[Nottingham] NTL speed increases

[Graeme Fowler]

On Wed 16 Mar 2005 15:55:16 GMT , Michael Simms <michael at tuxgames.com> wrote:
>>  NTL have boosted the speed of the broadband products. The new speed
>>  and prices are as followed:
>>
>>  1Mb Broadband - £17.99 - 3Gb per month download cap
>>  2Mb Broadband - £24.99 - 1Gb per day download cap
>>  3Mb Broadband - £37.99 - 1Gb per day download cap
>
>> From my reckoning that comes out at 1.18K per second

Hrm... no it doesn't. Remember that NTL's caps ar GigaBytes - GB - not
Gigabits
- Gb.

1GB == 1*1024*1024*1024 == 1073741824 bytes

1GB == 1073741824 * 8 == 8589934592 bits

which over a day equates to approximately 99 kilobits/sec.

Not very much as a sustained rate, granted, but then [and I am not assuming
legal or moral precedent here] if people will insist on continually
downloading
things which are copyright "someone else", and that "someone else" has the
capacity, finances and time to wield an ugly legal stick in the
direction of UK
ISPs to stop these downloads taking place then it's in the operator's
interests
to discourage their users from doing so.

I must admit that I do find it amusing that people get so exercised about
transfer caps - why not just get mad at the fact that your rates are
restricted
in the first place? The issue here, after all, is that previously
you've had no
restrictions and have probably flown in the face of a large number of laws
(again, I'm not making a moral point here, just stating a fact) with no
redress
- but now there's a restriction, if the data rates continue your network
operator will land T&C breaches on you. Ouch.

Coming at it from a different perspective, here's another thing to ponder: if
I'm on a UBR at 50:1 (or greater) contention with my near neighbours (in
network terms), there's a 34Mbps link upstream from that UBR and exactly 34 of
my neighbours decide to download something at full line rate, where does that
leave my performance? Shot to pieces.

If, however, a significant proportion of those people are yer average
'net user
with a shred of decency, they'll abide by the rules (in fact most of
them won't
care about them because they'll rarely hit that cap) and my performance won't
suffer.

> I get that much traffic from portscans and other junk from other people
> on the NTL network with viruses when my link is idle, there is no way Im
> 'upgrading' to that... Unlimited like in my original agreement is fine
> with me

...although in actual fact, it isn't. If you took the full 512kbps [or
whichever
rate you have] 24/7/365, NTL would (at least threaten to) terminate your
connection on the grounds of unfair usage. They've done it before, they're now
just enshrining it in their T&Cs in real words rather than a "catch all"
clause.

I guess if you want full line rate downloads with no cap, you will now
Get What
You Pay For. £25 a month doesn't get you much when you compare it to (say) an
E1 circuit from a big provider - and even they levy restrictions on use,
although not quite so draconian ones!

Graeme
--
Sitting squarely in the corner of the dull and boring majority who don't
leave their systems on all day downloading Buffy/24/whatever episodes ;-)