Traffic Shaping

[Horizon]

It's a bit like brothels really. If you can't get rid of them, tax them. Making money is what companies are about and I reckon this traffic shaping is a step along that road.

Unlimited legal downloading of video content for say £30-£40 quid is on the horizon, or "coming soon" as ntl like to say. Bit like their pvr... In a few years we'll look back on this time with fondness. Oh, how we'll miss those pars and rars..so clinical downloading a film in a few seconds/minutes...now back to the present and Mr Emule

[totalwar]

I wish I could change Isp from NTL but stuck as only just joined.Ho how I hate 12months contracts.This really stucks wished I stayed at beunlimited.If this sort of thing carry's on then,I leave ntl anyway.

[bobna]

Originally Posted by Fawkes

There is no escaping it, this is the shape of things to come (sorry Nugget).

How many ISPs capped users before NTL?

Going to another ISP is just delaying the inevitable.

The future of the internet is corporate control.

I'm all for websites like this and the EFF, but users stamping their feet didn't change ISPs capping policy. At the end of the day there are only a relatively small number of subscribers that know what caching, capping and shaping is all about. The majority only care about being able to access content and price.

but do you think it's fair, 10mb customers pay £35 a month, or more, for an "upto" 10mb package, 75gb cap fair enough i can live with that, but for ntl to then introduce traffic shaping at peak times with no notice, and i may be contridicting myself here, when most people use their connections, expecting the fast speeds only getting 1mb speeds and sometimes lower, it's really just quite a farce.
how do you expect people to react to this, just fall over and say ok whatever, or expect to get what they pay for at any time of the day or night.
someone mentioned earlier in this thread that it would improve online gaming, thats complete kak, I was play cod 2 at about 4pm today, with a ping on about 50ish, quit out, sorted my kids out came back to start playing again at about 7 ish, couldn't get on a server becasue my ping was too high when i did eventually get onto a server is was in the 200 - 300 range totally unplayable
come on ntl sort yourself's out give your customers a good service that they pay for and you wouldn't be on watchdog every week

[Chrysalis]

I would be interested to know how much actual cash was used for telewest and virgin, some say no real cash was involved others say it was, I find it hard to imagine how they can buy a company without using money. I would also be interested to know how they could be allowed to buy companies when they still have creditors to pay off and their network is close to potentially breaking broadcasting regulations when analogue gets switched off because they wont upgrade it, I would also be interested to hear what the eu regulator says about getting 0.5mbit on a 10mbit service is enough for them to fine ntl or something, I wont waste any time with ofcom they are useless when it comes to cable companies.

[Fawkes]

Originally Posted by bobna

but do you think it's fair, 10mb customers pay £35 a month, or more, for an "upto" 10mb package, 75gb cap fair enough i can live with that, but for ntl to then introduce traffic shaping at peak times with no notice, and i may be contridicting myself here, when most people use their connections, expecting the fast speeds only getting 1mb speeds and sometimes lower, it's really just quite a farce.
how do you expect people to react to this, just fall over and say ok whatever, or expect to get what they pay for at any time of the day or night.

No, I'm not happy. I was paying £37.99 for 3MB that was always 3MB. Than NTL, not me, decided to upgrade me to 10MB and knock £3 off the bill. What I'm left with is a service thats rarely above 5MB and almost never 10MB. The question is will traffic shaping improve this or not and what are the wider imprecations of traffic shaping?

[Chrysalis]

well not only did they knock £3 of the bill they rolled it out when they hadnt the means to enforce the cap, so you get people downloading 100s of gigs on 10meg for 34.99, the whole thing is a mess and this shaping in to fix it quick and make it less noticeable for the bulk of customers.

[Horizon]

Originally Posted by Chrysalis

I would be interested to know how much actual cash was used for telewest and virgin, some say no real cash was involved others say it was, I find it hard to imagine how they can buy a company without using money. I would also be interested to know how they could be allowed to buy companies when they still have creditors to pay off and their network is close to potentially breaking broadcasting regulations when analogue gets switched off because they wont upgrade it, I would also be interested to hear what the eu regulator says about getting 0.5mbit on a 10mbit service is enough for them to fine ntl or something, I wont waste any time with ofcom they are useless when it comes to cable companies.

Ok, I'll have a crack of this as I did mention it earlier.

I, like many ex-shareholders had money tied up in ntl/telewest. We had shares and we paid money for them. Those shares became worthless because the companies were in so much debt. So the American bond holders/banks took on this debt, several billion of it, for full control of ntl and telewest, then merged the companies together. So depending on how you look at it, either it cost the bondholders nothing or several billion. But no cash was handed over. There is no company that I know off that is in several billion pounds of debt. Just think what would happen if you didn't pay your mortgage, you'd lose your house. In this case, the cable networks would have collapsed. That's why the yanks did what they did. They control the UK cable industry that they had built and paid for in the first place and the price is they have taken on all the debt. Just imagine the interest payments on several billion pounds...

If the cable industy had been set up diffrently, this would not have happened. The Thatcher Government of the 1980's gave licences to lots of diffrent companies to run cable franchises all round the country. The companies were small and so were the franchises. They couldn't survive on their own. That's why you have lots of networks with diffrent technologies, because up until now, there were loads of cable companies. Its taken 15 years for all the cable companies to merge. This is why they're in such a mess. That time should have been spent competing with Sky and the monopoly that was/is BT.

Note: the Virgin deal hasn't happened yet and may never happen.

Now back to traffic shaping

[Frank]

Originally Posted by totalwar

I wish I could change Isp from NTL but stuck as only just joined.Ho how I hate 12months contracts.This really stucks wished I stayed at beunlimited.If this sort of thing carry's on then,I leave ntl anyway.

You are free to leave now if you want.

20. Cancellation Rights

You may cancel the Services without penalty in the following circumstances:-

<snip>

ii. if we significantly reduce the content of the Services or make any significant change to the terms and conditions of this Agreement under Condition 26, you may terminate this Agreement by giving us one month's notice in writing within 30 days of such change irrespective of whether the minimum period in respect of such Services has expired.

26. Changing the Terms and Conditions

Where any of the following occurs:

<snip>

iii. in all other events, where we reasonably determine that any technical modification to the ntl Network or change in our trading, operating or business practices or policy is necessary to maintain or improve the Services which we provide to you,

we reserve the right to change the terms and conditions of this Agreement and/or the Services which we provide to you as soon as is reasonably practicable by giving written notice to you prior to the changes being introduced. We will also publish details of any changes (including the operative date) in each of our main offices and/or on our website as soon as possible prior to the changes being introduced. Your rights to cancel the Services if we make any significant change to the terms and conditions of this Agreement are set out in Condition 20.1(ii).

[Horizon]

And when bee and all the other isps (that DON't own their own networks) go bust in a few years, he'll be back

[totalwar]

Originally Posted by Frank

You are free to leave now if you want.

Thanks for the info m8.

Neptune I will not be back if I left ntl way to much hassle changing phone isp and tv even if it was a bit cheaper not worth the hassle.Sky be doing broadband sometime this year so might give them a try have all three with them.

[grubbymitts]

Originally Posted by unlimited

Searching for a new internet provider

It's between Be Unlimited and Ukonline Unlimited

Er...don't go calling UKOnline, Bill. According to the front page article:

Originally Posted by Cable Forum front page

"Update 1: It has come to our attention that the residential arm of British ISP Easynet, branded UK Online, also recently implementated Traffic Shaping."

---------- Post added at 07:04 ---------- Previous post was at 07:00 ----------

Originally Posted by Neptune

Unlimited legal downloading of video content for say £30-£40 quid is on the horizon, or "coming soon" as ntl like to say. Bit like their pvr... In a few years we'll look back on this time with fondness. Oh, how we'll miss those pars and rars..so clinical downloading a film in a few seconds/minutes...

A few seconds/minutes maybe but a whole lifetime of progressively nastier DRM to contend with, I'm sure, for your troubles.

[Sherlock614]

For me, traffic shaping is something that is obviously needed to ease congestion etc. As has been said, other ISP's are doing it / will be doing it, it's inevitable.
Only thing i don't like is the secrecy part. I would have had a lot more understanding/acceptance if NTL had been open about their intentions (including the changing of the AUP) from day one

Originally Posted by etccarmageddon

eh? I thought you'd already signed up to BE unlimited?

Problem is is Be is not ready till the 30th of august according to sam knows so it to be ukonline they both offer the same package.

---------- Post added at 08:03 ---------- Previous post was at 07:51 ----------

[quote=grubbymitts]

Originally Posted by unlimited

Searching for a new internet provider

It's between Be Unlimited and Ukonline Unlimited

Er...don't go calling UK Online, Bill. According to the front page article:

Originally Posted by Cable Forum front page

"Update 1: It has come to our attention that the residential arm of British ISP Easynet, branded UK Online, also recently implemented Traffic Shaping.

however which ISP told there customers about it in a email and gave them the option to leave. This is the finale straw with me and NTL. Dont forget i have had bad speeds because of this. I have billing issues that i have not posted on this forum. So all in all its about time i got rid and gave someone else a try after 6 years as a customer of Nynex, Cable and witless, and now Ntl.


EDIT

I have a problem with my line which will be sorted on the 13th of april and then i can transfer my broadband from NTL to Ukonline . Now anyone got the number for NTL disconnections ?.

[Ignition]

Originally Posted by DVS

To be effective then surely NTL would need to be doing Layer 7 shaping. Does this not have privacy implications? Why should NTL, or any ISP, be permitted under privacy laws to undertake deep packet inspection of my network traffic.

So long as it's not looked at by a human being nothing wrong with that at all. No privacy implication there, it's their network you are using to transport traffic, they can do with it what they will.

[Toto]

Originally Posted by Ignition

So long as it's not looked at by a human being nothing wrong with that at all. No privacy implication there, it's their network you are using to transport traffic, they can do with it what they will.

Agreed.

Traffic shaping on the level that ntl appear to be implamenting cannot be done at the human level, the hardware ntl will need to install will do all that for them. Obviously there will be traffic data that will be analysed by humans, but it is largely data flow based on volume over time and port traffic and there will be insufficient time for human intervention to make this work properly that would breach any privacy issues.