Has anyone ever been contacted about high daily usage on NTL?

bk

_CyRuSS_ wrote:

But the way people have been acting on these forums is, that they're expecting the buyers to roll out 8mbit, and uncapped service ... I don't really see this happening... speedwise they may roll out faster eventually, but I doubt the cap would be removed. especially with all the issues people are having, especially in D15

I agree and I don't think anybody was saying that. Things will remain much the same for the short to medium term.

However if UGC do win the contract, if they invest in the Chorus network also, you will start to see some real competition hit the market. Finally there will be a national operator (well Dublin, Galway, Cork and Limerick) with the muscle to compete effectively with Eircom.

_CyRuSS_ wrote:

Thing is tho, ntl is primarily a cable tv provider, so that will get higher priority than broadband i'd assume... doubt the broadband package would change much any time soon at least (if the buyers will be even interested in internet at all :eek:)

I disagree, Broadband and VoIP will be a very important part of their strategy.
BB is one of the most important parts of UGC's market (they have over 1 million BB subscribers in Europe). NTL/Chorus are coming under increasing competitive pressure from Sky Digital which has better quality service with lower infrastructure costs. Being able to offer BB and VoIP will be a major hook and differentiator from Sky.

What I like about UGC is that they seem to understand what the future will be like and they seem to properly invest for the future rather then just taking short term profits (ahem Eircom). The future is IP, all serivces (voice, video, music, net) will be delivered over IP. The division between telephone companies and cable companies will crumble as they all offer similar services over their respective networks.

TinCool

oceanclub wrote:

Exactly. This sounds great in theory - but remember IOL No Limits? Which turned out to be IOL, Er, Limits. I'd rather have it in black and white.

I certainly do remember. I got kicked off as my usage "wasn't in keeping with the spirit of the service", I kid you not. It wasn't my fault if I was dialing up at 6pm on a Friday and hanging up at 8:00am on a Monday now was it One would say that No Limits means No Limits, but I guess some people's opinions differ.

TC

Infini

Gave that linky a try. Said unable to change speed online.

SteM

_CyRuSS_ wrote:

hmm Those who have got the letters, what area are you in?

and how long have you had cable with ntl for?

I got one last week, am in Dublin 8. I've been on the BB network since December I think. I might download close to a gig a day or go slightly over sometimes according to du meter....

The odd thing is that we got a call from NTL a couple of days later and left a message saying they's call back. I guess it was just a typical sales call rather than a follow up on the letter that they sent.

causal

Others received a follow-up phone call about the cap too.
Use the chance to tell them to increase the upload and download speeds (even thought they're doing it anyway)


causal

MrVestek

causal wrote:

Others received a follow-up phone call about the cap too.
Use the chance to tell them to increase the upload and download speeds (even thought they're doing it anyway)


causal

True, mate of mine got a reply email from them when she threatened to go to smart or (shudder) eircom (was BS tbh). They said they'd be making an announcement regarding broadband speeds within the coming weeks, this has to be the 3Mb upgrade tbh.

Infini

I saw something on another site (i forget which one) saying they were going to upgrade the irish network 2-3 months after the UK network.

_CyRuSS_

i'll be so happy when we get 3mbps, thats real broadband to me, finally Ireland is catching up. most other countries are only at 3mbps too, with some lucky ones getting maybe 5 or the very lucky ones that get 10... 3 is comfortable! Hope upload gets some decent juice next, plus some more price slashes

clint_silver

I rang them yesterday and got oral confirmation with a bit of cajoling that the upgrade will happen within a matter of 2-3 weeks. The very nice customer rep was all very much "Im not allowed say, but yes the speeds will be increasing by a factor of at least 2..". take from that what you will.

MrVestek

Time for a party! (Well... ok maybe not, but it's still good news).

Jonnie_Onion

Doubling the speeds whilst keeping the same cap is pretty useless to me. I think I'll be downgrading to 2Meg, at least it will be cheaper.

causal

bk wrote:

NTL/Chorus are coming under increasing competitive pressure from Sky Digital which has better quality service with lower infrastructure costs. Being able to offer BB and VoIP will be a major hook and differentiator from Sky.

Looks like that will change as BSkyB moves to Converged Network as reported in this SiliconRepulic article, quoted below:

SiliconRepublic wrote:

With the announcement that it has awarded a three-year contract to Cable & Wireless (C&W), media giant British Sky Broadcasting (BSkyB) has become a convert to the increasingly popular concept of internet protocol (IP) networking.
The contract is for an IP-based wide area network (WAN) across multiple sites in the UK and Ireland. BSkyB previously had separate WANs and wanted to consolidate its separate networks into a single IP virtual private network with quality of service (IP-VPN QoS) that would allow it to carry voice, data and video over a single network — thus saving on network maintenance and management costs.

Bob Glenn, telecoms manager of BSkyB, described the network as “a best-in-class technology solution”, adding that it was scheduled to go live in the summer.

Noreen O’Hare, country director Ireland of C&W, said, “We’re very pleased to be working with BSkyB on this phase of its technology enhancements. We see IP-VPN QoS as the first building block that enables the adoption of a number of integrated, IP-based services at the customer’s own speed.”

By Brian Skelly

At some point in the future we won't have to refer to the triple play of 'voice, video, and data'; we'll just call it what it is: data

causal

MrVestek

Jonnie_Onion wrote:

Doubling the speeds whilst keeping the same cap is pretty useless to me. I think I'll be downgrading to 2Meg, at least it will be cheaper.

Download more porn faster. It's simple really.

Rosser

so you lot are the reason why my NTL has been down almost every day for the last month and for a moment I thought it was their fault...

MrVestek

Rosser wrote:

so you lot are the reason why my NTL has been down almost every day for the last month and for a moment I thought it was their fault...

Erm, nope. If it's down completely then that's NTL's fault. If someone was hogging bandwidth in your area (yes, has to be your area, the same node you're on) all you'd really notice is a speed decrease.

RicardoSmith

Rosser wrote:

so you lot are the reason why my NTL has been down almost every day for the last month and for a moment I thought it was their fault...

I've been having the same problem for the last 3 weeks. The service has gone to hell in a handbasket. It so bad now that I'm thinking of cancelling it.

MrVestek

RicardoSmith wrote:

I've been having the same problem for the last 3 weeks. The service has gone to hell in a handbasket. It so bad now that I'm thinking of cancelling it.

Is it just slow then or what? If it's the kind of trouble I'm thinking of then I had it for about 3 days there a few weeks ago where it just would not connect to the local node, and then when it did I couldn't get past the NTL gateway on that node, through the network then onto the Internet. Was so frustrating. That's an NTL problem by the way, nothing to do with people downloading.

RicardoSmith

Achilles wrote:

Is it just slow then or what? If it's the kind of trouble I'm thinking of then I had it for about 3 days there a few weeks ago where it just would not connect to the local node, and then when it did I couldn't get past the NTL gateway on that node, through the network then onto the Internet. Was so frustrating. That's an NTL problem by the way, nothing to do with people downloading.

Yeah thats the problem. Once it connected it seems ok. Pings are still woeful. 30-200ms :mad:

bk

causal wrote:

Looks like that will change as BSkyB moves to Converged Network as reported in this SiliconRepulic article, quoted below:

I don't think this has anything to do with consumer services. It looks like they are only converging the network that connects their various offices and sites. Pretty standard stuff.

Sky's problem is that satellite is not suitable for IP, the latency is simply too high (over 22000 miles above the earth If they want to offer IP services then their only option would be to resell DSL or perhaps use wireless (802.16).

causal wrote:

At some point in the future we won't have to refer to the triple play of 'voice, video, and data'; we'll just call it what it is: data
causal

I agree and I look forward to it.

Fr Dougal

causal wrote:

Smart are looking better and better every day.
€35 - 2Mbps, no cap, free line rental. - Are you listenting NTL?

causal

Grass isn't always greener on the other side. They just put a different spin on the same message.

See thread
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=238681

causal

Fr Dougal wrote:

Grass isn't always greener on the other side. They just put a different spin on the same message.

Well the grass was greener when I made that post on 4-April-2005; and it still is greener on 19-April-2005.

For €35 I get 750/128 and cap of IGB per day and I have to purchase the basic tv package (~ €19 per month) with ntl
For €35 I get 2000/128 and no cap* and no line rental with Smart.

And my point in saying "are you listening ntl" - was that they should consider what the oppostion are offering when they make their own announcement - which we're expecting within the next fortnight.

causal

* there's always a cap**
** less than or equal to (2Mbps * 60*60*24*num_days_in_month). Add upload to that if appropriate.

_CyRuSS_

causal wrote:

Well the grass was greener when I made that post on 4-April-2005; and it still is greener on 19-April-2005.

For €35 I get 750/128 and cap of IGB per day and I have to purchase the basic tv package (~ €19 per month) with ntl
For €35 I get 2000/128 and no cap* and no line rental with Smart.

And my point in saying "are you listening ntl" - was that they should consider what the oppostion are offering when they make their own announcement - which we're expecting within the next fortnight.

causal

* there's always a cap**
** less than or equal to (2Mbps * 60*60*24*num_days_in_month). Add upload to that if appropriate.

Well, for one thing, I really doubt nTL will start saying unlimited download again. for 2 reasons. 1) they already had done that before, so they obviously had reason to change it, in which case i doubt they'd change their mind and go back to unlimited downloads. and 2) nTL is really a UK company, ntl:ireland follow ntl:uk's footsteps, since they still have the 1GB cap (in fact their cap got worse when they did the speed upgrade), then ntl:ireland will keep it.

Grass isn't always greener on the other side. They just put a different spin on the same message.

Thats true, but causal still has a valid point. it is a suckers game, while smart probably don't have unlimited download, ntl know that it will still attract us suckers as a marketing scheme.... so ntl will still have to compete... well more likely, whoever buys ntl. so yeh.

Stevek101

Where is the upgrades? Thats alll I want to know. :rolleyes:

I've been waiting my patience is running out. :mad: Any updates?

causal

_CyRuSS_ wrote:

Well, for one thing, I really doubt nTL will start saying unlimited download again. for 2 reasons.

I'd say you're right. What I'd like to see increase most is the upload speed. I'd rather 1Mbps/256kbps than 2Mbps/128kbps.

The upgrades are due to announced within the next couple of weeks according to a nice ntl person I spoke to. Presumably they'll follow the Galway specs; but I really hope they increase the upload.

causal

bk

Well in the UK the NTL products are like so:

1m/100k
2m/200k
3m/300k

I assume they will follow the same here in Ireland.

However I will point one thing out, the upload speeds are actually faster then they seem. I currently have both DSL 2m/128k and NTL 1m/256k.

With the DSL the upload speed I actually get is about 104 - 107k, this is due to overhead for tcp/ip, however with NTL I really do get close to 256k upload.
It would seem that the upload speeds are actually faster then advertised, in order to cover the tcp/ip overheads, etc.

causal

Comapring the ratio of 'download : upload'

4.7 : 1 = 300/64
5.9 : 1 = 750/128
5.9 : 1 = 1500/256

If they do go with the ntl:uk upgraded rates the ratios are :
10.0 : 1 = 1000/100
10.0 : 1 = 2000/200
10.0 : 1 = 3000/300

So we'd be going from a mean (average) download : upload ratio of 5.5:1 to a ratio of 10:1

I don't think that's the right balance.

causal

causal

Could it be true - check this post
If it's correct I'll be the first to sing ntl's praises

causal

Infini

It maybe. The NTL network over here isn't owned by them anymore as they "Warehoused" their Irish assets to a 3rd party since they couldn't sell to UCG without sparking a competition probe so you never know.

causal

If they do go with the legend upgrades (rounded) :

4 : 1 = 1000/250
4 : 1 = 2000/500
6 : 1 = 3000/500

That is more like the right balance
They'd absolutely munch up the competition with that - it'd be a no-brainer who to choose for BB.
now ye're talkin'

causal

kin9pin

causal wrote:

If they do go with the legend upgrades (rounded) :

4 : 1 = 1000/250
4 : 1 = 2000/500
6 : 1 = 3000/500

That is more like the right balance
They'd absolutely munch up the competition with that - it'd be a no-brainer who to choose for BB.
now ye're talkin'

causal

Now if they just match the cap to the new upload speed we'd be laughing

4 : 1 = 1000/250/250GB
4 : 1 = 2000/500/500GB
6 : 1 = 3000/500/UNLIMITED

:rolleyes: