Esat BT throttling users over the limt

Auvers

zefer wrote: »

90 Gig in a month isnt taking the p*ss but 100 is ???

Ahh who mentioned 90gigs? as I only downloaded 50ish

although I do think the cap should be set to something like 90-100GBs or else give me a choice to pay a bit extra like UTV to have a fair usage policy

B

looks like my 3mg line is back to normal for now throttling is gone thank god

briantwin

Just to clarify, i have been in contact with BT. They will throttle your connection for 30 days (not a calendar month as previously assumed.) Also when i spoke to the guy he said that people getting throttled generally were the ones really going bananas on the downloads 100 - 400gb a month! I mean what could you possible be downloading?? Linux iso files definitely!!

Who here uses the train? It used to be you could buy a ticket at the station you were getting off at if there was someone checking the tickets at the station. But it was always written into their by laws that you should get a 50euro fine for not having a valid ticket. This only began getting implemented in the last year and if you dont have a ticket, be damned if you'd gotten so used to only payin for a ticket on the off chance you were asked. 50 euro fine on the spot, no excuses. Thats it. Its the same with this though. People got so used to breaking the rules that when they were enforced people cried injustice.

Im just making a comparison...but there it is. If you go over your cap by 100gb a month you do know that they could just charge you for the extra usage, lets work it out so..... 4c per mb so thats 40 euro's a gb. 4000 euro. Well i'd prefer to get throttled then get that bill and HAVE to pay it!

kaimera

Jesus, no way I could live on 128k for 30 days

irishshogun

kaimera wrote: »

Jesus, no way I could live on 128k for 30 days

I wish I had 128k I've been reduced to 12k , trying to update my nvidia driver, 70 megs is estimated at 94 minutes!! for fecks sake.

kaimera

irishshogun wrote: »

I wish I had 128k I've been reduced to 12k , trying to update my nvidia driver, 70 megs is estimated at 94 minutes!! for fecks sake.

Ah I assumed it was 128k.

zilog_jones

irishshogun wrote: »

I wish I had 128k I've been reduced to 12k , trying to update my nvidia driver, 70 megs is estimated at 94 minutes!! for fecks sake.

I think someone's mixing up their bytes vs. bits.

12kByte/s would be a plausible speed for a 128kb/s connection. It would take 99.5 minutes to download a 70MB file at a constant 12kByte/s, so you're reading bytes.

Blindpew

I would like take this opportunity to palce a curse on whoever in BT throttled my connection. May he be hit on the head by a falling telegraph pole and entangled in copper wire. May he be left there alone for thirty days in isolation. I place this curse on him for turning my torrents to trickles.

zilog_jones

Wow, "cursing" people for doing their job. Whatever next? :rolleyes:

Blindpew wrote: »

As regards to going over the download cap I can't see how I'm supposed to keep track of what my teenage kids download or watch or how much bandwidth wi fi games take up, three pcs and a wii must use a lot of bandwidth.

Newsflash: The bill payer is fully responsible for what goes through his/her internet connection. It's exactly the same as with telephone calls - you are responsible for any calls made, not who made them. That's why on TV shows there's always the disclaimer to "ask bill payer's permission" before phoning in for some competition or whatever. Actually, I think they use a similar disclaimer when advertising websites for children, etc.

Also, games use very little bandwidth. Counter-Strike Source for example (and other Source-based games) use around 6kB/s up and down - even if you played that 24/7 for 30 days it would be only about 14.8GB.

The usage meter that BT show me always says I have downloaded nothing.

Yes, this does seem to be a recurring issue. But if you don't tell them about it not working maybe they won't realise that it isn't? When one has an issue with a service one would complain about the service, no?

Well people are right to moan at injustice...

Sounds more like justice to me. If caps/throttling didn't exist and every BT broadband subscriber was downloading as much as you did, we'd all have something to moan about...

irishshogun

If only we were all like zilog jones knowing our bits from our bytes and being thankful to big business for giving us our due and nothing more.. happy days!!!

CuLT

Blindpew wrote: »

I don't know where you got the notion that I have a business Little Devil but I can assure you that I don't even have a job.

Blindpew wrote: »

I would like take this opportunity to palce a curse on whoever in BT throttled my connection. May he be hit on the head by a falling telegraph pole and entangled in copper wire. May he be left there alone for thirty days in isolation. I place this curse on him for turning my torrents to trickles.

Grow up / get a job.

Edit: VVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVV

Blindpew wrote: »

I never realised that so many arse licking sheep frequented these message boards.

Yeah, go cry in your parents basement about it while stroking your burned off Star Trek DVDs.

Blindpew

I never realised that so many arse licking sheep frequented these message boards.

ardmacha

If only we were all like zilog jones knowing our bits from our bytes

Any posting in the broadband forum that doesn't clearly distinguish bits and bytes is a waste of time.

irishshogun

Blindpew wrote: »

I never realised that so many arse licking sheep frequented these message boards.

+1

slave1

this thread is going off on one again, getting back to the throttling, I'm on the 2mg line and still throttled as of today, Smart not available in my area so the most attractive option looks like the BT Business line + Line Rental when it hits 8mg, that with unlimited downloads looks nice, as regards monthly stats page, my one with BT has never worked and I phoned early into my contract to ask for it to be sorted without follow up their end, used to work for me when I was with Eircom, mine currently reads 0 up, 0b down and throttled due to overuse

Blindpew

Does a business line entail getting a new phone line attached to the house or do they just upgrade the existing phoneline from the exchange. Also if it entails getting a new line do they disconnect the old line or do you have to keep both?

Little-Devil

CuLT wrote: »

Grow up / get a job.

+2, nothing but moans out of you all week.

If you order a business a line they dont upgrade your line at all, they will change your package. I think you might be better speaking to BT Sales.

I got a e-mail back this afternoon from BT and they said that they where only throttling account who have downloaded 100G or more and that it was a rolling 30 day period, so basically once your limit goes below the 100g mark they stop throttling but if you download and go over again its throttled.

I think your better to cancel and go to a new provider.

ps: Read the T&C before you agree to anything

Ciaran500

Pissed at this now.

I accept I was outside the T&C's but I don't consistently go over my limit (average is 18gb a month according to their counter), this is the first time I've been anywhere near 100gb download and any time I did break the limit there was no warning or indication they would take action. Now I'm stuck for a month with an unusable internet connection. A quick phone call and I wouldn't of took the piss again and they wouldn't of pissed off and lost some customers.

Little-Devil

Ciaran500 wrote: »

Pissed at this now.
A quick phone call and I wouldn't of took the piss again and they wouldn't of pissed off and lost some customers.

My theory is that they have targeted the few who have downloaded 100G and they know that they may cancel so i doubt if would be that bothered. I'm sure they have thought about all this before they actioned the cunning plan.

Ciaran500

I don't see why they would want to lose customers when they can just throttle them till the end of the month, threaten to charge them, throttle there speeds during peak time etc. Lots of sensible things they could do, keep the network running ok and still get their €43 a month from people.

CuLT

Ciaran500 wrote: »

Pissed at this now.

I accept I was outside the T&C's but I don't consistently go over my limit (average is 18gb a month according to their counter), this is the first time I've been anywhere near 100gb download and any time I did break the limit there was no warning or indication they would take action. Now I'm stuck for a month with an unusable internet connection. A quick phone call and I wouldn't of took the piss again and they wouldn't of pissed off and lost some customers.

Sounds a bit annoying alright. Realistically though they can probably stand to lose the custom of the minority of people who this actually affects, as it will likely have a positive effect on numerous other customers who don't breach them.

I don't see why they would want to lose customers when they can just throttle them till the end of the month, threaten to charge them, throttle there speeds during peak time etc. Lots of sensible things they could do, keep the network running ok and still get their €43 a month from people.

If they haven't throttled until now it's quite likely that they can't easily do the throttling, so getting a system to do that installed is probably more expensive than it's worth.

BT has been doing cost cutting since poor financial performance last year.

slave1

I got a e-mail back this afternoon from BT and they said that they where only throttling account who have downloaded 100G or more and that it was a rolling 30 day period, so basically once your limit goes below the 100g mark they stop throttling but if you download and go over again its throttled.

That's good info, now if they had their stats page working - plenty of posts on this thread from folk without properly working stats info - then we could work out when we'll be up and running again

CuLT

slave1 wrote: »

That's good info, now if they had their stats page working - plenty of posts on this thread from folk without properly working stats info - then we could work out when we'll be up and running again

From first hand experience, if you send them a mail saying your stats counter isn't working, it will usually be fixed within a day or so. It happened to me once or twice during my contract with BT.

Little-Devil

CuLT wrote: »

BT has been doing cost cutting since poor financial performance last year.

I'd be very surprised if cost cutting had anything to do with throttling accounts. As telecommunications company surely they cut cost's in house before this, they provide a service to the public at the end of the day. It makes more sense if they see a long term solution to problem/problems they have experienced and throttling seems one way of fixing or helping the solution long term which would make more sense?

CuLT

Little-Devil wrote: »

I'd be very surprised if cost cutting had anything to do with throttling accounts. As telecommunications company surely they cut cost's in house before this, they provide a service to the public at the end of the day. It makes more sense if they see a long term solution to problem/problems they have experienced and throttling seems one way of fixing or helping the solution long term which would make more sense?

I don't know the costs involved, I am going on an educated guess that a revamping their network is probably a lot more expensive than this method.

Realstically, not many people are going to drop the service, they will complain, be told they are throttled, they may ask to be refunded for the time with "poor service", they will be told they have breached their T&Cs and can be charged x thousands of euro as per the contract they signed, they will either cancel their contract at the earliest convenience or just accept it and restrict their download habits. Most will do the latter.

I'm just being realistic here, not trying to be vindictive.

L31mr0d

Little-Devil wrote: »

I got a e-mail back this afternoon from BT and they said that they where only throttling account who have downloaded 100G or more and that it was a rolling 30 day period, so basically once your limit goes below the 100g mark they stop throttling but if you download and go over again its throttled.

wait, what does this mean? How can my usage go below 100GB's? Also what do you mean by a rolling 30 day period?

Auvers

L31mr0d wrote: »

wait, what does this mean? How can my usage go below 100GB's? Also what do you mean by a rolling 30 day period?

I persume they mean yours will go down by a gig a day so if you went over by 30gigs its going take 30 days :eek:

CuLT

Auvers wrote: »

I persume they mean yours will go down by a gig a day so if you went over by 30gigs its going take 30 days :eek:

Like, passes "download credit" over each month but negatively? So "download debit"? Hah! that's a bit of a kick in the teeth.

Auvers

CuLT wrote: »

Like, passes "download credit" over each month but negatively? So "download debit"? Hah! that's a bit of a kick in the teeth.

I dunno but it seems the most credible answer

challengemaster

CuLT wrote:

Realstically, not many people are going to drop the service, they will complain, be told they are throttled, they may ask to be refunded for the time with "poor service", they will be told they have breached their T&Cs and can be charged x thousands of euro as per the contract they signed, they will either cancel their contract at the earliest convenience or just accept it and restrict their download habits. Most will do the latter.

Indeed.. what's the charge per mb over cap? even if its 1c, >100mb will come to probably 600+ euro if they did charge.