What to do?

irishshogun

Have BT broadband but they're throttling me, 12KB for Franks sake!! Want to switch to Smart (10 meg) but I'm moving house in 4-5 months and I'll have to pay the balance of the 12 month contract when I go.
Q. Do I switch anyway and just cut off direct debit when I move, basically stiff them for the money, no BB in the stix so I cant move contract or do I continue to slowly pound my head on my desk while waiting for pages to load?

70 Euro a month times 6 months equals a lot of money I dont have..

Opinions appreciated, Thanks

33 views and no opinions!! this has to be a first

TouchingVirus

They throttled you for a reason, you went over your broadband cap - so don't do it again.

Are you tied into a contract with BT? I would think moving to Smart will incur penalties. If you move to Smart anyways and stiff BT, then you're most likely tied to Smart for a year. You say you're moving house in 4-5 months so you're going to have to break that contract too, incurring even more penalties in the process.

Stick with BT, at least when you move house you'll only have one or two months worth of a penalty. I suggest in the last month you're living in the house you reduce your package to the cheapest one BT have, say you couldn't afford it and the speed was surplus to your needs. That way it won't be €70 per month for the remaining contract, more like €35 a month.

irishshogun

TouchingVirus wrote: »

They throttled you for a reason, you went over your broadband cap - so don't do it again.

Are you tied into a contract with BT? I would think moving to Smart will incur penalties. If you move to Smart anyways and stiff BT, then you're most likely tied to Smart for a year. You say you're moving house in 4-5 months so you're going to have to break that contract too, incurring even more penalties in the process.

QUOTE]

Sorry wasnt clear, I'm free to move from BT, been with them for 4 years, its the new contract with Smart I'd be breaking, I'm thinking of moving cos the caps too bloody small, if they'd increase it I'd stay with BT.

Mainly womdering if Smart would be serious about trying to get the last 6 months rent from me if I'm not actually using thier service any more?

Thanks for your opinion anyway.

cyburger

i think any ISP will look to put you into a contract, whatever you do, so bar you want to get something like clearwire or voda \ O2...

dub45

You are seriously asking for people here to encourage you to enter into a contract that you have no intention of keeping? Do you think boards.ie is some sort of self help group for would be thieves?:rolleyes:

If you decide for an honest option then UTV are the obvious candidates for you.
You deserve each other.

irishshogun

dub45 wrote: »

You are seriously asking for people here to encourage you to enter into a contract that you have no intention of keeping? Do you think boards.ie is some sort of self help group for would be thieves?:rolleyes:

If you decide for an honest option then UTV are the obvious candidates for you.
You deserve each other.

Excuse me for not being as righteous as you, I'm not a thief would be or otherwise I was asking if they'd think Smart would want me to fulfil the remaining contact if I wasnt using it. I'm asking for an opinion not permission, see where I say opinion!

I appreciate your opinion non the less no matter how insulting and off point it may be. I unlike you am not a sanctimonious poster.

Look forward to not hearing from you again.

rav1410

Of course smart will want the money off you, Thats why its called a contract

admol

I think UTV have 6 month contracts and you can pay extra to get an unlimited plan if you want.

Alternatively go with Eircom(also 6 month contracts) and pay a few quid extra. Eircom are yet to throttle uers :rolleyes:

By the way i think a 30gb cap on Bt's max product is more than enough unless your doing a lot of downloading which you must be doing in order for BT to throttle you. 100gb a month i would believe...

irishshogun

admol wrote: »

I think UTV have 6 month contracts and you can pay extra to get an unlimited plan if you want.

Alternatively go with Eircom(also 6 month contracts) and pay a few quid extra. Eircom are yet to throttle uers :rolleyes:

By the way i think a 30gb cap on Bt's max product is more than enough unless your doing a lot of downloading which you must be doing in order for BT to throttle you. 100gb a month i would believe...

Thanks for the info, yeah I dl a lot of files, I teach Multimedia and get links to a lot of video work to assess, they tend to be big, 120 students it adds up fair fast.

They need to be uncompressed for editing purposes, I've thought about converting them to xvids or divx but quality diminishes rapidly.

I'll look into your ideas, thanks again.

dub45

irishshogun wrote: »

Excuse me for not being as righteous as you, I'm not a thief would be or otherwise I was asking if they'd think Smart would want me to fulfil the remaining contact if I wasnt using it. I'm asking for an opinion not permission, see where I say opinion!

I appreciate your opinion non the less no matter how insulting and off point it may be. I unlike you am not a sanctimonious poster.

Look forward to not hearing from you again.

Its not a question of being righteous its a question of honesty.
You do not appear to know the difference. And if pointing out your loose attitudes to your personal obligations under a contract is insulting then so be it.


We regularly berate companies on here for not living up to their side of a contract. And I am sure you would be very promptly on here moaning and groaning if Smart, or whoever the isp you eventually hook up with happens to be, were providing you with less than the speed that you were paying for. You are not slow to complain about BT even though they are 'only' enforcing their terms and conditions which you signed up for.

Smart and other isps depend on the people sticking to their contracts for their revenue streams given the pretty thin margins involved. People who do not stick to their contracts ultimately increase costs for the rest of us as Smart has to incur costs following up people who do a runner shall we say. Or to use your own personal term 'stiff them'

Given that you are a 'teacher' I am dismayed that you would not be in a position to appreciate such issues. Why would Smart or anyone else not expect you to complete a contract you had signed up for? Imagine Smart saying to you ''oh we never thought that you would want the full speed you are paying for?'' I also presume that you would expect whoever employs you to full the contract of employment they have with you?

Basically stiff them for the money

Hardly sounds like someone asking an open question? Why not simply ask if anyone knew of an isp with six month contract?

irishshogun

dub45 wrote: »

Its not a question of being righteous its a question of honesty.
You do not appear to know the difference. And if pointing out your loose attitudes to your personal obligations under a contract is insulting then so be it.

I do know the difference, you however don't know the difference between a shorthand colloquialism, using stiff as apposed to a lengthy description of a break in contract without negative financial repercussions. I'm happy you're so honest in all things, and I suppose at all times, if only the world was populated with versions of you.
Loose attitudes!! for fu**s sake that just cracks me up, I also like the occasional drink, lots of sex and don't mind if gay people exist, are happy or even want to get married and adopt , also poor people are actually people and not just drains on society, quick burn me at the stake!! Oh yeah women are as good as us too! lol

We regularly berate companies on here for not living up to their side of a contract. And I am sure you would be very promptly on here moaning and groaning if Smart, or whoever the isp you eventually hook up with happens to be, were providing you with less than the speed that you were paying for.

BT very rarely provide me with the service I'm paying for, my line has been down in more occasions than I can count, speeds have not been as advertised as often again but I accept these things as a fact of life and no I dont bitch about them, if I added up my allowance of 30 gigs a month over 4 years and added up how much I've actually downloaded over that time I would be vastly in the negative I'm sure, so yes I feel righteous in my belief that I'm being harshly treated because I've now gone over their limit.

You are not slow to complain about BT even though they are 'only' enforcing their terms and conditions which you signed up for.

Where is that complaint? I cant see it in my original posting! Maybe its your honesty angel talking to you.

Smart and other isps depend on the people sticking to their contracts for their revenue streams given the pretty thin margins involved. People who do not stick to their contracts ultimately increase costs for the rest of us as Smart has to incur costs following up people who do a runner shall we say. Or to use your own personal term 'stiff them'

Own share then? Big business kissing boy are you? I'm not going to lose a lot of sleep over affecting their bottom line. They earn their money from me, I want a service with the best possible outcome for me, I make no apologies for that fact.

Given that you are a 'teacher' I am dismayed that you would not be in a position to appreciate such issues. Why would Smart or anyone else not expect you to complete a contract you had signed up for? Imagine Smart saying to you ''oh we never thought that you would want the full speed you are paying for?'' I also presume that you would expect whoever employs you to full the contract of employment they have with you?

My profession has no impact on the question, I've also been a bricky, a laborer on building sites and cleaned up puke in a nightclub, contracts are negotiable, mine is, I do it every year. Again, best deal for me not some faceless shareholders. I live, breath and **** like everybody else I expect no special allowances because I'm now a teacher, its my job not my definition.

Hardly sounds like someone asking an open question? Why not simply ask if anyone knew of an isp with six month contract?

Thats your opinion and you're entitled to it, however I wrote the question so if anyone know the meaning in it, its me, not you.

Maybe become a priest/vicar/rabbi/mulla because then you can be good and sermonize to people who want to hear pious crap.

All the best.

I wont be replying to you again and if a mod want to delete this post I've absolutely no objections, in fact I'd be happy if you would.

cgarvey

So you want to dishonestly breach your contract, and want other customers (a good few of which post here) to pay for you? Or am I reading it wrong?

zilog_jones

irishshogun wrote: »

BT very rarely provide me with the service I'm paying for, my line has been down in more occasions than I can count, speeds have not been as advertised as often again but I accept these things as a fact of life and no I dont bitch about them

As a BT customer for over 3 years, the only trouble I've ever had with my net connection were caused by Eircom (problems at the exchange which all ADSL customers in the area experienced), a damaged phone line (front door saddle rubbing off it), and crappy router firmware (my own router, not the modem BT gave me). So it may not necessarily have been BT's fault.

if I added up my allowance of 30 gigs a month over 4 years and added up how much I've actually downloaded over that time I would be vastly in the negative I'm sure, so yes I feel righteous in my belief that I'm being harshly treated because I've now gone over their limit.

It doesn't work like that. Downloading 100GB in one month has much more of an adverse effect on bandwidth than downloading 100GB in 6 months or whatever. Such is the way of the time-division multiplexing of data...

Also you seemed to be unlucky to download too much just at the time when BT decided to start throttling "heavy users".

dub45

irishshogun wrote: »

I do know the difference, you however don't know the difference between a shorthand colloquialism, using stiff as apposed to a lengthy description of a break in contract without negative financial repercussions. I'm happy you're so honest in all things, and I suppose at all times, if only the world was populated with versions of you.

Nowhere in my posts did I claim to be honest in all things. However I would hope that the vast majority of posters on here who expect (however optimistically) that the various isps will comply with their contractual obligations would equally encourage others to comply with their contractual obligations towards those same isps.

irishshogun wrote: »

Loose attitudes!! for fu**s sake that just cracks me up, I also like the occasional drink, lots of sex and don't mind if gay people exist, are happy or even want to get married and adopt , also poor people are actually people and not just drains on society, quick burn me at the stake!! Oh yeah women are as good as us too! lol

You appear either unwilling or incapable of reading my posts. I specifically refer to your loose attitudes towards your contractual obligations nothing more.

irishshogun wrote: »

Where is that complaint? I cant see it in my original posting! Maybe its your honesty angel talking to you.

I think that people would regard:

Have BT broadband but they're throttling me, 12KB for Franks sake!!

as being a complaint and if not then hardly a compliment.

irishshogun wrote: »

Own share then? Big business kissing boy are you? I'm not going to lose a lot of sleep over affecting their bottom line. They earn their money from me, I want a service with the best possible outcome for me, I make no apologies for that fact.

It is easy to be simplistic of course - anyone who defends a company has to be a shareholder or have a vested interest - I am a Smart customer if that is a vested interest - most people recognise that in a capitalist society companies exist to make a profit for their shareholders. Without profit there is ultimately no service. Smart of all the isps provide an excellent service for very reasonable charges. Virtually all bb users owe Smart at least some respect because they were the really the first isp to have a go at Eircom through reasonable (perhaps in hindsight too reasonable) pricing and excellent products and in that way forced Eircom to introduce higher speeds etc.

irishshogun wrote: »

My profession has no impact on the question, I've also been a bricky, a laborer on building sites and cleaned up puke in a nightclub, contracts are negotiable, mine is, I do it every year. Again, best deal for me not some faceless shareholders. I live, breath and **** like everybody else I expect no special allowances because I'm now a teacher, its my job not my definition.

I mentioned your profession because (obviously erroneously in your case) I would expect teachers to have a breadth of vision and an appreciation of situations such as the economics of signing up people to contracts to recoup set up costs, provision of routers etc. Your unashamed emphasis on your own interests demonstrates how wrong I was to expect such appreciation.

contracts are negotiable, mine is, I do it every year

Contracts are negotiable in that both sides reach an agreement pre-contract and then the contract is put in place. I am sure you would expect your employer to stick with whatever contract is negotiated between you until it expires or some new contract is negotiated. You were not asking about negotiating with an isp:

Q. Do I switch anyway and just cut off direct debit when I move, basically stiff them for the money

You were asking about not sticking to the terms of a contract (to put it kindly:rolleyes:)

Opinions appreciated, Thanks

Obviously the appreciation extends only to those who tell you what you want to hear!:rolleyes:

jor el

I know someone who had Smart BB and had to move out of his house before the 12 month contract was up. Smart allowed him out of it with no penalty, I think it was about 9 months in. Talk to them and see what they say before you sign up, they might just do some sort of deal if you ask.

Also note that it may take some time to get BT out and Smart in, could be talking up to 2 months for the complete hand over, so that's going to cut down the time you'll be with Smart, may not be worth it for a couple of months.

irishshogun

Hi Jor-el, thats what I was looking for, an actual first or second! hand event similar to what I was hoping to happen, I wanted to know if it was possible to shorten the contract period, it is, and thats great. I do appreciate the time element in the change over might negate any benifit tho.

Thanks again.

dub45

irishshogun wrote: »

Hi Jor-el, thats what I was looking for, an actual first or second! hand event similar to what I was hoping to happen, I wanted to know if it was possible to shorten the contract period, ........................
Thanks again.

Nothing like rewriting history!:rolleyes:. Funnily enough people often post on here wanting to know this. They usually inquire by asking something like:

''Does anyone know if isp x will agree to shorten their standard contract period'' but definitely not:

irishshogun wrote: »

Q. Do I switch anyway and just cut off direct debit when I move, basically stiff them for the money

irishshogun

Again, Thanks Jor-el, I appreciate your constructive input.

dub45

irishshogun wrote: »

Again, Thanks Jor-el, I appreciate your constructive input.

Well its good to see that you regard being steered towards an honest approach to your problem as constructive!

Blindpew

I think you must be mad to be moving to somewhere where you can't get broadband. After being without it for six days you must know what a loss it is.
As for paying Smart when you break the contract just get someone to send them a letter saying that you died.

Cabaal

irishshogun, if your quoting people can you please make sure you use the quote tags correctly. you have atleast three sets of quote tags that don't work

Cabaal,

irishshogun

Cabaal wrote: »

irishshogun, if your quoting people can you please make sure you use the quote tags correctly. you have atleast three sets of quote tags that don't work

Cabaal,

Will do, sorry about that!

irishshogun

Blindpew wrote: »

I think you must be mad to be moving to somewhere where you can't get broadband. After being without it for six days you must know what a loss it is.
As for paying Smart when you break the contract just get someone to send them a letter saying that you died.

Yeah I know. No choice I'm afraid the benefits outweigh the negatives! At least I'll have it at work and friends will dl any large torrents I need. Dead is good but if they activate the exchange I don't think they'll believe I'm a zombie.

Praetorian

I don't think BT will hold you to the contract if you really want out. I also don't think they would pursue a legal course of action if you stopped the payments. Just tell them in writing your moving house, register the letter, keep the receipt and follow it up with a phone call to ensure they received your correspondence.

Most of the bigger ISP's aren't bothering to throttle people but I guess you should be thankful they haven't tried to charge you per megabyte over your limit