[Now Official] More ntl speed changes

[Ignition]

Originally Posted by DeadKenny

And what percentage of NTL's UBRs are overcapacity?

Less than 1% - the main problem area will be resolved within the next month or so. Any more questions?

[TheShadow]

I'll probably move to 3Mbit if it's introduced, depending on price.

With a bit of luck Telewest 3Mbit will be reduced in price and NTL will follow suit.

[Stop It]

Originally Posted by TheShadow

I'll probably move to 3Mbit if it's introduced, depending on price.

With a bit of luck Telewest 3Mbit will be reduced in price and NTL will follow suit.

Its going to be £37.99 a month, oh yes, no NTl following suit here laddy :p

[Ignition]

Originally Posted by TheShadow

I'll probably move to 3Mbit if it's introduced, depending on price.

With a bit of luck Telewest 3Mbit will be reduced in price and NTL will follow suit.

Crikey product isn't released, and the gent didn't know how much it would be and already wanted a price reduction

[Web-Junkie]

Is it possible for NTL to allow you to reverse you upload/download speeds?

So instead of having say, 750k down/128k up you could switch to 128k down/750k up? Can this be done and would they allow it?

It's possible - yes - but it will never happen.

[Web-Junkie]

Ah! Was an act of pure optimism to pose the question in the first place

[TheShadow]

Originally Posted by Stop It

Its going to be £37.99 a month, oh yes, no NTl following suit here laddy :p

Originally Posted by Ignition

Crikey product isn't released, and the gent didn't know how much it would be and already wanted a price reduction

Oops, didn't see the pricing plans. My bad.

Originally Posted by Ignition

Crikey product isn't released, and the gent didn't know how much it would be and already wanted a price reduction

You've never been on holiday somewhere like Turkey or Tunisia then? Haggling's all the rage over there. Personally, I think it's a great way of doing business.

Nothing has any set or intrinsic value; the worth of goods or services is the price that the buyer and the seller agree. If the buyer doesn't agree the price, the seller will reduce the price, if he wants badly enough to sell it that is.

[dirtydog]

Originally Posted by Ignition

Considerably above average for 300k customers, approximately average for 750k....

You're kidding right?

5GB a month is a pathetic limit, I download 15gig a month on 300k now, and when I used to be on 750k it was around 45-60gig. So now they're gonna put me up to 1Mb and let me download 5gig? lol this is a con trick, a sleight of hand, smoke and mirrors.

Suffice to say I'll be staying at 300k.

btw I didn't vote in the poll as 'stay as you are and dont pay ntl their rip-off £25 fee' wasn't an option.

[DVS]

Sorry to return to the capping issue but this really does bug me.

I find it quite amusing how the internet connectivity business has evolved and history continues to repeat itself.

First we had standard PAYG dialup for home users. Initially this usually comprised dialing a POP on a local'ish number and larger ISP's had POP's throughout the country. Heavy users racked up serious bills (I had a number of 600 pound quarterly BT bills back in the early 90's). This continued for a number of years and slowly we moved to ISP's offering single dialup numbers to a national audience and all users could access these numbers at local call rates. Eventually along came all you can eat dialup which was a god send to heavy users. But heaven forbid some users decided to eat all they could and the telco's screamed 'ouch our profits' and started issuing cease and desist orders (not that BT ever showed a loss and made how many million per second?). This coincided with the advent of broadband and the predominant telco's simply stated heavy users need broadband which is an always on all you can eat solution. So heavy users go to broadband and now we find ourselves back at 'ouch our profits' lets return to limited/PAYG solutions.

Whilst NTL have to be commended for upping the bandwidth they are going to offer their customers I cannot commend them for introducing hard cap's into the equation. This is a real step backwards for net users and will, as more traditional services such as TV and PSTN telephones become IP bound, become an expensive option for users.

What I'd really like to see from NTL is some detail on how they are going to handle overages? What costs are users going to incur per GB over the cap. Or on hitting the cap will users simply loose connectivity or get some form of reduced/slower service? At present NTL have not explained the detail of their plans and seem to be hoping that the glory of offering the fastest home user net connects will mask the restricted nature of the new services.

On a side note is business broadband from NTL bound by the current usage guidelines and will business services become capped next year?

I'm convinced that the 'cap' for each tier will be based on the price point, not the tier of service.

i.e.

£17.99 will be a 5GB per month deal, whether you have 300Kb or 1000Kb.

£24.99 will be a 30GB per month deal, whether you have 750Kb or 2000Kb

- etc

- this could also enable a 'turbo' capability, whereby downloads of significant updates can be done at top speed for the tier, other stuff like email at the lower...

[DVS]

Originally Posted by dirtydog

btw I didn't vote in the poll as 'stay as you are and dont pay ntl their rip-off £25 fee' wasn't an option.

Same here..

[Ignition]

Originally Posted by dirtydog

You're kidding right?

5GB a month is a pathetic limit, I download 15gig a month on 300k now, and when I used to be on 750k it was around 45-60gig. So now they're gonna put me up to 1Mb and let me download 5gig? lol this is a con trick, a sleight of hand, smoke and mirrors.

Umm no I'm not kidding in the slightest, I'm stating the facts. As I said I was talking about averages. You are above average in your use - you are maxing your line out for 4 hours a day, which would give a contention ratio of 6:1. If you for a second think that ntl provide that contention ratio as a matter of course for £18 a month you're deluding yourself.

I can think of someone I know of who manages to download your monthly usage in a week.

As I've stated repeatedly before, this is a standard fact of life with the vast majority of mass-market ISPs, 5% of users are responsible for 60-70% of utilisation, and the only reason prices are as they are is that this 5% are subsidised to varying degrees by the other 95%.

Again not trying to turn this into a cap thread, just stating the facts as they are. Without the mass of light users who are the vast majority, the service would cost a fortune or be horribly oversubscribed.

[DVS]

Originally Posted by Ignition

As I've stated repeatedly before, this is a standard fact of life with the vast majority of mass-market ISPs, 5% of users are responsible for 60-70% of utilisation, and the only reason prices are as they are is that this 5% are subsidised to varying degrees by the other 95%.

Again not trying to turn this into a cap thread, just stating the facts as they are. Without the mass of light users who are the vast majority, the service would cost a fortune or be horribly oversubscribed.

Sorry but I can't let those comments pass without a response. While your figures are I believe accurate re 5% of users etc etc (which is true for a lot of things in life) by your logic we should next year see price reductions as those 5% become capped. Yeh right. We'll see BBand profits increase, the directors get a nice six figure bonus and the shareholders get an extra few cents dividend while the users gain a restricted service.

No doubt some will argue that users are going to gain extra speed. Well what do you know that's gonna cost NTL almost zip ongoing as the cap for most users will be the same (if not less) than current so bandwidth costs to NTL will lessen. I'll be able to use up my allowance in half the time. Whoppy doo.

BBand is profitable now. All ISP's are doing by introducing caps + PAYG overages is ensuring they can wring more profit out of the system. They know they will only upset 5% of their user base but set themselves up for increased profits over time as usage levels increase. I very much doubt we will ever see caps increase, instead PAYG will be the way to go as thats where the profit is.

Perhaps I'm being cynical but time will tell.