ntl Confirms 10Mb Broadband Speed Increase

Originally Posted by cookie_365

Of course, in adspeak 'up to' means 'less than' and 'from' means 'more than'

[Ignition]

Originally Posted by cookie_365

Of course, in adspeak 'up to' means 'less than' and 'from' means 'more than'

DSL speeds are measured slightly differently from cable speeds.

Fastest usable data throughput you'll see on Be or any other 24Mbit ADSL2+ service is around 21.5Mbit/s download and 1.1Mbps upload.

In the interests of fairness though and by the same token you're unlikely to see 10Mbit 24x7 on cable, already some Telewest customers who have been upgraded to 10Mbit have reported seeing less than 5Mbit most of the time with the odd spike into the 7Mbit territory.

Being honest if I have a choice between ADSL2+ and cable if I'm close enough to the exchange I'll take 2+ every time. My 21.5Mbps would be aggregated onto a gigabit, whereas cable you're dealing with a 10Mbps slice of 38Mbps, the statistical contention works much better on DSL2+ as the contention point is further down the chain.

Anyway isn't this conversation about ntl?

[handyman]

Well Checking my line here shows maximum of 2mbs from anyone.

http://www.broadbandchecker.co.uk

Not a bad site that
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Originally Posted by Ignition

10Mbps slice of 38Mbps

They must be upgrading the 38mbps. Otherwise it would not make sene at all, unless they are providing many more 38mbs channels.

[Chrysalis]

Originally Posted by etccarmageddon

BE are only in a small number of locations compared to your NTL network and are probably cherry picking the most profitable cities/exchanges/locations.

Cable is cherry picked itself, it is in more areas then LLU granted but less areas then BT standard coverage.
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Originally Posted by sherer

true but i see so many people complaining and saying company xyz is better but none of them ever move they just stay with NTL and moan.. until we see comments on here from someone on BE we don't know if the above speeds are actually reachable yet

as i said the service with NTL is actually pretty good

I will put this into perspective for you.

I decided to look at metronet, and this is my obstacle for moving since I have no other viable isp available on cable.

Current price for bb £9.99 month.

If I move I have to do behind my landlord's back plus the following.
Pay for BT line install
Pay for ADSL install
Pay £27.99 for the package I want.
Keep NTL line active as I want the tv.
Pay for BT line removal when I move out.

So amongst spending tons of money on installation/removal I will be paying 2 line rental's and increasing my monthly expenditure. This example is just for me but its not as cut and dried as you think to just simply leave NTL. I have no aerial on the roof either and there is no way I could get away with a sat dish the landlord would almost certianly notice that.
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Originally Posted by Ignition

DSL speeds are measured slightly differently from cable speeds.

Fastest usable data throughput you'll see on Be or any other 24Mbit ADSL2+ service is around 21.5Mbit/s download and 1.1Mbps upload.

In the interests of fairness though and by the same token you're unlikely to see 10Mbit 24x7 on cable, already some Telewest customers who have been upgraded to 10Mbit have reported seeing less than 5Mbit most of the time with the odd spike into the 7Mbit territory.

Being honest if I have a choice between ADSL2+ and cable if I'm close enough to the exchange I'll take 2+ every time. My 21.5Mbps would be aggregated onto a gigabit, whereas cable you're dealing with a 10Mbps slice of 38Mbps, the statistical contention works much better on DSL2+ as the contention point is further down the chain.

Anyway isn't this conversation about ntl?

Put it nicely 10mbit unmetered contended on 38mbit, thats the sort of thing you can expect. I wasnt aware that adsl2+ is contended on a bigger pipe like that if that's so it is a much more higher quality product.

[etccarmageddon]

I believe this is the difference...

when you're on cable you're contended at UBR level sharing a smaller pipe whereas when you're on ADSL you are contended further away (at the exchange). so cos you're further away you're contended on a larger pipe (but with more users).
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nb. if 10meg users end up contended on a 38meg pipe then we're screwed, aren't we?

[sherer]

maybe we should start a vote on why people stay with NTL.. happy with service.. like the price.. can't get another ISP provider etc

[ian@huth]

Originally Posted by Hans Gruber

I don't think even the most die-hard NTL fans would stay if they could get a (upto) 24mbit/1.3mbit connection.

But what does "upto 24mbit/1.3mbit connection" mean?

They could provide a service that provides that if only one user is connected but you only get half of that if two are connected or a tenth of that if ten are connected. The statement is still valid even if no one could ever achieve the speed unless they were the only one connected.

[Chrysalis]

Originally Posted by etccarmageddon

I believe this is the difference...

when you're on cable you're contended at UBR level sharing a smaller pipe whereas when you're on ADSL you are contended further away (at the exchange). so cos you're further away you're contended on a larger pipe (but with more users).
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nb. if 10meg users end up contended on a 38meg pipe then we're screwed, aren't we?

not if ntl enforce the cap, well not screwed so bad anyway.

[Hans Gruber]

Originally Posted by ian@huth

But what does "upto 24mbit/1.3mbit connection" mean?

They could provide a service that provides that if only one user is connected but you only get half of that if two are connected or a tenth of that if ten are connected. The statement is still valid even if no one could ever achieve the speed unless they were the only one connected.

It means a connection up to 24mbit down and 1.3mbit up, much like NTL's 10mbit service will be upto 10mbit and upto 400k(?) upstream.

Does anyone know the distance form the exchange where the 1.3mbit upstream would drop to below NTL's current 300k offering?

[Robc66]

Originally Posted by Hans Gruber

It means a connection up to 24mbit down and 1.3mbit up, much like NTL's 10mbit service will be upto 10mbit and upto 400k(?) upstream.

Does anyone know the distance form the exchange where the 1.3mbit upstream would drop to below NTL's current 300k offering?

Thats what I want to know too.

[ian@huth]

Originally Posted by Hans Gruber

It means a connection up to 24mbit down and 1.3mbit up, much like NTL's 10mbit service will be upto 10mbit and upto 400k(?) upstream.

Does anyone know the distance form the exchange where the 1.3mbit upstream would drop to below NTL's current 300k offering?

The point that I was making was that you could get any speed below the stated maximum and the ISP is still providing what they are advertising. Many customers believe that if they subscribe to a particular speed package then there is something wrong if they don't get that speed or very close to it. You could subscribe to a package that offers 24mbit downloads and only get the equivalent of dial-up speeds and the ISP could rightly say that you are getting what is advertised. As ISP's provide faster and faster speeds then the likelihood of getting anywhere near the stated maximum is reduced considerably.

[Ignition]

Originally Posted by Hans Gruber

It means a connection up to 24mbit down and 1.3mbit up, much like NTL's 10mbit service will be upto 10mbit and upto 400k(?) upstream.

Does anyone know the distance form the exchange where the 1.3mbit upstream would drop to below NTL's current 300k offering?

A very long way, you're talking around the range where BT struggle to deliver 1Mbit, around 5KM of line length or 3.5 - 4KM as the crow flies. I'd guesstimate (well based on some fact!) that 90-95% of the lines in the UK would be capable of 400k+ upstream on ADSL2+
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Originally Posted by ian@huth

The point that I was making was that you could get any speed below the stated maximum and the ISP is still providing what they are advertising. Many customers believe that if they subscribe to a particular speed package then there is something wrong if they don't get that speed or very close to it. You could subscribe to a package that offers 24mbit downloads and only get the equivalent of dial-up speeds and the ISP could rightly say that you are getting what is advertised. As ISP's provide faster and faster speeds then the likelihood of getting anywhere near the stated maximum is reduced considerably.

Find me an ISP Ian that doesn't advertise 'up to'. It's all part of a contended service and the only services that aren't advertising a quoted maximum rather than a guaranteed speed are leased lines.

In my opinion this is a very unfair comparison as with the Be and UKOnline services, as with all DSL services, the maximum speed is limited by line quality and length which isn't an issue with active cable networks.

The 10Mbit that ntl and Telewest advertise is also a maximum 'up to' speed which is governed purely by bandwidth utilisation rather than by line length.

However the advantage that Be and UKO have is that they can purchase a 1Gbit connection from the exchange to their backbone, multiple if required, whereas ntl / Telewest are only able to offer 38Mbps shared to each area.

Apples and oranges it is indeed, but then so is comparing distance limited bandwidth and contention limited. Unless you can change the laws of physics of course.

I'm not being a fanboy or a hater I'm just setting out the facts as they are here. Contention bandwidth wise will be a plague to cable networks for the foreseeable future and distance limitation to DSL based broadband services and that's the nature of the beasts.

[handyman]

But when they remove the analogue channels they will have loads of network capacity to be able to resegment ubrs and offer many more 38mbs channels thus lowering the contention.

[Ignition]

Originally Posted by handyman

But when they remove the analogue channels they will have loads of network capacity to be able to resegment ubrs and offer many more 38mbs channels thus lowering the contention.

Resegmentation is irrelevant to the analogue switch off. Analogue switch off frees channels on all segments, however there is already the existing ability to push more than one downstream down a single segment and I'd hope that the network isn't so rammo that there are no 8MHz slots at all free.

Resegmentation itself isn't a magic bullet as it can be massively expensive especially when having to split nodes, pull fibre and build new cabinets. There are only so many nodes that are combined to each card and once you're down to a node a card it starts getting really expensive.

As I said, foreseeable future There's also the cost-benefit to consider, how much are you going to break a network down. It still also is unavoidable that 4 10Mbit users can saturate their area, all you can do is minimise that possibility by breaking down to as small an area on each card as possible.

[Hans Gruber]

Out of interest roughly how many people, on average, are there per area?

:edit: That didn't make much sense. I mean how many people is that 38mbit shared between, on average?