3GB per month on a 1Mb connection. And I'm not talking about technically minded people playing games/downloading demos/breaching copyrights etc. It's only going to get worse as well. I certainly don't envy people in customer services having to explain to someone why their internet connection has suddenly got so slow.

[ian@huth]

Originally Posted by Chrysalis

Sorry it looks like you in for a bad shock, I personally know 30 or so people who use more then 40 gig a month, I find it very hard to believe that I know 20% of ntl's users that this will affect. I would expect it to be more like 50000 out of 1million who go over 40gig or 30gig on the bottom tier. Then of course their will be users who dont use that amount but for other reasons they wont want such a cap so of course thats more, and the bottom tier they may be people who was eg. 512kbit for under £20 a month but more then 5 gig a month, can NTL provide this? no?

I can see NTL losing about 10-20% of their broadband customers from this due to mixture of bad publicity/going over cap/better deals elsewhere, this just shows the arrogance if you believe you are invincible and people will just accept it once they KNOW ABOUT IT.

Chrysalis, stop and think for a minute.

NTL are unlikely to lose customers until they start to hard cap. Even then only a very small minority of customers will be affected and some of those will start to wonder why they are downloading so much and using masses of CDs and DVDs to store it all on and never use it.

So a few may leave. ...........................BUT

How many ADSL customers out there who can only get 512k will suddenly realise that they can get 6 times their ADSL speed if they switch to NTL. I think that you know as well as I do that most broadband customers have a usage below 7 Gb a month (the industry average) and most of them use less than 3 Gb a month.

So there is a possibility that instead of losing the hundreds of thousands that you predict they could gain far more than this and maybe gain some for all three services.

Just think of all those ADSL users on 512k with a 1 Gb or 2 Gb cap that can suddenly get NTL with initially a soft unenforced cap and 1 Mb/s download for £17.99 which when it starts being enforced will still have a bigger allowance than they were getting.

NTL are onto more of a winner than loser in my eyes.

[astra_lestat]

Originally Posted by Paul M

ntl already have a 30GB cap in place - they just don't call it that. Very few of their customers exceed it, and this will not change. People on this forum seem to forget that most people with internet access still just browse a few web sites each day and use their e-mail - they care little about their speed and are certainly not downloading Gigabytes of data each month - they will never get close to the 30GB/40GB caps. The one they may get close to is the 3GB limit.

You are right to a certain degree, but then people who are only using the Internet for browsing and e-mails, they pay 17.99 for 300kbps. Do you honestly believe that people who pays 37 pounds per month use 1.5M speed only for these reasons? I donââ‚Âà ‚¬ÃƒÂ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¾Ã‚¢t believe it.

[scrotnig]

Originally Posted by astra_lestat

You are right to a certain degree, but then people who are only using the Internet for browsing and e-mails, they pay 17.99 for 300kbps. Do you honestly believe that people who pays 37 pounds per month use 1.5M speed only for these reasons? I donââ‚Âà ‚¬ÃƒÂ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¾Ã‚¢t believe it.

But the great, massive, overwhelming majority of customers are on 300k.

[astra_lestat]

Originally Posted by scrotnig

But the great, massive, overwhelming majority of customers are on 300k.

Then why go to all the pain and introduce 2 and 3 M with crappy caps, while
"great, massive, overwhelming majority of customers are on 300k", and they don't need faster lines so they are pretty happy with what they have, while those who does need faster, are on 750/1.5 but they cannot use 2/3M to its full extent with the caps?

[cr80123]

Ian what do you mean by this ?

"I think that you know as well as I do that most broadband customers have a usage below 7 Gb a month (the industry average) and most of them use less than 3 Gb a month."

I assume you're saying the mean usage is 7GB per month but the mode usage is much less, in fact less than 3GB per month?