[Merged] NTL Increasing BB Speeds Late Summer 2004

[td444]

Originally Posted by dellwear

It all seem like a very nice marketing tool for Ntl, they may increase the "up to" speed, but if end customers don't receive this speed on speed tests and downloads (mainly due to those bloody proxy's/caches) whats the point?? I'll stick with Bulldog for now and monitor the BB pricing war/situation from the comfort of my 2mbit enabled ADSL comp

How are the speeds on Bulldog? Everytime I had a look on ADSLguide's forums concerning Bulldog, it was pretty much full of people moaning about crap speeds.

[Shaun]

Originally Posted by td444

How are the speeds on Bulldog? Everytime I had a look on ADSLguide's forums concerning Bulldog, it was pretty much full of people moaning about crap speeds.

Sorry to link else where, but : http://www.ispreview.co.uk/review/ce...ils&itemid=181

HTH

[Neil]

Originally Posted by Jonboy

my guess will be when the price increase comes into force

ntl have already said that it should happen 'late summer'.....

[BBKing]

Oo pem...

Lecture on the difference between data storage and data transmission. Storage is always measured in bytes (=8 bits). Multiple bytes are measure up in exact powers of two (kByte is 1024 for instance).

Transmission is always always always measured in bits. Just because IE reports your transfer speed in bytes doesn't mean you should listen to it, it's measuring transfer of a file, rather than a transmission of data.

Network professionals measure everything in bits, and a kilo is a kilo, as in 1000, as in a kilometer. Properly, in other words :P

Thus when TW set the downstream parameter in their new CM file to 768000 bits per second, 768000 bits per second is what you'll get. Or 768 kilobits per second in other words.

Transmission speeds don't have to be exact powers of two to work properly, hence why ntl can base their speeds on multiples of 150k. All of which does lead to the rather odd statistic that TW 512k users are getting a 50% free speed upgrade while ntl 600k users are only getting 25% free.

The probable reason for everyone using 512k etc. is historical, apart from anything else the original Cisco cable modem system examples use the same speeds and terminology as most cable providers subsequently adopted.

[Chrysalis]

late summer is unacceptable, need at least the name of the month, and reason as to why it takes ntl upto 3 montsh longer then telewest to give out upgrades (telewest upgrades started 1 day after announcement). Also agree with neil, there should be a different cap for each speed now we have a 1.5mbit product with the same content limit as the 300kbit product but the 1.5mbit customer pays over 200% more.

[Chris W]

Originally Posted by Chrysalis

late summer is unacceptable, need at least the name of the month, and reason as to why it takes ntl upto 3 montsh longer then telewest to give out upgrades (telewest upgrades started 1 day after announcement). Also agree with neil, there should be a different cap for each speed now we have a 1.5mbit product with the same content limit as the 300kbit product but the 1.5mbit customer pays over 200% more.

why is late summer not good enough?! If no-one knows the month then no-one can tell you! by late summer i would guess august/september... is that better?

At the end of the day, i think a better option would be to lower the cap on the 300k service. As you said, if the cmr is paying 200% more for 1.5mb then the cap should be 200% less on the 300k service. I don't want to turn this into another cap debate, but someone who can use over 30gb a month is doing something serious with their connection, i see it as plenty, and given that the punishment for breaking it is so menial, there really isn't much to worry about.

[Neil]

Originally Posted by monkeybreath

why is late summer not good enough?! If no-one knows the month then no-one can tell you! by late summer i would guess august/september... is that better?

No m8-it's not better.

If Telewest can get their act in gear-why can't ntl.....?

Probably because TW have been planning this for a while & are/were geared up for it-ntl on the other habd only did it to save face & weren't prepared for it.

It's down to ntl being reactive instead of [u]pro[/c]active as usual IMHO.

[Florence]

Last night I know of two others who was upgraded last night one to 3mb and he was saying the bbc opened in secs, a count of 4 while when I tried it opened in a count of 6. This was while downloading a linux and hosting skype with 4 people in the confrence. He said he still had plenty left and no caps it seems only the new package Telewest started the 256K has any cap

[PC_Arcade]

I got my letter today about the price increase, nothing about the speed increase though

[andygrif]

Originally Posted by Chrysalis

late summer is unacceptable, need at least the name of the month, and reason as to why it takes ntl upto 3 montsh longer then telewest to give out upgrades (telewest upgrades started 1 day after announcement). Also agree with neil, there should be a different cap for each speed now we have a 1.5mbit product with the same content limit as the 300kbit product but the 1.5mbit customer pays over 200% more.

I can understand why you might say it is unacceptable, but I don't agree. I think this is a good example of why ntl should not have announced the increase in speeds (with hindsight) becuase they are damnedif they do, damned if they don't.

The problem is that people are still linking the price increases for 1mb customers to the speed increases for all - and for the vast majority of CM customers only one of the above applies.

Originally Posted by PC_Arcade

I got my letter today about the price increase, nothing about the speed increase though

They will probably notify customers nearer the time of launch. Probably followed by advertising to generate more subscribers.

[PC_Arcade]

But now with the price increase (even including the 50% speed increase), it just isn't competitive anymore ADSL is looking stronger and stronger, so it looks like it's finally time to walk.
Out of interest, do I have to cancel in writing or will a phone call do?

[grindkid25]

actually its like 100% more

300k -to be 18.99
1.5 meg - 38.99

thats like doube 19 quid which is 37 and then only another 2 quid

theres no point moaning over the waiting time for the upgrade as its not going to come around any sooner

in my terms , lots of people will forget about the upgrade then it will come around and spring on them

[Ramrod]

Originally Posted by dellwear

Sorry to link else where, but : http://www.ispreview.co.uk/review/ce...ils&itemid=181

HTH

This one cracks me up:

I have a Bulldog 6Meg ADSL line and it rocks, I get a solid 833.6Kbytes/sec downstream & 48Kbytes/sec upstream ;-)

It only costs me £99.99 a month and cost £50 to setup !!!

It's my mission in life to download the entire Internet onto my hard drives, and with Bulldog's ADSL I'm gonna get there quicker......

Originally Posted by PC_Arcade

But now with the price increase (even including the 50% speed increase), it just isn't competitive anymore ADSL is looking stronger and stronger, so it looks like it's finally time to walk.
Out of interest, do I have to cancel in writing or will a phone call do?

IMO, I do not think ntl's BB network, at the current time could cope with the new speeds, thus probably why ntl have delayed the speed increases, its better to get the network sorted first than to launch the speeds now and watch the broadband network grind to a halt.