1GB Cap Letter!!!!

[Stop It]

My god, reading this thread does open your eyes to some hugely dodgy bandwidth usage, and plain ignorance to the fact that if everyone overused ANY ISP's network, they would be brought to a halt.

Seeing people say they have downloaded up to 267GB a month and see nothing wrong with it is absurd, I mean come on, my HD is 200GB for example, within 20 days i would have filled it :O

The cap trigger isnt bad (its usally based on 3 days of +1GB or continued overusage over a longer period of time), and Ive occasionally hit up to 2GB a day, but then during the week my usage is near zero due to work,

I think ntl should make broadband medic mandatory, and put a bandwidth meter in it, that way everyone will know thier usage, and not complain when they get a letter through when they've downloaded 100GB of hooky software :p

[Earwig]

I am new to this forum as I was looking for info on faster upload speeds and maybe download speeds to.
I am currently on NTL's 1MB line after upgrading from their 600k line and have been with them for just over a year now.
So far wether due to luck or whatever I have had NO problems with them atall. I heard about this 1GB a day cap a long long time ago and rang their tech support to find out about it. I was told that it was ONLY a suggested limit and it may not be imposed on people. Looks like things have changed now although I am yet to recieve a letter from them. I live in the northamptonshire area and use WAY more than 1GB a day.
As was said earlier when I first signed up for it it was uncapped and this is how I will use it.

I have been thinking about moving to somewhere faster than what I have as I now feel NTL are lagging behind the competition. Nearly all other i.s.p's provide 2MB or faster and yet we are still stuck to 1MB, although with a 1GB a day cap what is the point in them even offering a faster connection?? For £35 a month I feel I should be able to use it however I like. I will wait a little while now maybe until the summer and see what they come up with, if nothing faster comes with NO caps then I to will be off for pastures greener.

Here in the U.K we lagg so far behing other countries.

We have nearly the slowest connections in europe and pay more than anywhere else. Take a look at websites from i.s.p's in other countries and you can see how crap ours are.
I have a friend who live in holland who has an 8MB downstream and 1MB upstream and he pays what I pay here for a 1MB?? WHY????
Here is the link to check it out.

www.telebyte.nl

Look at korea for example.........Not as advanced as us?? MMmm No that is what I thought to. Most home connections in Korea are 20MB and the SMALLEST you can get is 3MB and what do they pay?? The equivelent of £25 I won't even start on japan....who have the fastest connections in the world for £26!!!! !!! 26,000,000Bits/s Dwonsteam at full pelt!!!!!!!!!!!!!

When is the time going to come when we catch the rest of the world up rather than getting excited about a PROPOSED 1.5MB line that we have to bend over to pay for...............and probably capped so we cannot use the damn thing in the first place!!!


When my letter arrives I am off to plusnet anthough they still only have 256kb/s upload !! Anyone know any faster??

Apart from being very glad I don't share your ubr - I have to ask ;

What the hell do you download to use over 1GB a day !!

[Mauldor]

Does it really matter what people are using there connection for? The same argument of you must be a warez monkey to abuse your connection - if all people want to do is check the web, check email and download the odd thing - they why would they pay for 1 mbit line at soon to be £37.99? ?

So for example lets say we have a 8mbit line made by NTL - then surely the power users or whatever you call them would pay the going rate for that? Leased line prices are a joke to be honest - dont get my wrong - i would love to be able to afford a leased line - then having 2mbit both ways would be great - definalty no limitations apply on this.

People are a bit stuck for choice really - they either buy a contented connection (ADSL, Cable modem) for the affordable price per month or go and re-mortgage there house for a BT Leased Line.

I want a connection that i can use how i want - i dont mind paying extra if i get extra- i would prefer a 1-1 connection with full upload speed but at a price i can afford - BT Keep the prices really high - so thats out the question.

NTL had a trail some time back where they did wire Fibre to some flats in london - this gave the lucky sods 155mbit connection (both ways) for £24 a month - though that never lasted - it shows you what can be achived.

[BBKing]

I think ntl should make broadband medic mandatory

Speaking as a Linux user, no thanks. Not everyone uses a single Windows PC to access broadband, nor should they be forced to. I'd like to see us (ntl) offering online bandwidth monitoring, though.

Other countries - surely no one thinks South Korea lags behind us? They've been an accelerating technological powerhouse for years.

The UK is fairly middle of the road for Europe, some places are better, some worse. Should we be higher? Yes, but the structure of the industry makes it rather difficult, and the government is keener on more people getting broadband than people getting more broadband, if you see what I mean. Hence the interest in BT DSL-ing more exchanges.

Originally Posted by Mauldor

Does it really matter what people are using there connection for?

Yes.

Normal domestic use does not involve downloading over a GB a day.

[kronas]

Originally Posted by Pem

Yes.

Normal domestic use does not involve downloading over a GB a day.

the fact is it is a residential line, in the contract it does not state what the limitations are except it is not meant to be used for business reasons as well as the obvious newly created cap.

however the definition for a 'normal domestic household' is a misnomer because multiple users of the same line can cause you to go over the limit.

when a product is sold either its limitations are stated in the manual or contract.....

now that the 'contract' has been ammended after the person signed up to the product i feel it is wrong to 'point the finger' at people who go over the 'new limit'.

whatever the person uses the service for is up to the individual.

[Neil]

Originally Posted by kronas

the fact is it is a residential line, in the contract it does not state what the limitations are except it is not meant to be used for business reasons as well as the obvious newly created cap.

however the definition for a 'normal domestic household' is a misnomer because multiple users of the same line can cause you to go over the limit.

when a product is sold either its limitations are stated in the manual or contract.....

now that the 'contract' has been ammended after the person signed up to the product i feel it is wrong to 'point the finger' at people who go over the 'new limit'.

whatever the person uses the service for is up to the individual.

Good point, well made.

[Ignition]

Just to mention - the 1GB has been in effect for more than a year now, therefore there is no-one under contract who didn't agree to it as part of T+Cs. Those who disagree with it are outside of their 1 year minimum contract and can leave with no penalties.

[Stop It]

Originally Posted by BBKing

Speaking as a Linux user, no thanks. Not everyone uses a single Windows PC to access broadband, nor should they be forced to. I'd like to see us (ntl) offering online bandwidth monitoring, though.

Then they should make a linux friendly version
But if they have a "forced" cap, then surely they should make us all use a bandwidth meter, if only so they/we know basic usage stats.

[Mauldor]

Originally Posted by Pem

Yes.

Normal domestic use does not involve downloading over a GB a day.

Ok Then - what product do you recommend i buy? I thought about Business Cable from NTl - that has no restrictions - or at least i dont think it has. Is that then not plugged into a normal ubr as well or is this connected a different way. If i payed for the business Cable modem - if i download and upload (which i dont - just using it as a point) - will i then not effect anybody in my area?

Maybe the other soloution is for me to pay for Leased line- so lets see how much this would cost me:-

2mbit leased line
Setup Charge - £1000 + VAT
Monthly Fee - £650 + Vat

Also require a router for that - £700 + VAT

A Business can afford to pay those prices - me as a home user cannot (wish i could) - all im saying is that from one end of the scale to the other its a vast gulf - pity i never lived in a Bulldog area - they use the speed they get from business to allow home users to have a much fatser connection off peak for a lot cheaper then the prices above.

NTL remind me of a HUb (remember them) beofre switches became cheap - the more people transfer at once - the overall speed slows down. What Happens when NTL reach there limit on the current technology? They will have to upgrade everything in the ground or be left behind basically i guess.

[Mauldor]

Originally Posted by Stop It

My god, reading this thread does open your eyes to some hugely dodgy bandwidth usage, and plain ignorance to the fact that if everyone overused ANY ISP's network, they would be brought to a halt.

I agree and disagree - not everyone goes on at 6pm till 8pm and downloads lots of stuff - what happens if say one person did this through the night - the few that are on wont be effected at all (unless like everyone stays up at night).

Although the above is fine on the network - as in it does not effect a lot of customers - you are still breaking the rules. What happens if everybody is on at peak times? this will have a effect as well.

The idea i gather from here is this - if a person who pays there bill expects to get full speed no matter what - is too slow (lets say half speed) then they ring up and complain but that person has the right cos he is not a big downloader. Surely the same argument of Contented service can apply to that line as well?? You get 1mbit etc but if the service is busy - then sorry - but your paying for this type of service and thus you get whatever speed your getting...

Oh and reference the CAP Limit - go browse on ADSL Services out there - thet have various packages out there - lower end of the scale is cheaper and has limits but the more you pay - the more you get - so picking say a 1mbit line will get you not only CAP free service but also Static IP, PHP web space etc.

People are annoyed as the CAP is across the board - soon people will be paying £37.99 for 1mbit which at some point will go upto 1.5mbit - yet the cap is still the same as the person who pays the lowest amount.

Ive said it before in another post - i am free to leave the service - the cap does not bother me in the slightest becuase i tried to leave NTL but they offered me Half price for 3 months. Once that 3 months is up - then i will be on the phone again trying to cancel - i personally would rather pay £32 a month for 1mbit/256 with email that works, no cap whatsoever, PHP/MySQL webspace as standard with Static IP. NTL Have NEVER sent me a letter and I use my connection as i feel the need but then other hand i dont run P2P softare and dont Upload a great deal - it has always been the upload that was the problem (lack of) but NTL somehow got it wrong again and focused on the Downloads... Oh well

[Stuart]

Originally Posted by Stop It

Then they should make a linux friendly version
But if they have a "forced" cap, then surely they should make us all use a bandwidth meter, if only so they/we know basic usage stats.

I don't agree that Broadband medic should be manditory. I agree with BBKing that they should provide some sort of online monitoring, but this should be relatively easy for them to implement over the web (as the usage is tracked for the cap anyway, it should be relatively easy to put that info on the web).

Broadband medic has several major problems (one that affects me).

1) It is windows only. That leaves out all the Mac/Linux/FreeBSD/Solaris/Misc. Unix users. I personally use Windows, so this doesn't really affect me.
2) Assuming that Broadband medic keeps a track of usage itself (much like Dumeter), how would it track usage if connected on a router? This is easy enough if the router supports SNMP (it could retrieve the figure from the router), but if the router doesn't (mine doesn't appear to), it's not easy at all.

You could argue that you can retrieve this info through a Cable Modem. Yes, you can, if the modem supports SNMP, and NTL have enabled it. Those people using STBs in Ex CWC areas would be out of luck though, as NTL have disabled SNMP support on these. If you live in an area where NTL have enabled SNMP support, you can use various products to get usage data from the modem already *

3) If BB Medic retrieved the info from a server somewhere, then NTL would have the same problems of securing that server that they would if they made info available over the web.

If they were to provide this info for all users, I personally think it would be easier for them to provide it over the web.

*SNMP is a standard protocol for retrieving various statistics about network devices and computers. Have a look at http://www.paessler.com/prtg/download for a freeware tool for bandwidth usage monitoring that seems to get good revies.

[th'engineer]

Originally Posted by Pem

Not very.

But they have the opportunity to do so without consultation with customers


Some one mention CAP www.anticap.co.uk

[th'engineer]

Originally Posted by JustAnotherN00b

Just to mention - the 1GB has been in effect for more than a year now, therefore there is no-one under contract who didn't agree to it as part of T+Cs. Those who disagree with it are outside of their 1 year minimum contract and can leave with no penalties.

What about people who signed up to the conditions previous to the CAP /Bandwidth guidance/ Whatever its called today.

They have not re-signed their contract