[UPC] Cap and Fair Usage Policy

vibe666

dmannix wrote: »

Dude, You probably did download that amount. It builds up very quickly, If your using a torrent client, check that your upload setting is not set to unlimited also and upload+ download = your total download. Also, install an internet usage monitor.

I have just been un-trottled by Digiweb for going over 40gig for the month. Took two weeks for limit to go from 60gig back to 40gig b4 7mbit speed kicked back in. Total joke. Will swap over to UPS asap

that post you quoted was from september last year, i imagine he's probably sorted it out by now.

someone's dragging up old, dead threads again instead of starting new ones.

dave_ireland

I know this is an old thread but, I was wondering if UPC are monitoring user downloads like Eircom have recently started doing?

ronkmonster

No they are not involved in the 3 strikes system.

damien1972

check this out is off their site and states it clearly

Monthly data usage is capped at 120GB for Fibre Power Broadband 8Mb, there is no monthly usage cap for Fibre Power Broadband 15Mb or 30Mb. All broadband services are subject to our acceptable usage policy. Average expected broadband speeds at peak times are 8Mb, 15Mb and 30Mb. Broadband speeds are the maximum possible speeds only. Actual speeds will vary depending on internet traffic, the sites you visit and other factors.


Thats just sly if you ask me, they messed me around bigtime, they sent a letter referring to high usage when I was on 10MB, I upgraded to a 15mb TV/Phone pack for 75, the sales person said that she would throw in sky sports for an extra 20 a month, then they just started charging me for the 30mb and I was still getting the 15mb service. the tossers saw the high usage mark on my account and after I complained about over charging they bumped it up again to the "extreme pack" . I got a bill for 218 euros for one month. They are throwing VAT on top of the 80 euro extreme pack too, so thats 100 euros a month for broadband that you can use, needless to say im livid and sickened by their neck, their sales people lied, the customer support is a joke and the 30mb never gets over 25mb.

250 gb a month is paltry if you ask me, they are just using this as an excuse to rip people off. for every high usage customer theres another 2 on holiday etc.

My advice if you have an issue with UPC dont talk to them, talk to you solicitor because thats the only thing that gets them listening.

slith

They should be reported to the advertisements standards, nowhere in their site you can find the 250GB limit, and their products state 'unlimited'.

Look for their 'Acceptable Usage Policy' page, nothing on that page regarding 250 GB limit.

damien1972

Yeah and the department that deals with it dont have a telephone number, you can only contact them by email, aup@upc.ie, they use the letter to inform you of the 250 cap. they know that its a pain in the arse to change providers and that the service is pretty good just another money spinner i guess. nothing changes in this kip......

kk887

just wondering when do they restart the cap?
first week of the month?
first day of the month?

damien1972

not sure, but you can be sure that if you only use a small amount of the cap one month it doesn't transfer over to the next

I got a letter for my first month, on the 30Mb service, seemingly I downloaded 620GB, well, me and my 2 house mates.

We are all aware of their fair usage policy now...

damien1972

yeah i was told by a rep that the cap is a government usage standard, i guess it must because they charge you double if you want to keep using a high rate. that sounds like the governments way of doing things, double or quits.... shower of tossers

kk887

NoDrama wrote: »

I got a letter for my first month, on the 30Mb service, seemingly I downloaded 620GB, well, me and my 2 house mates.

We are all aware of their fair usage policy now...

so did they charge you extra?

damien1972

yeah its unreal 100 euros a month, i only ever got one letter too. so be careful, cause dealing with customer service is like trying to communicate with a turnip

Capt'n Midnight

dave_ireland wrote: »

I know this is an old thread but, I was wondering if UPC are monitoring user downloads like Eircom have recently started doing?

Like all other ISP's they have to record all traffic

and while they won't give out your details to anyone who just asks, they will like all other ISP's comply if presented with a court order

kk887

kk887 wrote: »

so did they charge you extra?

No, just a nicely worded letter highlighting to us were we aware of their generous fair usage policy and that our downloading was affecting our neighbors service.

Also if we continued to abuse their allowance we would be upgraded automatically to their business service which is 80 bucks.

So instead of duplicating downloading, we shared folders between our devices and the speed we are getting is atrocious, max 478kB on that cisco router (I would expect 3MB). It is quicker to download a show than to share on the lan, and then there is no means of measuring the bandwidth of their service.

Ah, I have another LAN in the house, a 3 midband router connected to a dovado router and sometimes, a lot of times actually that provides a better quality of service than the 30Mb UPC.

dub45

NoDrama wrote: »

No, just a nicely worded letter highlighting to us were we aware of their generous fair usage policy and that our downloading was affecting our neighbors service.

Also if we continued to abuse their allowance we would be upgraded automatically to their business service which is 80 bucks.

So instead of duplicating downloading, we shared folders between our devices and the speed we are getting is atrocious, max 478kB on that cisco router (I would expect 3MB). It is quicker to download a show than to share on the lan, and then there is no means of measuring the bandwidth of their service.

Ah, I have another LAN in the house, a 3 midband router connected to a dovado router and sometimes, a lot of times actually that provides a better quality of service than the 30Mb UPC.

Amazing how its ok to affect your neighbours' service if you pay extra every month!:rolleyes:

ADSLUSER

UPC advertises as contention free fibre power broadband on their website, is this true? If so, why would it affect your neighbours bandwidth if that is the case?

Nelbert

The main problem I have is that I've read both their advertising and their AUP and neither mention an actual limit. Advertising refers you to the AUP and AUP tells you that your limit is based on your package with details at UPC.ie i.e. the package details that say unlimited!

Below is the what I'll be sending them back after getting a angry / confused phone from my Da this morning about a snotty lettered for downloading 264 GB's (lot's of linux downloads for home testing for a server setup at home I've planned). Will ring them and look for a proper an e-mail address to send my complaint to and tell them that I adhere fully the terms they set out in both these documents and not to bother sending out snotty letters. I'd have no problem adhereing to a cap if either of these actually bothered to detail the cap and their advertising changed accordingly.

Section on Data usage from http://www.upc.ie/broadband/fifteen/
Monthly data usage is capped at 120GB for Fibre Power Broadband 8Mb, there is no monthly usage cap for Fibre Power Broadband 15Mb or 30Mb. All broadband services are subject to our acceptable usage policy. Average expected broadband speeds at peak times are 8Mb, 15Mb and 30Mb. Broadband speeds are the maximum possible speeds only. Actual speeds will vary depending on internet traffic, the sites you visit and other factors. As our Fibre Power Broadband service is provided over the UPC fibre power cable you do not require an eircom landline to access this service. Prices include VAT. Residential use only. eircom rates taken from www.eircom.ie.

Section on Data from Acceptable usage policy
Section 3: Data Transfer Allowances, Excessive Use and Other Limitations

UPC broadband services are intended for normal recreational or educational use by individuals and families and our pricing and network architecture have been designed accordingly. The Services are strictly for residential use only - commercial use of any kind is prohibited. Customers who use the services more heavily than a normal home user will reduce the performance of the network for other customers.
Your monthly data transfer allowance depends upon which broadband package you have selected. The data transfer allowances for the various packages can be found at www.upc.ie. All monthly data transfer allowances refer to the cumulative amount of data uploaded and downloaded per month, unless otherwise specified in your particular package. For purposes of illustration only, 1 gigabyte downstream of data transfer equates to approximately 200 music tracks, 650 short videos, 10,000 pictures or around 100 large software programmes downloaded.
“Excessive use” of the Service is defined as usage exceeding your monthly data transfer allowance.
If you exceed your monthly data transfer allowance as determined by UPC, in our sole judgment, UPC may take any of the following actions, or any combination thereof:

• Impose a charge of 3 cent per megabyte or part thereof for exceeding your data transfer limit; and/or
• Upgrade your package to a package with a higher data transfer limit with the corresponding higher monthly fee; and/or
• Downgrade your upload and download speed for a period of one month to dial-up speed, with your monthly fee remaining the same; and/or
• Suspend your access to the services for one month, with your monthly fee remaining the same; and/or
• Terminate your account as per the terms of the User Policy and UPC Terms and Conditions.

Karmafaerie

dub45 wrote: »

Amazing how its ok to affect your neighbours' service if you pay extra every month!:rolleyes:

Or maybe it pays for the extra bandwidth they have to pay for to stop you effecting your neighbour.

You're probably right though, they're using the extra money to fund their secret weapons program.
It's all funding their weapons grade plutonium refinement plant they're building in Lexlip.:rolleyes:

hightower1

Nelbert wrote: »

(lot's of linux downloads for home testing for a server setup at home I've planned)

Nelbert wrote: »

UPC broadband services are intended for normal recreational or educational use by individuals and families and our pricing and network architecture have been designed accordingly. The Services are strictly for residential use only - commercial use of any kind is prohibited.)

TBH using a server from home is hardly standard residential use, not being sharp but it just sounds like your trying to skimp instead of paying for a business BB pack which is really what you should be looking into.

Its not like their business packs are THAT much more expensive also.

hightower1

dub45 wrote: »

Amazing how its ok to affect your neighbours' service if you pay extra every month!:rolleyes:

It would stand to reason that for each area they have network equipment to service the infrastructure to their headend, it also stand to reason that as they provide business packs in any area they have residential services that they have an allotted amount of minislots for business only use on that equipment. Seeing as these supposed minislots would take space on the hub that otherwise could be used for residential consumers its "wasted" (for want of a better word) availability and as such more expensive.

Common sense alone would lead you to this conclusion that if your moved to the Extreme pack they run your left on the same daisychained coax cable but once that reaches the hub your routed through the SME business minislots rather than the residential ones leading to less contention and faster routing from that point on the network.

I am sure you would have realized this already but prefer to badmouth UPC for whatever reason rather than inform / educate fellow boards members.

Nelbert

hightower1 wrote: »

TBH using a server from home is hardly standard residential use, not being sharp but it just sounds like your trying to skimp instead of paying for a business BB pack which is really what you should be looking into.

Its not like their business packs are THAT much more expensive also.

It's not at all for business use and is purely as a comparison with a windows HOME server that may be used instead.

The point is I adhere to the conditions on which I was sold the product and they don't!

It's false advertising and misleading to the n'th degree when even their AUP says that what the package says (i.e. unlimited) is what my limit is.
Such poor business practices should not be condoned whatsoever. If there AUP said 250GB limit and there advertising reflected this I would have no problem with it.

Sasquatch76

Just received a letter today myself (well, addressed to the father).

I downloaded 257GB last month. So, I went over the limit by a whopping 2.8%. A limit that is not advertised anywhere on their site. A site that doesn't provide a means to monitor usage in the first place. Yep. That's fair.

Anyway, I don't have a problem keeping it to under 250GB a month, but under the circumstances, I think they've a hard neck to dole out threats.

andersat2

dub45 wrote: »

Amazing how its ok to affect your neighbours' service if you pay extra every month!:rolleyes:

NICE ONE...


f..king UPC, got this letter today..
Overlimit 282GB.

the_law

312 for me. I can usually keep to the 250, but had a router fail on me this month and had to guess.

Not a problem for me to keep to it in future, but I'll be calling UPC and telling them that I expect them to keep their end of the bargain (average PEAK TIME speed of 30Mbit), which of late they have not been doing.

kk887

andersat2 wrote: »

NICE ONE...


f..king UPC, got this letter today..
Overlimit 282GB.

do u have to pay extra?

noxqs

Thats odd. I habitually download more than a TB per month according to my logs. And UPC never sent me a letter, I got a phonecall once. But I told them to piss off, in a very diplomatic and nice way.

My contract literally, and I mean it, has no mention of a cap or fair use policy. I guess they screwed up on that one. I got my contract in 2008, perhaps there was an administrative oversight with the particulars at the time ?

And before you wonder - most of that data is actually quite legitimate . However, yes, a large chunk is also the run off the mill movies/series. I also have months where I download less than 100gb. Sometimes even less. But when I want to, I go all the way. I have alot of subscriptions to podcasts/videocasts and basically the entire Itunes U on my disks nowadays.

vibe666

how can your AVERAGE speed be 30Mbps when the maximum speed is 30Mbps?

the best thing anyone can do if they get a letter is to email the AUP email address and ask them where the 250gb limit is shown on their website and/or T&C's (refer them to the comreg requirements for ISP's to clearly quantify the use of 'unlimited' on broadband packages) and ask them to provide you with a way to monitor your monthly usage.

then post here what their reply is.

NordicDiver

First time i ever got a letter form them today about usage,, i have the 30mb pack,,whats up with them ? :mad:

belmulletman

I got the letter today as well... hmmmm... Looks like the tightening up on things and trying to blame the users for their up and down network!
280gb for Oct was my total... not that much over in fairness!

dub45

hightower1 wrote: »

It would stand to reason that for each area they have network equipment to service the infrastructure to their headend, it also stand to reason that as they provide business packs in any area they have residential services that they have an allotted amount of minislots for business only use on that equipment. Seeing as these supposed minislots would take space on the hub that otherwise could be used for residential consumers its "wasted" (for want of a better word) availability and as such more expensive.

Common sense alone would lead you to this conclusion that if your moved to the Extreme pack they run your left on the same daisychained coax cable but once that reaches the hub your routed through the SME business minislots rather than the residential ones leading to less contention and faster routing from that point on the network.

I am sure you would have realized this already but prefer to badmouth UPC for whatever reason rather than inform / educate fellow boards members.

Can you explain to us once and for all how you have these wonderful "insights" into the "workings" of UPC and what exactly qualifies you to defend them or why they even need an apologist like yourself when they supposedly have an official representative who "contributes" to boards.ie?

Maybe you could even explain to us why they do not comply with Comreg's policy on "unlimited" products?

And how exactly is pointing out to people how UPC behave towards their customers and to Comreg "badmouthing" them? They are the ones being dishonest as posters on here are increasingly beginning to realise thankfully.

Every letter that UPC issue to a customer who has "exceeded" the supposedly non existent cap will remind that customer that they have been deceived.

http://www.upc.ie/broadband/