Cable vs DSL Rollout (aka why NTL are brilliant/useless)

Blaster99

paulm17781 wrote:

I had a look at the freesatfromsky page. I honestly don't think it looks as good as NTL Digital although the price is better.

It isn't an option anyway as I can't get a dish. For people in aparments I can not imagine there is better value NTL & VOIP. Perhaps Magnet but the only review I have read isn't great.

If I am not mistaken here, cable went from 2% of all BB connections last year to 9% this year. I would be amazed if half of that isn't customers lost from eircom.

Smart (+ Telestunt) is by far the best value going. And their upgraded service lasted longer than an evening...

Incidently, Blueface folks, how many hours of landline calls do you make a month?

Blaster99

paulm17781 wrote:

Apologies for this. However I did not use it to build on my argument as it has nothing to do with my argument. I get very annoyed when someone has to resort to insults, thinking it makes them sound clever, in what is meant to be a civilised conversation.

Unless I'm mistaken, bk implied or stated that the things I mentioned were difficult. I'm as surprised as you, but I was only trying to be helpful by suggesting that maybe NTL suits some. It's a fact that you get a call from an engineer who plugs in the decoder for you and shows you how to use it, so I assume this is the type of assistance that bk was looking for. Perhaps for some this is worth €30 a month, but personally I find spending a few hours doing stuff myself more rewarding.

So I should really receive an apology for these unfounded allegations of being insulting.

paulm17781

Blaster99 wrote:

Smart (+ Telestunt) is by far the best value going. And their upgraded service lasted longer than an evening...

Incidently, Blueface folks, how many hours of landline calls do you make a month?

Smart and Telestunt do not give TV. We are talking triple play here and for those in apartments FTV is not an option.

Secondly with Smart you have to pay for calls. I have never had to pay Blueface (other than my monthly subscription) for a call. I would say I use about 4 hours per month. Yes it is cheaper than Smart as I need triple play. Once TV is factored in NTL is cheaper.

EDIT: I'm not even going to reply to the post about how bk wronged you. Everyone can see you have tried to insult him several times.

Sponge Bob

paulm17781 wrote:

for those in apartments FTV is not an option

How Very True. Us country pople can drill holes in our own houses to route sat signals in but apartment dwellers may not.

Therefore they need to pick those channels up off a cable of some sort...be it NTL or Eircom .

Blaster99

paulm17781 wrote:

Smart and Telestunt do not give TV. We are talking triple play here and for those in apartments FTV is not an option.

Secondly with Smart you have to pay for calls. I have never had to pay Blueface (other than my monthly subscription) for a call. I would say I use about 4 hours per month. Yes it is cheaper than Smart as I need triple play. Once TV is factored in NTL is cheaper.

EDIT: I'm not even going to reply to the post about how bk wronged you. Everyone can see you have tried to insult him several times.

If we ignore the TV bit for a second, you're not paying Smart for calls you're not making. You're paying Blueface for hours of calls you're not making (plus an implied line rental), the end result being that it's more expensive.

If we take TV into consideration and ignore your particular situation and Smart's limited but NTL-like availability, then Smart + Telestunt + FTV is the killer app. By some €30 a month. Not bad. Roll on Smart, you'll like Bray, you really would.

So, in order of value, assuming 4 hours of landline calls, 2Mbps broadband, and that all options are available. If not, pick the highest one on the list that you can get.

1. Smart + FTV + Telestunt = €35 + €0 + €3 = €38
2. Digiweb Metro + FTV + Blueface = €35 + €0 + €9.99 = €44.99 (if I use Digiweb's expensive call prices I will need to add €12 to compensate so Blueface is cheaper)
3. BT ADSL + FTV + Telestunt = €50 + €0 + €3 = €53
4. Smart + NTL Digital + Telestunt = €35 + €29.50 + €3 = €67.50
5. NTL BB + NTL Digital + Blueface = €29.99 + €29.50 + €9.99 = €69.48
6. Eircom BB + Line Rental + FTV + Telestunt = €42.35 + €24.18 + €0 + €3 = €69.53

I'm not considering that Telestunt is more expensive during peak due to Eircom's peak local call rates, but I'm also not considering that Telestunt is cheaper than Blueface to most destinations off peak and to mobile calls all the time.

I appreciate that not all products are entirely identical but you make your own judgements on what suits you or not.

bk

Blaster99, I certainly do recognise what you are saying and that for some people FTV might work out cheaper. But you need to recognise that for many NTL will work out cheaper.

For my own circumstances, NTL works out far cheaper, but then I'm not typical.

My primary priority was high quality BB. I needed 3m download as I share the connection with 2 other CompSci people and I need a high upload as I work from home and use VPN/VNC and servers. I simply couldn't get this from any DSL provider at a resonable price (Eircom was about €107 for 3m, NTL was €45).

My second priority is TV. We needed at least 4 independent TV connections (1 downstairs and 1 for each bedroom - by the way this is typical in rented accomadation in Dublin). Satelitte isn't an option as it is a rented house and even if it was it wouldn't be a good option for us. Even a FTA setup would cost us about €450 to €500 (dish + 4 fta boxes + quad lnb + wires - all second hand and self install). That would cost over 2 years of NTL analogue TV (not including the fact that NTL give me the analogue TV free for 12 months).

You also conveniently ignore the fact that NTL Digital would give you far more channels, over 100 channels, while FTA/V only gives you about 20 decent channels and doesn't include the channels I personally like the most (all the documentary channels, Living TV (for CSI), Sky One (for SG1), C4 (not on FTA), E4 and many others).

My third priority is telephone, I want an unlimited package and not the hastle of Telestunt. I make about 50 hours of calls per month (I work from home sometimes) and my housemates about another 30 hours. So we save an awful lot with Blueface over Telestunt.

So for me NTL + Blueface works out vastly cheaper then any of the other options you mention above.

paulm17781

Blaster99 wrote:

If we ignore the TV bit for a second, you're not paying Smart for calls you're not making. You're paying Blueface for hours of calls you're not making (plus an implied line rental), the end result being that it's more expensive.

A) Triple play

You have to let this Blueface 10 euro thing go. Do you complain about mobile bills this much? Comapnies have to make money. Do you want Blueface to offer this for free? I pay blueface for a service that service costs 10 euro per month. Perhaps you can offer a cheaper VOIP product and make a living off it?

C) NTL & Smart & Telestunt??? How do you make calls with Telestunt? CPS or dial a number, enter another, call, run out of credit etc? I'd rather pay the extra 0.03c per second to just dial my normal phone.

D) Smart's coverage is similar to that of NTLs (through no fault of Smart's). Why do they not get the usual "only 6 people can get it though." that NTL seem to get?

E) With the exception of maybe Magnet, NTL currently offer the best/most affordable BB in Dublin. Please don't reply with "Only a handful of....."

bk

paulm17781 wrote:

C) NTL & Smart & Telestunt??? How do you make calls with Telestunt? CPS or dial a number, enter another, call, run out of credit etc? I'd rather pay the extra 0.03c per second to just dial my normal phone.

FYI you dial a telestunt number first and then you dial the number you are calling. The telestunt number you call differs depending on where you are calling (ireland landline, mobile, usa, uk landline, etc.).

It is actually a pretty good service I've used it in the past for international calls, but I certainly wouldn't use it for local or national calls, it is just too much hastle.

BTW Bluefaces international rates seem to be sligthly cheaper then telestunt.

bk

My problem Blaster is that your setup depends on using FTA/V and Telestunt. While that isn't any problem for most people here on boards, for the vast majority of ordinary folk that is beyond their technical capabilities.

People often ask me what BB + TV + phone products they should get, because they know I'm pretty knowledgeable about it. If they have NTL, I tell them to just get NTL BB. If the person is really adventurous then I tell them to also get Blueface VoIP snd get rid of Eircom all together.

With your setup I have to tell them:
A) Go get BT (this is fine no problem).
Go buy a second hand sat system for at least €150, more if they want multi room.
C) They then have to install it themselves!!!!
D) If they want to call an irish phone usoing telestunt,
dial 1890 943 123 first
to call a Irish mobile dial 1520 932 601 first
to call australia dial 1530 47 5000 first, etc.
E) Oh and you won't get E4, Sky One, Discovery, MTV and Paramount
(in fairness you would gain extra BBC and ITV channels)

And for all that effort you will save just €10 a month over NTL!!!

Wow, you have basically saved the price of two pints (well not for the first 15 months you haven't - cost of FTA gear).

Most people would rightfully tell me to go take a running job.

Now before you go insulting me again, let me make it clear, I'm not talking about what I or people here on boards can do. I'm talking about the general public, who haven't got a clue about any of this stuff.

About the snide remark about me needing the assistance of a NTL engineer. When you can write modules for your hacked tivo in tcl (which I'm doing for fun at the moment), build a 6 tuner MythTV monster on Linux, setup and admin company networks and program in many different languages, we can then talk about technical cabaility.

Blaster99

I have no issue with Blueface, other than the fact that they're not cheap for an ordinary user. bk certainly gets stunning value out of them. I would not (and do not as I am a user as it happens).

With Telestunt you pay 1.25c off-peak to practically all landlines in developed countries. A quick glance at Blueface's rates, they seem to be cheaper to the UK (1c against 1.25c) but marginally more expensive to most other locations, but we're talking 0.15c type of a difference that obviously doesn't matter. Both have stunningly cheap per minute rates, but the main problem with Blueface is that I need to sign up for bundles that I don't get any value out of. Similarly with paulm of course and perhaps even most people.

These savings that I'm highlighting are not available to everyone, for a variety of reasons. Some can't install an FTV system, many can't get Smart, many can't get broadband at all of any shape, many couldn't be arsed dealing with setting up VoIP or have the patience with the often intermittent quality.

But then many already have a Sky installation. Their Irish subscriber base is much bigger than NTL's, like a quarter of the country type of thing. So for them, it's a no brainer to switch to FTV.

But all of that is irrelevant, because the savings are available if you know what you're doing and you have access to the services. I see no logic in limiting choices to the lowest common denominator. That's not really going to do much for progress is it? It's gonna do a lot for NTL and Eircom who make a lot of money on people's ignorance (and bias?), but that's not what I'm about.

paulm17781

Please do not put words in my mouth. I find Blueface to be excellent value. Not by the logic you are using (Assuming all rates should be included). I pay €10 euro, I get 5 hours of calls, then cheap to other places. You are using the logic that all calls should be included. I say 10 Euro for a fully functioning phone or 24.18? Smart not an option as NTL BB is my preference, see point E above.

What I get with Blueface is the best option available. See points A - C above it is cheapest for me by far.

Blaster99

It seems you fall into option (5). I fall into option (3) due to the services available to me and therefore save roughly €17 a month over your option. That's life.

Blaster99

bk wrote:

And for all that effort you will save just €10 a month over NTL!!!

€17 saving, which is a 25% saving. But that's enough handholding for today. I gotta go and watch some cable TV.

bk

Blaster99 wrote:

€17 saving, which is a 25% saving. But that's enough handholding for today. I gotta go and watch some cable TV.

BT ADSL + FTV + Telestunt = €50 + €0 + €3 = €53
NTL BB + Analogue TV + Blueface = €29.99 + €19.50 + €9.99 = €59.48

€6.48 more, which excludes FTA equipment costs or

NTL BB + NTL Digital + Blueface = €29.99 + €29.50 + €9.99 = €69.48

So, yes with Digital TV costs €16.48 more, however you get 120 channels versus about 20 - 25 useful channels on FTA/V and you get the 17 channel analogue service in as many rooms as you like. So you get far more for your money and you continue to ignore the expense of FTA gear, specially for a multiroom setup. A far more fair comparison to NTL Digital would be:

BT ADSL + Sky Family pack + Telestunt = €50 + €30 + €3 = €83 or
BT ADSL + NTL Digital + Telestunt = €50 + €30 + €3 = €83

Blaster99

Are the Sky packs not €10 each? I thought they were the last time I looked. Mind you, I couldn't make any sense of their offering.

NTL Digital has most of those ****e channels too. If you ignore the terrestrials plus their digital counterparts, there's a handful at most that would be watchable. No big difference there.

bk

Blaster99 wrote:

Are the Sky packs not €10 each? I thought they were the last time I looked. Mind you, I couldn't make any sense of their offering.

Yes, but you must take at least 2 (€21.50) and the family pack is €30.50, family pack is the only product equivalent to NTL Digital.

Blaster99 wrote:

NTL Digital has most of those ****e channels too. If you ignore the terrestrials plus their digital counterparts, there's a handful at most that would be watchable. No big difference there.

NTL Digital doesn't have many of the more rubbish shopping, quiz channels etc. It does have a large number of very good channels that aren't on FTA/V including:

- All the Documentary channels (discovery, history, etc.)
- All the music channels (MTV, Kerrang, etc.)
- C4, E4, More4
- Sky one, two
- Living TV, UKTV, etc.
- Lots of kids TV channels
- Paramount comedy 1 and 2
- SciFi Channel
- Some minor (but still good) sports and movie channels.

Trust me they make a big difference. Personally most of the TV I watch is on these channels. I never watch ITV channels, I do watch BBC 1 + 2, but rarely 3 or 4 and I rarely watch the Irish channels.

cgarvey

Blaster99 wrote:

If you ignore the terrestrials plus their digital counterparts, there's a handful at most that would be watchable.

Would somebody please think of the Discovery series of channels!

cgarvey

bk wrote:

and you get the 17 channel analogue service in as many rooms as you like

Not without violating their terms of service, or paying a fee per month per socket.

bk wrote:

Trust me they make a big difference. Personally most of the TV I watch is on these channels.

I agree. I and most people I know (especially those who like to watch TV) would fall into this category.

.cg

crawler

Top watched channels are the terrestials (RTEs, BEEBs, UTV, C4 ) and E4 & TV3. accounts for the vast amount of viewership believe it or not!

paulm17781

Cgarvey, I don't think that they charge for extra points anymore.

I have found that I watch more of the digital channels than the analogue ones. While I do think FTV could be good I would definitely prefer the NTL line up... Would probably prefer Sky to that too. Maybe FTV isn't for me.

Blaster99

I would miss the Discovery channels somewhat (Wings in particular), but personally the rest are very missable. You're right, there is a difference in channel output in NTL's favour. Not worth €30 by any stretch of the imagination, though. C4 and C5 are available on FTV, as I might have mentioned a few times already...

Tom Young

Liberty Media have now successfully takenover both NTL and Chorus. So please hold your respective horses.

The Chief Strategy Officer of Libery Media has outlined plans to change the face of both companies, merged. The name will probably be either UPC/UGC.

The touted investment figure is 400 million eur to achieve what they loosely term 'triple play' over cable or over telephone lines where necessary.

Will be interesting indeed to see who from the current management/s are retained to be CEO, COO of the new firm. I guess neither are/were particularly strong, but lack of central funding would not have helped either CEO as was.

If I was an employee of either NTL or Chorus, I'd look forward to a new era with fresh ideas, hard work and money. Things look up again, at last.

Good things will come.

Tom

cgarvey

Yes, but wait for how long. That sort of investment is going to take some time before end-users will see the benefit. Where will triple-play DSL2+ have got to in the meantime? Hopefully it will be sooner rather than later, but when it comes to NTL (or any new owners, as a result, however fair that is), I'll believe it when I see it.

.cg

paulm17781

Blaster99 wrote:

I would miss the Discovery channels somewhat (Wings in particular), but personally the rest are very missable.

That is very true. Generally when I want to watch discovery (late evenings) I have the choice of "Forensic detectives" or some surgery program. These will run for about 5 hours straight. I like the Discovery channels but their night time line up is worse than Reality TVs!

Blaster99

cgarvey wrote:

Yes, but wait for how long. That sort of investment is going to take some time before end-users will see the benefit. Where will triple-play DSL2+ have got to in the meantime? Hopefully it will be sooner rather than later, but when it comes to NTL (or any new owners, as a result, however fair that is), I'll believe it when I see it.

.cg

Or perhaps even more importantly, where has ADSL2+ gotten in terms of speed and availability by the time the NTL BS wagon reaches its destination. TV you can get in lots of different ways.

NTL has never been at the forefront of BB packages, so we'll see if that will change with UPC.

Sponge Bob

Technically the NTL network is superior to ADSL2+ Already with a Docsis 1.1 system and capacity for up to 40mbits down as compared to 24Mbits down . ADSL2+ is alrwady kinda nowhere in comparison Blaster99 . Lord only knows what Chorus deployed though

DOCSIS roadmap
DOCSIS Ver 	 1.0 	 [B]1.1 [/B]	 2.0 	2.X 	 3.0
[B]Mbps/channel[/B] 	40 	40 	40 	40 	200
Gbps/node 	5 	5 	5 	5 	6.3
Upstream bandwidth
Mbps/channel 	10 	10 	30 	30 	100
Mbps/node 	80 	80 	170 	170 	450

The next upgrade is to docsis 2 or higher

Blaster99

I think we've had this discussion before. That's total bandwidth on the cable loop. How many customers on the cable loop? How many customers on my phone line?

This stuff isn't difficult to figure out, you can just check packages available in other countries and you'll see that cable is rarely above 10Mbps and in the cases where higher speeds are offered, that may be on networks designed for BB, not this NTL mess.

And yes, I know the speeds on phone lines drop after some number of km's so it's probably much the same at the end of the day. I do hazard a guess that ADSL2+ will deliver more consistent performance, though.

Sponge Bob

Blaster99 wrote:

How many customers on the cable loop? How many customers on my phone line?

With Cable the contention is on the copper , with DSL the contention is back in the exchange. The 'effect' is pretty much the same though.

Cable operators do not include their encapsulation and ack and nack overheads in the port you pay for . You pay for 2mbits you get 2Mbits. Eircom do include this overhead within the port meaning that 2mbits cannot be 2 mbits more like 1.85 Mbits.

Smart on the other hand are like a cable operator in the sense that the overhead is on top of the port so you do get what you pay for and what is advertised .

UGC (owner of NTL and Chorus) have started to deploy the pace 621 box in Holland . It is a docsis 2 box and is 40mbits down and 30mbits up capable, well beyond ADSL2+ particularly on the uplinks .

I do accept that the Dutch probably have beter cable than Chorus or NTL but I still feel that 10Mbits is pretty widely reachable on the Irish cable networks over the next year or so.

My gut instinct is that NTL will introduce 5Mbits for €49.99 a month in the next 6 weeks . Dunno when 10Mbits will come out, I would wait till the rebranding was over and they had launched Limerick and Cork properly .

Blaster99

Yes, but forget "capable". You're sharing that capable bandwidth with potentially 1000's of people. In Ireland. That's just irrelevant NTL techno blurb that doesn't mean anything, particularly so long as they keep selling a 3Mbps service.

It's not very difficult to provide serious amounts of bandwidth in an exchange. It's called fibre.

Sponge Bob

Blaster99 wrote:

Yes, but forget "capable". You're sharing that capable bandwidth with potentially 1000's of people.

no, 10s or 100s maybe but not 1000s . have you never noticed how thick TV cable is as compared to telco copper , it can basically carry lots and lots more data ?

In Ireland. That's just irrelevant NTL techno blurb that doesn't mean anything, particularly so long as they keep selling a 3Mbps service.

Well their new sister company in Holland (a sibling since UGC bought them) is doing 20500\2048 for €79.99 a month or 8192\1024 for €49.99 a month , as I said I expect 5 down shortly at around €49.99 .

It's not very difficult to provide serious amounts of bandwidth in an exchange. It's called fibre.

This is getting really really tiresome . Cable BB involves getting fibre out to the housing estate and using cable to the house . Therefore the fibre is nearer to you than the fibre used to provision DSL , the UK cable typically has 1 fibre serving 50 copper houses , in Ireland its probably 1 fibre for 100-200 houses .

That fibre can drop 5Gbits into that pool of houses , the nodal bandwith in the Docsis table I suppied earlier . Not all 200 (say) houses have BB , assume that 15% of them do , meaning 30 houses share the nodal bandwith delivered by fibre.

You do the math if you want but I fear you would rather keep digging