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Originally Posted by chickendippers
Residential broadband is a contended service, you have to share it between other people, that's why it's so cheap.
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Cheap? I certainly don't think it's cheap. Not considering what we in the UK get for our money, compared to places like Japan, much of the US, and certain areas of Europe. By comparison, broadband in the UK is almost archaic, and ridiculously over-priced.
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If you found out your connection was being slowed down by your next door neighbour downloading 24/7, I'm guessing you wouldn't be happy?
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I agree 100% - but that's the point I'm making. We should not be in a position where one person's usage affects another's. If someone is paying for 20MB broadband, then that is what they should get 100% of the time, regardless of how they use it.
The price doesn't drop, so why should the speed?
As I said, they should be looking to invest our money into improving the network so that contention
isn't an issue, and we
all get what we're paying for. If they're going to
deliberately cut our connection speed to way below what we're paying for, then they need to start adjusting the bills accordingly.
To use Sput's petrol analogy, if you paid for 20 litres of petrol but only received 5, you would have every right to demand a partial refund. In fact, off the top of my head, I can think of no other business where a company can knowingly and deliberately provide you with less than you've paid for, and still charge you full price.
If it were honest, the Virgin marketing blurb would say something like: "Superfast 20MB broadband, with unlimited downloads... unless your neighbours complain, in which case we'll only give you 5MB, but we'll still charge you the same price."