NTL to cap broadband

[Will]

Originally posted by Scouse

Actually, come to think of it. That's not a bad idea! If NTL go bust you'd see Telewest come in double-quick and buy up their network and customers at bargain-basement prices. They'd be able to afford to up everyone's 600k connections to 1meg for free - no caps!!

Heh, you say buy up, as if Telewest had any cash at all.

If both companies had any cash, they'd have merged long ago. NTL took on was too much debt when they merged with C&W, and are still recovering, and Telewest just did a debt for equity swap.

On top of that, Telewest have areas that they control the franchise, but have no network in, since they can't afford to, and some cabled areas cannot take new digital services or cable modems as the network is too old and Telewest cannot afford to upgrade it.

ISPs have to do something about P2P traffic, and I'm happier for them to slap high users than to upgrade and charge me for the work.

 

[Scouse]

i think 30 gig/month is fair

Yeah - but on 600k you've paid to download about 150 gig/month.


Don't get me wrong - I probably only download about 10gig/month - but they advertise their 600k service as their "unmetered" "unlimited" "broadband on your terms".


Excuse me if my heart doesn't bleed for them.

 

[Scouse]

ISPs have to do something about P2P traffic, and I'm happier for them to slap high users than to upgrade and charge me for the work.

See above reply m8. They have no right to "slap" high users - because these users have paid for their right to download at 600k all-day every-day.


NTL should have advertised their service as "£25/month for download speeds up to 600k as long as you don't download more than 1Gig a day".


They didn't. Don't blame people for being pissed off that they were lied to.

 

[Daffeh]

but i havent paid for twats who just queue up terrabytes of stuff they'll never even bother watching/playing/listening to just 'cos its there' let alone pay a single penny towards any of it.

i know people who are constantly using their full 1meg connection 24 hours a day just dl'ing any old shite....is that fair if it affects the rest of the users?

 

[Johnny Bravo]

As previously stated, anything that ntl do to help congestion on their oversubscribed network has got to be good for the average user. Its not like they have come out and said after you the hit 1Gb limit for the day your connection will cease

TBH the limit is the least of my worries as my wonderful ntl 1Mb line would probably struggle to get up enough speed to d/l over 1Gb a day. The system is creaking badly where I am, and I haven't managed a sub 200 ping on any server for over a fortnight. I've yet to have the patience to stay on hold to talk to their helpline (50 minutes is the longest I've held on for) and have yet to have any of my emails responded to by anything other than the auto-response bot to tell me they got the email.

In fact if anyone knows of a reliable source or ombudsman (spelling!!) that I can complain to, can they give me details cause currently I have just reverted to not paying them

 

[Will]

Scouse...they fucked up. But they can either let the service get shittier and shitter, since they cannot afford to upgrade, or bite the bullet and impose quotas. They cannot continue they way they are going. We don't live in a dream world where cash magically appears to fill in the difference between what was promised and what can be delivered.

 

[Will]

Originally posted by Johnny Bravo
In fact if anyone knows of a reliable source or ombudsman (spelling!!) that I can complain to, can they give me details cause currently I have just reverted to not paying them

OFCOM are teh people I think you'd complain to. Have a look on Google.

If OFCOM aren't off the ground yet, then its OFTEL.

 

[leggy]

With a 50:1 contention ratio on my DSL line I don't want a load of newbie kaaza users downloading all the shite of the day for the sake of it and ruining my bloody ping.

I already get half the advertised download speed and this apparently is due to a faulty line which BT have been trying to fix (lying bastards). When in reality it's the scabby students in the surrounding area downloading nu-metal and porn.

 

[Scouse]

but i havent paid for twats who just queue up terrabytes of stuff they'll never even bother watching/playing/listening to just 'cos its there' let alone pay a single penny towards any of it.

i know people who are constantly using their full 1meg connection 24 hours a day just dl'ing any old shite....is that fair if it affects the rest of the users?

That's NTL's fault - not theirs.

NTL simply didn't plan on this sort of demand - and who are you (or them) to tell whoever that they can't download whatever they want.

You never know - they may get some sort of weird sexual satisfaction from downloading shit - and they've paid £25/month for the privilage.


To quote Will out of context:

Scouse...they fucked up.

Yeah. I know. And Will - I agree with you on the rest of the post.

But it isn't fair on the users who were mislead into thinking that NTL were happy for them to use the service they thought they were paying for.

 

[Johnny Bravo]

Originally posted by Will.
OFCOM are teh people I think you'd complain to. Have a look on Google.

If OFCOM aren't off the ground yet, then its OFTEL.

Thanks Will, I'll google both organisations

 

[Will]

Read the contract...I know there is a get-out clause in there. Telewest has them.

For fear of repeating myself, if they don't impose quotas, people will move to ADSL, and NTL will go bust. That is bad, so they should sort it out.

Do we really want every single broadband connection in the UK to be via a BT line?

 

[Gumbo]

Will's right you know, read the contract, or the T's and C's.

Even if it doesn't say anything about caps, I'm sure it says something about their right to alter the Terms and Conditions, and even if it doesn't say there, they'll just change the contract when renewal time comes, for cable users it seems to be a case of, adapt your usage, pay more, or lose cable internet access altogether.

Bear in mind all you lucky lucky cable customers, paying a little over 20 quid a month all told for your access. My ISDN access at 64k costs a total of about 40 quid a month, and thats for just 12 hours a day. Though of course thats on a 5-1 contention to my isp, and no problem with warez monkeys rap0ring my bandwidth.

As I think I said in a previous thread, whilst I can't get ridiculously large files and movies etc without a really long wait, my gaming ping is reasonable and gloriously stable.

Maybe soon people will have a Broadband connection for their warezing and a isdn connection for their gaming, stranger things could happen.....

 

[Scouse]

Maybe soon people will have a Broadband connection for their warezing and a isdn connection for their gaming, stranger things could happen.....

But they probably won't

 

[Scouse]

[KoN]Scouse was just sniped by [CL]Xtro!
[KoN]Scouse ate [CL]Xtro's mortar!
[KoN]Scouse was torn to ribbons by [CL]Xtro's turret fire!
[KoN]Scouse is eating [CL]Xtro's disc launcher!

[CL]Xtro shoots himself in a fit of depression when he realises that [KoN]Scouse cannot be killed by conventional weapons!

:hat:

 

[Shocko]

When bandwidth-whores get on their high horse, you have to love the world You can bang on about having the right to download lots of warez, due to it being sold as unlimited, however no one cares. They can slap the bandwidth-whores, because they just changed their AUP to say so, and they can change their AUP, because it will say so in the contract you signed.

You can argue all you want, about how fair it is for people to effectively change the contract after you've signed it, but you knew that they could do that when you signed up in the first place Just accept, that aside from NTL being in the legal right(if not the moral one), they're also just plain "right", with the policy of slapping the bandwidth-whores, to make things better for the majority of users

 

[Gumbo]

Hear hear Shocko....

Originally posted by Scouse



But they probably won't

and yeah

 

[Scouse]

Shocko - you've missed the whole point of my posts really.


Also - even if they put a 1gig cap (which is very low) on the 600k service - what about the 1meg service? Are they supposed to be majorly happy about a 1gig cap - effectively faster downloads of not that much data?


As I said - I don't download much - so if I was arguing in my interests then I'd be in agreement with you.

 

[Xtro]

Originally posted by Scouse

[CL]Xtro shoots himself in a fit of depression when he realises that [KoN]Scouse cannot be killed by conventional weapons!

:hat:

NO! Damn thee old mucker!

[CL]Xtro presses Add/Remove Programs, Tribes, Are You Sure?, YES!!!1111

I 4M TEH W1NN3R!!!

 

[SNR]

NTL should have advertised their service as "£25/month for download speeds up to 600k as long as you don't download more than 1Gig a day".

HOW THE HELL? The cap has just been implemente they can hardly advertise it before they come up with the idea I'm annoyed that it's implemented but if it will speed us up by gettng rid of stupid leechers then good luck to NTL!

 

[Will]

Originally posted by Scouse
Shocko - you've missed the whole point of my posts really.

And you missed mine. They aren't doing it to be evil, its probably the only practical solution to the problem, given that NTL just emerged from chapter 11.

 

[Durzel]

Scouse - no offence but you haven't got the slightest clue.

I work for an ISP in a senior consultant level, and if you think 1Gb/month (let alone 1Gb/day) of traffic is paid for by £25 then you are living in cloud cookoo land.

Broadband is heavily subsidised, and paid for "by the numbers". The people who buy broadband just to download their mail once a night are in part subsidising those that leech 24/7. Like everything in life related to Internet connectivity - those that use the service reasonably pay covertly for those that don't.

In reality, even these potentially thousands of "below average use" users aren't really paying for the connections of a mere few leechers.

If you had any clue at all just how much leased line bandwidth contracts cost on a per month basis you would think twice about your comments - I'm talking £thousands for a 3Gb/month committed data rate.

£25 a month for 30Gb/month (1Gb/day) traffic is insanely low when you consider business leased lines with more draconian bandwidth restrictions cost thousands per month.

 

[Scouse]

Ok. How can I put this without offending the low-IQ-ers here.....



I FUCKING GET THE POINT OK?!



I know that NTL aren't being evil. If you actually read my posts and use your heads you'll notice that I agree that it's a necessary measure.


For the last time: I agree with the measures that NTL are taking - but, even now, they are still advertising it as an unmetered, do what you want, when you want, as much as you want service.

I'm arguing that you can not point the finger at the bandwidth whores (of which I am not one) - the blame does lie squarely at NTL's door.

Does no-one else think it's wrong to mis-sell something?

And don't give me any crap about "what should people expect" or some such. The majority of users out there have no idea of the costs of bandwidth etc.

And Mr "I work for an ISP" Durzel - don't be so condecending when you obviously haven't read my posts. I understand the costs perfectly myself (and agree).

 

[Will]

Originally posted by Scouse

...They have no right to "slap" high users...

You can understand why the wrong of end your stick may have been grabbed.

 

[Ash!]

Originally posted by Shocko
Just accept, that aside from NTL being in the legal right(if not the moral one), they're also just plain "right", with the policy of slapping the bandwidth-whores, to make things better for the majority of users

Dead right Shocko

I cant understand why people have it in for NTL. At least they tried to offer something to the alternative of BT. Is there service that bad ? Certainly not in my area of Manchester anyway. My service is very rarely effected. When it does and I have to ring the support line, Which is free BTW, I have never been on for more than 10 minutes including queing time.

For me there is no better option for a 1MBPS connection. If NTL want to cap it then so be it. They can not be anywaorse than having BT as the only main player in the broadband game if NTL go tits up

 

[nath]

Blueyonder plz thx?

 

[granny]

Originally posted by Scouse
Does no-one else think it's wrong to mis-sell something?

So, advertising that was commissioned, designed and implemented *months* (if not years) before NTL decide the best solution to the problem they have is to impose a cap should be retroactively changed?

I'm sure if NTL had access to a time machine they'd not really be worried about bandwidth caps, they'd be too busy murdering their own grandfathers to see what all this paradox nonsense was about....

 

[Shocko]

You call that fun?

I'd go 100yrs back in time. And then come back. Fun eh? Well, it would be fun when you wait 10minutes, then go back to the timeperiod you previously went to. Now there are 2 of the future yous there. The fun part, is getting the younger you to jump into the older you's timemachine, so he can effectivly go into the future... There's no way it could work without something major breaking!

 

[Johnny Bravo]

Originally posted by blade07
When it does and I have to ring the support line, Which is free BTW, I have never been on for more than 10 minutes including queing time.

Please tell me what time you are ringing and what support line, cause unlike you my service is reguarly effected. I have to even enjoy any benefit of having 1Mb as my game pings resemble ISDN at best and pigeon mail at worse.

Everytime I have tried to ring the support number (which I beleive is a national number for all ntl cable modem users) it has taken a minimum of 50 minutes to get through and more often than not 90 minutes

 

[Ash!]

I usually go throught NTL customer service on 0800-052-2000 > Press 2 for Broadband and Interactive services> Then press 1 for Cable Modem or 2 for set top box modem. As I work during the day it is usually around 18.00-19.00 if I need to call them. As I say I get straight through on most occasions. In the last year I have had to call them 4 maybe 5 times.

I dont know if the response time when calling maybe to do with the way the customer service is set up. I know when they merged with Cable & Wireless they inheritied the old C&W call centre for the North West near Manchester Airport. As far as I am aware they have not lost any of the staff their due to cost cutting exercises. If it is still a regional set up then some centres maybe worse than others. Not 100% sure on that though

 

[Scouse]

So, advertising that was commissioned, designed and implemented *months* (if not years) before NTL decide the best solution to the problem they have is to impose a cap should be retroactively changed?

How about they STOP SHOWING THE SAME FUCKING ADVERTS TODAY??!!