Tech
After sparking a storm of protest heading into the weekend by announcing a 1GB/day download cap on its cable modem services, ntl:home spent Monday attempting to claw back some good PR.
ntl:home's Managing Director, Aizad Hussain, offered customers, in a statement, an apology for the "poorly communicated" change to the AUP, but gave no indication the operator was planning on another u-turn as happened the last time the cable operator enraged its user base over an AUP change.
On a related matter, Telewest Broadband today told Digital Spy that they have no plans to introduce a daily cap on their service.
The Q&A document at ntlworld states that ntl will be "very flexible", only contacting customers who exceed the 1GB/day cap "for three or more days in any consecutive 14-day period". For the next two months, ntl will monitor its network and contact customers who exceed the limit, attempting to make them change their "usage patterns".
In answer to stinging criticism regarding the false advertising of an "unlimited" service, ntl says they will no longer be advertising their broadband service as "unlimited". In addition, the company is inviting "power users" to join a forum to discuss new products and services for them - they'll need to email ntl's Director of Internet Services, Bill Goodland to get involved.
For a company that has staked so much on the future of its broadband internet services, this latest move seems illogical at best. While it is understandable ntl wishes to reduce its bandwidth costs - the company already transparently caches HTTP traffic on its network - this was indeed poorly communicated and gave ntl more bad press at a time when it can ill-afford it, having just emerged from bankruptcy proceedings. An attempt over the weekend to say "BT does it, why can't we?" was met with scorn from informed users - BT Broadband DSL is a cut-down solution that customers can package with other services to hand-pick an internet service. BT Openworld, a full internet service provider an arch-rival to cable broadband, has no such restriction.
James Chamier, in an editorial for Digital Spy, offers his views on the ntl cap. He was one of the first triallists of ntl's cable modem service back in 1999.
Stay with Digital Spy for ongoing coverage as this situation continues to develop.
ntl:home's Managing Director, Aizad Hussain, offered customers, in a statement, an apology for the "poorly communicated" change to the AUP, but gave no indication the operator was planning on another u-turn as happened the last time the cable operator enraged its user base over an AUP change.
On a related matter, Telewest Broadband today told Digital Spy that they have no plans to introduce a daily cap on their service.
The Q&A document at ntlworld states that ntl will be "very flexible", only contacting customers who exceed the 1GB/day cap "for three or more days in any consecutive 14-day period". For the next two months, ntl will monitor its network and contact customers who exceed the limit, attempting to make them change their "usage patterns".
In answer to stinging criticism regarding the false advertising of an "unlimited" service, ntl says they will no longer be advertising their broadband service as "unlimited". In addition, the company is inviting "power users" to join a forum to discuss new products and services for them - they'll need to email ntl's Director of Internet Services, Bill Goodland to get involved.
For a company that has staked so much on the future of its broadband internet services, this latest move seems illogical at best. While it is understandable ntl wishes to reduce its bandwidth costs - the company already transparently caches HTTP traffic on its network - this was indeed poorly communicated and gave ntl more bad press at a time when it can ill-afford it, having just emerged from bankruptcy proceedings. An attempt over the weekend to say "BT does it, why can't we?" was met with scorn from informed users - BT Broadband DSL is a cut-down solution that customers can package with other services to hand-pick an internet service. BT Openworld, a full internet service provider an arch-rival to cable broadband, has no such restriction.
James Chamier, in an editorial for Digital Spy, offers his views on the ntl cap. He was one of the first triallists of ntl's cable modem service back in 1999.
Stay with Digital Spy for ongoing coverage as this situation continues to develop.
More: Tech, Cable TV and Broadband
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