NTL Planning BB Packages in the 10Mbit to 30Mbit Range

eircomtribunal

A siliconrepublic article reports of steady progress on the cable broadband front.
While cable bb is still a dwarf in Ireland, 130 000 homes coverage is not unremarkable, when you compare to giant Eircom's mere 1.17 million line coverage (translating to a smaller figure for homes).
NTL's products are value for money, the possibility of really high bb speeds [the DOCSIS 3.0 scenario) in the near future is enticing, ntl's envisaged re-entry into the telephony market with some form of VOIP will also be unwelcome news for the incumbent.

QUOTE from the article:

The existing standard for cable in Ireland is DOCSIS 1.0. We have begun deploying the DOCSIS 2.0 standard and are conducting trials in relation to DOCSIS 3.0. “If 3.0 passes the trials, we will deploy it straight away. DOCSIS 3.0 will enable us to launch the extreme broadband products deployed over cable in Holland and Austria – speeds ranging from 10Mb per second up to 30Mb per second – that’s the truly phenomenal territory we are heading into. We see a great future in terms of what cable can do for broadband speeds.”

P.

P.S.

Not too long ago ntl left the telephony market, not least because of the regulator's failure to implement single billing, see http://www.comwreck.com/blog_2_jan12.html, hopefully we'll see them back with a convincing telephony product that does not need Eircom's line rental extortion.

Sponge Bob

The base technology is Docsis 3 . DOCSIS is to cable what DSL is to phone lines , its a standard or series of standards for data and pictures .

“The existing standard for (Broadband Over) cable in Ireland is DOCSIS 1.0. We have begun deploying the DOCSIS 2.0 standard and are conducting trials in relation to DOCSIS 3.0. “If 3.0 passes the trials, we will deploy it straight away. DOCSIS 3.0 will enable us to launch the extreme broadband products deployed over cable in Holland and Austria – speeds ranging from 10Mb per second up to 30Mb per second – that’s the truly phenomenal territory we are heading into. We see a great future in terms of what cable can do for broadband speeds.”

More on this over here on Silicon Republic

Blaster99

What? NTL's telephony service had nothing to do with Eircom or Eircom's line rental. It was bundled with their cable service. I can't remember the details but if it had a line rental, it was low.

bk

Sponge Bob wrote:

The base technology is Docsis 3 . DOCSIS is to cable what DSL is to phone lines , its a standard or series of standards for data and pictures .

More on this over here on Silicon Republic

Man, this is incredible, but it also makes a lot of sense. Since they are so late to the BB game, it makes sense for them to rollout the newer technologies.

The article also mentions that they are about to launch digital telephone products (probably VoIP over cable BB) and a Personal Video Recorder (PVR).

These are the two big moves that I've been waiting for from NTL. VoIP will help NTL steal many customers from Eircom, customers who are feed up of the €25 per month line rental, with very little effort and investment from NTL.

Also the PVR was the one big missing piece of the TV picture from NTL. PVR services like Sky+ and Tivo are simply amazing, once you have used them it will change how you watch TV forever and make you wonder how you survived without it. It is great to see that NTL will have this now.

I can see NTL becoming the number one TV, phone and internet company in all the areas they operate in and steal many customers from Eircom and Sky.

One thing NTL will need to improve on vastly is the quality and stability of their digital TV service. NTL's digital TV service often surfers from problems where it stalls and error messages appear on the screen. This is fine when you are watching normally as it is easy to reset, however it is no good with a PVR. I have a Tivo that I got from the US and hacked to work in Ireland with NTL Digital, it works great, however it often ends up recording the bloody NTL error messages instead of the actual show I wanted it to watch. This is very annoying and needs to be fixed if they want to offer a PVR service.

Also it would be great if the PVR's recorded the shows in MPEG4 rather then 2 as you would fit far more recordings on the disk with the same picture quality. Also NTL will need to improve their EPG from whatever it is now (2 days I think, I don't use it as I have two weeks on my Tivo) to about 2 weeks.

BTW If anyone from NTL is reading this I'd be happy to trial these PVR's for you, I already have NTL BB and three digital boxes and I'm well use to using PVR's (Tivo) so I could give you some great feedback and I'd even keep my mouth shut about it here on boards

bk

Blaster99 wrote:

What? NTL's telephony service had nothing to do with Eircom or Eircom's line rental. It was bundled with their cable service. I can't remember the details but if it had a line rental, it was low.

Yes and I believe their new service will be based on VoIP across their cable BB, so Eircom won't be invloved at all and I will finally be able to dumb Eircom once and for all

eircomtribunal

Blaster99 wrote:

What? NTL's telephony service had nothing to do with Eircom or Eircom's line rental. It was bundled with their cable service. I can't remember the details but if it had a line rental, it was low.

While it was bundled, it required an eircom line. No other way was possible before the advent of VOIP.
P.

Blaster99

It's been possible to have a non-Eircom provider providing telephony for a long time in Ireland without using Eircom's lines or paying line rental. Exactly how much this costs I don't know, but this is obviously what Blueface does for instance. The likes of Esat have been doing this over leased lines for at least 10 years.

crawler

eircomtribunal wrote:

While it was bundled, it required an eircom line. No other way was possible before the advent of VOIP.
P.

Nope...wrong

Based on Tellabs gear....all in the past now anyway....

eircomtribunal

crawler wrote:

Nope...wrong

Based on Tellabs gear....all in the past now anyway....

Thanks for educating.
Just curious: How were the 2000 or so ntl telephone customers connected? Via ntl's cable?
I still believe that ntl used mainly CPS with Eircom – that was exactly the problem with the lack of single billing/Wholesale line rental...

To the Blaster99 post: Blueface connect via customers' bb connection, whatever that may be; customers' telephone numbers (they belong to the customer, not Eircom) are ported from Eircom to ntl for that purpose.

P.

Urban Weigl

crawler wrote:

Nope...wrong

Based on Tellabs gear....all in the past now anyway....

Not quite.

NTL did have a small number of customers on their cable network as you describe. However, they yanked those when there was a technical problem with the equipment used (I believe it was a fire hazard). The vast majority of NTL telephony customers were using a system called Carrier Pre-Select (CPS), which works over an Eircom phone line. They got out of that market when it took Comreg years and years to introduce single billing.

Blaster99

NTL used Tellabs cable telephony system in the areas where they could also do broadband. Everywhere else they were just CPS providers. From what I recall, they cut the CPS service long before they cut the cable telephony service. I was referring to the cable telephony service, not the CPS service which obviously used Eircom lines and rental as normal.

Tellabs cable telephony system, called Cablespan, works like two-way digital radio. It takes up some frequency space on the cable. The RF equipment at the headend hooks up to a switch that then connects into the PSTN on E1 or T1's or whatever.

daramullally

Blaster99 wrote:

From what I recall, they cut the CPS service long before they cut the cable telephony service./QUOTE]

They actually still have the CPS service. They just stopped accepting new users for the CPS. I am still paying for my calls to NTL.

zuma

daramullally wrote:

Blaster99 wrote:

From what I recall, they cut the CPS service long before they cut the cable telephony service.

They actually still have the CPS service. They just stopped accepting new users for the CPS. I am still paying for my calls to NTL.

How do the costs compare..line rental/calls//etc to other providers?

dub45

So much for upping the ante

Inspired by this thread I have just given them a ring to see if there was any news about the Kilmainham area.

A nice CSR told me that basically they knew nothing and that there was 'probably' no change since I rang the last time. In fact as far as they knew no new houses had been added since March and 'maybe' there would not be any more until next year. I asked if this had anything to do with the new owners and the answer was 'no'! Not very encouraging:(

crawler

bk wrote:

Man, this is incredible, but it also makes a lot of sense. Since they are so late to the BB game, it makes sense for them to rollout the newer technologies.

The article also mentions that they are about to launch digital telephone products (probably VoIP over cable BB) and a Personal Video Recorder (PVR).

These are the two big moves that I've been waiting for from NTL. VoIP will help NTL steal many customers from Eircom, customers who are feed up of the €25 per month line rental, with very little effort and investment from NTL.

Also the PVR was the one big missing piece of the TV picture from NTL. PVR services like Sky+ and Tivo are simply amazing, once you have used them it will change how you watch TV forever and make you wonder how you survived without it. It is great to see that NTL will have this now.

I can see NTL becoming the number one TV, phone and internet company in all the areas they operate in and steal many customers from Eircom and Sky.

One thing NTL will need to improve on vastly is the quality and stability of their digital TV service. NTL's digital TV service often surfers from problems where it stalls and error messages appear on the screen. This is fine when you are watching normally as it is easy to reset, however it is no good with a PVR. I have a Tivo that I got from the US and hacked to work in Ireland with NTL Digital, it works great, however it often ends up recording the bloody NTL error messages instead of the actual show I wanted it to watch. This is very annoying and needs to be fixed if they want to offer a PVR service.

Also it would be great if the PVR's recorded the shows in MPEG4 rather then 2 as you would fit far more recordings on the disk with the same picture quality. Also NTL will need to improve their EPG from whatever it is now (2 days I think, I don't use it as I have two weeks on my Tivo) to about 2 weeks.

BTW If anyone from NTL is reading this I'd be happy to trial these PVR's for you, I already have NTL BB and three digital boxes and I'm well use to using PVR's (Tivo) so I could give you some great feedback and I'd even keep my mouth shut about it here on boards

I think I may have mentioned before....NTL know what they are doing, they are good guys. Love them or hate them, they will get it right. You can be 100% The NTL kids are reading this...eh lads??

Blaster99

I neither love nor hate them, I just ignore everything they say until something of substance is available (to me). The products on the Irish broadband market are not limited by technology.

crawler

Blaster99 wrote:

I neither love nor hate them, I just ignore everything they say until something of substance is available (to me). The products on the Irish broadband market are not limited by technology.

100% correct - on both counts, but in particular the second

ro2

Sponge Bob wrote:

The base technology is Docsis 3 . DOCSIS is to cable what DSL is to phone lines , its a standard or series of standards for data and pictures.

DOCSIS 3.0 hasn't been released yet. DOCSIS 2.0 will let you do 30mb/s - they must mean that one.

crawler

ro2 wrote:

DOCSIS 3.0 hasn't been released yet. DOCSIS 2.0 will let you do 30mb/s - they must mean that one.

Yes DOCSIS 2.0....DOCSIS 3.0 will be ratified in Q4 probably - uses channel bonding and can do up to 100Mbps....The Silicon Republic article is correct...(see link)

DOCSIS 2.0 is brilliant though....many of the US operators are only getting around to 2.0 now so if someone here could up the ante from 1.0 and 1.1 it would give DSL a good kick in the teeth...remember no distance limitations....

Physical medium simply dictates there is more available capacity in Coax than in twisted pair - coax is also sheilded. The one simple problem in cable in Ireland up to now has been lack of investment...we are already seeing the changes now that investment has started again

Should anyone wish to drool about DOCSIS 3.0 ( the "DSL killer") http://www.telecommagazine.com/newsglobe/article.asp?Id=AR_866