[Merged] NTL Increasing BB Speeds Late Summer 2004

Originally Posted by Teccie

Ah well - still no speed increase and its summer... cant argue - they said summer and its summer now. Maybe they meant late summer when they've taken the extra £3 off all of us for the 3 months or so.

Grrrr...

The £3 rise should av come into effect when the increase went to 1.5mb not before - thats one reason ive gone back to 600k, as i believe have loads of others. Only NTL losing out it looks like - bunch of biffs.

1. They said late summer.

2. It is not summer yet, it is still spring until June 21st.

3. The price rise is not related to the speed increase and never was.


Edit: Damn, beaten by Ian - but you get the picture now ....

[Teccie]

Originally Posted by Pem

1. They said late summer.

2. It is not summer yet, it is still spring until June 21st.

3. The price rise is not related to the speed increase and never was.


Edit: Damn, beaten by Ian - but you get the picture now ....

Forgot it wasnt summer just yet - got carried away with the 30deg were having round here

I know the price increase wasnt anything to do with the increase in speed. They said it was to keep inline with the competition... u can get adsl 1mb for £30 now... so they have infact raised it beyond the competition. Yes we can all compare prices to BT but why should we - bt's prices are one of the highest in the uk for 1mbit adsl. Hence i said they should av raised the price when we get our 50% increase - it would av been a fairer rise and would not av resulted in hell of a lot of people stepping down to 600k - which it would appear has happened.

[Teccie]

How lame r u guys - make 1 mistake and ur quick to reply and point out the error - infact 2 replies within 10 mins.... make a valid comment about how stupid ntl have been with regard to their price increase - and - nothing, nada, zilch...

[Florence]

Originally Posted by Teccie

How lame r u guys - make 1 mistake and ur quick to reply and point out the error - infact 2 replies within 10 mins.... make a valid comment about how stupid ntl have been with regard to their price increase - and - nothing, nada, zilch...

I pointed out my views on the price rise at the time I also downgraded so I wouldn't pay the increase.

We all have a choice some are unable to get other options so are stuck with whatever NTL do to their package. Others have freedom to move over to ADSL unless every customer actually made an attempt to join forces and show NTL customers have had enough nothing will change.

Thats life they take we give they can keep asking for more but sooner or later teh customer will reach a limit and reduce what ever services they have from NTL..

[Stop It]

Originally Posted by Pem

1. They said late summer.

2. It is not summer yet, it is still spring until June 21st.

3. The price rise is not related to the speed increase and never was.


Edit: Damn, beaten by Ian - but you get the picture now ....

Pem I dont know where you get your defination of summer from, in fact, I do, hehe ignore meh :p

[th'engineer]

You know if you are not happy you can always complain, am happy to wait.

I am Last in the Q now if Bill gets his way

[Chrysalis]

we all know ntl said late summer, I am asking why they saying late summer when Telewest can do it in 2 weeks, and if neil is right then NTL need some serious surgery because this is just complete inefficiency.

[ian@huth]

I don't think that it would have mattered what NTL said about when it would be done, someone would have complained about the timing.

Don't forget that NTL are doing other things as well as increasing BB speeds such as CR3, MR2, Mail system upgrades, Harmony, etc.

It isn't the end of the world because we have to wait a little.

Originally Posted by Chrysalis

we all know ntl said late summer, I am asking why they saying late summer when Telewest can do it in 2 weeks, and if neil is right then NTL need some serious surgery because this is just complete inefficiency.

Exactly how much knowledge of what they are having to do to prepare for these increases do you have - to base such a statement on ?

How fast Telewest may have done it completely irrelevant - thet are a seperate, smaller company, with a much smaller network. Some of the network inherited by NTL is creaking at the seems and needs work and money spending on it before it can happen. Upgrades do not happen overnight. New ubr's do not just pop up in days.

[Stop It]

Originally Posted by BBKing

In a perfect world I could do it with a snap of my fingers, but this isn't a perfect world. The other alternatives are not to announce anything (as tried in London) for which we get slated, to announce unreasonable timescales (for which we get slated, and rightly). Damned if we do, damned if we don't.

Right, i would agree with you about that, If NTL actually said anything about this speed increase on thier websites, which, apart from one link, buried deep in the site (that I cant seem to get to without a direct link) DO NOT mention anything about any speed upgrades.

Im sure the majority of NTL customers know nothing about this speed upgrade (Heck I found out in the independent, Id much rather be told by my supplier than a newspaper), so basically, they havent announced much at all.

Customer relations, (on a national level, not on a personal one) from Ntl is appaling, they seem to be incompetant at ANY positive PR exersize,and this is a prime example, If it wasnt for that fact that Telewest wasnt a rival to NTL, TW would be laughing by now.....

[BBKing]

You're asking a techie to comment on marketing people - the usual view of us anoraks is that they have a loose grasp of how any technical system works and need things explained very carefully using short words to avoid scaring. However, one has to recognise that someone outside the daily grind might have a better overall view than someone like me down among the muck and bullets.

I'm sure there will be more announcements though, there's enough feverish activity. In fact there's so much work going on on the network for a variety of projects it's hard keeping up.

[Teccie]

Isnt the fact that we are stuck with ntl for cable in certain areas classed as a monopoly ? Might ask that question at some monopolies community somewhere - see if it cant be raised.... I want to live here in this house but i want telewest to be my cable provider - admittedly smaller than NTL but hell of a lot more efficient at what they do. Much the same as the likes of BT used to be the only telephone provider... they had their monoploy and that soon got ripped apart - look at em now

Imagine how many NTL customers would swop to telewest if they were given the chance....

Hmmm 1mbit BB for £37.99 or 1.5mbit for £35... think i'll swop now

[ian@huth]

Originally Posted by Teccie

Isnt the fact that we are stuck with ntl for cable in certain areas classed as a monopoly ? Might ask that question at some monopolies community somewhere - see if it cant be raised.... I want to live here in this house but i want telewest to be my cable provider - admittedly smaller than NTL but hell of a lot more efficient at what they do. Much the same as the likes of BT used to be the only telephone provider... they had their monoploy and that soon got ripped apart - look at em now

Imagine how many NTL customers would swop to telewest if they were given the chance....

Hmmm 1mbit BB for £37.99 or 1.5mbit for £35... think i'll swop now

Hmmm, don't you think that whoever billed your cable services they would still be supplied via the same infrastructure with the same problems existing. If you wait a while there is a potential NTL / Telewest merger coming soon.

[browneggsandham]

Originally Posted by Teccie

Isnt the fact that we are stuck with ntl for cable in certain areas classed as a monopoly ? Might ask that question at some monopolies community somewhere - see if it cant be raised.... I want to live here in this house but i want telewest to be my cable provider - admittedly smaller than NTL but hell of a lot more efficient at what they do. Much the same as the likes of BT used to be the only telephone provider... they had their monoploy and that soon got ripped apart - look at em now

Imagine how many NTL customers would swop to telewest if they were given the chance....

Hmmm 1mbit BB for £37.99 or 1.5mbit for £35... think i'll swop now

Although that's a good point, I wouldn't class it as a monopoly.
Surely the fact that there is only one cable company in each area comes down to tachnical restrictions. If so, it is not an example of one company holding their products back from another.

And the prices differences, although I'm not happy with them are just an example of a company making the most of their situation (whether that's good or bad).

Originally Posted by BBKing

In a perfect world I could do it with a snap of my fingers, but this isn't a perfect world. The other alternatives are not to announce anything (as tried in London) for which we get slated, to announce unreasonable timescales (for which we get slated, and rightly). Damned if we do, damned if we don't.

I think people can be very unreasonable.
Like you say, if nothing had been announced, people would have been complaining at ntl for not doing anything to keep up with TW.
But then when you do announce something, those same people still seem to have to find something to complain about, so they start complaining about how long it's taking.

These people should remember, right or wrong, there is only one cable company in each area, meaning ntl are under no real obligation to make any speed increases at all (although admittedly, they must still rival ADSL).

Be happy with what you've got - the speed increases WILL happen.

Browneggsandham

Just to expand a bit more - NTL are doing a mass of network upgrades and re-segmentations over the next few months in preperation [part of] this speed increase. Remember that most of NTL's customers are on the 150k service which is being doubled to 300k - this cannot be achieved without this preperation work. I understand that many new ubr's are going to be installed (this figure could be 50 or more).

Other work is also proposed but I can't go into detail yet (to protect the innocent )

One thing to remember about Telewest is that they didn't upgrade everyone - as I recall, TW customers with BB via STB's missed out on the higher speed increases.