sick of waiting for smart, ntl?

LegacyUser

i'm sick of waiting for smart to get their act together.

is ntl ok?

also, what does connection ratio mean?

CyberGhost

paperclip, ntl is very very OK!

CyberGhost

Regardless of the Internet Service Provider you use, broadband services are subject to ‘contention’. meaning that the network bandwidth available is shared between a number of subscribers at the telephone exchange.

The ratio to which the available bandwidth is shared between users is called the ‘contention ratio’. All UK providers, including BT, are subject to the same contention ratios at the exchange. Services targeted at home users are cheaper, but have a higher contention ratio (50:1), which means that the available network capacity is shared between a greater number of users. Business services have a lower contention ratio (20:1), and therefore offer a more consistent level of performance. A 50:1 contention ratio means the bandwidth may be shared with up to 50 other subscribers, whereas a 20:1 contention ratio means the bandwidth may be shared with no more than 20 other subscribers.

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bk

NTL is excellent, highly recommend it.

PS Unless you live in D15, they seem to be having some problems there.

LegacyUser

cool, so 17:01 is pretty good.

i'm using utv's free trial at the mo, but have already reached my 8gb cap!

16 with ntl, so bye bye utv.

Paul007

NTL are supposed to be excellent, get them if you can.

BTW, you would have been better off getting the Clicksilver Plus trial which has a 16GB cap.

Phibsboro

Allow me a brief rant - contention in the ISP world originally meant something completely different to the use ISP's are trying to put it to today. The word was originally employed in the old modem dial-up days and indicated how many actual modem lines the ISP had available. So a 20-1 contention ratio meant that the ISP had one modem for every 20 dial in customers. Once a customer had actually connected, they had the full use of that line (at the full possible speed of the modem) until they logged off (or with some ISPs, until they mysteriously get dis-connected ) So the implication of the ratio was how likely you were to get an engaged tone when you tried to connect - there was never a question of there not being enough bandwidth at the ISP end to service your connection. Because calls were changed per minute, the concept of pooling modems like this made sense - you were unlikely to get someone remaining on a modem forever because it cost money to do so.

Move forward to the Broadband era. Today, the term contention ratio is used in a completley different context. Its appear to be an effort by the BB providers to restrict their obligations to provide the service contracted for. Contention ratio now means how many users are sharing a given bandwidth - with the given bandwidth being the max advertised bandwidth. At least that is what I assume it means! So if UTV say they offer a 24-1 contented 1meg service, then they are suggesting that 24 users are sharing every 1meg of bandwidth and that therefore the actual guaranteed bandwidth per customer is 42Kb (less than the old dial-up believe it or not). If the 24 users are your average browsers then this is not a problem. If they are all mad downloaders, you have a problem.

This whole area will need to be addressed by ISP's in the coming few years. Contention ratios do not make sense vis a vis advertised bandwidth rates. One or the other will have to go. If stuff like the BBC service to provide a Tivo like offering over the net become more popular then it just wouldn't be feasible to assume that a user wouldn't be using the advertised rate 24/7. I think what you will see is a twofold change - advertised rates will change to reflect reality (possibly with a "burst" max being quoted as well) and backhaul will increase dramatically to allow these real rates still be attractive.

End of rant

C

Drapper

bk wrote:

NTL is excellent, highly recommend it.

PS Unless you live in D15, they seem to be having some problems there.

I'd second that ! the d15 part

causal

paperclip wrote:

is ntl ok?

[yoda]
excellent it is, if not in D.15 you are
[/yoda]

causal

Infini

Unless you live in the black hole that is D15, NTL is the best service on the market. Highly recommended!

Stevek101

ntl from my experince is excellent as is eircom however the latter is a little pricey

OFDM

Where is ntl available?

causal

Yes
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..
...
....
.....
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........ Selected parts of Dublin, Waterford, Galway.


causal

1huge1

OFDM wrote:

Where is ntl available?

cities mainly like dublin cork limerick and galway and some big towns rolling out fast im glas to say

crawler

1huge1 wrote:

cities mainly like dublin cork limerick and galway and some big towns rolling out fast im glas to say

You are also wrong to say

Dublin, Waterford and Galway are NTL cable areas....not blanket coverage just yet. Best to ring them and check availability...

Shougeki

NTL seem to have it together compared to eircon and smarttelecom.

I signed up to NTL last friday and the eng is coming this fri to set me up.

And they have a new offer:
Free connection.
Free 3 months.
Free TV for 12 months.
45yoyo for a 3meg line with 40gb cap.

However the chap i was talking to was unsure whether ntl can actually measure the cap and whether it was even enforced. However i think 40gig is enough.

And they dont seem to jerk you around. I signed up and didnt have all the details. He asked could he call me when i got home - i was only gonna be there between 7:30 and 7:50. He called at 7:35, took details, and claimed he would ring back mon with an eng time. I said 2 o clock, he rang at 2:02. He told me that it would be end of week if i can have someone there in the afternoon, or the following week if not.

Extremely helpful, knew what he was talking about and the process was so bloody painless i even went ahead with the digital tv for the extra 10 bucks a month. I couldnt believe how easy. then he gave me his direct dial number in case i had issues before friday.

B

_Edit_
**Oh - and i was waiting for smart. I was even lied to by one of their techs who claimed that while i was waiting for the exchange to go live that switching to their tel service would speed the process, now they keep ringing. In fact since i rang and told them, and also sent a letter to them in regards that if they try any direct debit charges that i will expect full reimbursment, they have rang me more times then when i was waiting for the goddamn product**

arrianalexander

where are you located? is this offer of free tv for 12 months available nationwide or just in dublin...have decided as well to get ntl instead of waiting for smart...don't care if smart does come first...in three months to did not even send a mail to acknowledge they got a direct debit form completed from me...start as you mean to go on smart...

Shougeki

Living in Dublin 2. The offer was put in the door over the weekend.

Spear

Shougeki wrote:

However the chap i was talking to was unsure whether ntl can actually measure the cap and whether it was even enforced. However i think 40gig is enough.

It partially is enforced. It's not striclty enforced since there's no way for the customer to check with NTL how much they've used. Latest reports are that this will be ready by November. In my case heavy usage got me a standard vague letter and a follow up call.

Shougeki

Good to know - thanx spear. Whats your usage cap? I decided to go for 40gig to be on the safe side :-P

The thing that REALLY got me was the guys understanding, genuiness, no-crap talk and gave an exact date of installation after 2 working days of signing up.

Well impressed by the quality of the peeps on the phones - lets hope the service is that good!
B

juliuspret

What were you told in the call "Spear"???

Spear

juliuspret wrote:

What were you told in the call "Spear"???

I wasn't the one who answered it, but the spiel given was fairly vague, and they seemed to be trying to offer excuses such as we were having technical problems with our PC's that lead to the heavy use. But basically we were to get it below a gig a day, but that they would take any excuse to avoid cutting us off.

Spear

Shougeki wrote:

Good to know - thanx spear. Whats your usage cap? I decided to go for 40gig to be on the safe side :-P

The thing that REALLY got me was the guys understanding, genuiness, no-crap talk and gave an exact date of installation after 2 working days of signing up.

Well impressed by the quality of the peeps on the phones - lets hope the service is that good!
B

I'm on 2meg with a 30 gig a month/ 1 gig a day. I was using about a 1.5gig maybe up to 2 a day.

bk

Shougeki wrote:

The thing that REALLY got me was the guys understanding, genuiness, no-crap talk and gave an exact date of installation after 2 working days of signing up.

Well impressed by the quality of the peeps on the phones - lets hope the service is that good!
B

I just wanted to add, that I got NTL BB a few months ago, the same offer as you and my experience was also outstanding. If you gave them a mobile number then they will even send you a SMS the day before the engineer is supposed to call, just to remind you!!!!

The actual service has also been outstanding since I got it, no problems. I only have two complaints, however I'm willing to live with them:

1) The pings to Irish servers are unecessarily high as to don't peer in Ireland (BTW the pings aren't that high, just higher then they need to be).

2) The NTL digital TV boxes sometimes stall and get error messages. This is very annoying for me as I use a Tivo (like Sky+) to record most of my TV. And I then find that the NTL box has stalled and therefore the show wasn't recorded.

Anyway, NTL's customer care is outstanding. Keep up the good work guys.

GreeBo

I recently signed up for the basic TV package and was very impressed.
got phone calls and everything, text reminder and the guy arrived when he said he would.
Not like BordGais and Eircom I might add.
I cant see anything about this new offer on the website....?

Marcopolo85

bk wrote:

I just wanted to add, that I got NTL BB a few months ago, the same offer as you and my experience was also outstanding. If you gave them a mobile number then they will even send you a SMS the day before the engineer is supposed to call, just to remind you!!!!

The actual service has also been outstanding since I got it, no problems. I only have two complaints, however I'm willing to live with them:

1) The pings to Irish servers are unecessarily high as to don't peer in Ireland (BTW the pings aren't that high, just higher then they need to be).

2) The NTL digital TV boxes sometimes stall and get error messages. This is very annoying for me as I use a Tivo (like Sky+) to record most of my TV. And I then find that the NTL box has stalled and therefore the show wasn't recorded.

Anyway, NTL's customer care is outstanding. Keep up the good work guys.

Where do you get Tivo / Is it sub? :rolleyes:

bk

Marcopolo85 wrote:

Where do you get Tivo / Is it sub? :rolleyes:

Unfortunately Tivo isn't available in Ireland. I got mine from a colleague in the US who had upgraded to the new Series 2 Tivo's. I had to do a lot of hacking to get it to work in Ireland, it isn't particularly easy, however it is a truly great piece of technology.

You can buy a Tivo second hand from the UK on ebay and get a subscription that will work in Ireland with far less hacking, unfortunately they are quiet expensive.