NTL finds it's voice again

crawler

From Indo 30/05/05 :-

CABLE TV company NTL Ireland is to re-enter the consumer voice telephony market later this year.

It will offer a voice over broadband service and, as it already has an exchange, the new service will involve a nominal investment from NTL Ireland. NTL Ireland currently provides a voice service to its corporate customers.

Consumers will be able to use the new service without the need for an eircom phone line.

The company offers broadband services on its cable network to customers in its franchise areas of Dublin, Waterford and Galway. Bundling together broadband and fixed line services would make sense for the company.

The decision will lead to more competition in the voice market, which is still dominated by eircom.

NTL Ireland, which is due to be bought by cable giant UGC, pulled out of the direct telephony at the end of 2004 due to safety concerns with its equipment, but its decision to leave the carrier pre-select market prior to this was a commercial one.

It provided direct telephone services to 2,000 customers in Tallaght and Rathfarnham and the decision caused outrage.

Last week, UGC formally informed the Competition Authority of its plans to takeover NTL Ireland.

NTL Ireland is currently owned by UGC's merchant bank Morgan Stanley after it was sold by its parent in a "warehousing deal".

The Competition Authority will now have to decide whether John Malone's involvement in the company justifies an investigation.

UGC's parent company LMI is run by John Malone, who is also the chairman of Liberty Media Corporation (LMC). LMC owns 18pc of News Corporation, which controls BSkyB, which in turn is NTL Ireland's biggest competitor in the Irish market.

UGC also owns Chorus, another cable operator in the Irish market.

However, this is not likely to involve any competition issues as both firms operate in different franchise areas.

The Competition Authority has given observers a month to submit their observations on the merger.

It will then decide whether or not to pass the deal or investigate it further.

If the merger goes ahead NTL Ireland and Chorus together will employ about 1,000 staff, but job losses are expected.

UGC is also expected to rebrand NTL and Chorus over the next 12 months, most likely using UGC's pan-European brand 'UPC' for the combined cable operator.

vibe666

could be interesting. all that remains now is to see if they roll it out to more than half a dozen people on an estate in tallaght or actually make it available to all their customers (and quickly).

Blaster99

It's difficult to see what's holding them back or what has taken them so long. Offering a VoIP service is a nobrainer.

crawler

Blaster99 wrote:

It's difficult to see what's holding them back or what has taken them so long. Offering a VoIP service is a nobrainer.

Agreed however their approach is correct - they will simply get it right before launching...it's a much bigger Customer base this time around than their former service...

vibe666

crawler wrote:

Agreed however their approach is correct - they will simply get it right before launching...it's a much bigger Customer base this time around than their former service...

ROFL! yeah, like they've got everything else right! can anyone say 'customer service'?

i guess we'll have to see. hopefully the buyout/merger thing will shake things up a bit.

vorbis

I'm in Galway on the NT analgoue tv service. Will I have to sign up for NTL digital as well to get broadband from them??

vibe666

don't think so, but i'd imagine you'll get some sort of discount for going for the bundle.

i reckon a trip to their website might be in order to have a look see.

bk

vibe666 wrote:

ROFL! yeah, like they've got everything else right! can anyone say 'customer service'?

i guess we'll have to see. hopefully the buyout/merger thing will shake things up a bit.

Yes, while NTL CS was awful in the past, they have really come on recently.

Anytime I call I almost always get straight through to a human and the CS people seem to know what you are talking about and sort it out very quickly.

When I ordered BB 2 months ago I was particularly impressed by the way that they sent me a text message the day before the install to remind me of the install (which I only had to wait 2 weeks for).

Also recently on another thread here on boards a guy complained that some people in his apartment building could get BB, while he couldn't, despite having NTL Digital TV. A few hours after posting this he was contacted separately by two NTL CS people who were able to fix it for him and he now has BB. That is outstanding and way above the call of duty.

Frankly in my experience NTL's CS is now much better then Eircom, keep up the good work.

bk

crawler wrote:

CABLE TV company NTL Ireland is to re-enter the consumer voice telephony market later this year.

This is great news, I can finally get rid of Eircom

I already get BB and TV from them.

fatherdougalmag

bk wrote:

This is great news, I can finally get rid of Eircom

I already get BB and TV from them.

Why wait for NTL? Have you tried Blueface yet? Works a treat (when the NTL connection is working reliably ).

vibe666

bk wrote:

Yes, while NTL CS was awful in the past, they have really come on recently.

thanks for the headsup bk, I'll wait till i next have to call them before making any further judgement. sounds like they're gettign their fingers out finally though.

it was always nice to have the freephone number when calling them, but for a while there they seemed to think that meant that it was okay to keep people on hold for 45 minutes cos they weren't paying for the call.

bk

fatherdougalmag wrote:

Why wait for NTL? Have you tried Blueface yet? Works a treat (when the NTL connection is working reliably ).

Personally at the moment I think UTV Talk is better value for money.

For €24 per month (the Eircom line rental) you get unlimited free local and national phone calls in the evening and weekends.

With Blueface, you have to pay €20 to get only 1000 free minutes (that is only a little over 4 hours per week). In fairness to Blueface that is at anytime including on-peak and to some international destinations. However I don't make international or day time calls.

Also I sometimes work from home and I use a charge card given to me by work. I don't think this works with VoIP.

Also I expect that NTL's service will be better implemented, I expect they will give you more upstream and downstream bandwidth to support the voice service and not interfere with the Net.

Also NTL in the UK gives better prices then Blueface. Unlimited local and national calls for £18.50 or just offpeak for £14.50.

paulm17781

bk wrote:

Also NTL in the UK gives better prices then Blueface. Unlimited local and national calls for £18.50 or just offpeak for £14.50.

NTL in the UK have NOTHING to do with NTL in the ROI anymore. You just pretty much said "Vodafone in the UK give better prices than Meteor do here." As they are about as related as NTL:UK and NTL:ROI.

vibe666

they still aren't comparable products though, as blueface include the most likely international numbers not just 'some' numbers in their price plans.

these being the UK, most of Europe, the US, Australasia, the more reliable parts of Asia and quite a few other places besides.

the not quite so cheap places are the ones where the telecoms companies are less reliable, like india and some african states, but this just reflects their respective prices and reliability not blueface's.

I just borrowed an IP phone of a work friend to test out over the weekend, and it worked perfectly.

I set it up in 5 minutes and was calling 3 different parts of the UK and the Canary islands for 45 minutes, all for 75c, which was included in their free trial (€1 of calls inc.), so it didn't cost me a cent.

i was impressed enough to want to go out and buy my own IP phone anyway come payday.

if i was able to get NTL BB I'd be ditching my landline completely, but alas that is yet to happen so I'm stuck with BT for now.

andrew163

crawler wrote:

From Indo 30/05/05 :-

CABLE TV company NTL Ireland is to re-enter the consumer voice telephony market later this year.

Somebody in eircom is gonna hate Monday mornings for quite a while after reading that

bk

paulm17781 wrote:

NTL in the UK have NOTHING to do with NTL in the ROI anymore. You just pretty much said "Vodafone in the UK give better prices than Meteor do here." As they are about as related as NTL:UK and NTL:ROI.

True, however NTL:ROI's BB products are actually cheaper then NTL:UK, while being the same spec (the 3m product is about €56 in the UK compared to €45 here).

If they continue (which I expect they will) this sort of performance for the VoIP products then that would be outstanding, I was only giving the UK prices as a guideline.

vibe666 I agree that Blueface do offer a good service if you make a lot of international calls. However I don't and I expect most people don't. Therefore unlimited free local and national calls are more interesting to most people in my experience.

Personally I haven't been blown away by Bluefaces prices, they aren't that much better then UTV Talk, while you have the extra burden of having to buy expensive IP phones/adaptors, it just doesn't add up for me.

Cabaal

bk wrote:

vibe666 I agree that Blueface do offer a good service if you make a lot of international calls. However I don't and I expect most people don't. Therefore unlimited free local and national calls are more interesting to most people in my experience.

Personally I haven't been blown away by Bluefaces prices, they aren't that much better then UTV Talk, while you have the extra burden of having to buy expensive IP phones/adaptors, it just doesn't add up for me.

While this is true after a few months of not paying expensive line rental the money saved pays for the VoIP hardware.

Personally I did'ent get VoIP to save money on international calls, I got it because I was paying e30 per month for a line that I mostly had for incoming calls and only the odd outgoing call.
10e for VoIP rental is a big improvement and it does the exact same job

Now assuming NTL will price competitively, it should make a few Eircom customer move the telco services to NTL VoIP especially if there in the same or similar circumstances to myself (after all I can't be the only one)

bk

Cabaal if you mostly only receive calls then obviously Blueface is better value. Actually in that case why don't you go with their €5 procduct?

Has anyone else noticed that the Blueface site looks very similiar to the Vonage website.

For those who don't know, Vonage is the leading VoIP provider in the US. Has Blueface been bought by Vonage or is it just a coincidence???

Maybe trying to pretty themselves up to be bought by Vonage, who are already in the UK.

paulm17781

The Blueface 5 Euro option doesn't allow for incoming calls. I kind of hope NTL charge for ATAs. I'll be a bit annoyed if they do them for free after paying E130.

bk

paulm17781 wrote:

The Blueface 5 Euro option doesn't allow for incoming calls.

Ah, I see, that makes sense now.

paulm17781 wrote:

I kind of hope NTL charge for ATAs. I'll be a bit annoyed if they do them for free after paying E130.

I'd say they will do them for free, I wouldn't be surprised it they will have integrated BB modem + ATA's.

NTL can subsidise stuff like this easier then Blueface, because NTL will hope that you also take up TV and BB and maybe even VOD services in the future.

paulm17781

That's what I'm afraid of. NTL will be able to subsidise so they can offer for free. Saying that unless their calls are better value than Blueface (ie free) the only real reason I would currently consider changing would be if they could give BB,ATA,STB all in one unit to say on the three I currently have.

bk

Actually I was just looking at the Vonage UK service, now that is a great service.

For £10 (€14.50) you get unlimited free landline calls at anytime, anywehere in the UK and Ireland. And calls to an Irish mobile are only 15p (21c) per mintute anytime.

Pity they don't offer ROI numbers at the moment, only UK and North of Ireland numbers.

To NTL, if you can offer unlimited national landline calls for half the price of Eircoms line rental (say about €15) and offer cheaper mobile calls, then you will destory Eircom.

vibe666

ideally they'd want to be giving everyone a wifi router/modem and a wifi voip phone too, but that's just wishful thinking by me i think.

i can see how the lack of a need to make international calls would diminish the interest in blueface, but as i make lots of international calls it would be great for me.

i was thinking of moving to the BT business line when they sorted out LLU so i could ditch my luine rental, but it didn't work out quite worth it with the amounts of calls i would be making, so i've knocked that on the head now.

fingers crossed NTL get a move on.

bk

vibe666 wrote:

ideally they'd want to be giving everyone a wifi router/modem and a wifi voip phone too, but that's just wishful thinking by me i think.

Well another thread mentioned that they were testing a wifi router/modem. A wifi voip phone seems to be a bit far fetched. More likely they will have a wifi router/modem with a built-in ATA and RJ11 ports for a standard phone (a cordless DECT phone if you like).

capistrano

bk wrote:

Has anyone else noticed that the Blueface site looks very similiar to the Vonage website.

Hmm, it does indeed, very interesting.

Blueface currently has a march on the competition but when all the big boys start offerring VoIP services they'll find it difficult to complete.

So the plan could be to build their customer numbers and then sell-out to Vonage or someone.

causal

bk wrote:

Has anyone else noticed that the Blueface site looks very similiar to the Vonage website.

Yes. I subtly posted about it last week at the end of this post about Vonage

causal

causal

capistrano wrote:

Blueface currently has a march on the competition but when all the big boys start offerring VoIP services they'll find it difficult to complete.

So the plan could be to build their customer numbers and then sell-out to Vonage or someone.

Eircom think that VoIP providers who don't own their network, will have a (short) lifetime. Eircom already offer VoIP to business, as do NTL.

When the network owners offer residential VoIP, then what can blueface do to compete?
As mentioned, they can sell their customers to a network owner.
Or to turn it around the other way:
Blueface could allow bb providers to resell (blueface) VoIP

It'll be interesting to see how residential VoIP is rolled out by various operators - what services, tariffs, protocols, and hardware is used.

Will they try to lock their customers into their network; or will equipment be left open - so you can connect to whatever SIP (presumably) servers you choose...

causal

Adey2002

I have to say, I have been using blueface for a short while and I think it is brilliant. I'm on the higher package (100 mins/month for 19.99) because I make a rake of calls to the UK. No one who I have called, or who has called me has ever questioned the quality of the line because it's always been perfect. Now all I need is for NTL to rollout in Dublin 12 so I can get rid of IBB.

Blaster99

The killer feature of NTL's VoIP is that they will implement QoS to ensure voice quality. I would think Blueface will have difficulty doing a standalone service unless they offer a lot cheaper calls or get in bed with ISP's, the latter surely something they're working on and who knows, maybe they will run NTL's service... You never know, there might one day be a regulatory requirement for ISP's to prioritise VoIP no matter who the provider is, but that day isn't here yet.

As the ISP's start to offer VoIP they may start blocking access to competing services. I would certainly consider that if I were them. It would be a serious pisser offer if they started to block Skype as I make a lot of free calls with Skype, but Skype can unlike SIP beat most blocking attempts. I used to work for a company that does SIP equipment and the bastards had blocked outgoing SIP calls for some unknown reason. But Skype happily chugged away.

capistrano

I had a look at UGC's cable/internet/telephone service in the Netherlands, which is called UPC. NTL and Chorus will probably be rebranded UPC early next year.

Anyway, they appear to offer two VoIP services
1. Basis - €9.95 per month, PSTN calls extra
2. FreeTime - €14.95 per month, free national calls weekends and evenings

I have to say that Blueface's offerring is much more attractive.

I couldn't see anything about prioritizing QoS so I don't know if they do anything to guarauntee VoIP packets ahead of other internet traffic. So have we any reason to believe that NTL will offer this type of QoS?

Blaster99

I incidently don't think that system used by UPC in Holland is VoIP. They used to certainly use the same system that NTL used here until NTL thought the CPE were going on fire and the web site refers to "digital telephony". UPC spent a lot money to roll that out on all their networks in and around 2000. That system uses dedicated channels on the cable and basically works like two-way digital radio back to the headend. It doesn't have QoS issues.

If an ISP rolls out VoIP and doesn't offer QoS they would be unbelievably stupid, at least in my opinion. VoIP is a toy without QoS.

capistrano

Blaster99 wrote:

I incidently don't think that system used by UPC in Holland is VoIP.

They appear to offer both: "Digitale tenefonie" and just "Telefonie".

The digital telephony is described as:

Digitale telefonie is nieuw en maakt gebruik van de revolutionaire VOIP-technologie. Hierdoor kunnen de kosten voor uw vaste telefoonabonnement en uw gesprekstarieven veel lager uitvallen.

which babelfish translates as:

Digital telephony is new and uses of revolutionary Voip-technologie. Because of this the costs for your fixed tel. subscription and your conversation tariffs much can burst out lower.

causal

Blaster99 wrote:

The killer feature of NTL's VoIP is that they will implement QoS to ensure voice quality.
...
As the ISP's start to offer VoIP they may start blocking access to competing services.

I don't think it's a killer feature of NTLs. As things stand my voice quality is fine with blueface. Also there are limits to the QoS NTL can guarantee even on their own network, nevermind the internet.

And I can't see comreg allowing ISPs block competing VoIP here, check this out

Citron said he was not concerned that telcos' ISP divisions will start to cap or even block VoIP traffic in a bid to protect their revenues as Mexico's Telmex appears to have done. Telmex ADSL subscribers can't even access the Skype website, he said.

"Such actions are already illegal in the US," he told The Register, "and we think the regulator would look on them very unfavourably in the UK." ®

causal

Blaster99

What's your voice quality like if you start an upload in the middle of a conversation?

There's a US network that's [in]famous for blocking out SIP, it's been mentioned a few times around here.

bk

Blaster99 wrote:

What's your voice quality like if you start an upload in the middle of a conversation?

There's a US network that's [in]famous for blocking out SIP, it's been mentioned a few times around here.

Clearwire, a wireless ISP in the US (and now entering the Irish market) do.

bk

causal wrote:

I don't think it's a killer feature of NTLs. As things stand my voice quality is fine with blueface. Also there are limits to the QoS NTL can guarantee even on their own network, nevermind the internet.

The killer feature would be a free ATA (must people aren't willing to pay another €100+ for extra equipment) and just one bill for TV, BB and Phone. Most people wouldn't mind paying a little extra for this convenience.

Plus don't forget, NTL has a major advantage with advertising. They know who has cable BB and they can directly advertise to them, by including leaflets with bills, etc. NTL are really good at this, they have a much higher BB take up rate then Eircom due to these tactics.

NTL has the size and muscle to make VoIP mainstream in Ireland, Blueface could ever only hope to be a niche player.

This will mean that Blueface's only potential customer base are wireless users and heavy international users on DSL.

vibe666

bk wrote:

A wifi voip phone seems to be a bit far fetched.

well, they are out ther. a bit expensive at the moment, but prices will fall as they always do once technology gets established.

causal

Blaster99 wrote:

What's your voice quality like if you start an upload in the middle of a conversation?

There's a US network that's [in]famous for blocking out SIP, it's been mentioned a few times around here.

According to the article in The Register it's illegal in the U.S., so it's surprising if it's happening.

As for uploading a file while using VoIP - most ATA's have built-in QoS provisioning which works fine as long as you have it on the WAN side of your gateway/router or indeed have a gateway with builtin VoIP ports.
Currently my ATA is on the LAN side of my gateway so I do get a loss of quality when VoIP calls are concurrent with full uploads but even at that it's not a call ender.

[EDIT] Of course this is on my home LAN, NTL still can't guarantee WAN or Internet QoS [/EDIT]

causal

causal

bk wrote:

The killer feature would be a free ATA (must people aren't willing to pay another €100+ for extra equipment) and just one bill for TV, BB and Phone. Most people wouldn't mind paying a little extra for this convenience.

True, and most people simply won't delve into the 'techy maze' of figuring out how they can get VoIP - it needs to be made very easy for them.

This will mean that Blueface's only potential customer base are wireless users and heavy international users on DSL.

Possibly, but it depends on what each offers. If it's cheaper for me to stay with blueface then I won't be changing to NTL - even though I am an NTL bb customer.

And the real good news for consumers is that they'll both be fighting for our custom

Will NTL only offer VoIP to their own customers, or will they simply provide a SIP server with un/pw for access - same goes for all the other future VoIP providers.
Triple play bundling has it's advantages - but it also has it's disadvantages - like when you want to change bb provider, move house etc.

causal

bk

causal wrote:

Will NTL only offer VoIP to their own customers, or will they simply provide a SIP server with un/pw for access - same goes for all the other future VoIP providers.

I expect that this service will only be offered to NTL customers and it will be tied strongly with NTL's network. I'd say NTL will make the service as straight forward and "ordinary phone" like as possible, they won't play up the fact that it is VoIP or make use of the nicer VoIP features.

Remember NTL isn't looking to compete with the VoIP companies, it is looking to compete with Eircom and steal their customers. That means they will need to make it as simple as possible in order to attract mainstream customers.

It will probably work by having the ATA built into the modem. The customer simply plugs their standard phone into it. The customer probably won't need to mess with username and passwords or sip settings, NTL will take care of all of that. NTL will probably port your current number to the VoIP setup and for the consumer it will work just like a normal phone, allowing them to send and receive normal calls. They will probably also offer all the other standard phone features, voice mail, caller id, caller blocking, caller waiting, etc. They will probably also properly support 999 calling.

For some idea of the pricing, take a look at http://www.upcfrance.com they offer unlimited local and national calls at anytime for €20. Mobile calls are just 12c per minute at anytime. They also have a €7 offer where you can make local and national calls at anytime for just 1.5c, ideal for people who mostly only receive calls.

I also have a hunch that they could offer this with very cheap "slow" broadband also.
If you take a look at the NTL contract, you will notice that they mention a fourth Broadband product called NTL Broadband Value which has a 3GB cap. Rumour has it that this product would operate at 150k. They could offer the VoIP service with this for €15 - €20 and even sell it to people who don't even want the BB part, but just want to use the phone service.

Also about NTL and QoS. You should remember that NTL has an excellent pan Ireland fiber optic network, that can even challenge Eircoms, also NTL has now been bought by UGC Europe who have a Tier 1, 2.5 Gbps fiber optic backbone network across Europe which was specifically designed to handle Voice and Video as well as data. http://www.ugceurope.com/Technology/
I assume they will expand this network to Ireland and they could certainly enable QoS across thid network. Im' not saying they will, but they could.

causal

bk that all makes sense. I just really dislike that scenario :mad:

It's VoIP, but not as we know it. I'm calling it pVoIP (pseudo VoIP)
It's a dumbed down, controlled, more expensive version of VoIP.
Sure it's cheaper than PSTN, but the providers are keeping control and tying you into their network and services. I don't want that, I want freedom.

I want my VoIP packets to be like all other IP packets - free.

causal

bk

causal wrote:

bk that all makes sense. I just really dislike that scenario :mad:

It's VoIP, but not as we know it. I'm calling it pVoIP (pseudo VoIP)
It's a dumbed down, controlled, more expensive version of VoIP.
Sure it's cheaper than PSTN, but the providers are keeping control and tying you into their network and services. I don't want that, I want freedom.

I want my VoIP packets to be like all other IP packets - free.

Unfortunately the vast majority of people aren't like you and me. They don't want too much freedom, not when it is complex, they just want it simple and easy to understand, they don't want to deal with all the variety of stuff involved with VoIP.

I don't think it is the case that NTL would be trying to control you, it is that in trying to make something simple and easy to use, you often lose flexibility and freedom (I see the same thing happening every day in Software Engineering).

On the bright side, this does show a way in which Blueface/Vonage can survive. By offering the more advanced features from VoIP, such as:

- Portability (being able to take your ATA anywhere).
- Having multiple numbers in different geographical locations redirected to one location (handy for a business wanting a number in 021, 061, etc. and having them all point to your ATA no matter where it is.)
- Advanced voice mail features like checking your voice mails from a website or as an attachement on a email.

Just look at the Vonage website for some of the cool things possible.

Unfortunately for Blueface/Vonage they are never likely to be more then a niche player with this sort of strategy, as most people just don't want these features.