NTL broadband offering!

maxheadroom

Originally posted by the Guru
She did not not know what contention ratio meant (Nice training of staff NTL)

Ruth also said that is a guarenteed 600k and the speed will never drop some how I dont believe this can anyone confirm.

to be fair, contention works differently on a cable system. Everyone is sharing a huge amount of bandwidth, instead of 24 or 48 people sharing one 512k pipe out of a DSLAM (which is how DSL works IIRC).

Also, the speed cap is set by a configuration file sent to your modem, (mine is at 600k), and I've never seen a slowdown (I was actually getting downloads of 81kbytes/sec this morning from kazaa).

Dangger

But they included D6W in the statement:

The rollout plan of our broadband internet service is currently only available in certain parts of West Dublin in and around the Dublin 24, 16, 6W and Lucan area.

I was hoping that D6W had been updated also.

crawler

Fair point Dangger - All other stuff as it was I think - parts of Lucan just added last week. Honest mistake on both parts me thinks.

Hatchie

Dont mind those muppets on that 1800 NTL number they are all braindead thicks
The Lucan rollout reffered to in this thread is for approx 4000 homes as a trial basis. Depending on how it goes will be a big factor on whether its expanded

gandalf

Got a reply from one of my contacts in NTL and Hatchie is right it looks like a evaluation.

To quote from the mail I received

Our broadband offering has been extended to Lucan, effective from
this week, as we will be evaluating the outcome, I am unfortunately, not in a position to categorically state when and where we target next.

Gandalf.

Hatchie

know its true cos sadly i work for the ****ing idiots

Lemming

Just wondering ....

what do NTL need to "evaluate" further about a service they'v ehad running for quite some time elsewhere and in the UK.

Do they think people wont take it? Well, that's more people going to NTL's competition ........

crawler

Lemming - I would think it's both a technical and commercial evaluation - I dont think there is much doubt about the take up.

unkel

Originally posted by MarVeL
Just got off the phone from a very helpful person from NTL. She confirmed that they are now available in Lucan. Unfortunately my house is apparently still on a one way but she is getting in touch with someone in engineering and will get back to me in 5 working days. I did point out that I was looking at going to IOL broadband at present and had to make a decision fairly quickly and she seemed cofident something could be done.

Fingers crossed!

exactly the same fro me at 12:30 today, except biddie said was gonna take 2-3 working days to get back to me - still hoping though, would much prefer to go cable rather then DSL (good news is that both exchanges are now DSL enabled in Lucan though)

Hatchie

The company put an awful amount of money into D24 area and with the telecoms slump, money for every company in the field is tight. There is a strong emphasis in the company for the roll out of DTV (due to comreg agreements) which means this takes vast amount of cash flow from other projects.
So the evalution is more in terms of economic reasons as opposed to wether it can be done or not or if people will take up service

darrenkenny

Just got off the phone to NTL, seems that not ALL of Lucan is included - I'm living in Finnstown and that's not part of the rollout and will depend on successful uptake in the rest of Lucan...

Seems like I'll have to wait a bit longer

milltown

They are evaluating the service in 4000 houses in Lucan, but not mine
Covered estates include, but are not limited to:
Castle Riada
Abbeywood
Foxboro
Earlsfort
Moyglas
Colthurst
Fforster
Oldbridge

Based on the take up of this service, which they seem to know will be good, it will be extended to most of Lucan at the end of the summer. Lucan was chosen because most of it was built in the last 10 years, so most of the cable is relatively new and road digging can be kept to a minimum.

daramullally

Hi Milltown,

I am in one of these estates. Is the Evaluation open to anyone to apply from these areas or have they already chosen the 4000?

LFCFan

Originally posted by milltown
Lucan was chosen because most of it was built in the last 10 years, so most of the cable is relatively new and road digging can be kept to a minimum.

why don't they upgrade the new estates then? Some estates like mine that are brand new could have a proper 2 way network from the beginning.

raeGten

I'm right beside oldbridge but I haven't seen or heard from NTL yet. I'm waiting to hear back from them about when our estate may be added to the list. Until then I guess I could run a cable across the road to Oldbridge mysef!

crawler

daramullally - if you are in one of the estates then you should call them on 1800 923 005 - it is open to anyone in those estates.

LFCfan - what you say is correct however the Lucan project is a technology and commercial trial - it will prove the new technology works in large rollouts and also that there is a demand for the product (which is not in much doubt ).

LFCFan

If NTL were to roll out their Broadband to as much of their franchise areas as possible the likes of €shat and €ircon would be crapping themselves as there would finally be some proper competition in the market, not just resellers of €ircons products. Until that happens I don't think ADSL is gonna get much better pricewise and productwise.

daramullally

Hi Milltown,

I just spoke to Shirley at NTL. She said that it is not available in Castle Riada, but when I told her that I had seen a list of estates she said that she would check it again and get back to me.

Where did you get the list of estates from?

Dara

Shirley called back.....Castle Riada is still 1-way but will be upgraded to 2-way in the next few weeks. She said she will call me when it is upgraded.

Ah well, I guess I will have to wait.......:(

crawler

I agree with you 100% LFCFan. And that's not just a guess - if you look at the UK ( 1,000,000 cable modem users ) and the US (70% of broadband users are cable ) - it proves the theory. Along with the fact it's faster and has much lower latency and over subscription rates....

Anyway - I live outside Dublin so limited options

LFCFan

Originally posted by crawler
Anyway - I live outside Dublin so limited options

I live in Dublin, in one of the most techy areas beside Blanchardstown Corporate Park and I have no options either. No cable, wireless or ADSL. Rediculous.

unnamed

I was talking to a contact in NTL and they are using Lucan to test a new two-way system.

I don't have much details, but what I do know is that in the previous roll-out they needed to install a filter at everyones house or street, which cost a lot of money. This new system has one filter installed per-area which will save them a small fortune because they can enable huge areas in one go. But they are not too sure if it will actually work on a large scale roll-out ... hence the test.

maxheadroom

unnamed - that makes sense, because in my area each road in the estate has its own run of cable which disappears into the ground at an ntl: box in the footpath at the end of the road. It meant they had to lay fibre all around the estate.

LFCFan

Originally posted by unnamed
This new system has one filter installed per-area which will save them a small fortune because they can enable huge areas in one go. But they are not too sure if it will actually work on a large scale roll-out ... hence the test.

This must be some new fangled technology that has only emerged lately? Let's hope it does work so we can finally look forward to some decent competition.

If it does work will it mean a small amount of work to enable large areas that already have 2 way cabling?

unnamed

Originally posted by LFCFan
This must be some new fangled technology that has only emerged lately? Let's hope it does work so we can finally look forward to some decent competition.

If it does work will it mean a small amount of work to enable large areas that already have 2 way cabling?

My friend in NTL isn't very technical so he wasn't able to give me much detail. But as far as I understand this is not new technology but a new way of implementing an old technology. They are worried that there will be too much interference on the lines for this to work.

Apparently a clever NTL engineer in Dublin thought up this idea.

He also told me that Waterford and Galway may never be upgraded. It will cost around EUR150,000 a month per city to get the bandwidth from Dublin. This is also the reason these cities won't see any extra Digital channels for quite a while.

LFCFan

Originally posted by unnamed
He also told me that Waterford and Galway may never be upgraded. It will cost around EUR150,000 a month per city to get the bandwidth from Dublin. This is also the reason these cities won't see any extra Digital channels for quite a while.

If Dublin is upgraded though it may make €ircon etc concentrate more on the other cities to get revenue with ADSL, unless they are willing to compete with cable. I for one would get rid of my phone line, thus eliminating €ircon from my life forever if I was able to get Cable Internet. That day can't come quick enough.

unnamed

Originally posted by unnamed
He also told me that Waterford and Galway may never be upgraded. It will cost around EUR150,000 a month per city to get the bandwidth from Dublin. This is also the reason these cities won't see any extra Digital channels for quite a while.

One last thing .... and I'm sorrry if I'm getting offtopic .... what they really wanted to do was lay their own fibre from Dublin to Waterford and Galway. Not only was the cost astronomical, it might take years because they needed to get planning permission for every local authority along the way.

milltown

The girl I spoke to (I didn't get a name) seemed very well up on what was happening. She told me my estate, Tullyhall, was not part of the initial rollout and when I asked if she knew where was she went and got a list. I scribbled down as much as I could and Castle Riada was definitely mentioned.

From a previous post on this topic, and the fact that she asked if I was approached/told I could get it, I gather they are calling door to door to the houses that are in the test group.

Given the limited rollout it seems they are impervious to the fact that by the end of the summer, when it is extended, that most early adopters will have gotten ADSL or IBB if they set up a transmitter in the area. Having said that, I have yet to meet anyone in Lucan who has passed Eircom's ADSL test.

MarVeL

I've passed eircoms test but there is no way I would take up there offer. I was going to get Esat but then came news of the NTL offer. Unfortunately I'm not in the pilot area just yet but if they are rolling to the rest of Lucan over the next few months I may see if I can force my hands to stay in my pockets until they are available. I know of 2 other people in the area who are in the same position, one next door to me and the other overlooking Oldbridge and cursing his luck :-).

daramullally

Thanks for the info.

As it happens I also got a call from NTL at my home number yesterday as I had sent them an email regarding the availability. My wife took the call and they said that unfortunately Castle Riada will not be upgraded for another 6 months. Hopefully it will be sooner than that.

By the way, I passed both the online and telephone test for ADSL from Eircom, but I will be holding out for NTL as it seems to be a much better deal.

Hatchie

the system you are discussing needs two way network -- RF to the home then from street cab/ ode site back to the headend on fibre then back to RF then converted and hauled back to 2 high end routers via fibre and then onto the core router.
Not new tech but clever use of existing network so we dont have to upgrade everything -- ingress on network can be a problem so thats why we upgrade the RF section to the home