ntl Confirms 10Mb Broadband Speed Increase

[lucadam]

can anyone tell why i can not up grade my speed on line. it tells me to phone. i'am in the macclesfield area, and have a silver ntl modem

[Ignition]

Originally Posted by slowcoach

Don't forget, there were a lot of complaints after the last TW speed increase from customers who could only get half the advertised speed, or less.
ntl did a brilliant job last time, I get 3Mbs at all times, what's the betting that ntl will have done a more thorough (expensive) update this time as well.

Just checked my el cheapo ORIGO router, 10/100 Mbs yippee, all systems in place and ready for switch on.

Telewest registering faults on their website for the whole of Edinburgh, the whole of Birmingham and Newcastle says how hard they were pushing their resources.

They may have upgraded their core network but the local networks won't be capable of handling this abuse, their core is still in the process of upgrading, and even that is only to the same standards as the existing ntl architecture that has been present for 3+ years.

[Chrysalis]

Originally Posted by ian@huth

I didn't know that it was a race. I am quite happy with my NTL BB and appreciate how much thay have done in the past couple of years. We are being promised even more improvements at no extra cost so I for one am delighted. I will get the improvements when I get them and it doesn't bother me in the slightest if someone else gets similar improvements before I do.

You gotta wonder tho whats going on, the exact same thing happened last time, NTL announced first and then wait for months before they start, Telewest announce after and starting it next month.

Also if I read it right the £50 package is been scrapped? so for £35 they get unmetered 10mbit. They are undercutting NTL by £3 and have no caps or proxies. In another industry with such a gap in service and price by different companies one could complaing to trading standards and the offending company would be asked to justify their price, but I suspect in the communications industry they get away with it.
__________________

Originally Posted by Slyder

Im sure I read somewhere our silver modems only went upto 8meg.

ah well... 34meg sounds good to me.

I looked it up a couple of days ago was hard to find but the ambit 120 can do 38meg/sec

Interesting tho is what else I found out.

for docsis2 a ambit 200 or higher is needed, ambit 120 supports some kind of dual mode to do with the docsis the model below it doesnt. I would imagine if docsis 3 got rolled out a newer modem then ambit 200 is needed.

[BBKing]

A120s do DOCSIS and EuroDOCSIS, the first SACMs to do so (the 200 and 250 also do, plus allegedly having DOCSIS2 compliance). EuroDOCSIS has substantially higher downstream bandwidth at a given modulation than DOCSIS.

In another industry with such a gap in service and price by different companies one could complaing to trading standards and the offending company would be asked to justify their price

Why? ntl aren't a monopoly, after all. You might as well complain that BT don't have a 3Mb broadband service while ntl do.

The justification for any price charged is that it's what the market will bear - companies have a primary duty to maximise shareholder return, not to cut prices.

[Stuart]

Originally Posted by etccarmageddon

if ntl are larger than TW then they will have a proportionally larger work force and resources.

you could argue that TW are a smaller company and therefore have less rescources!

Doesn't always work like that.. They still have to secure supplies (like STBs, Modems etc). If they go to Samsung with an order for (say) 10,000 STBs, it's going to take Samsung a few months to produce that many.

Also, bear in mind that Telewest only have a few different networks, NTL have many more. Because of this, any testing being done has to be done more carefully, and will take longer.

And, if Ignition is correct, Telewest are running on hardware that is quite old compared to that installed by NTL, so they have done a lot of the testing before and have no need to repeat it.

It's a bit like a situation we have where I work. Including all the testing, it takes me a good couple of weeks to install new bit of software at work. At home, it takes me a few minutes. But, at work, I have to check it on all sorts of different PCs and under all sorts of conditions as, if it works, we will roll out it to around 500 PCs.

[Ignition]

Originally Posted by Chrysalis

In another industry with such a gap in service and price by different companies one could complaing to trading standards and the offending company would be asked to justify their price, but I suspect in the communications industry they get away with it.

Perhaps we should have been complaining that both cablecos were charging £25 for a product, but with ntl it got you 2Mbit and Telewest just 1?

Also to cross post ntl have 50% more on-net customers yet potentially over twice as much bandwidth and twice as many uBRs, a good proportion of which run EuroDOCSIS which delivers more bandwidth than the DOCSIS TW use.

I looked it up a couple of days ago was hard to find but the ambit 120 can do 38meg/sec

Interesting tho is what else I found out.

for docsis2 a ambit 200 or higher is needed, ambit 120 supports some kind of dual mode to do with the docsis the model below it doesnt. I would imagine if docsis 3 got rolled out a newer modem then ambit 200 is needed.

Not quite sure what your obsession with which DOCSIS standard is deployed is, all the standards are backwards compatible and DOCSIS 2 doesn't offer any downstream increase over DOCSIS 1/1.1 anyway.

All modems can be portrayed as doing 38Mbps on the RF interface, the 120 can actually deal with 51Mbit/s channel, doesn't mean it wouldn't choke if you stuffed that much IP traffic at it, that's a lot of packets per second potentially.

[mcmanic]

well good news if telewest is offering 10meg for £35, and starting from next month region by region, looks like NTL will be last again to get 10meg out and the most expensive to boot.

and the best bit-

*All the tiers will remain free of usage limitations, following research* showing consumers' confusion over bandwidth caps. The company believes its unlimited policy continues to give customers peace of mind and the ability to get the most out of rich media content.


shame NTL don't follow suit!

[ian@huth]

Originally Posted by mcmanic

well good news if telewest is offering 10meg for £35, and starting from next month region by region, looks like NTL will be last again to get 10meg out and the most expensive to boot.

and the best bit-

*All the tiers will remain free of usage limitations, following research* showing consumers' confusion over bandwidth caps. The company believes its unlimited policy continues to give customers peace of mind and the ability to get the most out of rich media content.


shame NTL don't follow suit!

As far as "the best bit" goes, what does it mean. I have been to many "all you can eat" breakfast buffets where you can eat as much as you want but you find that the only things readily available are cornflakes, baked beans and toast. The bacon only comes out now and again and you are lucky to get any.

It is very easy for an ISP to say they give you a service free of any usage limitations and with free 24/7 technical support but what can the reality be like? Contention could be a factor virtually all the time and it becomes a case of you can have as much as you like as long as others let you. The one 24/7 technical support line may also be very hard to get through on.

[mcmanic]

come on on stop defending NTL to the hilt all the time, you know as much as me is Good that we are getting this upgrade, but you also must agree we always seem to get a paper launch and then Telewest comes up with something better and actual goes through and says what they say there going to do within weeks rather than 16months as what NTL are saying, also with all the relevent info, pricing ect,ect- just seems NTL always do things half hearted and let everyone argue and speculate what and when its going to happen.

We are going to do this, we are the 1st to do so, but by the time you have it - everyone on other isps will have it also and much cheaper and no caps

Come On NTL get a grip and actual do something instantly, compulsive and make us all happy.

and we ain't talking about cornflakes, baked beans and toast either!

[Robc66]

Originally Posted by mcmanic

come on on stop defending NTL to the hilt all the time, you know as much as me is Good that we are getting this upgrade, but you also must agree we always seem to get a paper launch and then Telewest comes up with something better and actual goes through and says what they say there going to do within weeks rather than 16months as what NTL are saying, also with all the relevent info, pricing ect,ect- just seems NTL always do things half hearted and let everyone argue and speculate what and when its going to happen.

We are going to do this, we are the 1st to do so, but by the time you have it - everyone on other isps will have it also and much cheaper and no caps

Come On NTL get a grip and actual do something instantly, compulsive and make us all happy.

and we ain't talking about cornflakes, baked beans and toast either!

Well said m8! Thats exactly what i think too.

Good heavens, stop whinging! I signed up for NTL Broadband back when it was 512Kb for £25. It went to 600Kb, then 750Kb, then (IIRC) 1.5Mb, Now the same package is 2Mb and next year it's going to be 10Mb. All for no price increase.

I have since moved to a house that is not only off-net for NTL, it is so remote it is borderline for any kind of ADSL. I'm back on dial-up and, kilobit for kilobit, in comparison to cable broadband I'm paying a small fortune for it. Meanwhile, you continue to enjoy super-fast broadband and it's not costing you a penny more each time they upgrade you.

Stop moaning and enjoy the ride!

[Robc66]

Originally Posted by Chris T

Good heavens, stop whinging! I signed up for NTL Broadband back when it was 512Kb for £25. It went to 600Kb, then 750Kb, then (IIRC) 1.5Mb, Now the same package is 2Mb and next year it's going to be 10Mb. All for no price increase.

I have since moved to a house that is not only off-net for NTL, it is so remote it is borderline for any kind of ADSL. I'm back on dial-up and, kilobit for kilobit, in comparison to cable broadband I'm paying a small fortune for it. Meanwhile, you continue to enjoy super-fast broadband and it's not costing you a penny more each time they upgrade you.

Stop moaning and enjoy the ride!

The NTL 2mb package was never 1.5MB.

[Hans Gruber]

Originally Posted by Chris T

Good heavens, stop whinging! I signed up for NTL Broadband back when it was 512Kb for £25. It went to 600Kb, then 750Kb, then (IIRC) 1.5Mb, Now the same package is 2Mb and next year it's going to be 10Mb. All for no price increase.

That arguement is getting so painfully old. NTL had to offer those speed increases. Can you imagine them in todays market offering a 512k connection for £50? They didn't do it out of the goodness of their heart, they did it to keep up with others.

Announcing first does not make you an industry leader, it's how you go about rolling it out

Originally Posted by ian@huth

It is very easy for an ISP to say they give you a service free of any usage limitations and with free 24/7 technical support but what can the reality be like? Contention could be a factor virtually all the time and it becomes a case of you can have as much as you like as long as others let you. The one 24/7 technical support line may also be very hard to get through on.

Do you not think that Telewest might have actually thought this through? Just because they are doing something different to NTL does not automatically mean that their plans are not viable. They aren't going to be throwing around something that will never live up to expectations, otherwise they'll be constantly dealing with bodies such as Trading Standards. Just because NTL do things one way does not mean that is the only way to do things. There are other ISPs that do not have download caps. Are we honestly to believe that NTL, given their sterling track record of getting things wrong, actually have this right? I certainly do not.

As far as getting through to technical support is concerned, getting through to NTL isn`t excactly an easy task, so that criticism of Telewest doesn`t have any relevance IMO.

Originally Posted by Hans Gruber

That arguement is getting so painfully old. NTL had to offer those speed increases. Can you imagine them in todays market offering a 512k connection for £50? They didn't do it out of the goodness of their heart, they did it to keep up with others.

Announcing first does not make you an industry leader, it's how you go about rolling it out

All that is irrelevant. Do you or do you not have a reasonably priced broadband connection that allows you to do what you want reasonably quickly?