Ntl-telewest Defends Broadband Speed Caps

摘要

NTL-Telewest this week defended its decision to conduct trials of "speed capping" to clamp down on heavy-using broadband customers and did not rule out extending the measure to its entire network. The traffic-management technology has been running on the Telewest network in the Lancashire areas of Blackpool, Preston and Wigan since autumn last year, and has now been extended to Swansea, an NTL area. The cable company stressed that the so-called "traffic shaping" was only on trial, but said that its introduction had produced the desired effect. "The data from the Preston area has shown an improvement in the broadband performance for the vast majority of customers," said NTL-Telewest. With speed capping, the operator is looking for "abnormal" traffic on the broadband network, such as continued use of the downstream over long periods. The user's download speed is then "throttled" back, such as from 10Mbit/sec to 5Mbit/sec, to limit the speed of the connection. The company said that if the prolonged demand on capacity dropped then a full-speed service would be restored to the user. NTL-Telewest said that the terms and conditions in broadband contracts allowed it to use traffic shaping. It is understood that speed capping has been introduced between the hours of 4pm and midnight, peak hours for home broadband usage.