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

[ian@huth]

Originally Posted by Plusnet

Very few ISPs offer an uncontended (1:1 contention) and therefore unlimited product. Where these products are available, they are priced in excess of £300 a month. This reflects the costs associated with a customer utilising a high level of data transfer.

Taken from http://www.plus.net/support/faq/broa...ge_faq.shtml#1

All ISPs know the cost of having high usage customers and know they cannot sustain having those customers for an indefinate period of time. The question is how long before profitability is a more important factor than retaining such customers.

More and more ISPs are taking action to persuade the very high users to move on to another ISP. The more that do this, the smaller the number of ISPs without any restriction for them to move to and the sooner the ones left will also take action.

Nildram has recently changed it usage policy to clamp down on the very high users but look how many residential broadband customers they have, just 40,000. Now if all the NTL customers jump ship as some members on here are suggesting they will and move to Nildram, what do you think will happen? If they are having to take action against high usage customers and they only have a total of 40,000 customers then I would suggest that doubling that number with all those ex NTL customers will result in their new ship sinking, and sinking fast.

Originally Posted by scrotnig

As ever, people are claiming some sort of agenda about 'policing the internet'. Do none of you realise that's got stuff all to do with it? It's profit, pure and simple. Like it or not, in a free market economy, companies exist for ONE reason....profit! They are not here to provide brilliant customer service or anything like that, if they do that it's because they believe it increases profit. Profit is the be all and end all of being in business. No-one starts a company because they want to provide good customer service, they start a company to make a profit.

With the cable companies, considering that they do have an effective local monopoly (and please, I`m not going to go into why for some people other providers are not an option again) they have a responsibility to look at more that simple profits. They are operating in a business where the terms of their operating licence mean that the competition they face is substantially reduced. If they are going to get those perks then they need to be balanced with a little bit more consideration towards the customer.
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Originally Posted by ian@huth

All ISPs know the cost of having high usage customers and know they cannot sustain having those customers for an indefinate period of time. The question is how long before profitability is a more important factor than retaining such customers.

But this amounts to the ISPs just sticking their heads in the sand. Bandwidth requirements are only going to increase in time, the ISPs need to deal with that. They cannot act like some form of neo-Luddite, stuck with the attitudes that they had in the days of dial-up and ignore the ramifications that broadband has on people's behaviour when it comes to using the internet. There will come a time when even "normal" internet use will fall into the ISPs definition of heavy usage, and by adopting this backward looking policy there will come a time when they simply collapse. Arguments that it will cost x amount of money to upgrade the network simply aren`t sustainable, sooner or later it will have to be done just to service the "normal" customers. Taking this approach of attempting to constrain behaviour will simply mean that those narrow-minded ISPs are going to get seriously bitten at some point in the near future.
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Originally Posted by orangebird

Holy ****!!!!!!!!!!!!! Of course he does!!!! What kind of a dumbass question is that?

It is a question based on experience, and given the responses that you post to this board you could be the poster-child for this question.

[etccarmageddon]

NTL dont have a local monpoly - you can order AOL as an alternative.

[Hans Gruber]

Is it possible to get a poll going for 1.5mbit customers to see how many of them will continue to pay £40 a month once it gets upgraded to 3mbit? Would be interesting to see how many people are on the top tariff for the speed, or if they're on it for the ability to download more than they can on the next tier down. Seeing as there is very little difference in the tiers now (apart from 2x the price), who would want 3mbit?

[ian@huth]

Originally Posted by dr wadd

With the cable companies, considering that they do have an effective local monopoly (and please, I`m not going to go into why for some people other providers are not an option again) they have a responsibility to look at more that simple profits. They are operating in a business where the terms of their operating licence mean that the competition they face is substantially reduced. If they are going to get those perks then they need to be balanced with a little bit more consideration towards the customer.

One fallacy to that argument is that NTL do allow others to supply via their cable network, maybe only one, AOL, but they cannot be considered a monopoly.

Originally Posted by etccarmageddon

NTL dont have a local monpoly - you can order AOL as an alternative.

That's like saying I could rip out my eyes as a solution to being astigmatic rather than go and get glasses.
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Originally Posted by Hans Gruber

Is it possible to get a poll going for 1.5mbit customers to see how many of them will continue to pay £40 a month once it gets upgraded to 3mbit? Would be interesting to see how many people are on the top tariff for the speed, or if they're on it for the ability to download more than they can on the next tier down. Seeing as there is very little difference in the tiers now (apart from 2x the price), who would want 3mbit?

I`m seriously considering downgrading to the 2mbit level when the new speeds come in, I am having to question whether the 3mbit level is reasonable with the current caps when I can still get a speed increase but with a reduction in the amount I pay to NTL each month.

Another wonderful bit of NTL thinking there, p*ss off customers in a manner which means they can still get a speed increase but pay them less. Makes you wonder whether anyone at NTL has even a smattering of business skill.

[Skaara]

Taking this approach of attempting to constrain behaviour will simply mean that those narrow-minded ISPs are going to get seriously bitten at some point in the near future.

Its already happening! we are sooooo in the dark ages in relation to the internet. I thought the government wants us to be competitive in the new information economy.... with ISPs resisting network upgrades we are already falling behind all the major economic powers! Even france has cheap 20mbit adsl! We already pay a premium here for the internet we're screwed once VOIP and such technologies become mainstream

[Hans Gruber]

Originally Posted by Skaara

Its already happening! we are sooooo in the dark ages in relation to the internet. I thought the government wants us to be competitive in the new information economy.... with ISPs resisting network upgrades we are already falling behind all the major economic powers! Even france has cheap 20mbit adsl! We already pay a premium here for the internet we're screwed once VOIP and such technologies become mainstream

I know someone in Eindhoven with fibre direct to his house paid for by the government for the first 12 months

http://www.onsnetnuenen.nl/ for those interested and can speak Dutch (Sorry a bit OT)

[orangebird]

Originally Posted by dr wadd

With the cable companies, considering that they do have an effective local monopoly (and please, I`m not going to go into why for some people other providers are not an option again) they have a responsibility to look at more that simple profits. They are operating in a business where the terms of their operating licence mean that the competition they face is substantially reduced. If they are going to get those perks then they need to be balanced with a little bit more consideration towards the customer.
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But this amounts to the ISPs just sticking their heads in the sand. Bandwidth requirements are only going to increase in time, the ISPs need to deal with that. They cannot act like some form of neo-Luddite, stuck with the attitudes that they had in the days of dial-up and ignore the ramifications that broadband has on people's behaviour when it comes to using the internet. There will come a time when even "normal" internet use will fall into the ISPs definition of heavy usage, and by adopting this backward looking policy there will come a time when they simply collapse. Arguments that it will cost x amount of money to upgrade the network simply aren`t sustainable, sooner or later it will have to be done just to service the "normal" customers. Taking this approach of attempting to constrain behaviour will simply mean that those narrow-minded ISPs are going to get seriously bitten at some point in the near future.
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It is a question based on experience, and given the responses that you post to this board you could be the poster-child for this question.

It must be the company I keep on here.

[ian@huth]

Originally Posted by dr wadd

But this amounts to the ISPs just sticking their heads in the sand. Bandwidth requirements are only going to increase in time, the ISPs need to deal with that. They cannot act like some form of neo-Luddite, stuck with the attitudes that they had in the days of dial-up and ignore the ramifications that broadband has on people's behaviour when it comes to using the internet. There will come a time when even "normal" internet use will fall into the ISPs definition of heavy usage, and by adopting this backward looking policy there will come a time when they simply collapse. Arguments that it will cost x amount of money to upgrade the network simply aren`t sustainable, sooner or later it will have to be done just to service the "normal" customers. Taking this approach of attempting to constrain behaviour will simply mean that those narrow-minded ISPs are going to get seriously bitten at some point in the near future.

Bandwidth requirements will increase in time as the technology and infrastructure also advance to cope with it. At the moment we are working with technology and infrastructure that copes very well with the requirements of the majority of users. Just look at what was available on cable and ADSL a couple of years ago and how far things have come. Cost of upgrading infrastructure to cope with tomorrows requirements has to be borne by someone and that is the customer, unless the government decide to intervene, and guess where they will get the money from.The problem here is that some users, particularly the heavy users, are not willing to pay their fair share of what they are using now and would throw a fit if asked to pay more for the upgrades needed for future use.

Originally Posted by ian@huth

The problem here is that some users, particularly the heavy users, are not willing to pay their fair share of what they are using now and would throw a fit if asked to pay more for the upgrades needed for future use.

Really? I tend to think that NTL have only themselves to blame in this regard. I was one of the customers paying 50 quid a month for the 1mbit service, and I wasn`t the only customer doing so. But what did NTL do, they dropped the price. By this point in time they would have probably been forced to do so by market pressures, but those pressures weren`t really there when the price drop did come in to force, all they did was end up losing cash and then they have the audacity to bleat on about the fact that funds are running low.

[Wiggz]

Hmm....Mr Scrotnig takes calls from Customers Day in day out.....wonder why this plethora of customers would ever want to ring Customer Services..... *amazement* (!)

On topic.....I was basically ****** off when they said they were introducing caps....but it is more of an issue as to what they do if you go over the cap now....charges....do what plusnet are gonna do...drop to 150k.....what?? Be interesting.

If NTL wants only a certain type of users....they should not pussy foot around with supposed caps (over the last 12 months) and simply enforce it.....everyone then would know where they stand.

'Tis like everything they do....takes and eternity, and then when eventually rolls out, bares no resemblence to the original plan. (Digital TV anyone - anyone actually runnign that with no problem....I've never managed it )

Wiggz

[scrotnig]

Originally Posted by Wiggz

Hmm....Mr Scrotnig takes calls from Customers Day in day out.....wonder why this plethora of customers would ever want to ring Customer Services..... *amazement* (!)

This shows the danger of assumptions.

1) I am not in customer services
2) Not all of my customers are spoken to on phone calls, and even then not all of them have phoned in.
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Originally Posted by dr wadd

With the cable companies, considering that they do have an effective local monopoly (and please, I`m not going to go into why for some people other providers are not an option again) they have a responsibility to look at more that simple profits.

NO they DON'T!

What makes people think this?

Read my earlier post again. ntl are out to make a profit, like any other large company. They don't have any 'social' or 'moral' responsibilities.

You need to read up on the origins of the capitalist system and also the free market economy.

Unless the regulator instructs otherwise, ntl are not obliged to pay any consideration whatsoever to whether their customers have any alternative suppliers.

[DieDieMyDarling]

I think i'd be a lot more willing to accept caps if it was backed up with a fully working service. I've never had a problem with dropping speeds, or anything that would be associated to other peoples heavy useage affecting me, but i HAVE suffered from many, many problems with email, newsgroups, complete cut outs of my service entirely, useless customer service (when i finally get through), etc.

I'd have a lot more respect for ntl if they put the money into FIXING those problems, before doubling (at least) everyone's speed, just to keep the shareholders and investors happy, only to cap people because their network can't handle it. And i'm betting that even AFTER the caps, ntl will still suffer from the same problems, like last time they upgraded, when we were told the upgrades to the system would sort out the problems.

[scrotnig]

Originally Posted by Wiggz

'Tis like everything they do....takes and eternity, and then when eventually rolls out, bares no resemblence to the original plan.

That's because the market changes rapidly and ntl have to react to it. If they didn't, people on here would scream about them not reacting to changes in the market...DAMNED IF THEY DO, DAMNED IF THEY DON'T!

Originally Posted by Wiggz

(Digital TV anyone - anyone actually runnign that with no problem....I've never managed it )

Wiggz

Well I have. On three set top boxes, all at once.