NTL ups the ante in UK broadband

So the good news is that NTL is to introduce 10 mb/s broadband service to all its customers, making it the fastest broadband alternative in the UK (at least until ADSL2+ comes out).

The (potentially) bad news is that “There will be no price rise, but customers will pay different rates depending on how much is downloaded”, according to the company. Hmm…hope they don’t do something really stupid here.

UPDATE: My sceptical nature got ahead of itself on the potential bad news. Actually, the volume-based pricing that's replacing the speed-based pricing is potentially the start of a very interesting new fork in the road of broadband development.

First, the volume limits are going up for all users. So users currently on a 30 gb/month cap will be bumped up to 75 gb/month. This is a good thing.

Second, and much more importantly, is the fact that *every* customer will be bumbed up to 10 mb/second speed. I believe this makes NTL the very first major broadband player to totally eliminate speed-based pricing and move to a pure utility-like model. Like electricity, gas, or water, all customers get the same level of access; you just pay for the amount you actually use.

I don't know if this model will work out, but I find it curious that it's taken a cable company to move towards true utility (or God forbid...commodity) pricing.

Links: comments from James Enck , ThisIsMoney , and TheRegister 

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