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Monday 10 February 2003

NTL introduces bandwidth limit! [lurks]

We all know NTL hasn't been doing real well but this comes as a shock. The BBC is reporting that NTL has just imposed a 1GB per day traffic limit on all cable modems. It's not clear if that applies to both 600k and 1mb services but either way it's really very lame indeed.
I appreciate that morons that leave P2P clients on 24/7 are costing far more money than they ought to be. I've always advocated a two-tier service, a limited and unlimited bandwidth service. The former being fine for 90% of web browsing users. The latter while still not actually charging heavy users their due costs, at least it higher price would discourage some from running P2P 24/7.
However what NTL have done is introduce an enormous cap in the actual service you were previously entitled to with no cost difference at all. It's disgusting quite frankly and if my operator, Telewest, did that I'd be off like a shot to DSL.
I rather think that's what a lot of people will be doing. DSL offers, after all, unlimited bandwidth and for about the cost of the 600k service, it offers twice the outbound bandwidth as well.
It's depressing to see NTL sink yet lower all the same.

7 comments:

  1. To illustrate how much they've capped the service, previously you could download about 5GB a day on the basic service and 10GB on the 1mb service.

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  2. Sign of the times sadly. My isp is apparently now watching ports and limiting the bandy available to p2p ports. Dickheads leaving stuff on leech permenantly, why are some tossers always going to take the piss and fuck it up for everyone?

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  3. Well in fairness, most peons never considered that bandwidth is anasset and that there are ramifications of them leaving P2P clients onall night. They can be forgiven for this really because none of theISPs said otherwise and they go out of their way to advertise 24/7,unlimited and whatnot.The solution is just to make heavy users pay. That'll stop a wholeload of the kiddies running Kazaa and mean that heavy users stand abetter chance of obtaining the performance they're paying for. Thetrue villains here are the ISPs that never the forsight to predictthis outcome even with clear trends indicated years in advance. Not tomention their unrealistic business models.Especially when they set about brutishly remedying the problems afterthe fact like your ISP and NTL etc. This is nothing other than thesame sort nonsense which ISPs ended up doing with the whole unlimiteddial-up accounts. You know, where they didn't actually constructbusiness models that could support people using their accounts asadvertised.Of course what happens is they get a load of bad press and the heavyusers jump ship. Just like the same fiasco concerning 'unlimited'dial-up, the ISPs wont actually care no matter how much chest thumpingand calls of 'Outrageous!' from refugees. They'll lose a few percent oftheir revenue but gain a large percentage of extra capacity. Whichleaves them free to continue growing their customer base withoutinvesting further in their network.Precisely what people like NTL want all along.As part of the backlash, This URL needs a mention. And now Slashdot has a story with some people highlighting the fact that NTL claim they are only chasing persistant offenders. Hmm, that implies it's not a hard cap.

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  4. 1. What you’ve written so far is nothing compared to what I’ve gone through. Last year I told NTHell to disconnect the landline because we were moving elsewhere, which as far as I can tell they did. However about 3 months went by before they stopped by to reconnect the service in my flat. However, what came as a shock was the fact that they kept sending bills to my new address now charging me for the time between they disconnected the service until they reconnected it (about 2 to 3 months). They were literally trying to steal money from me. And then I started to receive final reminder letters saying pay up or else. I bent over backwards trying to reach a real person through customer harras…er service. They never gave a solution and letters from them kept piling up in my rubbish bin.On the other hand, by the time we were expecting someone from NTHell to show up for reconnection, some female executive called me up and offered me a deal in which I’d have to pay only £7.25 as a month charge, provided I made a payment of £25 upfront. The case is I wouldn’t have to pay a single £p during the first 3 months. I accepted, but as soon as the line became ready for use, they started sending bills for £11.50 as a month charge. What they are doing is illegal right? They’ve been doing this since we started this new contract. I desperately tried to get help and advice from somewhere but it was fruitless.Then they sent the “debt” to a debt recovery company, and after trying to contact those guys, they forced me into pay like £100 of which I owed about £50 according to my estimates. I have the whole paperwork to prove what I’m saying. However they got away with it. I’m sure these sharks do the same to other hard working people and nobody does a thing about it.As they have disconnected the line, they have the nerves to tell me I have to pay a further fee to have the line back, and the month charges are still running. So I have to pay to have the service back and furthermore I have to keep paying what they say I owe until the end of the contract. Can somebody tell me is there anything I can do to expose these rats? I’m sharing this in the hope that somebody who reads this will have an idea that can help start stopping these swindlers, or organize a group and together expose these fraudsters, legally. They have been in breach of a contract and don’t care what I say.

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  5. I grow tired of this. Most of the comments we're getting from the public on our blogs are people that basically type "company x is shit" into Google, find some three year old blog of ours and then post their latest sob story as if we're supposed to care.
    Beej, I'm thinking we need to retroactively remove public comment ability on previous blogs and just keep it as an author's option on new blogs. What you think?

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  6. "post their latest sob story as if we're supposed to care."
    Dude, if you don't 'care', as you say, then why fucking complain about it in the first place? And furthermore, what's the point in having a blog that's accessible to the public if you don't want people to make comments? This person was clearly only sharing their experience in an attempt to help others - and frankly, I wish she hadn't bothered, since you were such a jerk about it...
    "I'm thinking we need to retroactively remove public comment ability on previous blogs and just keep it as an author's option on new blogs"
    Why not go the whole hog and just remove the ability to comment, at all, ever? In fact, make the world a better place - stop bloggin' and keep your opinion to yourself. You're clearly not interested in what anyone who you don't know has to say, even if they're only acting in a positive manner toward you, so... yeah. My God, it's been a while since a random site on the 'net made me want to step up and hurl some might flaming. Try and be less of a jerk in future, eh?
    You'll do yourself a whole world of good.

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  7. Listen you random fucking peon, obviously you haven't the slightest sense of perspective. We don't ask you or anyone else to come here and post comments on our stories. None of the people who contribute actually valuable and interesting blogs on this site have a duty to give a damn about random person complaining about company X. Our opinions are being kept to ourselves, by and large, and other interested parties. Having public access does not equate to us wanting a torrential pile of comments added by people because they've typed NTL into Google and they're looking for sob-story bosum buddies. Occasionally we are motivated to help, as we have some others, but it's our prerogative and not some implied duty just because this site is on the Internet.

    You're clearly not interested in what anyone who you don't know has to say..

    That's inferring something out of thin air that simply isn't the case. I care plenty about what people have to say, depending on whether what they have to say is actually interesting or not. I really couldn't be fucked and neither could anyone else be fucked with the 50th random sob story about NTL and as an adminstrator on this site I will goddamn decide what is worth of being posted here, not you.

    You'll do yourself a whole world of good...

    Well thank you for your valuable insight into what I need to do in order to improve my life. However, unfortunately, I basically assess you as being a bit of a dim-witted bleeding-heart dickhead so you'll excuse me if I don't rush off and follow your random unsolicited advice.
    Oh, and fuck off.

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