BT Fair usage Policy

[Diakatarnis]

Ok well I'm very annoyed. I've been with bt for well .. 5 odd years now I think with no problems at all. In the last couple of weeks they have decided to reduce my speed because I hit their fair usage limit this month and was close last month ????

I'm on option 3 Unlimited UNLIMITED .... does that not mean i dont have some crappy cap :|

So after whining down the phone the guy said I downloaaded over 50 gigs in the last month. So I explained that there was Crysis Beta, Tabula Rasa, Portals, HL2 EP2, Universe at War, and Frontlines.

This and the fact that HL2 EP 2 and portals was downloaded on 4 diffferent machines :|

So now i have to speak to the "Customer Services" team.

After routing through their FAQ and Support, about 10 links in I find about 5 lines on the option 3 Fair usage policy. They also mention that I will only get reduced speed during peak times ?? What are peak times? I'm sitting here on a supposedly 8mb line getting a whopping 420k :|

So I'm thinking of moving to Be, only problem is that the BT contract was only renewed about 1 month ago, but never have they mentioned about this fair usage, and it was never on the original contract signed 5 years ago. Also their breaking their own Terms and Conditions if they dont put my line speed back up to full after peak time is over??

Any ideas? Any evil scemes to get they to do mein bidding?

Be n e good? do they have fair usage policy?

Cheeers :D

[Blizzard_Wolf]

Im with be and i have NO speed reductions at all.

ive heard that 500 GB is the limit (which may not be true), but i havent heard about anyone breaking it, i can only recieve 8mb cause of the line distance, beats having 4 Mb on adsl.

[Unplugged]

pretty much any "unlimited" anything now in the UK comes with a magic star with the terms "Fair Use Policy" its misadvertisement but they get away with it by some twist of logic.

Everything will have a cap of something once you start costing an ISP more in bandwidth than they make of you in profit they will be clean to oust you.

[Diakatarnis]

Grrrrr. ah you see buuttt BUUTTt if you look on their webpage, it has no star or anything :S

[__OpenGL__]

I wont comment on BT's fair usage crapola, however be have been fantastic to me. Cant complain and the latest price drops have sealed my deal totally.

Im just hoping the influx of o2 customers wont kill the service for us all...

[Elkeeed]

Fair usage has always been in BT adsl contracts since the beginning because it was originally there to deal with people who actually did abuse the system. Its only more recently that ISPs have been using it to enforce caps. If you don't like it you are pretty much screwed. You could fight and say their definition of fair usage is too restrictive but the chances of winning that are slim to none.

[kandy]

If your going to pay £10-£25 a month for a DSL connection, what do you expect.

A decent 'unlimited' (or with an insanely high cap) connection you don't get traffic shaped on will cost you around the £40-£55 a month mark.

[__OpenGL__]

Having said that be unlimited is only £18/month.

[Bluey]

I thought BT's fair usuage policy was only at peak times of 6pm till 11pm though and any throttling happened between those hours? So if you downloaded your games and patches out of those hours not only would it be quicker but it would keep the (insert Godwin's law reference) off your back as well.

I say this as i've recently only just had mine installed have recently downloaded the released orange box preloads and am worried that i'll be kneecapped on this supposedly "unlimited" service that I picked because i knew i'd be downloading GB's worths of games, demos and betas.
Plus the phone on the homehub won't charge and is a plastic brick.

[kandy]

Having said that be unlimited is only £18/month.

With no traffic shaping or speed restrictions? I would be very surprised if thats the case.

[Bluey]

they're an awful ISP, for the simple fact that they don't supply a service in my area :D

[__OpenGL__]

With no traffic shaping or speed restrictions? I would be very surprised if thats the case.

Im on be pro... but ive not noticed any traffic shaping or limits. Its not £22/month too :-D

[Diakatarnis]

I thought BT's fair usuage policy was only at peak times of 6pm till 11pm though and any throttling happened between those hours?

Well that i think was the idea but alas at 1:00am last night i was getting 600k bit of a improvement from the 400k before but still :\


now im upto 4.5mb and were still not at the speed I can achieve.

Now surley if they dont restore the line speed after peak time, their acctualy breaking their own terms and conditions?

[p1RATE]

ive actualy complained to ofcom about this before, they advertise unlimited but there is a 100GB a month limit on BT lines.

BE are the only company that i know that dont kick u in the nuts for downloading too much. they are actual owned by O2 so im not sure if they are a distant part of BT and get away with using BT lines and not using BT rules.

im with NTL atm who are ok, unless i want to download more than 4GB between 4 and 12 then they will slap my speed down.

[ez64]

BT do not own 02 anymore it was sold to telefonica

[her0n]

Be are actually awesome awesome people :awesome:

[Diakatarnis]

but how can i get out of this damn contract :\ I'm feeling the love for Be but need to get a MAC code form BT first. I think i can prolly bitch at them about their fair usage and the fact they are not putting my line speed back up after peak :|

But ... will they screw me more?

[GeeDee]

they're an awful ISP, for the simple fact that they don't supply a service in my area :D

BTw don't supply a DSL service in your area?