UPC 50/100/150mb broadband

It's confusing allright, but how many providers offer unlimited downloading?

Eircom_Sucks

ask them for their extreme package

they don't advertise it , but for 50 extra a month you can download real unlimited

aload of bollix , they tried to upgrade me to this so called package , so i called comreg and comreg said they can't put you on a package that they don't actually advertise

just trying to get more money out of you

Eircom_Sucks

Eircom_Sucks wrote: »

ask them for their extreme package

they don't advertise it , but for 50 extra a month you can download real unlimited

aload of bollix , they tried to upgrade me to this so called package , so i called comreg and comreg said they can't put you on a package that they don't actually advertise

just trying to get more money out of you

There is no such package.
There was rumours of this some time ago, it doesn't exist.
If you have gone over 500GB in one month they will write you and tell you they will downgrade your speed to 30mb (if you are on 100mb for eg), and give you 1TB usage, for almost twice the price.
That's a penalty, not an EXTREME upgrade.:pac:

monster1

I have a question, we are getting upc in our house, but they say the maximum speed we can get is 25mb, I thought with these new upgrades and new packages starting at 50mb, we could get at least 50mb.
Whats the story with that? And will we be charged for the 50mb package? Location is in Renmore, Galway city.

Cheerful Spring

Its scandal people now in urban areas have speeds of 150 mb while rural Ireland barely has 5meg Its national disgrace politicians and Eircom should hand back their wages and resign.

TheDoc

Cheerful Spring wrote: »

Its scandal people now in urban areas have speeds of 150 mb while rural Ireland barely has 5meg Its national disgrace politicians and Eircom should hand back their wages and resign.

Agreed, we need fast internet to you ASAP, so you can learn how the world works

dub45

bonoman66 wrote: »

I wish that were true but looking at the terms of the conditions for their 150mb product it still today states:

"All Fibre Power Broadband services are subject to our acceptable usage policy. The unlimited download allowance is subject to a data transfer allowance of 500GB and UPC’s Acceptable Usage Policies"..

I feel UPC continually mislead by using the term unlimited (while having the other acceptable usage clause 'buried' in their conditions) & I suspect until UPC confirm it that, in effect, it still is NOT truely unlimited.

They really shoudln't be permitted to use the term 'unlimited' anywhere in their promotion of BB services where they are in fact not truely unlimited.

Still hope you are right though

As was pointed out here on numerous occasions before when UPC adopted this so called "unlimited" policy it is not just misleading it is deliberately lying to existing and prospective customers.

Any product with an "allowance" is not unlimited - plain and simple. And not alone is this figure buried as you point out - the absence of spacing and paragraphs in the text is obviously designed to discourage prospective customers from reading it.

UPC have great products why lie about them?

dub45

Bam Bam Mickey wrote: »

It's confusing allright,

Its not confusing at all its simple lying.

but how many providers offer unlimited downloading?

What relevance has this got to UPC's behaviour?

dub45

dub45 wrote: »

Its not confusing at all its simple lying.

Is it?

What relevance has this got to UPC's behaviour?

It's relevant because that's the standard (no such thing as unlimited).
How many people need more than 500GB download a month?
You don't need it, but you WANT it because it says unlimited? (even though the AUP doesn't mean its limited, it means it's monitored)
I don't understand the fuss over some silly wording on the website.

dub45

Bam Bam Mickey wrote: »

dub45 wrote: »

Its not confusing at all its simple lying.

Is it?

What relevance has this got to UPC's behaviour?

It's relevant because that's the standard (no such thing as unlimited).
How many people need more than 500GB download a month?
You don't need it, but you WANT it because it says unlimited? (even though the AUP doesn't mean its limited, it means it's monitored)
I don't understand the fuss over some silly wording on the website.

It's not "silly" wording at all its deliberate lying to customers and prospective customers. What's more, as many people have found out in the past there are consequences for going over your allowance on this mythical "unlimited" product.

0ph0rce0

If i upgrade to 50mb and get a new modem can i use a nas with this router?

dub45

dub45 wrote: »

It's not "silly" wording at all its deliberate lying to customers and prospective customers. What's more, as many people have found out in the past there are consequences for going over your allowance on this mythical "unlimited" product.

And rightly so, to go over 500GB a month takes some amount of bandwidth hogging.
That still doesn't = limited.
Limited would being automatically cut off when you reach 500GB until the next month starts, instead you get a letter informing you if it continues you will be penalised.

bealtine

Bam Bam Mickey wrote: »

And rightly so, to go over 500GB a month takes some amount of bandwidth hogging.
That still doesn't = limited.
Limited would being automatically cut off when you reach 500GB until the next month starts, instead you get a letter informing you if it continues you will be penalised.

I have to agree with bk here, if it is unlimited then there should be no targets...

All the telcos offer their products as "unlimited" what they mean is you can surf anywhere (which is not really true either) and most throttle you in some way if you hit a target eh sorry not very well unpublicised data limit. UPC are just following the herd.

bk

At some stage UPC must have drove over dub45's dog !!

It is the only way to explain his surprising hatred of UPC.

He loves pointing out the UPC cap situation, but never mentions that Eircom do the same, advertising unlimited cap, while having only a 250GB fair usage "cap".

He gleefully pointed out earlier that I forgot to include the price of including the phone service in the price of these packages, but when I corrected myself and pointed out that some of the UPC packages were even cheaper then when you include phone, he ignored my post and never replied. He know only replies to this thread when there is something else to criticise.

Yet you never see him criticising Eircom or any other ISP, so keep that in mind.

UPC aren't perfect, they do make mistakes and I would criticise their advertising of caps. However I would equally also criticise Eircom and pretty much all other ISPs for the same. And then I would recognise that UPC are by far the best ISP in Ireland and that they are by far the best thing that has ever happened to the Irish broadband market.

bonoman66

I think the term 'Unlimited' from the perspective of monthly BB data allowance is important & getting more & more relevant to BB consumers. (Even if they may not be aware in terms of how they use their BB connection).

It wasn't long ago before the assumption that one would never need to go over something like a 500GB per month data allowance was fairly accurate for many. I would have felt that way myself only a few years ago.

However if we just examine what's been happening in the last 12 months with service offerings to consumers, that use or 'piggyback' on their BB connections, data usage can now quite easily rack up high figures compared to when people 'only' used their BB connection for surfing the web or email type activities.

There could be a couple of people / families with 'web able kids' , in a house,with multiple 'web connectable' devices (phones, tablets, consoles..).

Even one person who watched several hours of live TV content in decent quality through their BB connection could easily use up 60GB Data Allowance per month (& that's at 2 hours per day) just on that one type of service / device.

If they had Netflix which can stream some content at even higher bitrates than live TV streams, then if anyone in that same household also used Netflix regularly that's up to 1GB-2GB per hour approx for their highest quality streamed content. So potentially another 60GB-120GB for 2 hours Netflix usage per day throughout a month.

Its just an example that I understand doesn't necessarily apply to lots of people, but it shows how now its relatively easy & without much thought to the data usage going on 'behind the scenes', for someone to use up the best part of 200GB on TV type services in one month alone.

That figure could very easily be doubled if there are serveral people in the same household using these types of services regularly throughout a month.

More & more services are coming down this one pipe now (Data), so I do feel that if a company states / uses the term 'Unlimited' in the advertisement of their service offering - it should be Unlimited & not subject to any other restrictions.

I have to try watch my 500GB 'Unlimited' allowance on a monthly basis, because of all these TV content based services alone - not because I'm sat 24X7 in front of a PC Surfing / Proactively Downloading stuff..

Just my '2 cents'...

dub45

Bam Bam Mickey wrote: »

And rightly so, to go over 500GB a month takes some amount of bandwidth hogging.
That still doesn't = limited.
Limited would being automatically cut off when you reach 500GB until the next month starts, instead you get a letter informing you if it continues you will be penalised.

No - limited means limited - being cut off until your next month etc etc is action taken by a company on the basis of reaching a figure which in their advertising is not s upposed to be there.

Unlimited means no limit - that is the definition of the word in plain English.

dub45

bk wrote: »

At some stage UPC must have drove over dub45's dog !!

It is the only way to explain his surprising hatred of UPC.

Whether UPC drove over my dog or not has nothing go to do with pointing to the fact that they are deliberately lying to customers and prospective customers. You dont have to "hate" a company to decry their practise of deliberately lying.

He loves pointing out the UPC cap situation, but never mentions that Eircom do the same, advertising unlimited cap, while having only a 250GB fair usage "cap".

That is factually incorrect. I have pointed out very forcibly in the Eircom forum that their use of "unlimited" is lying. And the fact that Eircom indulge in lying or anyone else for that matter who offers an "unlimited" product doesnt in any way justify UPC or any other company indulging in the same practise.

Recently UPC had actually gone away from this practise and it was a healthy change sadly they have reverted.

He gleefully pointed out earlier that I forgot to include the price of including the phone service in the price of these packages, but when I corrected myself and pointed out that some of the UPC packages were even cheaper then when you include phone, he ignored my post and never replied. He know only replies to this thread when there is something else to criticise.

The fact is that UPC quote prices for some of their products which are simply unavailable to prospective customers. I dont know where you get your supposed insight into my emotional state as I post

Yet you never see him criticising Eircom or any other ISP, so keep that in mind.

Factually incorrect. I cant think offhand of any isp that I have not criticised at some stage.

UPC aren't perfect, they do make mistakes and I would criticise their advertising of caps. However I would equally also criticise Eircom and pretty much all other ISPs for the same. And then I would recognise that UPC are by far the best ISP in Ireland and that they are by far the best thing that has ever happened to the Irish broadband market.

If they are the best thing that ever happened to the Irish broadband market then there is absolutely no need for them to join the so called "herd".

They have excellent products - why lie to your customers and prospective customers about them. And remember there can be financial consequences for customers as a result of this lying.

bk

dub45, if you have in fact posted about Eircom lying too on other forums, then I apologise for saying you don't criticise Eircom.

However I do think your criticisms of UPC are a little too much, it is obvious you have some history with UPC that colours your opinion.

In my opinion UPC should be criticised for claiming they are unlimited, but they only deserve the least criticism. As you said UPC use to say up front that they had a 500GB cap, but then that put them at an unfair disadvantage compared to Eircom who claimed they were unlimited, while really having a 250GB cap.

Thus people might have been tricked into taking the lesser Eircom service, thinking it was better. UPC are only responding to this and levelling the playing field.

Eircom come in for more criticism for starting this lying in the first place.

But I would give the most criticism to Comreg and the Advertising authority for leaving all these companies to get away with this sort of carry on.

I'm sure if Comreg and the Advertising Authority were to crack down on this practise and force companies to clearly advertise their caps up front UPC would be delighted as their "cap" is twice as big as Eircoms.

It would also likely benefit consumers as they would not only know what they were getting up front, but we could see a situation where Eircom and UPC compete on their caps, increasing them constantly to win customers from one another.

mrbrown69

What happened the free upgrade they gave recently (before increasing their prices)??

I was regularly getting 60mb+ now seemed to have been bumped back down to 50meg




and still paying 47 euro and not the advertised 39

edit to say just tried UPC's speed test and 3 times came out at over 100 meg

bk

mrbrown69 wrote: »

edit to say just tried UPC's speed test and 3 times came out at over 100 meg

When you get up to these sort of high speeds, these speed test sites become useless and are mostly choked by their own bandwidth.

You very well may have been upgraded to UPC's 100mb product.

bealtine

mrbrown69 wrote: »

What happened the free upgrade they gave recently (before increasing their prices)??

This is a fairer test http://www.upc.ie/broadband/speedtest/
Speedtest and their like are very inaccurate above about 20Mb/s (varies depending on load)

mrbrown69

bk wrote: »

When you get up to these sort of high speeds, these speed test sites become useless and are mostly choked by their own bandwidth.

You very well may have been upgraded to UPC's 100mb product.

Possibly but "My products" is still showing 50mb and phone, might change when the next bill is due


I'd guess if you're stuck somewhere in the middle like I was there more likely to give an increase rather than decrease if there was no request to do either

mrbrown69

bealtine wrote: »

This is a fairer test http://www.upc.ie/broadband/speedtest/
Speedtest and their like are very inaccurate above about 20Mb/s (varies depending on load)

just tried that again 140.54 Mbps :rolleyes:

dub45

bk wrote: »

dub45, if you have in fact posted about Eircom lying too on other forums, then I apologise for saying you don't criticise Eircom.

However I do think your criticisms of UPC are a little too much, it is obvious you have some history with UPC that colours your opinion.

In my opinion UPC should be criticised for claiming they are unlimited, but they only deserve the least criticism. As you said UPC use to say up front that they had a 500GB cap, but then that put them at an unfair disadvantage compared to Eircom who claimed they were unlimited, while really having a 250GB cap.

Thus people might have been tricked into taking the lesser Eircom service, thinking it was better. UPC are only responding to this and levelling the playing field.

Eircom come in for more criticism for starting this lying in the first place.

But I would give the most criticism to Comreg and the Advertising authority for leaving all these companies to get away with this sort of carry on.

I'm sure if Comreg and the Advertising Authority were to crack down on this practise and force companies to clearly advertise their caps up front UPC would be delighted as their "cap" is twice as big as Eircoms.

It would also likely benefit consumers as they would not only know what they were getting up front, but we could see a situation where Eircom and UPC compete on their caps, increasing them constantly to win customers from one another.

A little too much? Which part of the criticism exactly is a little too much?

Is there some "acceptable" level of criticism of a company who deliberately and consistently lies to customers and prospective customers.

You know very well that UPC have been claming to sell unlimited products for a considerable time now. (with a brief recent lull where they stopped the unlimited claims)

In fact for a long time they would not even state what the actual allowances were. They then under pressure from a Comreg requirement actually stated the caps on the so called unlimited products. In the meantime many people who genuinely believed UPC on the claim of unlimited products were penalised for exceeding their so called unlimited allowance. This is well documented on boards and you should be very familiar with it.

Actually Eircom started claiming unlimited products long after UPC had entered this dubious field. And again you should only be too well aware that for a long time Eircom while claiming to have caps actually didnt enforce them.

To say that UPC are only responding to this is really an argument not worthy of someone like yourself who should know better. You are saying that UPC having stopped lying have now started lying again simply because Eircom are lying? And you apparently in some way think this ok? Are you serious?

Whatever the roles of Comreg or the ASA may be, we should all as customers and consumers be demanding honesty and integriy from all companies irrespective of what market they are in.

I find it incredible that someone is criticised for pointing out that a company is lying.

Why haven't Comreg done anything about the lies then?
When all this started on here long ago, lots of users said they were reporting them to Comreg, yet here we are.

Mountjoy Mugger

When was the last time Comreg did anything about anything/anyone? They're a toothless, spineless, powerless, quango.

garyingalway

Not too Shabby

dub45

Bam Bam Mickey wrote: »

Why haven't Comreg done anything about the lies then?
When all this started on here long ago, lots of users said they were reporting them to Comreg, yet here we are.

This is the Comreg postion:

http://www.askcomreg.ie/home/my_service_provider_has_advertised_an_%22unlimited_package%22___what_does_this_mean_for_me.5.154.LE.asp

dub45

Mountjoy Mugger wrote: »

When was the last time Comreg did anything about anything/anyone? They're a toothless, spineless, powerless, quango.

Well they have previously taken UPC to task when the flaunted requirements in respect of notifying their customers of price increases. This was well covered on boards at the time.

Regular boardsies may recall that Comreg had stipulated on their website for all isps the notification requirements in respect of looming price increases.


http://www.comreg.ie/publications/comreg_notifies_upc_of_a_finding_of_non-compliance_with_respect_to_notification_of_proposed_changes_to_contract_terms_and_conditions.583.103800.p.html

Royal Legend

I was told by an employee of UPC that anyone within areas receiving the fibre optic cabling will all be upgraded to the mimimum of 50mb over the next couple of weeks

Was also told my 2425 modem will handle this as well?