NTL Enforcing Cap (or threatening to)

Razorfish

Got home this evening to find this letter from NTL informing me I was downloading large files and exceeding my CAP.

Here is the letter:

We are writing to you because, unfortunately, some of our broadband customers in your area have been experiencing deterioration in the service we offer them. We have found that this is most often caused by a small number of our broadband customers who are continually uploading and downloading extremely large files, which has a detrimental effect on our network.

In order to ensure that we are able to offer all of our customers a great broadband service we would like to remind you that ntI's usage guidelines set the daily level of activity to 1 gigabyte a day. This is the equivalent of downloading approximately 200 music tracks, 650 short videos, 10,000 pictures or around 100 software programmes per day. Our systems show us that recently you have been exceeding this level. ntI's broadband services are intended for normal recreational or educational use by individuals and families and our pricing and network architecture have been designed accordingly. Customers who use the services more heavily than a normal home user will reduce the performance of the network for other customers.

"Normal use" of the service is defined as up to 1 gigabyte downstream of data transfer daily.

Please, for the sake of all our broadband customers, reduce the downstream bandwidth utilised through your cable modem to no more than 1 gigabyte per day. We do not wish to impose restrictions on you but we are determined to offer all of our broadband customers the best possible service.

Thank you in advance for your co-operation in this matter. Please do not hesitate to contact us on 1800 321 321 should you have any questions.

End of Letter.

When I signed up to NTL broadband in August I clarified on a number of occasions that it was 30 Gb per month (i.e. I could use that whenever I wanted in that month, and wasn't necessarily restricted to 1 Gb a day.) They said no problems on several occasions. Even their website advertising their broadband says 30 Gb per month. (although their Acceptable Use Policy says 1 Gb a day.)

I looked up stats on my downloading and since mid December have downloaded 86 Gb (which I take as acceptable according to 3 months x 30 Gb = 90 gb). I know this is alot but they are getting 50 euro a month out of me for the privilege of using their service.

I just going to continue using their service the way I've always used their service, and if they want to cut me off (highly unlikely in their financial situation, even with new owners) so be it.

Annoyed NTL Broadband Customer

causal

Read this thread

hi Moriarty

[edit - go easy it's his first post, we all have to learn sometime]

causal

Infini

Like he said mate, already beat you to it!