[Merged] NTL Increasing BB Speeds Late Summer 2004

[Defiant]

Originally Posted by paulyoung666

do we , i am on 600 k service , i went down to 150k service and it felt like being on a slower than dial up service , i guess i have just got used to being on 600k , and no i dont download a great deal of stuff , what i do download comes at a good enough rate though

I've been on 128 , 150 & 600 there's no difference in browsing speed!

[Ramrod]

Originally Posted by Defiant

I've been on 128 , 150 & 600 there's no difference in browsing speed!

I've been on 512,600 & 1mb and I have noticed a difference in browsing and multiplayer gaming speeds

Originally Posted by Defiant

I dont know anyone like that. I can surf the net on dialup just fine. We have broadband to download plain and simple

I hate surfing on dialup and on 1mb I get single digit pings on multiplayer now.

[Richard M]

Originally Posted by Defiant

I've been on 128 , 150 & 600 there's no difference in browsing speed!

I've been on all those plus 1MBit, there is a big difference, especially between 150 and 600.
The thing that helps the most in my experience is a fast browser and fast CPU to render the content -- I'm on 100MBit here at work but can't really take advantage of it due to running a 500Mhz P3. :pp

[Defiant]

Originally Posted by Ramrod

I've been on 512,600 & 1mb and I have noticed a difference in browsing and multiplayer gaming speeds I hate surfing on dialup and on 1mb I get single digit pings on multiplayer now.

Gaming is a little different wouldn't you say to normal web browsing. I mean some of the latest pc online games seem to be asking for much more too

[mcmanic]

still no news for STB owners?

come on NTL,make a statement on this like telewest have and their STB non compatible for free upgrade service..

or are you just gonna forget the minority to please the majority

[Charlie_Bubble]

I think it's a positive move at last by NTL, even if it was forced on them. Not sure how their network will hold up if their newsgroup servers ever arrive and hold binary groups. I can see people with 1.5Meg lines making the whole network grind to a halt downloading 24/7!

Not sure whether this announcement would have done anything to stop me leaving if it had been made a few weeks earlier. On the balance of things, probably not. I took part in the trials for increased speeds of up to 3Meg and extra speed isn't something I'm too bothered about. When I saw what the trial was, I was a tad disappointed to be honest. People need reliability and service, not speeds. Believe me, people will probably not notice any difference in the normal usage, but they are being charged an extra £3. When I had the 3meg cable on trial I did notice some differences, but then it was 3 times what I had normally. An extra 50% won't make any difference on general browing etc for 1 Meg users.

If I was staying with NTL I would downgrade my service to 700 and save myself a tenner.

[Charlie_Bubble]

Originally Posted by Richard M

I've been on all those plus 1MBit, there is a big difference, especially between 150 and 600.
The thing that helps the most in my experience is a fast browser and fast CPU to render the content -- I'm on 100MBit here at work but can't really take advantage of it due to running a 500Mhz P3. :pp

Yes, between 150 and 600 there would be a difference, but between 1 and 1.5meg, the difference won't even be noticeably, unless you are doing a constant download of a big file, or several big files in the case of newsgroups. I'd say a lot of "average" 1meg users will downgrade rather than have a fraction of a second off their webpage appearing, besides, they still have those nasty proxy servers anyway!

[poolking]

Originally Posted by mcmanic

still no news for STB owners?

come on NTL,make a statement on this like telewest have and their STB non compatible for free upgrade service..

or are you just gonna forget the minority to please the majority

Have you read the whole of this thread? If you had, you would have seen a post stating that this would be for STB BB as well.

[Defiant]

Originally Posted by Charlie_Bubble

I'd say a lot of "average" 1meg users will downgrade rather than have a fraction of a second off their webpage appearing, besides, they still have those nasty proxy servers anyway!

I can see this too and well this is what NTL wanted anyway. The fact that Telewest already had the 2MB soon to be 3MB (There Flagship) doesn't seem to matter to NTL. I can see both companies getting more customers now mind. The stupid thing is though someone at NTL is going to get a pat on the back for this when it wasn't there idea. They don't have any

[Charlie_Bubble]

I wait to see what 'late summer' NTL style is. Personally, I consider late summer to be the end of August/beginning of September.

[mcmanic]

Originally Posted by poolking

Have you read the whole of this thread? If you had, you would have seen a post stating that this would be for STB BB as well.

that was just be the staff here,i would like a full statement on the fact on a NTL website under their terms&conditions on this new free offer before i believe this,its not mentioned like telewest has,if STB cannot handle 1meg too well (already mentioned in theis thread) then wouldn't it be better to make an announcement on their main pages that people who are on STB can contact NTL for a cable modem to benifit the free speed offer.

Again the left hand don't know what the right hand is doing!

[Florence]

Originally Posted by Pem

It's not rubbish at all. 1Gb is more than enough for the average user.

"Power" users who spend their time downloading tons of stuff are not your typical user and a relativly rare overall.

I listen to a friends music stream and it put sme over the 1gig sometimes, I am not copying them just listening. Also I have noticed the increased spam also takes up my capped Bandwidth. When you have in exccess of 300 emails all spam over a few NTL accounts it does use a fair bit every day. If they want the capped they have to exclude emails for starters also it does need to be highered a little so others like me who listen to streams while they working online can do so.

I am not a power users havent got the drives for it only a 40 gig drive and I manage to last 12 months between reformats. Yet I can easily go over with the family sharing the connectioin that was the main reason I went for 1 mb trying to be fair to the company and paying more sometimes than I used.

[magpie]

Originally Posted by Charlie_Bubble

I wait to see what 'late summer' NTL style is. Personally, I consider late summer to be the end of August/beginning of September.

To be fair, the only official announcement, posted by Nemesis here http://www.cableforum.co.uk/board/sh...6&postcount=87 , says the upgrade will happen later in the summer, not late summer. This could be read as ntl saying "it'll happen later - sometime in the summer".

In fact, didn't someone mention July earlier?

[Ramrod]

Originally Posted by Defiant

Gaming is a little different wouldn't you say to normal web browsing. I mean some of the latest pc online games seem to be asking for much more too

I agree with you regarding the gaming but I have found that normal browsing is excellent on 1mb and average on 600.

Originally Posted by mcmanic

still no news for STB owners?

come on NTL,make a statement on this like telewest have and their STB non compatible for free upgrade service..

or are you just gonna forget the minority to please the majority

The general gist of all the literature I have read (especialy Nem's insider contribution) indicates that stb owners, like me, will get the upgrade as well.

[Hell's Child]

Originally Posted by Pem

as I recall the majority of TW & NTL customers are on the lowest speed (I think the report quoted 10% of TW on 1MB+ ?).

Most people do not have BB to download lots of "stuff" - they have it because it's a faster response time on the same web sites, because it is "always on" and because it doesn't interfere with the use of the phone.

To add some facts and figures to this one, the following is ntls approx % for each speed.

150k - 66%
600k - 29%
1MB - 5%

5%, it's a very small %. And, tends to be gamers, people who download for profit (i.e download games/dvd's and sell them!!) and small buisnesses. I am not saying ALL 1mb users are the above but the majority are.
Most of ntl's broadband customers are people who are fed up of slow dial up, which ties the phone line up. Especially when you can get broadband for 17.99 with ntl (or 15.99 with pipex/bulldog etc) when on average dial up is around £15-£16 (bt 16.99, aol 15.99, freeserve 14.99).

Also, why should ntl be worried about telewest having a 2mb line? They are not competition. They do not operate in the same areas and so in theory, do not need to compete. Takeup of a 2mb line would be fairly small, as the UK does lag behind europe/usa with regards internet takeup.