Traffic Shaping

[Chrysalis]

heh I think you was replying to me rather then jtwn, bonded channels yeah I meant just enable extra channel rather then actually bonding them.

It must be incredibly inefficent to do a full reseg when its only downstream filled up and upstream is fine and opening up a 2nd downstream is cheaper,faster and quicker.

the reason why I think it is bad, I have suffered contention before on nildram when they admitted they had capacity issues and they had a bt central on order (those things take months to commission) they were approximately 20% overutilised in peak hours and I was seeing about 5-15kB knocked of a max 60kB speed, the other times I have been under contention is under ntl on 1.5mbit and 2mbit again both times the amount wasnt that bad probably lost about 30% of my speed and most of the day was ok. This is the first time I have lost 95% of my speed.

I dont see whats a msytery about my situation, it slows down in the evenings when more people are online and speeds up in the early morning. It isnt rocket science. Factor in as well loads of work was done at my property to rule out a local issue and other work has been done at the ubr to rule out other possibilities, you are right I dont know 100% it is not contention but given the noise made from this and my issue got escalated I would think if it was something simple it would have been resolved by now.

I see 2 channels used up to promote ntl products on my analogue tv and one to show price drop tv, so thats 3 channels easily freed up, I guess ntl made their choice on what they think is good use for their channels. No DTV here.

To add about BT cramming users in, I dont care if they put 10000 in as long as they get performance issues, the key thing there would be is do they react when speed complaints come in, isp's should know now you cant use hard numbers to justify upgrades, 200 customers might be fine in one area and 20 might be too much in another area, if an isp doesnt like upgrading with just 20 customers then they should redesign their product portfolio to something they can handle.

[ian@huth]

In areas such as Leicester NTL have to think about how long they will be using the current technology for the supply of broadband. It is no good making massive investment in the current infrastructure if it is going to be obselete in the not too distant future.

[jtwn]

Originally Posted by James Henry

Dude I can see you have an interest and need to get a job with a cable company to use that interest a bit and see how things work in the real world. What you're discussing is still experimental technology and no standard has been finalised and ratified.

Bonded channels aren't necessary to run 10Mbit, in Sweden UPC are delivering 24/8 without bonding channels, and in Chrysalis' case the performance issues are I believe a bit of a mystery and the situation isn't nearly as bad as he thinks.

A part of the reason for it being easier there is I guess that UPC don't feel the need to fill their entire downstream spectrum with crap DTV multiplexes full of ****e that hardly ever gets watched, and instead save channels here and there to shove some of that lovely stuff that really makes the money, broadband, down.

If you're that interested ntl could remove congestion issues in some areas overnight without resegmentation if there's a channel free and a card available, no need to do any physical work outside of the headend. I guess there are certain reasons why they aren't, probably procedural / managerial actually.

I would imagine if it weren't for having to get things signed off in blood by about 10 different departments they could quite effectively resolve most issues through a combo of 2nd downstreams and 16QAM returns. Only areas where the upstream is incapable of supporting the additional power demands of the 16QAM, the channel plan is so full there's not even a single channel available for another DOCSIS downstream, or there's not an MC28U card available would this potentially be an issue.

BTW network condition is in most cases not an excuse for 16QAM being an 'issue', considering that I know of operators in Europe and North America who run 6.4MHz wide 64QAM upstreams with DOCSIS 2 which are far more demanding on the network.

With your allergy to contention you'd be scared if you knew how many 512k, 1Mbit and 2Mbit home users BT have been able to cram onto a 4Mbit pipe in the past with no issues

Maybe I should get a job with them but it isn't very reassuring when every ex/ntl employee doesn't really have, well anything good to say about them

I say channel bonding is where its at because as its regularly drilled into everybody here, ntl is a company where money is where its at and I know what sounds better to investors if the say they have eased congestion or eased congestion and offered higher and better speeds.

I don't mean to argue or patronise with such a fountain of knowledge since you obviously know more about these things I do but multiple downstreams is the same as bonding, just we get thre bonus of being able to use that spare bandwidth across them when its not being used.

Also with those taking the leet tier are shifted off to other channels for the new tech, everybody can be happy. I'm at least half right, aren't I?

[James Henry]

Originally Posted by jtwn

I don't mean to argue or patronise with such a fountain of knowledge since you obviously know more about these things I do but multiple downstreams is the same as bonding, just we get thre bonus of being able to use that spare bandwidth across them when its not being used.

Also with those taking the leet tier are shifted off to other channels for the new tech, everybody can be happy. I'm at least half right, aren't I?

Nah you misunderstand, channel bonding requires brand new modems, new CMTS, etc, whereas running multiple downstreams is doable with existing kit. While UWB DOCSIS is fantastic it's still a work in progress.

The 'leet' tier isn't going to get pushed to the other channels with the new tech, you'll all be sharing one giant channel, remember?

[jtwn]

No, I do understand it requires a silicon change everywhere! I say the leet tiers are pushed onto the new tech, because its not like they are going to dump the entire existing system with the investment they've put in it. Not yet at least.

It would just be like running the DAVIC and DOCSIS system running concurrently but with another on top of that. Thats in theory how I see it, the key word being I

[handyman]

Originally Posted by Chrysalis

I have been trying to confirm if I am langley or bromley
.

Leicester = Langley

---------- Post added at 13:16 ---------- Previous post was at 13:06 ----------

Originally Posted by jtwn

Maybe I should get a job with them but it isn't very reassuring when every ex/ntl employee doesn't really have, well anything good to say about them

I'd love to go back to work for ntl. I enjoyed working there.

Trouble is the management are firfighting at the moment due to bad decisions and a lack of cash and the required staff. Look at the staff that have left, ignition, bill c etc. These are highly qualified dedicated staff that are leaving because theres no money to keep them on or they are sick of the situation.

Some one at ntl needs to grow some balls and draw a line in the sand and say this is where we stop getting worse and put some pro active measures in place.

Give me 3 weeks and I could reduce the amount of inbound calls to the ntl tech support centre by 30%. Mostly through putting a better communication plan in place and also a better staff grouping and IVR. The cost savings from that alone would be huge.

[JoeBloggs]

I've been on 10MB since january or so and I am one happy chappy with the service.

Peak time I usually get speeds around 800KB/s - 900KB/s which is great, nightime I always hit over 1000KB/s, normally 1.1MB/s.

I think NTL can handle the fast speeds all day long without no problems, but they say this statement to cut costs & make more profit, after all they are a business.

[Chrysalis]

Originally Posted by ian@huth

In areas such as Leicester NTL have to think about how long they will be using the current technology for the supply of broadband. It is no good making massive investment in the current infrastructure if it is going to be obselete in the not too distant future.

I do understand this view point but then you do one of the following.

1 - dont release a product that the infrastructure cant cope with. (revoke 10mbit)

2 - replace the infrastructure with the new technology.

You cant just leave things how they are on the basis that its obsolete technology.

[jtwn]

Look at the Isle of Dogs.

[handyman]

Originally Posted by jtwn

Look at the Isle of Dogs.

Why?

[James Henry]

Originally Posted by handyman

Why?

NTL are stopping supplying everything there, not economical to upgrade to digital as would be required by govt.

Although I'm not sure if they were actually getting paid by most of the customers there or if it was all MATV.

---------- Post added at 17:56 ---------- Previous post was at 17:56 ----------

Originally Posted by jtwn

No, I do understand it requires a silicon change everywhere! I say the leet tiers are pushed onto the new tech, because its not like they are going to dump the entire existing system with the investment they've put in it. Not yet at least.

It would just be like running the DAVIC and DOCSIS system running concurrently but with another on top of that. Thats in theory how I see it, the key word being I

It's a requirement of DOCSIS 3 CMTS, just as it was DOCSIS 2, that they are backwards compatible.

[Chrysalis]

I still wonder if ntl will pull out of parts of leics come the crunch point of everything moving to digital, at one stage the network will need rehauling and I have heard mixed info of what will happen.

Seems to me not only is their service variable region by region but their budgets are as well, isle of dogs why isnt it subsidised by other areas that are highly lucrative and upgraded anyway?

[handyman]

I would hope thats the areas of Leicester that are analogue such as LE3 are economical to upgrade.

[uno]

http://www.ntl.com/locales/gb/en/inv...w-final-vr.pdf
Here is a link for some details on the future of the Ntl network as you can see it only costs an extra 10p per house to change to 256qam which i think is quite cheap and only an exta £1per house for dual channel you just have to remember to multiply this by 100,000 per headend soon starts adding up but is interesting reading anyway has helped me underrstand how the network works a lot better. .

Originally Posted by uno

http://www.ntl.com/locales/gb/en/inv...w-final-vr.pdf
Here is a link for some details on the future of the Ntl network as you can see it only costs an extra 10p per house to change to 256qam which i think is quite cheap and only an exta £1per house for dual channel you just have to remember to multiply this by 100,000 per headend soon starts adding up but is interesting reading anyway has helped me underrstand how the network works a lot better. .

that is a great document, but I wonder if 18 months on, it is already superceded in some respects?

- shows how complicated it all is, though, if nothing else, we think it is just our little wire to the street box