Anyone actually been cut off/restricted because of the Detrimental Usage?

[Chrysalis]

you guys have concluded what I been saying, its wrong to sell what they cant provide.

The ASA have took the wrong path on this, the ASA have effectively told the isp's as long as only a minority are victims of the policies they are legal.

Thats how 3G isp's managed to get away with selling unlimited packages which were actually just a few gigs usage limits.

Selling unlimited is meant to be a hard and expensive decision, it should be if you sell it you also prepared to support it, so if someone does go 24/7, then be prepared to lose money on it and make sure they can do that. As it is there is a big get out of jail card where can kick off users going over invisible limits and throttle the rest to drag their usage down.

FUP's are the get out of jail card for unlimited and shaping/STM is the get out of jail card for speeds that are too high.

[qasdfdsaq]

Originally Posted by Nopanic

so do it ...

I would, but I don't want to get cut off for over-use, plus more than one person depends on this internet connection other than me.

---------- Post added at 15:56 ---------- Previous post was at 15:50 ----------

Originally Posted by Masque

Just because people are paying what in real terms is a small fee for their connection does not give you the right to hoover up the internet and if you dislike what you have agreed to under the Virginmedia Terms and Conditions then you can always vote with your feet and look elsewhere, I doubt in most cases you will get the same speeds as you get from Virginmedia.

Lol.

As detailed above (which you selectively ignore, as usual), I pay a comparatively high fee for my connection.

I dislike the T&C's, but on the other hand, despite VM failing to uphold several terms on their side of the T&C's they refuse to let me leave.

And again you selectively ignore the fact that Infinity will give you higher speeds and better all-round service quality than all but one of VM's widely available packages while costing a fair bit less.

Trust me, I will be leaving and getting better speed as soon as VM stop breaking their own T&Cs and letting me out of this damned contract.

[Milambar]

Originally Posted by Welshchris

u pay to drive ur car doesnt mean u can be lawfully stopped for breaking the rules.

Except in this case, the anology is that he's not being told what the rules are, what the speed limits are, which side of the road to drive on...

All they've been told is that they've broken them, and not to do it again, which is extremely hard when you don't know what the rules are.

[Chrysalis]

I think we are going to see even more overselling from VM in the near future as BT have now announced a 110mbit FTTP product, expect something like 150mbit from VM soon which will go congestion crazy.

[qasdfdsaq]

150mbps shared between 250 users on a 200mbps channel, that'd be fun to see.

[Chrysalis]

wouldnt surprise me one bit.

they might even go 200mbit on a 200mbit shared channel.

then to stop it going really bad people will get letters when they download more than a gig a week. :p

[cook1984]

Originally Posted by Chrysalis

you guys have concluded what I been saying, its wrong to sell what they cant provide.

The ASA have took the wrong path on this, the ASA have effectively told the isp's as long as only a minority are victims of the policies they are legal.

I was one of the people who complained about their use of the word "unlimited". The ASA ruled that there were no limits except for "normal traffic management". That was back before they started sending nasty letters to people though, so it could be worth someone who got one contacting the ASA again.

I'm amazed I don't have one yet. Unfortunately I do get throttled regularly because people living here like to use iPlayer in the evenings, so maybe the loss due to STM kneecapping keeps me under their unpublished and unknowable limit.

So ISPs have now re-defined the meaning of unlimited to the same thing as limited. Kinda like flammable and inflammable. So we need a new word that means what unlimited used to mean, maybe ununlimited or "truly limited". Actually I like the latter because it implies that they lied, which is true.

Virgin Media Truely Limited Fiber Optic as far as the cabinet then Copper again Moderately Rapid just Not All The Time Broadband it should be called.

[qasdfdsaq]

Originally Posted by Chrysalis

wouldnt surprise me one bit.

they might even go 200mbit on a 200mbit shared channel.

then to stop it going really bad people will get letters when they download more than a gig a week. :p

Actually now that I think about it they did say they were trialling 400mbit with the superhub...

[haileris]

I'm also one that has such letters, and despite configuring my outer edge firewall to ensure daytime usage never rises over a 1/4 of the maximum speed, I got the second letter. Somewhat annoying as I felt I was complying with the text of the letter. I've essentially switched off all usage during the day because as others have pointed out I'm too scared that I will now be disconnected for breaching the unknown limits. The another slightly annoying thing is there doesn't appear to be any mechanism to "reset" your "bad-boy" count, so that sword is now forever hanging over your neck.

On the other hand, its still quick at night, though now we limit iplayer to later on in the evening which is inconvenient at times. I've also shelved plans to sign up with their TV service - in effect they have lost +£50 per month they could have got and I will consider my options seriously when my renewal comes. I don't know any other business that could be so vague with their rules - imagine if the roads were like that, the speed limit changed daily and there were no signs telling you what the maximum was

[Dave9946]

Well in the end we had enough of there impossible to comply with AUP and had our Virgin contract terminated on Tuesday afternoon with immidiate effect without having to give the 30 days notice. That's impossible as in we could be well within 1 month and for no reason or change of usage get the letter threatening to cut us off the next. Nobody should have to live with threat of service termination when they have done nothing wrong.

We will happily live with a 10mb connection we can use as and when even if there is restrictions as we know we won't have to live with the threat of service termination in the way Virgin feel is right.

By the way when we called to check the final bill (they actually owe us lol) I don't know which department was spoken to here in the UK but they asked about why we left, we explained why and guess what?, when asked and told our previous speed was 20mb they looked on the system and said peak time useage is no higher on the 50mb than it was on the 20mb!.

[linwelin]

I upgraded my BB with virgin to 50mb 6 months ago with the understanding, that it was unlimited, and never read anything about a FUP but i have been getting these detrimental use letters since march in may i drastically reduced my BB usage, i have alot of people using the connection at the same time, but VM wont tell me what the limits r, i stay below 350gig a month as think that is a reasonable figure for a 50mb connection with 8 people using the connection at the same time.

I can understand VM trying to even things out for everyone and i totally agree with that, but tell us what we should and shouldn't do! we r not mind readers!

Has anyone had any joy from VM about how much is acceptable usage ?

[AbyssUnderground]

350GB for 50Mbps is hardly acceptable. At full 50Mbps you can use that up in 16 hours dead!

Try out this handy calculator I made. http://www.betaarchive.co.uk/download_arrival.php It'll surprise you...

I have 9Mbps (10.4Mbps sync) on my Be* connection and I have already done 500GB this month

[linwelin]

Downloading 350 GB at 5 MB/s will take approx. 0 Day(s), 19 Hour(s), 54 Min(s), 40 Sec(s)

:O

[AbyssUnderground]

Select 50Mbps (6.25MB/s), it's even less time then!

[qasdfdsaq]

Yeah but downloading at full speed for 16 hours a month is pretty much bang on the 30:1 to 50:1 contention ratios that lie on the "good" end of typical.