Cable vs DSL Rollout (aka why NTL are brilliant/useless)

OfflerCrocGod

Sponge Bob wrote:

Leaking in November was a precautionary measure to steal NTL thunder.

I find that a bit hard to believe to be honest; after all the people who get excited about these rumors are us (no one else cares or knows about these upgrades). Who here if they had a choice between NTL or €ircon would hesitate to go NTL/UPC? After all once (if!) UPC unleash their 10Mb package you would have to be an idiot* to stay with €ircon. The're not pushed to roll out high upload speeds that's all.




* This type of person wouldn't know about these €ircon rumors.

Blaster99

What NTL thunder is this? The annual "we're going to cover all of Dublin by the end of the year"? Surely only bk and Silicon Republic get excited about that? I can't imagine anyone pays much attention to NTL.

paulm17781

Blaster99 wrote:

What NTL thunder is this? The annual "we're going to cover all of Dublin by the end of the year"? Surely only bk and Silicon Republic get excited about that? I can't imagine anyone pays much attention to NTL.

Despite that they are upgrading areas and mathematically if they continue to do this they will cover Dublin???

Blaster99

Maybe we have different expectations of thunder. The odd housing estate here and there doesn't really amount to thunder in my books.

bk

Blaster99 wrote:

What NTL thunder is this? The annual "we're going to cover all of Dublin by the end of the year"? Surely only bk and Silicon Republic get excited about that? I can't imagine anyone pays much attention to NTL.
....
Maybe we have different expectations of thunder. The odd housing estate here and there doesn't really amount to thunder in my books.

Ah now Blaster99 jealousy gets you no where. There seems to be a strange syndrome of denial amongst people who can't get NTL that it isn't widespread or exciting.

I'm sure the whole of Galway and Waterford city don't consider themselves "the odd housing estate", nor would almost half of cable customers in Dublin who can now get BB from NTL.

NTL offering 10mb would be a very important event, specially for us who already have NTL and it would be something that would worry Eircom greatly as currently they can't even come close to competing with that.

paulm17781

Blaster99 wrote:

Maybe we have different expectations of thunder. The odd housing estate here and there doesn't really amount to thunder in my books.

Very true, However off the top of my head I can name 5 AREAS (not estates) that have been upgraded in the last year. None of these are new developments.

Blaster99

Why would I be jealous? I'm looking to disconnect NTL as soon as possible. A complete waste of money.

5 areas in a year, wow. I wonder what the opinion around here would be if Eircom only enabled five exchanges a year. I would be a little more excited if Smart came my way.

paulm17781

Blaster99 wrote:

5 areas in a year, wow. I wonder what the opinion around here would be if Eircom only enabled five exchanges a year. I would be a little more excited if Smart came my way.

I said I know of 5 areas, not that they updated 5 areas. Believe it or not I do not write down every area I read here. But I can name 5 people who recently couldn't get NTL BB and now can. Proof of roll out. Ironically I would imagine you are the sixth area I know of that was upgraded.

Blaster99

I'm still waiting for the thunder. Well actually I'm not, because even if I could get NTL BB I wouldn't get it.

bk

Blaster99 wrote:

I'm still waiting for the thunder. Well actually I'm not, because even if I could get NTL BB I wouldn't get it.

Please explain why, if they offered 10m/512k in the morning for €40 (I'm not saying that they will), why wouldn't you get it?

Even now with the Eircom upgrades, NTL is still better value for money 3m NTL for €40 versus Eircom 3m for €54 and NTL is much better due to low latency, higher speeds and much better uptime (I've had both 2m DSL and NTL).

You seem to have an illogical hatred of NTL, can you please explain why?

bk

Blaster99 wrote:

5 areas in a year, wow. I wonder what the opinion around here would be if Eircom only enabled five exchanges a year. I would be a little more excited if Smart came my way.

In the last 12 months they have enabled the whole of Galway and Waterford city.

If you look at user posts here on boards you will see that parts of the following areas have been enabled:

D1, D4, D6, D7, D8, D9, D11, D12, D13, D15, D16, D22 and D24.

Most of this work has been done in the last 12 months, now while these areas certainly aren't completely covered, it is still an awfult lot of work and is probably rolling out faster then Eircom is upgrading exchanges. eircom is only ahead becuase it started enabling exchanges earlier then NTL.

Blaster99

bk wrote:

Please explain why, if they offered 10m/512k in the morning for €40 (I'm not saying that they will), why wouldn't you get it?

Even now with the Eircom upgrades, NTL is still better value for money 3m NTL for €40 versus Eircom 3m for €54 and NTL is much better due to low latency, higher speeds and much better uptime (I've had both 2m DSL and NTL).

You seem to have an illogical hatred of NTL, can you please explain why?

When it comes to BB, they've talked ****e for at least five years. I detest vapour and I'm reacting to the overhyped support they receive for having done sod all really. Yes well done, they've enabled parts of their network and offer much the same services as everyone else.

When it comes to NTL and my not going for it, there is currently no reason to use them what so ever. They may be offering a gazillion megabits at some stage in the future, but let's deal with that eventuality when it happens. Chances are everyone else will do the same at that point. You can safely ignore Eircom's prices and look at BT's prices instead. The situation isn't quite so rosy then.

The fact that they charge €20-30pm for free TV doesn't exactly help either, but I've banged that drum enough in another thread. This is the primary reason I'm getting rid of them. I'd rather pay €25 to Eircom (or BT) for line rental as it's at least giving me some value. I think I concluded in that other thread that I would save at least €10 a month by using BT + Telestunt + FTV instead of using NTL + Blueface. Another €10 if we include NTL Digital to get similar number of stations as FTV.

I'm sure Eircom can do the same math and may have concluded that NTL is not a threat. Smart on the other hand offers prices that are very competitive and I wouldn't be surprised if they have better coverage than NTL. Hard to tell because NTL's coverage is very difficult to pin down. Believers like you think it's a big foot print, nonbelievers like me thinks it's mostly BS...

paulm17781

Blaster99 wrote:

The fact that they charge €20-30pm for free TV doesn't exactly help either,.

I can see your point. 19Euro for 15 tv channels or 24.18 for a copper pair you use for maybe two things. One being BB which in my experience (2 different addresses) isn't near as good as cable.

NTL. Hard to tell because NTL's coverage is very difficult to pin down. Believers like you think it's a big foot print, nonbelievers like me thinks it's mostly BS...

Despite constantly reading about more people getting installed you still refuse to believe this. Seems more that you don't want to believe it...

Now do your usual, follow up with a generalised reply with a snide answer that gives you the satisfaction of thinking you are right even though it will be something like "only half of Dublin in 12 months."

CareerSearcher

We are on BT 512/128 (90.00 + vat monthly) and need to upgrade. I have just discovered that we are being 'ripped off' as "The new offer which is available to all our customers is €30 per month for standard broadband or just €40 for broadband plus" (2MB/128) with line rental 10.00 extra. BT do not even bother to inform current customers of the service options available, daylight robbery to say the least.

Smart offer an uncontended 3MB/256 for 70.00 inclusive of line.

Sorry for the rant.

Question: anybody got any advise on best option to pursue? cable is out.

Appreciate input.

paulm17781

If you ca get Smart I would think get it. BT shouldn't be offering 512k service anymore. Are you sure you weren't upgraded and you didn't realise? If you are on a 512k service you are being seriously ripped off.

Sarsfield

bk wrote:

If you look at user posts here on boards you will see that parts of the following areas have been enabled:

D1, D4, D6, D7, D8, D9, D11, D12, D13, D15, D16, D22 and D24.

You can add D10 & D20 to that list.

Blaster99

paulm17781 wrote:

Despite constantly reading about more people getting installed you still refuse to believe this. Seems more that you don't want to believe it...

Now do your usual, follow up with a generalised reply with a snide answer that gives you the satisfaction of thinking you are right even though it will be something like "only half of Dublin in 12 months."

You're quite handy with the ol' sniping yourself, so let's go easy on the glass house shall we.

I don't deny that there are people getting NTL, but does that really imply that there's this really rapid rollout occuring? The thunder, remember.

There are a fair few people who are like "I'm in Dublin X, but can't get NTL BB" followed by "I'm in Dublin X too, but I'm 50 yards down the road and I can get it". This leads me to think that all these "Dublin X" is enabled isn't quite so true. Most people I know are in Dublin SE and extremely few of them can get NTL BB. That's a reasonable portion of Dublin with patchy NTL BB support at best. I know Tallaght and a lot of areas around the M50 in West and NW Dublin can get it, which is incidently very similar to Smart's coverage. Does it make it more than half of Dublin? Debatable. It's incidently a fairly pointless debate as we're just speculating but I don't get the impression that there is this massive rollout occurring, but maybe I'm not listening hard enough for the NTL train. The ComReg stats I've seen on NTL takeup is also low. I'm not a man to remember lots of stats but it's probably no greater than 5% nationally. Considering Dublin probably has at least 50% of the country's internet users due to massively better availability, that's not all that impressive.

Blaster99

paulm17781 wrote:

I can see your point. 19Euro for 15 tv channels or 24.18 for a copper pair you use for maybe two things. One being BB which in my experience (2 different addresses) isn't near as good as cable.

€19.50, to be exact. €20 among friends. For something that is otherwise free. A phone line can also be had for free from Digiweb, so maybe they're the real heroes. And their coverage is probably better or as good as NTL's...

damien

NTL saying all of Waterford and Galway are covered and almost all of Dublin is the same as eircom saying all towns can get broadband. Marketing and self-congratulatory bull. We know there's demand for broadband everywhere, people talk about the great NTL products, so why have they such a low number of broadband customers?

NTL apologists please step forward.

bk

damien.m wrote:

NTL apologists please step forward.

Sir, yes, sir

damien.m wrote:

NTL saying all of Waterford and Galway are covered and almost all of Dublin is the same as eircom saying all towns can get broadband. Marketing and self-congratulatory bull. We know there's demand for broadband everywhere, people talk about the great NTL products, so why have they such a low number of broadband customers?

Low? according to comreg's last quarterly report (Q3 05) they have 18,000 customers, that would easily put them around the same as BT.

Sure that is only one tenth of DSL, but it is rapidly increasing. 20% quarter on quarter (compared to 16% for DSL) and 233% year on year (compared to 194% for DSL).

NTL report an uptake rate of about 11%, that is one of the best in Europe and when you consider NTL don't have a massive national advertising campaign like Eircom it is pretty impresive.

From this is pretty easy to figure out how many lines they have enabled and as of Q3 05 is stands at about 200,000. There are a total of 1,287,958 houses in Ireland (CSO 2002, probably closer to 1.4 or 1.5 million now), so it certainly is a significant amount.

BTW NTL has never said they cover almost all of Dublin, their official results as of November 11th is 155,200 broadband enabled homes (out of about 300,000+ cabled homes).

As I noted in another thread, Eircoms new DSL specs closely match NTL's products, coincidence? I don't think so. I believe that we wouldn't be getting these higher speeds from Eircom if it wasn't for NTL and the FWA companies. They are the ones driving competition in the BB market.

Damien, I realise down in Cork with Crappy Chorus, all this talk of how cool NTL BB is seems to be a million miles away, but here in Dublin there is a real buzz about NTL as more and more people sign up and find how much better it is then DSL. Don't underestimate it.

DialUpMeArse

I have to say pretty much the same, when it came to TV I simply signed up for SKY and went for it straight out. SKY write to you, spell your bill out for you, and write to you in advance to tell you what day it is tomorrow. And all the years of HYPE and SHEE-AT from RTE and their Communist footsoldiers about how SKY were out to do us all.

I rang NTL and got some mumbling clown talking fudge about mini dishes and TG4. Pennywise, but pound foolish in the long run.

Jumpy

DialUpMeArse wrote:

I have to say pretty much the same, when it came to TV I simply signed up for SKY and went for it straight out. SKY write to you, spell your bill out for you, and write to you in advance to tell you what day it is tomorrow. And all the years of HYPE and SHEE-AT from RTE and their Communist footsoldiers about how SKY were out to do us all.

I rang NTL and got some mumbling clown talking fudge about mini dishes and TG4. Pennywise, but pound foolish in the long run.

Just wait Hopefully sky will become the clowns if Liberty/UPC pumps money into the country.
*crosses fingers*

Jumpy

Blaster99 wrote:

BT + Telestunt + FTV

Could you live on Fashion TV alone?

bk

Blaster99 wrote:

It's incidently a fairly pointless debate as we're just speculating but I don't get the impression that there is this massive rollout occurring, but maybe I'm not listening hard enough for the NTL train. The ComReg stats I've seen on NTL takeup is also low. I'm not a man to remember lots of stats but it's probably no greater than 5% nationally. Considering Dublin probably has at least 50% of the country's internet users due to massively better availability, that's not all that impressive.

Ok here are official figures:
November 2003: 28,000 homes BB ready *
November 2004: 66,500 homes BB ready
November 2005: 155,200 homes BB ready

* this is pretty much steady from the Tallagth rollout a few years earlier.

There are 1,287,958 homes in Ireland (CSO 2002, probably about 1.4m by now), so about 12% nationaly.

So as you can clearly see, they really are ramping up the rollout. It they enable another 88,700 homes in the next 12 months, that will probably complete almost all NTL cable customers.

You are right that is far less then DSL, but cable will never compete with DSL in terms of reaching rural areas etc. However the idea is that it will give choice and introduce competition in urban areas, which will force Eircom to drop prices and improve specs and therefore benefit everyone including those in rural areas. I believe Eircoms introduction of new products today is a direct result of competition from NTL and FWA companies.

Blaster99 wrote:

When it comes to NTL and my not going for it, there is currently no reason to use them what so ever. They may be offering a gazillion megabits at some stage in the future, but let's deal with that eventuality when it happens. Chances are everyone else will do the same at that point. You can safely ignore Eircom's prices and look at BT's prices instead. The situation isn't quite so rosy then.

OK, lets look at the reality now, NTL 3m/300k - €45, Eircom 3Mbps / 256kbps = €107 (and about the same from BT)

NTL 2m/200k = €35 - BT 2m/128k = €40
NTL 2m/200k + TV = €54.5 - BT 2m/128k + Line rental = €50

Personally I consider the TV to be better value for money as I use it in 4 different rooms in the house, while I already have a mobile, so what do I want a telephone line for? I suppose it depends upon your priorities.

Either way you should be cheering on NTL and all the other BB companies, the more competition they introduce, the better and cheaper your DSL will be.

Blaster99

Jumpy wrote:

Just wait Hopefully sky will become the clowns if Liberty/UPC pumps money into the country.
*crosses fingers*

Liberty will pay you to watch TV? It's otherwise difficult to beat free.

Blaster99

bk wrote:

NTL 2m/200k = €35 - BT 2m/128k = €40
NTL 2m/200k + TV = €54.5 - BT 2m/128k + Line rental = €50

Personally I consider the TV to be better value for money as I use it in 4 different rooms in the house, while I already have a mobile, so what do I want a telephone line for? I suppose it depends upon your priorities.

Either way you should be cheering on NTL and all the other BB companies, the more competition they introduce, the better and cheaper your DSL will be.

Strictly speaking you should be paying €5 per room. You can do multi-room viewing with sat too. With a once-off fee.

And you forgot about telephony. That's at least another €5 a month with the NTL solution (assuming Blueface, most commonly suggested VoIP provider), hence you're down €10. And you need to pay NTL €10 to get anything resembling the channels available on FTV, so that's €20 down.

Which would be the primary reason why I have no interest in NTL. Maybe it's just me, but it seems extraordinarily daft to pay NTL €30 a month for something that's easily freely available.

paulm17781

Jumpy wrote:

Could you live on Fashion TV alone?

To add to what BK said......

I noticed in the Comreg report that NTL had about 18000 subscriber which is up from what it was last year (3000)? That is huge growth. They also increased by a higher percentage than eircon. Now I accept that it is from a measly low figure and eircon had a much higher number enabled in the same period but none the less, it is still rapid growth and shows that their uptake is increasing faster than Eircon's and will likely continue to do so.

To add to what Blaster99 said.........

I do agree, there has been no thunder as yet. None the less they are only really starting Eircon had years to get to where they are, NTL have done little to no advertising either. The way things are going I too wonder if there ever will be real competition from NTL. Liberty didn't buy NTL for no reason though. I know the same is true of NTL buying cable link but NTL ran out of money. I would think Liberty prepared for this. Here's hoping.

Also, I would imagine West Dublin is close to half of Dublin's population. I could be way off but, Tallaght, Clondalkin, Lucan, Blach etc. That is a large amount of Dublin. No idea how many of them are BB enabled but it would make business sense to start in this area.

paulm17781

Blaster99 wrote:

Maybe it's just me, but it seems extraordinarily daft to pay NTL €30 a month for something that's easily freely available.

I do see your point here. I live in an apartment so no dishes. There is NTL by default. Multi-room is another thing, if I had a house I would have atleast 2 TVs wanting channels on both. I assume FTA can do two STBs. Can it do more? If so it would seem to be a viable option, if I had a house.

For BT to compare to Blueface rates (5 hours free) you would have to pay them €25 (if memory serves) per month. Even with the €10 for Blueface on top of NTL, I think it would still be cheaper than BT and FTA

bk

Blaster99 wrote:

Strictly speaking you should be paying €5 per room. You can do multi-room viewing with sat too. With a once-off fee.

Actually it use to be €2 odd, but not anymore, they give it free now. They charge €5 per multiroom for 100 digital which is excellent value (Sky charge €15 for the same).

The once off fee is only for FTA sat which has an ok, but limited line up. However many people in Dublin can't get sat due to living in apartments.

Blaster99 wrote:

And you forgot about telephony.

Nope, I said I had a mobile.

Or here is another way to look at it:
NTL 2m/200k + TV + VoIP (for unlimited calls €15) = €70
BT 2m/128k + Line rental + unlimited calls pakage = €70

only now you lose out on the TV, (including C4, E4, Discovery, MTV, Sky One and Paramount which aren't FTA) and DSL isn't as fast or stable as the cable and the DSL doesn't have a 3m option (well €107).

Blaster99 wrote:

That's at least another €5 a month with the NTL solution (assuming Blueface, most commonly suggested VoIP provider), hence you're down €10. And you need to pay NTL €10 to get anything resembling the channels available on FTV, so that's €20 down.

See above and also include the fact that NTL is giving me the TV service free for 12 months (so another €20 off per month).

Blaster99 wrote:

Which would be the primary reason why I have no interest in NTL. Maybe it's just me, but it seems extraordinarily daft to pay NTL €30 a month for something that's easily freely available.

Actually this is how I look at it:

NTL 3m/300k = €45
Analogue TV = Free
Blueface = €15
Digital TV x 3 = €20
Total = €80

For a DSL Sky setup it would cost:
3m = €107
Line Rental = €25
Unlmited calls pack = €20
Sky Family Pack = €30
Multi Room x 2 = €30
€212

Ok, so lets look at BT
BT 2m + line rental = €50
Unlmited calls pack = €20
Sky Family Pack = €30
Multi Room x 2 = €30
Total €160

As you can see I'm saving a lot with NTL, yes you can go on about FTA sat, but:

A) it costs about €250 to setup
it doesn't have anything like the lineup of Sky or NTL Digital
C) I rent so it isn't an option.

Even with FTA it still works out about the same price.

So really it depends on your needs, for me NTL is by far the cheapest option, for your needs it might be different. But many people can't get FTA sat or want more channels, so don't go knocking NTL just becuase it doesn't suit your needs.

And note what I siad above about competition helping us all out with cheaper prices all round.

bk

paulm17781 wrote:

I do see your point here. I live in an apartment so no dishes. There is NTL by default. Multi-room is another thing, if I had a house I would have atleast 2 TVs wanting channels on both. I assume FTA can do two STBs. Can it do more? If so it would seem to be a viable option, if I had a house.

FYI, with a quad LNB, you can do upto four indepenent receivers. It would cost you an extra €40 for the LNB and about €100 for each receiver.

Blaster99

Forget call bundles from BT or Eircom or anyone else. You don't need to. You use Telestunt. You would need to make a lot of calls with Blueface to save up the €5 initial line cost. It's also likely that you can get bundles from other VoIP providers and use them over the ADSL line, if that's your thing.

I forgot to add, it does sound like there is some thunder, based on bk's figures. Those growth figures are really impressive. I suppose what is less impressive in the scheme of things is 50% availability in urban areas. I suspect it might get harder for them from now, seeing as they started with the long hanging fruit. But let's see.

Hopefully FTV will kick NTL's ass and you will see some significant savings on the cable TV cost in the future. NTL has always tried to block UK terresterials on Irish sat cards to protect their pathetic TV service, but those days are gone as it's so easy to get a UK card.

With sat you can fairly easily do two-room viewing with different channels being watched in either. You can in addition easily route the same channel selection to multiple TV's, which is probably sufficient in most cases as you're not very likely to be watching more than two TV's at the same time. But if you need lots of TV's that can watch different channels, then satellite ain't it. I only need two so it's not an issue for me.