1GB Cap Letter!!!!

The letter is from a 'Donald' in internet customer care team, I would of thought this was an AUP matter?

[Klaus]

Originally Posted by Dr. Plummer

The letter is from a 'Donald' in internet customer care team, I would of thought this was an AUP matter?

The letter was a bit strange. No NTL frank or markings on the envelope. No date on the letter. Plus the print quality of the letter was terrible, with all the lines running across...

Klaus

[Klaus]

Just phoned the number to confirm the letter was genuine. The number goes straight to the broadband support team. I asked them to confirm the letter and they did. They then wanted to start taking details, but I declined and said I would consider what the letter had to say first. The woman confirmed I "would decide if I needed to do anything about the letter" and that I would contact them if I needed to.

Klaus

[Sociable]

Originally Posted by Dr. Plummer

The letter is from a 'Donald' in internet customer care team, I would of thought this was an AUP matter?

One reason could be that the "overuse" isn't covered by the AUP directly as such if the issue is to do with maxed out upstream rather than downstream problems.

The AUP makes no mention of a specific upstream limit, although I believe a rule of thumb being used at one time was about 300MB a day being a figure considered excessive.

I can see one possible reason for them not being specific about this though as AFAIK on-line game play by its very nature uses more upstream bandwidth than most other "normal" use.

For me it was no accident that the original change to the AUP came at the time NTL were going all out to sign up people for the various Xbox & PS2 type use. By signing up more people playing games they were perfectly well aware this would shift the usual balance between upstream and downstream usage.

If this is the case then asking users to avoid running up-stream servers at peak times should be the focus not limiting downloading at all.

As it stands all the heavy users could comply completely as regards the AUP downloading limits, or even give up downloading completely, but still cause congestion by running servers during peak times.

Essentially what is required is an "Intelligent" rewording of the AUP that would promote and steer both upstream and downstream use for file transfers towards off-peak times. Most will have no problem complying with this as file transfers can be scheduled to off-peak times whereas browsing and game-play can not.

The result at the end of the day must surely be to get the maximum use out of the equipment with the minimum disruption to individual users.

The current AUP does neither. It instead applies what may well be unnecessary restrictions on some, thus annoying them and many others, but without actually improving the quality of service for anybody because the tool being used is too blunt and aimed at the wrong target.

[orangutangz]

I said on the first day the cap was announced that if I ever received such a letter I would immediately cancel all services. I have the full package and my monthly bill is on or over £100/month. Like Kitty I have 2 teenage sons who share the connection - we aren't particularly heavy users but I loathe the idea of having to monitor what everyone is doing and worrying about the threat of these letters hanging over us!

My sister-in-law has an adsl connection with Demon - through all my DNS problems, outages, mail problems, her connection whizzed along trouble free. Each time I saw her I thought 'why am I still with ntl?' Laziness plain and simple.

Well that's it - no more. First thing tomorrow a phone call to BT, then Sky (fortunately I still have my box and contract - only need to go back to the full package). Only question remaining - who to sign up with for adsl?

[Klaus]

Nicely put Sociable

I do use my upstream almost continously. I host an e-mail and web server and do a lot of remote management to here. I'm also on a couple private P2P communities, which I choose to give most of my bandwidth to. I want to be able to give back to these communities. At the same time I'm crying out for a home user connection with a faster upload and am willing to pay more for it.

This cap is far too broad and needs a lot more consideration. However, even if they did move towards off-peak usage, I would still leave. I pay for an unlimited connection and that is what I want to be able to use. More and more applications, games, web-sites and on-line services are being produced which use more and more bandwidth. I want to be able to make use of these at my leisure, not have to worry about whether I might be going over my daily limit or what time of day or night it is.

When other ISP's in the this country and around the world are rolling out faster and faster connections. What does it say about the future of one that tries to curtail it's user's use of their connections?

Klaus

[Charlie_Bubble]

Hmmm, well with my usage pattern over the last 2 or 3 months I guess it's only a matter of time before I get one. I mainly stick my pc to download overnight, from about 1am to about 7:30am, but I definitely go over their limits. I've been with NTL for about 5 years now and am paying them over £100 a month for phone, TV and broadband. If I get a letter then that £100 will be going to BT, Sky and whichever ISP can give me email that works 24/7, real newsgroups with binaries groups that work and at leasy 1mb download for under £30, so basically any other ISP apart from NTL.

[Klaus]

The two ISP's I'd recommend for ADSL are PlusNET and Bulldog. PlusNET offer an excellant service and have won many awards. They offer a variety of packages, focusing on their customer's needs. They even have seperate packages for P2P users and non P2P users! (Are you listening NTL?) Their support is excellant and their website is just as good. The amount of services and tools made available through their website is amazing.

If you're a heavy user and don't want all the extras, I'd go for Bulldog. Only £37.99 for their 2Mb connection and the website even states unrestricted. If you're not lucky enough to be near one of the 450 exchanges with the 2Mb service, then their 1Mb service is only £32.99. They also offer off-peak packages (Still listening NTL?), they work out even cheaper. Have a look at the post at the top of this page for all the benifits for using them. But there's no e-mail, web-space, static-ip, etc. Not a problem for me, but PlusNET is much more user friendly.

PlusNET - http://www.plus.net/info2/residentia...broadband.html
Bulldog - http://www.bulldogdsl.com/residential/home.asp

Klaus

[cjmillsnun]

Originally Posted by Klaus

The letter was a bit strange. No NTL frank or markings on the envelope. No date on the letter. Plus the print quality of the letter was terrible, with all the lines running across...

Klaus

Personally I think this is a cut and paste job. The NTL logo is the old one with the N and T stuck together also wouldn't the logo be ntl:home like on their website www.ntlhome.com The logo was changed to the one on their website before the cap was introduced.

Please try better Klaus, and for everyone else, please don't feed the trolls.

[blue jammer]

Bulldog looks dodgy if you ask me, their 2MB connection isn't 2MB ALL the time, it's off peak, and during peak hours it's 512MB, Pah.

I'm a heavy-heavy user with P2P and the like, and I'll wait till I get a letter before I decide who to go with, nildram looks like the winner so far, even though they're pricey, have a look-see at this package:

1024down, 256up static IP and no limit on downloads at all, £57.58 (bit pricey) a month...

It does have another section that says "Up to 256 Private IP Addresses" + option (£5.88) (£47.00 admin - over 8 IPs) all of which goes straight over my head, can someone have a look and explain that?!

linky: http://www.getadsl.co.uk/dslpro1000.htm

[Tricky]

So many questions - but the answer to "Do I upgrade to 1mb" has been answered.
I would like to see someone actually confirm the letters are ligit or not, and why would they have a homepage.ntlworld.... address (not likely me thinks?) Who has the account bandwidthadvice?

[Shaun]

Originally Posted by blue jammer

Bulldog looks dodgy if you ask me, their 2MB connection isn't 2MB ALL the time, it's off peak, and during peak hours it's 512MB, Pah.

Realy?

AllTime 2000 gives you up to 2 Mbps 24 x 7 with a superior 40:1 contention ratio. And now 0845 dial back-up is provided as standard.

For a limited period, Bulldog is offering its AllTime 2000 service for just £37.99/mth

So that's about £3 more a mont for double the upload

1024down, 256up static IP and no limit on downloads at all, £57.58 (bit pricey) a month...

It does have another section that says "Up to 256 Private IP Addresses" + option (£5.88) (£47.00 admin - over 8 IPs) all of which goes straight over my head, can someone have a look and explain that?!

linky: http://www.getadsl.co.uk/dslpro1000.htm

You want to look at Bulldog properly, here's the details on their 1Mbit service:

Up to 1 Mbps downstream bandwidth, that's nearly 20 x faster than dial-up

Up to 256 kbps upstream bandwidth**

Flat monthly fee - unmetered usage

Available nationally***

40:1 contention ratio (that's 20% better than industry-standard 50:1)

0845 dial back-up now included as standard
Choice of Static or Dynamic IP Address (Static IP is available for £2.35 per month*)

'No-frills' - e-mail and other services excluded

£32.99

[cjmillsnun]

Originally Posted by Tricky

So many questions - but the answer to "Do I upgrade to 1mb" has been answered.
I would like to see someone actually confirm the letters are ligit or not, and why would they have a homepage.ntlworld.... address (not likely me thinks?) Who has the account bandwidthadvice?

Tricky, for the reason I gave above, I think that this letter is a fake.

also, Klaus joins today and posts the link with his first post, and finally they give a Swansea number for the Tech support team, when for the majority of the UK, the 0845 number is cheaper.

I am 99% sure this is a fake.

PS isn't cable modem support 24/7??? The letter says 8-6

[Klaus]

cjmillsnun, I don't know how I can convince you, but I assure the letter is legit and sat right next to me. If you can think of a way I can convince you, please ask.

blue jammer, you need to look at Bulldog's AllTime packages, not the PrimeTime ones. Have a look here - http://www.bulldogdsl.com/residentia...me/alltime.asp

[blue jammer]

Originally Posted by dellwear

You want to look at Bulldog properly, here's the details on their 1Mbit service:

Up to 1 Mbps downstream bandwidth, that's nearly 20 x faster than dial-up

Up to 256 kbps upstream bandwidth**

Flat monthly fee - unmetered usage

Available nationally***

40:1 contention ratio (that's 20% better than industry-standard 50:1)

0845 dial back-up now included as standard
Choice of Static or Dynamic IP Address (Static IP is available for £2.35 per month*)

'No-frills' - e-mail and other services excluded

£32.99

Yes but this was the bit (bolded) that worried me:

Up to 2 Mbps downstream bandwidth, that's nearly 40 x faster than dial-up



Can anyone who's actually signed up or used bulldog confirm this, as I'd hate anyone to sign up and then find they're stuck with a service that isn't consistent...