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upc ireland

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  • 14-08-2008 5:05pm
    #1
    strangeloop
    Closed Accounts Posts: 130 ✭✭


    Hi all,
    Anyone know about the download limits for a 10mb upc connection? On the website it says it is uncapped but also to refer to the acceptable usage policy. This policy states data transfers are for normal recreational or educational use by individuals and families. So how much data can be downloaded under these terms???

    Downloads are really fast but ping is dreadful compared to my old eircom 3mb connection.


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    #2
    christophicus
    Registered Users Posts: 3,969 ✭✭✭christophicus


    I would imagine you should be good under 150GB, maybe even 200GB


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    #3
    strangeloop
    Closed Accounts Posts: 130 ✭✭strangeloop


    Thanks for the reply.


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    #4
    everdead.ie
    Registered Users Posts: 9,153 ✭✭✭everdead.ie


    I read a post here of someone struggling to hit 400gb a month with upc and he wasnt cut off or anything What you could possibly be doing downloading 400gb a month i dont know


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    #5
    J-blk
    Registered Users Posts: 3,906 ✭✭✭J-blk


    everdead.ie wrote: »
    What you could possibly be doing downloading 400gb a month i dont know

    An HD movie can clock in at around 9-10GB for a single movie so it's actually not as hard as you may think to reach a 400GB download amount in a single month though you'd have to be downloading around 13.5GB a day to hit that... It is possible for a month maybe, but you'd struggle to keep it up every month. Though I'm sure there are people that have no such problem :).


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    #6
    thebman
    Closed Accounts Posts: 10,012 ✭✭✭✭thebman


    400GB a month. You are not Google sir, please stop trying to index our Internet.

    Seriously 40 movies a month is unlikely especially if someone was maintaining this over a few months. Must be someone on a private tracker TBH maintaining a 1:1 ratio on Bittorrent.


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    #7
    watty
    Registered Users Posts: 32,417 ✭✭✭✭watty


    everdead.ie wrote: »
    I read a post here of someone struggling to hit 400gb a month with upc and he wasnt cut off or anything What you could possibly be doing downloading 400gb a month i dont know

    Sharing to an entire apartment block?

    I've seen unscrupulous Landlords get a domestic connection and an unmanaged switch and then claim to all the students that there is Broadband. They get a few days and then it's worse than dialup for all of them.


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    #8
    smellslikeshoes
    Registered Users Posts: 3,354 ✭✭✭smellslikeshoes


    everdead.ie wrote: »
    I read a post here of someone struggling to hit 400gb a month with upc and he wasnt cut off or anything What you could possibly be doing downloading 400gb a month i dont know
    downloadwww.gif

    Lets be honest here though lads apart from instances like Watty mentioned it would be horribly rare for anyone to get to those sort of numbers without copyrighted material.

    As far as original question goes, I wouldn't be too worried unless you were going over 150GB regularly and you might get away with 200GB or so the odd time.


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    #9
    Rsaeire
    Registered Users Posts: 2,888 ✭✭✭Rsaeire


    J-blk wrote: »
    An HD movie can clock in at around 9-10GB for a single movie so it's actually not as hard as you may think to reach a 400GB download amount in a single month though you'd have to be downloading around 13.5GB a day to hit that... It is possible for a month maybe, but you'd struggle to keep it up every month. Though I'm sure there are people that have no such problem :).

    If you factor in Blu-ray movies, as some reach close to 50GB, then it wouldn't be as hard as some may think.

    I still agree that downloading 400GB in one month is overkill, and you couldn't honestly reach that amount without downloading copyrighted material, but it would be quite easy to do on a 20Mb connection in little to no time.


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    #10
    J-blk
    Registered Users Posts: 3,906 ✭✭✭J-blk


    I agree - and I didn't say I've downloaded 400GB in a month ever, not even close. Overall, if the fair use cap extends to 150 - 200GB (and I doubt I'd reach that most of the time) in a month, I'm perfectly happy. Up to recently, most of us were on 6Mbps connections with a 40GB cap anyway so things are definitely moving in the right direction. In any case, I don't think anyone has to worry too much about passing the fair use limits accidentally - I'd guess that even if your use is excessive in a specific month, you might get some warning from UPC but you won't get booted unless you are specifically trying to download the Internet on a continuing basis...


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    #11
    Cabaal
    Moderators, Technology & Internet Moderators, Regional South East Moderators Posts: 28,481 Mod ✭✭✭✭Cabaal


    Rsaeire wrote: »
    If you factor in Blu-ray movies, as some reach close to 50GB, then it wouldn't be as hard as some may think.

    Please do tell me where you can download 50GB blueray movies that are legal from the net? :)


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    #12
    christophicus
    Registered Users Posts: 3,969 ✭✭✭christophicus


    Do they really have movies that take up 50 GB ?? I know thats the capacity of blu ray, but has any movie actually reached that ??


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    #13
    paulm17781
    Closed Accounts Posts: 4,858 ✭✭✭paulm17781


    christophicus wrote: »
    Do they really have movies that take up 50 GB ?? I know thats the capacity of blu ray, but has any movie actually reached that ??

    Not the movie but an entire disk with extra etc. may have.


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    #14
    watty
    Registered Users Posts: 32,417 ✭✭✭✭watty


    About 2hrs in top notch HD BluRay quality is about 15Gbyte Max.

    If you only have one sound track, no extras etc it's about possible to put same quality on a 9Gbyte DVD (MPEG4 AVC obviously, not normal DVD format).

    I think most BluRay disks are actually 25GByte? 50GByte is an option (like DVDs can be 4.7Gbyte single layer or 9GByte dual layer, home recording ones are deliberately limited to 8.4G for DL)


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    #15
    Rsaeire
    Registered Users Posts: 2,888 ✭✭✭Rsaeire


    Cabaal wrote: »
    Please do tell me where you can download 50GB blueray movies that are legal from the net? :)

    I am only mentioning the size of content on a Blu-ray disc, I mentioned nothing about where to find such content ;)


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    #16
    Rsaeire
    Registered Users Posts: 2,888 ✭✭✭Rsaeire


    christophicus wrote: »
    Do they really have movies that take up 50 GB ?? I know thats the capacity of blu ray, but has any movie actually reached that ??

    An entire 2hr movie, without extras, would not be close to 50GB but, as was mentioned, extras and such take up the rest e.g. I Am Legend has two versions of the movie on one disc, the theatrical version and alternate version, with extras making the use of a 50GB disc necessary. On the other hand, Invasion only uses a 25GB disc as the main movie is just under 20GB and doesn't have many extras.


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    #17
    Praetor
    Registered Users Posts: 232 ✭✭Praetor


    Rsaeire wrote: »
    An entire 2hr movie, without extras, would not be close to 50GB but, as was mentioned, extras and such take up the rest e.g. I Am Legend has two versions of the movie on one disc, the theatrical version and alternate version, with extras making the use of a 50GB disc necessary. On the other hand, Invasion only uses a 25GB disc as the main movie is just under 20GB and doesn't have many extras.

    With speeds like that you could easily download 40 gb per day...


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    #18
    bk
    Moderators, Motoring & Transport Moderators, Technology & Internet Moderators Posts: 22,658 Mod ✭✭✭✭bk


    watty wrote: »
    About 2hrs in top notch HD BluRay quality is about 15Gbyte Max.

    If you only have one sound track, no extras etc it's about possible to put same quality on a 9Gbyte DVD (MPEG4 AVC obviously, not normal DVD format).

    I think most BluRay disks are actually 25GByte? 50GByte is an option (like DVDs can be 4.7Gbyte single layer or 9GByte dual layer, home recording ones are deliberately limited to 8.4G for DL)

    Most Blu-Ray movies released in the last year come on 50GB discs. Only a very small percentage come on 25GB discs.

    Also most Blu-Ray movies in the last year have greatly increased the bit rate being used to about 40mb/s, which for a 2 hour movie would take about 35GB.


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    #19
    Rsaeire
    Registered Users Posts: 2,888 ✭✭✭Rsaeire


    Praetor wrote: »
    With speeds like that you could easily download 40 gb per day...

    You sure could. As far as I read on UPC's website, their fair use policy cap is 120GB. I imagine they would enforce their cap, as opposed to Eircom not doing so, as a result of their faster connections ensuring users would reach and exceed their cap a lot sooner than the competition.


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    #20
    J-blk
    Registered Users Posts: 3,906 ✭✭✭J-blk


    Rsaeire wrote: »
    You sure could. As far as I read on UPC's website, their fair use policy cap is 120GB.

    Is this still on their site somewhere? I did see that when they were offering the upgrade from 6Mbps to 12Mbps, the cap was indeed listed as 120GB. But when they did away with the 12Mbps info and replaced it with the 20Mbps product, the cap is mentioned as no cap, subject to fair use. There's no info that I can find on their site about what they consider fair use, but if it was 120GB on the previous offering, like others here, I'm guessing it's around 150 to (maybe) 200GB.


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    #21
    Rsaeire
    Registered Users Posts: 2,888 ✭✭✭Rsaeire


    J-blk wrote: »
    Is this still on their site somewhere? I did see that when they were offering the upgrade from 6Mbps to 12Mbps, the cap was indeed listed as 120GB. But when they did away with the 12Mbps info and replaced it with the 20Mbps product, the cap is mentioned as no cap, subject to fair use. There's no info that I can find on their site about what they consider fair use, but if it was 120GB on the previous offering, like others here, I'm guessing it's around 150 to (maybe) 200GB.

    It's here.

    I did notice on looking at the page again that they mention "120Gb", note the lower "b" in "Gb" which normally denotes "bit" as opposed to "byte", so this would only equate to "15GB" or 15 Gigabytes". I imagine it is either a typo, or they are in fact referring to Gigabyte, so I wouldn't be too worried.


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    #22
    J-blk
    Registered Users Posts: 3,906 ✭✭✭J-blk


    Rsaeire wrote: »
    It's here

    Thanks for the link. I think there's a chance that info might be a remnant from when the 12Mbps product was up - the transition from 12 to 20 happened very fast anyway, so it wouldn't surprise me if they didn't update the pages.

    Still, even at 120GB, that is pretty good and my previous experience with UPC suggests that they are pretty flexible if you go over the cap in a given month, as long as you're not completely taking the p**s (as in 400GB in a month :)).


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    #23
    Blindpew
    Closed Accounts Posts: 286 ✭✭Blindpew


    Rsaeire wrote: »
    You sure could. As far as I read on UPC's website, their fair use policy cap is 120GB. I imagine they would enforce their cap.

    I don't understand how you deduce that. ISPs never reveal the fair usage cap. The 120gbs that you mention was an official cap on an old package no longer available. The 20mb package now clearly says no cap. When you go to the fair usage policy it says check your package to see what your cap is. Mine says no cap. Even if there is a hidden cap on the 20mb package it wouldn't be the same as the official cap on an older, lesser product. BTs official cap is 30gbs, but even they allow you 100gbs under their fair usage policy. I have downloaded 1gb in ten minutes with the new 20mb download speed. That means 6gbs an hour could be downloaded. That only equates to 20 hours a month on an uncapped product if used to the max, that's hardly a fair usage policy. I'd be thinking 400-500gbs a month wouldn't be unfair and it would still only mean using the service for 3 hours a day at max speed.


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    #24
    Rsaeire
    Registered Users Posts: 2,888 ✭✭✭Rsaeire


    Blindpew wrote: »
    I don't understand how you deduce that. ISPs never reveal the fair usage cap. The 120gbs that you mention was an official cap on an old package no longer available. The 20mb package now clearly says no cap. When you go to the fair usage policy it says check your package to see what your cap is. Mine says no cap. Even if there is a hidden cap on the 20mb package it wouldn't be the same as the official cap on an older, lesser product. BTs official cap is 30gbs, but even they allow you 100gbs under their fair usage policy. I have downloaded 1gb in ten minutes with the new 20mb download speed. That means 6gbs an hour could be downloaded. That only equates to 20 hours a month on an uncapped product if used to the max, that's hardly a fair usage policy. I'd be thinking 400-500gbs a month wouldn't be unfair and it would still only mean using the service for 3 hours a day at max speed.

    The fact that the UPC website states "*no cap", with the * referencing the fair use policy, indicates that there would be an actual cap and not an arbitrary number.

    You mention that ISPs never reveal their cap, but Vodafone, O2, Meteor and Eircom, to name a few, all reveal the cap on their packages.

    You also have to remember that ISPs in general don't have the best track record of having transparent packages, usage limits and terms of use. Just look at all the upheld complaints by ComReg and the ASAI for further evidence.

    In saying that, I really do hope that there is no actual cap and it is possible to download more than 120GB, but in my experience things are never as clear as they might seem.


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    #25
    Blindpew
    Closed Accounts Posts: 286 ✭✭Blindpew


    Rsaeire wrote: »
    The fact that the UPC website states "*no cap", with the * referencing the fair use policy, indicates that there would be an actual cap and not an arbitrary number.

    You mention that ISPs never reveal their cap, but Vodafone, O2, Meteor and Eircom, to name a few, all reveal the cap on their packages.
    .


    I didn't mean that ISPs don't tell you the official cap, but it's been my experience that the official cap and the fair usage policy differ, as in BT's case, 30gb official 100gb fair usage scheme. The 120 gb cap no longer exists with upc so if the uncapped service is actually capped it must be well above that figure. I havn't heard of anyone getting a letter from them yet on the new packages for over use.


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