NTL Offered me free upgrade, should I?

Lady_K

NTL Offered me a free upgrade because of some problem I had with them. I'm currently on 300 cable. He said if I wanted the upgrade it would be to 1MB and I would not be able to downgrade again so I said I'd think about it then get back because he told me about the download limits of 3GB per month equiv to 4 songs per day. I don't download much really but apparently this effects video conferencing, games, surfing, sending emails, with and without attachments ect ect just about everything so it still could effect me. Plus if I ever really wanted something big I wouldnt want to be troubled by that. I don't know how long the offer to me was actually for foir the same price of the 300 but I'm not sure if its worth it or not. Apparently they cap all of the cable/broadband services now so theres no unlimited

simsun

Lady_K,

I might be wrong but I'm sure NTL's current cap is about 1GB per day (I think this will get chnaged as more people increase their speeds). It is all a matter of figuring out wht is best for you - faster speed and less downloads or slower speed and more downloads?

Quite a paradox really!

cheers
simsun

criminal_smile

TBH if you don't really download much material, then you won't notice the caps. Rumour has it that the caps won't really apply until September 05 anyway, but it will only really affect the file sharers. The NTL fair usage policy that currently applies is similar anyway, with those using large amounts of bandwidth being advised that they may have their service suspended if it continues. Just ensure that there aren't going to be any hidden charges. I would imagine that the 300k service will be phased out anyway, as it's quite slow for a BB service these days, and NTL will need to ensure they are competitive in the marketplace.

Teak

It should be an ongoing offer. NTL upgraded all it's speeds back in March, so now only offer 1Mb, 2Mb and 3Mb speeds. But they don't automatically upgrade existing 300k users because of the reduced transfer cap. You can upgrade online at any time:

http://www.ntlworld.com/data-feeds/editorial/microsites/tierMigration/

It's free to upgrade and basically you go from 300k (1GB/day) to 1Mb (3GB/month) for the same £17.99/month price. Just reboot the modem after the upgrade. As for the cap, as said above it's not going to be strictly enforced till sometime later when NTL release utils to let you monitor your usage. Probably as long as you don't constantly exceed the limit by a large amount.

http://www.home.ntl.com/page/usagefaq

The allowance covers data sent (uploaded) to the Internet or received (downloaded) from the Internet by your cable modem.

What happens if I reach my usage allowance?
Over the next 12 months, ntl will provide tools to allow customers to measure their data usage. When these tools are available, customers who approach their data allowance will be able to choose to

* reduce their data usage for the remainder of the month
* upgrade to a tier of service with a higher usage allowance
* pay for usage above their allowance.

Until these tools are available, ntl will monitor usage but not apply the 3GB allowance, except in cases where heavy use is affecting network performance.

If you are wondering if they can manage 3GB a month, you could try running Net Traffic Meter or DU Meter to monitor your usage. You can set Alerts or Volume settings to 3GB as a way keep track. You might want to disable port monitoring to reduce CPU usage.

Router users might want to try PRTG Traffic Grapher to monitor bandwidth through the router. Assuming the router supports SNMP.

Lady_K

Hi thanx everyone

Do you think if I stay on the 300 they will end up upgrading it with dl limits applied anyway seeing as they do seem to be phasing it out?

I wouldnt normally have upgraded its just I wasn't sure if it was worth it as they are sticking me at £17.99 with no price increase indefinitely

I do know some people who pay £19 for 2gb with NTL and have done ever since the it came out and thats a continual price. They just said its because they have been customers ever since cable started broadband but so have I.

scanner_2

i was with ntl for about two years. Two months ago I cancelled and I phoned and they confirmed that they received the cancellation letter. I have also stopped my Direct debit payments to them.

Well, they should have cut the connection two months ago but I can still access the internet. Thus I have been using internet for free for the past two months!!!

I wonder why they havent cut my connection yet? Can they actually send me a bill at a later date now?

Lady_K

I think this is a bit of a con, I've rang them and really I wouldnt be getting a free upgrade at all because the price for 1mb now is £17.99 anyway but with a 3gb per month cap compared to 1gb per day on the 2bg broadband. So really it's making it so that lower cost users will upgrade. I still dont think 3gb per month is that much seeing as it including everything I stated above including incoming and outgoing email. It says up to 45 emails per month! thats not a lot for a month so 1mg wouldnt be enough for me so its forcing people to upgrade and pay more

http://www.home.ntl.com/icat/broadband&source=googlebroadband&wg=83

It even says surfing 12 hours per day so its just surfing too if you click the 'what does it mean' at the bottom. Ours tend to get left on almost all the time so its ready to use for convenience rather than keep starting up the computer so I wouldnt be able to do that on 1mb