1GB Cap Letter!!!!

[Florence]

Originally Posted by MovedGoalPosts

Been there and done it with anticap last year - and that was with the directors responsible for the internet services themselves. Unfortunately much of what was said had to be "off the record" and thus it would be incorrect of me to say too much. Let's just say that if anything, the 1GB policy of today is conservative compared to ntl's view of the future. It was quite clear that the directors support the cap concept.

Regrettably ntl's thoughts on this issue appear to be closed. Ntl must be aware of the strength of feeling, after all they would be downright foolish not to be aware of this and many other sites.

The only real way that ntl will see that restrictions in use are inappropriate is when they find customers are no longer signing up or are leaving of other providers. Thus commercially the cap policy is costing them money. At present, ntl see that the few heavy users are causing them bigger losses, than the potential loss of that sector of business.

Yes I agree you did then but remember they said it was not set in stone. They have just moved the goal posts ( pardon the pun) so its time to start again. they think the customers have gone soft which we haven't. CS today agreed that they look like losing a lot of customers over this and will have to rethink their position.

[MovedGoalPosts]

Originally Posted by Charlie_Bubble

The solution to the problem is clear. No more 1Meg cable. Limit everyone to 512k or 150k packages, or raise the prices charged for the packages. Then hopefully NTLs network would be able to cope again. The total amount of data that could be downloaded would be almost halved or they get more money in to help with upgrading. The problem with this of course is NTL will lose money, about £10 for the x thousand of people they downgrade to 512k from 1Meg (If they all chose to stay). Then they risk looking like a second rate broadband provider when compared with Telewest offering 2meg cable and ADSL companies offering 2Meg ADSL for almost the price of NTLs 1Meg service. This is the crux of the matter. To stop people downloading so much you have to either physically limit them by cutting bandwidth or charging more to discourage it. NTL won't do this though. NTL want as much of people's money as they can. Their problem is that if you cut peopleââ‚Ã⠀šÃ‚¬ÃƒÂ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¾Ã‚¢s bandwidth and they have a choice to go with ADSL, they probably will and you lose money. If they raise prices on premium packages, they stop being competitive when compared to most other ISPs. Itââ‚ ¬ÃƒÂ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¾Ã‚¢s already looking a little too much when you can get cheaper 1Meg ADSL with prices likely to fall a wee bit further as BT tries to encourage more people to take the leap

I thought ntl were already competing for the third rate broadband supplier market

Serioulsy though I think you hit the nail on the head here, ntl have got themselves into a hole they cannot see a way out of. They are in danger of loosing significant market share as they cannot afford to be competitive with the ADSL market. Ntl once could have been the market leaders in broadband and accordingly set the price structure. At the time when the 1Meg speed price was cut, 1meg ADSL was a rarity. As players entered the 1Meg ADSL market they followed ntls pricing levels. Nw ntl might regret the price cut but cannot increase simply because customers would leave in droves to their competitors. A similar danger is emerging at the 150k and 512/600k levels where ADSL is becoming cheaper.

About the only real hope ntl have of getting out of this hole is to plead for tolerance and understanding from their existing customers, give us clear and specific plans as to when upgrades will be in place (only a month or two at most), and place an embargoe on signing up new customers whilst this occurs. If virgin.net could take that attitude late last year (and they are I understand effectively an ADSL based ISP largely controlled as a franchise by ntl) why not ntl? Oh I forgot ntl management have their set closed ways of dealing with things on the we know whats best for you dictation principle.

[Acathla]

Originally Posted by JustAnotherN00b

So why should you pay the same as an average home user on 1Mbit? I pay for it and use 20 - 25GB a month as already stated. Why should we pay the same?

Again you don't pay to use connection 24/7 you rent a share of a resource, though that's been covered to death.

Agree. I shouldnt pay the same and have already said that NTL need a price restructure. I am willing to pay more so I amn't forced to a 1gig per day cap.

Actually, I do pay to use the conenction 24/7. I bought broadband when it was advertised as unlimited 24/7 internet access (i think it still is). Although, I probably only use it for 12 hours a day. I am at work 8 till 6 and no not use the broadband. Usage is less at weekends as I am usually out of the house.

Tell me that NTL are being fair in this?

[Blake]

Justanothernoob,

I could not care if ntl set limits to 500mb a day, or even 100mb a day.
Nor would I be excited if they allowed 20gig a day.

It's the whole thing, Nildram do 150gig a month limits, so what users are they aiming at.
Ntl offering 30gig a month .. I can see which is the most atractive, on the "monthly limts" alone.

I do not care if 5gig a day needs 1:1 or 100000:1 .. that is not my problem, thats the ISP's, not the customers.

What about P2P ?.. it's not impossable to acheive the limits with such software, Usenet too, again, easily done.

The average user is what ?.. I can't think of an average user, as their demands changes daily (talking to people in the pup for one, mentions something, the "average user" goes home to try it), no longer a average user.. but an abuser.

Even using webcam takes up bandwidth, and you can't say people not use it for hours on end, because how would we know?.. we don't.

I stream radio all day, every day, unless i'm watching a movie or listening to other music. Might not be high rate of bandwith 12-20k/sec maybe, but ontop of other activities, at all adds up.

What goes on in peoples own home, we never know about, so we can't say what the demands are for the single/couple/family needs are.

[Sociable]

Actually they dropped the use of the term "unlimited" at the time of the cap being introduced largely as they knew it would get them into serious problems to continue using the term without being open about the limitations to a definition of "Unlimited".

EDIT: Another key issue is that the limit is not anywhere close to 30 gig a month unless you are very very very careful. To be safe under the current AUP you would need to make sure you were well below 1 gig for 12 out of every 14 days so in real terms the actual monthly target would probably be closer to 20 gig and on 600k or 1 meg services with all the extras available now in terms of legitiamte use that is going to be too low.

Even if it were not the key issue is still about NTL being open and honest with customers as to exactly what they are offering.

They could previously claim this is just a guideline but having started to impliment it they are now forced to be open about it and issue a disclaimer in all advertising of the services thus confirming in advance they are subject to restrictions whatever the actual limit is.

Just not calling it "unlimited" is now not an option they will have to openly state the reverse and admit it is "limited" or completly drop the current AUP and its enforcement.

[Womble]

Dedicated Internet Access, which is what you require to download the kind of amounts you keep stating is as follow
512=£80 00 per year
1024= £12000
45meg=£ 266,000

[andygrif]

Originally Posted by Womble

But I still thing that 1gig a day is more than plenty for the average home user. It would be interesting to see, if everyone complaining about the cap stated what there downloads consisted of, and are they from legal sources. As for gaming etc, you could play for 24hrs and get nowhere near 1gig transfer, yes some of the mods are large but you only download them every now and then

I think that you have used the very word that is key here...average. By definition that means that there will be people who use less than that (and they do) and there will be people that need more than that. Right now it is black and white (although the enforcement of it is far from it). You have this much, end of story. How would it be if ntl sent letters saying I was watching too much TV, or calling too many people on the phone?

Originally Posted by Charlie_Bubble

Why would that bring anything to the discussion? Are you an employee of FACT or someone from the BPI? What difference does the nature of the downloads matter. It's being downloaded, that's the issue. What is an 'average user'? People pay for a faster connection, because they have a lot of data, be it legal or illegal, that they want downloaded. They want it and they want it quickly. The fact they will pay more for this means they are not average users if you compare them with someone doing occasional browsing on 150k!

Any in any case I seem to recall that it is not actually illegal to download copyrighted material, but it is illegal to upload it or use it once you have downloaded it. I might be wrong on that but I seem to remember that from way back when.

[Acathla]

Originally Posted by andygrif

Any in any case I seem to recall that it is not actually illegal to download copyrighted material, but it is illegal to upload it or use it once you have downloaded it. I might be wrong on that but I seem to remember that from way back when.

It is illegal to download and upload copyrighted material.

[Blake]

Installed a trail version of du meter, currently, just listening to radio, uses approx 24k/sec. times that by 12hours .. there's the limit.. and all legal stuff!.

Yes, as I have said, I have streaming radio all day, so I hit the limit easy, and's thats not including my other activities.

[Womble]

Originally Posted by Acathla

It is illegal to download and upload copyrighted material.

My point exactly, you can't exceed the limit legally, well you can but you have to go out of your way to do so. NTL could always scrap the cap and use packet sniffers!!!!!!!!!!!

[Womble]

Originally Posted by Blake

Installed a trail version of du meter, currently, just listening to radio, uses approx 24k/sec. times that by 12hours .. there's the limit.. and all legal stuff!.

Yes, as I have said, I have streaming radio all day, so I hit the limit easy, and's thats not including my other activities.

Buy a stereo!!!!!!

[Sociable]

Question for you womble.

Do you agree that NTL have an obligation to make sure customers are aware of the nature of the contract they have in as far as restrictions apply?

Is this obligation increased each time they themselves promote additional services such as on-line gaming and plus?

And finally how many customers would either leave or more importantly not sign up in the first palce if they actually brought the full implication of the cap to their notice in its current form openly?

If you want to apply limits don't make all the advertsiing give the impression it is an all you can eat service and then rely on an AUP which itself is only an off-shoot of the main T.O.S.

[IanUK]

I think (at least for me) it just comes down to the fact that the tiers are unbalanced and out of date, 5 gig as I suggested would only be a limit set (same as the 1 gig now) of course most users wouldn't use this (I rarely hit 1 gig now) but the 'fear' of hitting it would be removed and allow everyone to enjoy the broadband they are paying for - perhaps fear is too strong a word but you know what I mean

Heavy users are always going to be around, no matter what the limits set, thats just a way of life, but the current limits are out of date compared to the content available today.

I am a gamer, I belong to Gamespot - just 3 demos or movies a day downloaded from there would take me to nearly 1 gig, and they have thousands of them - with new ones each day, over the last year the games and movies have increased in size and quality, as broadband has gained in popularity throughout the world - I don't think its too much to ask for NTL to keep pace with the current sizes of downloads.

MSN now provides for FREE hundreds of high quality broadband streamed videos, they are very good but use a lot of bandwidth, again with new movies daily.

I like movies and TV so I often download the latest trailers and whole movies from sites such as Heavy & Atom to name just two, it would be extremely easy to fill several gig a day legitimately. (mostly I don't get the time, but I would love to !)

I would be a prime candidate for NTL's Plus offering, but I would not be able to use it enough given the cap to get my moneys worth, so I will leave it.

A 1 gig cap for a 1mb product that is also advertised available with a 'PLUS' offering (but with no extra bandwidth allocation) is just not fair.

They need to update it.

[andygrif]

Originally Posted by Womble

My point exactly, you can't exceed the limit legally, well you can but you have to go out of your way to do so. NTL could always scrap the cap and use packet sniffers!!!!!!!!!!!

I think you could quite easiliy go over the limits legally. This will become even easier as more and more companies roll out broadband content products, like ntl's own BB+ If I was watching music videos on BB+ all weekend I would quite quickly fly over the limits I think.

Originally Posted by Acathla

It is illegal to download and upload copyrighted material.

Are you sure? I seem to think that there was some sort of prescident on this a long time ago, before the internet existed. The outcome was that you cannot make available copyrighted material to others (like selling or handing out photocopies of a book) but it is not illegal to aquire such product.

It may well be that the rules changed in the new Copyright Bill recently, and certainly if you install some software then generally you have to agree to terms and conditions which would leave you open to being sued if you violated them (like installing software you had got from someone else).

But in the case of music, I believe the copyright exists in the use and distribution only, not in the possesion.

[Blake]

Womble,

If I could get digitally imported on my stereo, then I would.. be cheaper than the subscription for cable.

But that aint the point... Just proving, that a connection, can, legally hit the current guideline.

How many other people use streaming, I know I aint the only one.. but because my usage is low, but continious, i'm no longer a average user, but an abuser, and I aint doing anything wrong.

Yes 12 hours is a lot, my illness prevents me from getting around much, and is not the easiest thing either, so the internet makes very enjoyable hobby, and a way to pass time.