Good news for NTL broadband cable customers in the UK

[Craig Tucker]

NTL to increase its cable DL speeds from 150K, 600K and 1M to 300K, 750K and 1.5M at no extra cost.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/04/26/ntl_telewest_broadband/

[flaninacupboard]

Sweet! now that's -really- speed for free!

amazing how times have changed, today i am being given 150kbps for free, a few years ago it cost the earth for plain old 56kbps!

makes the £18 300kbps very attractive for people too!

[Craig Tucker]

I am currently on 600k, but when I signed up it was only 512K. It went to 600k for free and now its going to 750k for free. So my speed has almost increased by 50% at no extra cost, cant be bad.

[stiltman]

Seems sloooooow 8)
https://www.videohelp.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=893072#893072

[Craig Tucker]

Seems sloooooow 8)
https://www.videohelp.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=893072#893072

Not by UK standards, I take it you don't pay for that line yourself stiltman 8)

[stiltman]

my budget

[Hardcoreruss]

How much does that cost Stiltman ?

Craig - Have seen that cable is going up to 3MB in some areas.

[stiltman]

How much does that cost Stiltman ?

For what I have, it's over 2K a month, but that's just out of my budget 8)

[Hardcoreruss]

2 thousand dollars a month !

[stiltman]

2 thousand dollars a month !

Yep!, just so I can surf the net at mega high speeds

Remember what I pay for is guaranteed bandwidth, unlike cable or DSL

[Hardcoreruss]

That surely is not just for recreation, is that business aswell.

[stiltman]

That surely is not just for recreation, is that business aswell.

business

at home I have sucky cable

[bugster]

Hmmmm,
Thats great if its true (and the Reg is usually pretty accurate in its reports) but it must be a knnejerk reaction to Telewest as just a few days ago they announced price rises (not for 600K, but for 1Mb service)

http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/article/ds14238.html

Having said all that, it seems to be a bit slower than usual tonight when surfing

[Will Hay]

How good are the packages Craig?
Currently I have 512k broadband at 19.99GBP, the sky family package at 18.50GBP and my monthly debit for my BT line is 12.00GBP, and I always seem to be in credit.
The combined packages from NTL don't appear to be much better.
It's seems I can now have NTL in my home, but can't seem the benefit cost wise.

Will

[Cobra]

My connection runs at 100Mbps, but the peak download that I get is between 7 and 8MB (megabytes)/sec. I only get this off Microsoft.com in the mornings when most people on campus aren't up. My average download rate is only about 2-3MB/sec during peak times. Such a shame!

This costs me £80 for the entire year.

Cobra

[Craig Tucker]

How good are the packages Craig?
Currently I have 512k broadband at 19.99GBP, the sky family package at 18.50GBP and my monthly debit for my BT line is 12.00GBP, and I always seem to be in credit.
The combined packages from NTL don't appear to be much better.
It's seems I can now have NTL in my home, but can't seem the benefit cost wise.

Will

I currently have NTL for my cable TV, broadband and phoneline. I would only reccomend it for broadband though. The cable TV service is shite, its always cutting out and the box is constantly having to be reset. £24.99 for 750k is pretty good and the service is pretty reliable, unlike the TV. When I move I will probrably swithch my TV service to a sky dish.

[Will Hay]

How good are the packages Craig?
Currently I have 512k broadband at 19.99GBP, the sky family package at 18.50GBP and my monthly debit for my BT line is 12.00GBP, and I always seem to be in credit.
The combined packages from NTL don't appear to be much better.
It's seems I can now have NTL in my home, but can't seem the benefit cost wise.

Will

I currently have NTL for my cable TV, broadband and phoneline. I would only reccomend it for broadband though. The cable TV service is shite, its always cutting out and the box is constantly having to be reset. £24.99 for 750k is pretty good and the service is pretty reliable, unlike the TV. When I move I will probrably swithch my TV service to a sky dish.

Glad I asked.
A pal of mine has just gone for a package with 600k, basic 8.00GBP-ish Sky TV and phone for what would normally be circa. 50.00GBP, hence my worry that I'm paying similar now.
The offer is free everything; installation, box etc. with the added benefit TV is free for a year too.
But if it's shite.....
....I think I'll give it a miss.
Thanks for the heads up, my soccer-hooligan, beer-drinking, head-shaven friend
Will

[flaninacupboard]

Well they just this week updated the software on our NTL TV box, and it seems to be much better - accidentally pressing the red button no longer causes a week long coma (and i'm not even joking on that one) i haven't had any dropout and the guide/EPG works properly. big improvement

It's now NEARLY as good as my freeview box.

Internet is great, i think one problem in two years, but it was fine once i was home from work so no biggie. the telephone was ok until it packed up, and customer service wouldn't speak to us on the phone beause we weren't speaking on an NTL line

£18 for 300K is a fecking bargain though.

[Craig Tucker]

accidentally pressing the red button no longer causes a week long coma

Yea I hear you on that one.

The browse button is also supposed to bring up a 7 day guide but it only goes to midnight (when it works that is), and the compression on some channels is awfull, particularly E4. Looks like a really bad VCD sometimes. And still no teletext.

[flaninacupboard]

Yeah, E4 plain sucks - my (ex) girlfriend would always say "but you've made VCD's that look better than that!" (doesn't it make you feel warm inside when someone compliments on your video skills? or is that just me? )

With the new software the EPG is 7 days, and it all loads instantly, no sitting there saying loading for 20 minutes and once you're bored realising it's crashed.

Teletext is a bitch though. as i said, i have freeview/BBCi for that.