[Sussex] NTL broadband speed up

[Jon Fautley]

Andrew Guard wrote:
>>Hi
>>
>>On 6:21:23 pm 08/08/2005 Andrew Guard <andrew at andrewguard.com> wrote:
>>
>>>The Merger for them makes sence, do understand why some people
>>
>>ooh good, even more regions with wildly incompatible cable services all
>>pretending to be one company :(
> 
> 
> Why do say that?

When the UK had many different cable providers, they all installed 
slightly different, incompatible, technology. This is why certain areas 
(i.e. my place in South London) cannot get cable internet - the 
infrastructure just isn't there).

> 
>>>On another subject I would rather go for unlimited bandwidth, it make
>>>more sence in long run.
>>
>>So would all users, but it won't happen ;)
>>
>>
>>>What I dont see happing is great improvments in upload speeds!  This
>>
>>Not at all surprising, why would a home user need lots of upload
>>bandwidth?
>>
>>
>>>is most important part, I only can find SDSL which make large strides
>>>in that direction.  But only few places where can have it and as with
>>>ASDL distance from exchange is a factor.
>>
>>SDSL is also largely an LLU thing at this stage, as are some of the
>>ADSL-like services (e.g. Bulldog). We have a 1mb sdsl line at work and
>>it's
>>really quite expensive unfortunately.
>>Distance from the exchange isn't a factor if you live in a sensible place
>>:)
>>
>>The cable people aren't ISPs, they're just giving you a pipe and making
>>you
>>use their proxy. I would rather have a quality internet connection than a
>>massively contented "fast" one :)

Correct - the cable internet services work more on the AOL style of 
'service provision' - where they provide you with a connection which is 
routed to the Internet, however, where at all possible, you remain 
inside their 'walled garden' network.

> But UK both Telewest and NTL are ISP in there own right.  That both have
> massive pipes connections to USA and Europe.  They have network
> connections in at both London/Manacheser Telehouses.  They both self
> leased lines.  You dont have to use there proxy but if wish you can use
> there proxy servers, each customer get real IP.  These IP ranges are owned
> by NTL/Telewest.

Correct - sort of.

Cable is a shared ethernet based system. The more people using it, the 
higher the contention. Cable connections have a MUCH higher contention 
ratio than ADSL connections, so the speed at which you're claiming to be 
talking to the UBR (a 1Mbps connection 'to the Internet' isn't correct 
- you have a sync with the UBR at a fluctuating rate, and the cablemodem 
does traffic limiting to slow your connection down) isn't always the 
speed of your connection.

You're thinking about contention at the head end. This is still the case 
with a lot of UK ISP's, and almost certainly with the cable providers 
who are now offering these superfast connections.

NTL certainly, force all web traffic through their proxy, which gives 
the end user the impression of a faster connection, yet allows them to 
use less transit bandwidth out of their network to the Internet at large.

In my personal opionin, ADSL connections are much better, both in terms 
of speed and 'reliability' (in so far as contention affects the 
connection, at least) than cable connections.

This is why my friend's 8Mbit cable pipe in the US is generally slower 
than my 1Mbit ADSL here in the UK.

Just because you have an IP address from a netblock registered 
(remember, ISP's never 'own' IP addresses) to NTL/Telewest/etc, doesn't 
mean that you have a 'true' Internet connection. I have a large number 
of IPv4 addresses terminated on my Cisco ADSL router at home, yet if I 
were to attempt to use these to transit through, the provider would 
shout at me somewhat. I can only use the services they provide within 
their network. It's the same principal with UK CableCo's.

Regards,

Jon
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