Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

BT Broadband : fair use policy ! (Warning contains moaning)

liketom

liketom

macrumors 601
Original poster
Apr 8, 2004
4,191
68
Lincoln,UK
well gone and done it , BT has capped my so called unlimited broadband saying i've exceeded my limit !

Bastards:mad:


1 hour 45 min on the phone talking to a trained chimp ended up with them saying i'll just have to wait until monday when they will lift it

so my Broadband experience will have to rock on at 73 Kbps

no online gaming/no itunes tv show downloads/ and real slow internet browsing

how will i get by :(
 

Attachments

  • spp.jpg
    spp.jpg
    23.3 KB · Views: 180
How much did you rack up in the month?

I estimate our house usage to be some where in the 80GB region (although we are with tiscali so we suffer with their rubbish service)
 
they say i've downloaded over 50gb

looking through my iTunes collection i can account for about 20 GB in TV shows - lost,Ashes,torchwood

then there was the SDK racking up the size too - a few uploads of my website average size 100mb x 5 - 7

then an upload of all my photo's to .Mac servers 4.5 gb

clearly it's all them page refreshes on Apple.com that's done it
 
They've done it to me too :( but it seems to only be in effect 6pm - 12pm in the evenings. During the day (even on weekends) I still get full speed. It really is a complete bummer though, I've got so used to having full speed internet access (and have done with BT) for the last 8 years.
 
Virgin do the same to me, and Sky have a fair use policy too so I don't think changing supplier will help. Save all your downloads outside 6-9pm and you should be OK, check their fair use policy in their terms & conditions for the times.
 
Get a different ISP.

Who gives a **** about the contract. If your contract is "unlimited" but they're capping you then that should be a violation of the contract and enough to get you out of it.
 
zioxide said:
If your contract is "unlimited" but they're capping you then that should be a violation of the contract and enough to get you out of it.
Click to expand...

Indeed, I don't want to come across like I'm rubbing anyone's nose in it, because there's plenty to complain about with American network infrastructure, but I have never understood why such draconian resource management is the norm on U.K. networks. Most nations with a smaller geographic area to wire end up with a much more robust infrastructure and as a result offer service that makes U.S. users green with envy. But for some reason that isn't the case for you, and it really boggles me.

Most U.S. providers have a vague "abuse of resources" clause in the contract they can theoretically invoke on a case-by-case basis, but I don't know anyone who has ever been hit with that.

If something like you experience were going on here, I'd be complaining to the Public Utilities Commission that carriers should either be using my fees and, where applicable, my tax dollars to build a network that can provide the advertised service, or they should stop advertising service levels they have neither the capability nor the intention of providing. Is there no such similar agency to take public complaints about utility services there? It really does sound as if you are all getting quite thoroughly shafted.
 
Is this a free broadband service or something? I can't believe they cap your broadband. In the early days of US Cable/DSL/Satelite, some ISPs would enforce a similar policy supposedly, but i've never heard of it actually happening. Call them back up and tell them your connection is slowing down the internet.

On the flip side, I just got fibre optic service and accidentally downloaded the entire internet. You're not missing much.
 
Eh in New Zealand, Fair use policy:

More than 2GB a day = 64kbps for 1 day, then back to full speed
More than 20GB a month = 64kbps for the rest of the month

I don't really see hows that a fair use policy, thats just a 20GB cap to me.

I envy your 50-80GB fair use policy.
 
*Touch Wood* So far I've not been capped.

I will however, flip on the phone if I ever do. I get unlimited, thats what I pay for and thats certainly what I'll be getting.

Tell BT to stick their internet up their arse Tom, you haven't signed anything so you aren't actually locked into it, and hell, if they moan just stop the direct debit.
 
I'd say BT are acting like total bastards. Their fair usage policy does not state what they class as a "Heavy User"

I'd ask them to state in writing what is a heavy user otherwise you'll have no idea what you are allowed to download.
 
unfair it is - i did another speed test at 12.30 am and it went from 73k up to 723k - in line with a post above saying they cap you speed.

if every ISP is like this then how can services like iTunes and even BT's own BT vision ever take off ?

also i am on the up to 8mb service with BT - Max speed i ever get is 3.4 Mb but low as 1.4 on a normal day.

Service is utter crap, but as a Brit we are expected to roll over and take it:eek:
 
I'm in the same situation as far as speeds go, I pay for the 8Mb unlimited and the most I've ever got is just under 3Mb. That's why I'm switching to Virgin. Same price for 4Mb but will be upgraded to 10Mb within the next month, and at least Virgin state what they class has heavy usage.

I totally agree with you on the BT Vision situation, you will easily go over their fair usage policy if you are watching shows on it, and when we get iTunes movie downloads you will be totally stuffed.
 
Just had to post

Well!

For 3 or 4 years we were with a certain provider who's name begins with PI and ends with PEX. They were great for years, for 2 of those years my bro just constantly downloaded off bit torrent and the likes (which was a pain for me trying to play games, maintain my software website etcetc). We were on 512kbps with the limit being 2mb, once we could get that speed in our area.

That speed came and went but we're still crippled at 512kbps.

Now some mad hijinks happen and they've totally cut off our broadband with no hope of going back, because they couldn't take money from dads debit card (which is BS) and even referred him to some debt collection thingy for people in debt!

So we went with BT Total Broadband (option 3 - unlimited). They were nice enough to give us 2mb broadband. But we do a lot of downloading (bro moved out so it's all legal) and uploading. The very moment they limit this unlimited service I'm going to go mofo on their faces. Good providers are so hard to find.
During the day the internet can crawl. Speedtests always says its 1.8mb-2mb which is fair, but sometimes downloads just go incredibly slowly and games become unplayable from 12-6pm. Past midnight and its a charm though.

For all their BS our last provider certainly didn't give us any limits. And I hope BT give us a bigger "Fair usage" limit since we live in a rural area populated mostly by old folk who aren't going to need these super fast 2mb connections most of the time.

Oh and the router they send is total junk. It's like a Fisher Price wifi router. How that can push a signal through a wall is a mystery.
 
yep the home hub is rubbish ,


Going to have to rename them to BT Total Crap Broadband.

As soon as Virgin offer there service in my street i'll be nursing a semi :D
 
Even my crappy ISP in a third world country doesn't do that. I have an uncapped 4mbps connection (which is realistically 1.5mbps - 2mbps). I downloaded about 130GB last month without any problem:)
 
I'm sitting here on a Saturday afternoon on at 1MB on a 2MB Virgin connection, so I guess that's not bad, however at £18 a month it's horrendously overpriced which is why they cut a deal with me when I threatened to go to Sky.

A few of the posts above have commented about dumping their current ISPs and moving to Virgin for unlimited bandwidth, be careful, this is their T&Cs;

Broadband Size: M
During peak times, the top 3% of downloaders on the Size: M package download at least 300MB of traffic each, with the top 3% of uploaders uploading at least 150MB of traffic each.

Any users hitting this amount during peak times (4pm till 9pm) will have their broadband speed temporarily traffic managed – their download speed will be set to 1Mb, with their upload speed set to 128Kb. This will last for 5 hours from when the traffic management policy is applied.

Even if a Broadband Size: M user has their speed temporarily traffic managed, they can still download over 2,500 music files per day.
Click to expand...
The limit is 800 MB for size L (cut to 1MB) and 3GB for size XL (cut to 5MB)

Linky
 
I don't think it will be terribly long before ISPs are forced by customer dissatisfaction to go back to a metered service.

The only difference being that the units of measurement will be gigabytes downloaded/uploaded... in fact, that would probably get around the problem of excessive downloading that they use as an excuse for capping speeds.

Given that if any of the "unlimited, up to 8 megabit" ISPs were actually capable of delivering a constant 8 megabit speed (that's equivalent to 1 megabyte per second... 8 megabits per second = 1 megabyte per second), anyone expecting to actually use that speed would burn through their AUP/FUP allowance in a matter of hours.

Example: BT Total Broadband Option 3 (Unlimited) realistically has a FUP cap of 40 gigabytes downloaded per month.

At a constant speed of 8 megabits a second, it would take approximately only 12 HOURS to download the 40 gigabytes you're allowed in a MONTH.

Taking the metered upload/download route would mean that the amount you're charged per month would be a function of how much bandwidth you use, rather than the speed at which you download.

This would be fairer too, because light users could be charged less as they'd only use a fraction of the maximum potential bandwidth available per month, and heavy users could be allowed to run at the 'promised' speed they're paying for, provided they pay for the bandwidth they use.

Any thoughts?
 
CortexRock said:
I don't think it will be terribly long before ISPs are forced by customer dissatisfaction to go back to a metered service.

The only difference being that the units of measurement will be gigabytes downloaded/uploaded... in fact, that would probably get around the problem of excessive downloading that they use as an excuse for capping speeds.
Click to expand...

I'm on a metered service here in NZ. Lots of ISPs have "unlimited, fair use" plans like the ones mentioned in this thread however I've signed up for a plan that gives me fast speeds at all times, with no traffic caps. I can download as much as I want … but I need to pay for it.

For what it's worth, I'm happy with this arrangement. It's not overly expensive, but more importantly I don't get stuck on dialup speed after doing a couple of big downloads.
 
three little letters...

aol

i'm on unlimited, when i called them to renegotiate my contract.. they said our a heavy user if you change to someone else they might cut your speed down.

I intended to stick with, but resented paying the same money I had when i owed them for a router etc (if that makes sense)

I'm really happy with them to be honest
 
We've got Bt Option 3 here which is free because My housemate works for BT. at peak times it's like dial-up. I reckon we pull down a gig or two a day, or at least we did. It's painful to use. Luckily we have cable in our road, so i've ordered Virgin "L" package, just broadband. Now I'm waiting for a cable engineer to come along and fix a problem with our line so it actually works. I cant wait to have real broadband again.
 
Ignore these big providers such as BT and Virgin, I won't go near them. Poor customer service and hidden contracts. Find a smaller provider that gives what you want as soon as the contract ends.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back