BT (UK) to cut off 4,000 heavy users

crawler

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/03/23/bt_hogs/

Heavy users get the chop....100Gigs a month to go...

Sponge Bob

So up to 100Gb a month is fair usage in BT then

matilda96

crawler wrote:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/03/23/bt_hogs/

Heavy users get the chop....100Gigs a month to go...

Good.
It is about time that the poor little ISP's decided to stand up to the constant abusers that feel they _HAVE_ to download something because thay canGood.
It is about time that the poor little ISP's decided to stand up to the constant copyright infringing scroungers that insist on making themselves blind with there Internet connection.

People these days seem to think that a cap is a target not a limit and they haven't gotten some moneys worth until they have sucked the marrow from the bone or taken every greasy penny from the till.

We are all at the mercy of “cocntention” because we are all to tight to pay for an uncontended service and this downright abuse by THEM is causing u to suffer while bittorrent is slowly killing the internet.

kin9pin

Don't beat around the bush...say what you really think!

DonkeyStyle \o/

Hey maybe they were just sending their holiday videos to family and friends.
"Hey I made a DVD of my trip to India... lemme just email to to you "

Really can't understand how people get anywhere near 100gigs a month, madness :eek:

Cabaal

In fairness I see nothing wrong with this, BT's top Home DSL service has a 40GB cap...if your going to take the piss and use more then double the allowed cap you need to move to a more suitable provider that will not have a issue with 100GB down in a month.

These people deserve everything they get.

kippy

I agree with the stance as well and would like to see it in here for anyone wildly breaking the download caps consistantly.......
If you want no caps you should be paying that bit extra.
Bandwidth isnt an infinite resource.....
Kippy

CL7

There simply isn't an option to pay extra for most people here in Ireland. Its not that hard to break our measly cap of 30G. One HDTV lost ep is nearly 5 gigs. At €40 + vat for BT broadband plus a 100g cap would be fair.

probe

crawler wrote:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/03/23/bt_hogs/

Heavy users get the chop....100Gigs a month to go...

Surely it's a bit dumb to cut them off - why not charge heavy users more based on the traffic vol?

probe

Bogger77

Fionn^ wrote:

There simply isn't an option to pay extra for most people here in Ireland. Its not that hard to break our measly cap of 30G. One HDTV lost ep is nearly 5 gigs. At €40 + vat for BT broadband plus a 100g cap would be fair.

Of course, the copyright holders of the said Lost episode would fully agree with you downloading it.

Tech Pete

Bogger77 wrote:

Of course, the copyright holders of the said Lost episode would fully agree with you downloading it.

Was about to say that too!

daveirl

This post has been deleted.

zuma

Fionn^ wrote:

There simply isn't an option to pay extra for most people here in Ireland. Its not that hard to break our measly cap of 30G. One HDTV lost ep is nearly 5 gigs. At €40 + vat for BT broadband plus a 100g cap would be fair.

If you like downloading the MPEG2 version suitable for DVD players :eek: !

"I have heard" that HDTV versions of Lost are encoded using Xvid and come in at 350MB an episode.....a friend of a friend of a friend of a second cousins friend told me that:cool: .

CL7

Bogger77 wrote:

Of course, the copyright holders of the said Lost episode would fully agree with you downloading it.

You're straying off topic so your point is neither here nor there. I was trying to illustrate the point that the cap is too small at 30G, not start a discussion on copyright infringement. Isp's are not copyright enforcers, they just provide a service. The fact is that "illegal " downloading forms a large part of internet traffic. Start a new thread concerning copyright and I'll gladly give you my opinion.

CL7

daveirl wrote:

This post has been deleted.

lols..........no not me. I don't even have a Hi-def tv so it would be fairly pointless. Even if I did I doubt I'd bother. I was just trying to make a point.

Tech Pete

Fionn^ wrote:

There simply isn't an option to pay extra for most people here in Ireland.

1. Get an Unlimited Business account.

Fionn^ wrote:

Its not that hard to break our measly cap of 30G.

2. It is if your only gettin legal content from the internet.
And if the cap is too low see point 1.

Fionn^ wrote:

One HDTV lost ep is nearly 5 gigs.

3. Highly Illegal

Fionn^ wrote:

At €40 + vat for BT broadband plus a 100g cap would be fair.

4. 100Gigs cannot be justified on the download of legal content.
Please try.

So you see 30 gig caps are more than enough for those who stay inside the law. So why would they offer a cap higher than a user would ever need?
Whats that i hear you say? So you can get more illegal content? Well if you think they would supply a larger cap for that reason then your mad.

So all your points 1-4 are of an illegal nature...

zuma

Well from reading the above article its clear that the disconnections at the end of last month were a shot across the bow.....the next disconnects may be permanent!!!

kippy

Totally agree with Tech Petes post above. EVERYTHING in it is valid and answers the previous issues raised about downloading caps.....

lynchie

Tech Pete wrote:

4. 100Gigs cannot be justified on the download of legal content.
Please try.

100GB is easily accomplished using legal content. I do it all the time. In fact i've used 223GB one month (on an uncapped package btw). Performing nightly off-site backups of email and other docs/files over a VPN link to an office can easily consume 4-5GB a night.

oscarBravo

lynchie wrote:

Performing nightly off-site backups of email and other docs/files over a VPN link to an office can easily consume 4-5GB a night.

Sounds like an inefficient backup strategy tbh. Can't you do incremental/differential backups?

Tech Pete

oscarBravo wrote:

Sounds like an inefficient backup strategy tbh. Can't you do incremental/differential backups?

Also sounds like you use the BB for business related purposes.
Therefore i would point you to Point 1 but u already went the extra yard to get an unlimited package.

slave1

Lads lads lads, why does every thread about downloading get caught up with illegal downloads, the trend these days is tv episodes, who out there has not used their vcr to tape something off the tv, or in the past has not given a lend of a film or album to a friend, remember the "old" days when you would tape a record for your friends?
With the likes of Battlestar Galactia, Lost, Smallville, Grey's Anatomy, Prison Break, House, ER, etc etc etc all being available in the US in crystal clear reception you can see how tv viewing can eat into limits and its something we've all done when using our VCR - don't digress into "personal use", its still illegal.
Enough already
Live and let live, there are more important things in life rather than bitching about folk you do not know doing stuff you don't like.
Can't say I like the net being riddled with porn but hey, let em off
Folk need to relax a bit more...

Rant over

jor el

Tech Pete wrote:

4. 100Gigs cannot be justified on the download of legal content.
Please try.

So you see 30 gig caps are more than enough for those who stay inside the law. So why would they offer a cap higher than a user would ever need?
Whats that i hear you say? So you can get more illegal content? Well if you think they would supply a larger cap for that reason then your mad.

So all your points 1-4 are of an illegal nature...

There are plenty of legal ways for a home user to use more than 30G a month. TV episodes are now becoming available legally via itunes. There's a mountain of porn sites that offer streaming and downloadable content, all perfectly legal, for a monthly fee. Movies are also available to download, legally, most of which are not from major studios yet but still they are available. Warner Brothers are trialling a legal movie download service too, and others are sure to follow. There's streaming and downloadable audio.

So you see, there's plenty of legal content, both free and paid for, on the internet that could push you over 30G a month. "So you see 30 gig caps are more than enough for those who stay inside the law" is complete crap.

The way people use the internet is changing, and the ISPs need to change with it. Just as the movie and music houses have been forced into changing their business models due to P2P.

Tech Pete

jor el wrote:

So you see, there's plenty of legal content, both free and paid for, on the internet that could push you over 30G a month.

Thats ok i accept that. Excellent point.

But if you require over 30 Gigs why dont you buy a package with over a 30 gig cap?
I buy a car with a 20 litre fuel tank i dont complain that its too small.
I buy a new car with a bigger one.

zuma

Tech Pete wrote:

But if you require over 30 Gigs why dont you buy a package with over a 30 gig cap?

Name 5 home packages with CAPS over 30GB a month please?

Tech Pete

zuma wrote:

Name 5 home packages with CAPS over 30GB a month please?

If 30 Gigs isnt enough for you then try the following packages.

1. Irish Broadband (NO Cap)
2. Eircom Business Line (NO Cap)
3. NTL (40 Gig Cap)
4. BT Business Line (NO Cap)
5. Smart
6. Magnet
7. Netsource

And if you cannot afford/avail of these due to regional issues or distance then thats just tough luck.

Yes i know 3 are business packages but they are available for home users.

jor el

Tech Pete wrote:

But if you require over 30 Gigs why dont you buy a package with over a 30 gig cap?

I do, and I'll be off to Smart for unlimited (fair use) broadband in June. I'd stick with BT (even though it's more expensive) if they had doubled the cap in the last upgrade, but it seems unlikely.

For a lot of people, there are unfortunately no uncapped options. The business options are very expensive and sometimes only available to businesses, and not home users.

oscarBravo

slave1 wrote:

Lads lads lads, why does every thread about downloading get caught up with illegal downloads, the trend these days is tv episodes, who out there has not used their vcr to tape something off the tv, or in the past has not given a lend of a film or album to a friend, remember the "old" days when you would tape a record for your friends?
With the likes of Battlestar Galactia, Lost, Smallville, Grey's Anatomy, Prison Break, House, ER, etc etc etc all being available in the US in crystal clear reception you can see how tv viewing can eat into limits and its something we've all done when using our VCR - don't digress into "personal use", its still illegal.

There's a difference between taping something from the TV to watch later ("timeshifting") and (say) copying a friend's DVD rather than buy it yourself.

Phone.Book

Tech Pete wrote:

1. Get an Unlimited Business account.


2. It is if your only gettin legal content from the internet.
And if the cap is too low see point 1.


3. Highly Illegal



4. 100Gigs cannot be justified on the download of legal content.
Please try.

So you see 30 gig caps are more than enough for those who stay inside the law. So why would they offer a cap higher than a user would ever need?
Whats that i hear you say? So you can get more illegal content? Well if you think they would supply a larger cap for that reason then your mad.

So all your points 1-4 are of an illegal nature...

lol!

slave1

There's a difference between taping something from the TV to watch later ("timeshifting") and (say) copying a friend's DVD rather than buy it yourself.

whilst there is a difference, both are illegal

CL7

Tech Pete wrote:

So you see 30 gig caps are more than enough for those who stay inside the law. So why would they offer a cap higher than a user would ever need?

No sorry, you're totally wrong here.

Tech Pete wrote:

So all your points 1-4 are of an illegal nature...

Wrong again Pete. I made one lazy reference to a HDTV lost episode which in hindsight was a mistake. Jor el has already shown how easy it is legally to break a 30G cap so there's no point in going into it again.

Tech Pete wrote:

Yes I know 3 are business packages but they are available for home users.

Yes, we should pay up to 6 times more for an unlimited service than our neighbours in the UK and the rest of the world. Why?, because we're Irish and that just the way it is?

Tech Pete wrote:

And if you cannot afford/avail of these due to regional issues or distance then that’s just tough luck.

This point is very well thought out and made. Very similar to eircoms attitude and one of the main reasons our broadband network is so far behind the rest of Europe.

Calibos

zuma wrote:

If you like downloading the MPEG2 version suitable for DVD players :eek: !

"I have heard" that HDTV versions of Lost are encoded using Xvid and come in at 350MB an episode.....a friend of a friend of a friend of a second cousins friend told me that:cool: .

A friend told me that they are recordings of a HDTV broadcast but have been scaled down to SD resolutions, thus the smaller file sizes. The friend told me that even though they have been scaled down the quality is great and one should always download these in preferance to the same episode recorded from a SD source. The friend told me that BattleStar Galactica is not shown in HDTV in the states and thus all BSG rips are recorded from an SD source. He says the picture is much softer and blurrier than the HDTV rips like Lost even though the actual resolution of the resulting XVid files is the same SD res.

The friend watches these on a 8 foot screen via his HD projector which would be as unforgiving as they come with regard to PQ, ie compression artifacts/ low res of these files etc would be easier to see. The firend says however that he is amazed by the PQ of these 'Low' Downscaled res, high compression 350mb Xvid HDTV rips on his big screen. He says that to his eyes they look almost DVD quality. ie somewhere between a very very good live showing of one of these eps on Digital TV (NTL) and an actual dvd boxset version of the same ep.

The friend does not feel too concerned with the legalities because he merely uses the internet to watch these episodes early and always buys the dvd boxsets when they finally go on sale over here, A fact he could prove if it ever went to court which I am sure would ensure leniency by the authorities assuming also that he promised never to do it again..........but what are the chances that it would ever happen.

Tech Pete

Fionn^ wrote:

This point is very well thought out and made. Very similar to eircoms attitude and one of the main reasons our broadband network is so far behind the rest of Europe.

I totally agree. Its **** that we are so far behind!
But sadly those are the only answers to your questions.

No company is just going to up the cap unless they are in dire need of customers and appeal to that market. Clearly the home packages arent aimed at heavy users and these are the only options left. Im a heavy user and a gamer and hence why i went with NTL even though its more expensive.

oscarBravo

slave1 wrote:

whilst there is a difference, both are illegal

Timeshifting is illegal? Can you cite either legislation or case law to support this?

slave1

The friend watches these on a 8 foot screen via his HD projector which would be as unforgiving as they come with regard to PQ, ie compression artifacts/ low res of these files etc would be easier to see. The firend says however that he is amazed by the PQ of these 'Low' Downscaled res, high compression 350mb Xvid HDTV rips on his big screen. He says that to his eyes they look almost DVD quality

All true, I watch 350mg xvid hdtv rips on my 44" screen - via RGB Scart out from the PC - and they are better than TV reception, so clear.

I like your explanation of BSG, I was wondering why the picture was so "soft"

kippy

A few points here:
slave1,
Your rant above falls a bit short of what is relevant here however you did bring up some good points.
The topic is related to a number of users getting cut off in the UK because of consistant abuse of the limited cap on their BB.
We are pointing out that in most cases 30 gig a month is MORE THAN enough for most users and those who break it at this moment in time (Good point by the person above mentioning about the imminent legal availability of movies and TV shows etc) may be doing so with illegal downloads of movies, shows etc etc.
You are saying that we should live and let live and compare downloading movies/ TV programmes ilegally with taping stuff of the TV illegally (although widely accepted as you point out)
In the context of this thread your point does not stand up. When you tape off the TV you do not cause someone elses TV "Connection" to run slower nor to you use any of the available "bandwidth". When however you download a movie etc from the net you do use bandwidth and also if you consistantly do it, degrade Qos for users- if you are paying for an extra bigger cap then this should be of no worry to you since you are paying extra for the service.
It's also still not "Easy" to break the 30 gig cap for the majority of users. It would cost you quite a bit to break it legally and as such you should probably be able to aford an uncapped connection.

The bottom line here is that those users in the UK consistantly broke the CAP which was outlined in the terms and conditions of their contract with BT. BT has the right to cut them off-this is also the case with most if not all terms and conditions of BB contracts here in ireland.

As for the argument that we are way behind the rest of the EU.
Well we are-and for the moment we have to live with it.
If you want to be downloading gigs and gigs of data per month then pay the extra if not accept the caps that are there with the packages available at the moment and tailor your downloads to suit.
CAPS are there to keep it fair for everyone, we'd ll like a five bed house in a great location but not all of us can afford one so we make do with what we can afford.
Some day prices may crash, and we will be able to afford one then but for the moment we make do with what we have.

slave1

I get your points kippy, so maybe to provide some extra context to my post...

folk assume you can only exceed your limit by illegal downloading

folk make illegal steps - e.g. lending a film to a friend, taping a copyright broadcast off the TV, recording a record in times past - without thinking twice, yet cast stones at those doing a "similar" event using the net

my reference to live and let live, was to to put the arguement into the context of living with each other, whilst something to discuss/debate, we're not talking life or death

My post was in essence two fold.

Come to the argument with clean hands
Stop making every thread about illegal downloading

The thread itself digressed from the original spirit and it's bugging to see people bitching about illegal downloading which pulls most threads these days off the topic, ironically I fueled the digression

kippy

Slave1,
Yes, I see what you are saying.
However as I pointed out there is a difference in downloading material (whether legal or not) and recording/swapping/ dvd's videos etc......
While both illegal (none moreso than the other)-DOWNLOADING effects more people who also use the same internet connection-they are paying the same money as the downloader and should not expect to get a poorer service because some people download illegal material-hence the need for CAPS
I agree with your point about folk assuming that the only way to break a 30 meg cap is by downloading illegal materials. Many fold do assume this-myself included.
And to be honest I think that if a person is breaking a 30 gig cap by 20 gig or more each month CONSISTANTLY then they are more than likely breaking some law with the materials that they are downloading. (most people that is)This would obviously not be the case in most situations however it would be interesting to see the figures of the 4000 people who BT are cutting off.....of course we will never see these but it would be interesting.
Indeed we are not talking live of death - (in regards breaking the law-which is not the issue here as you rightly point out)
What we are talking about is:

The bottom line here is that those users in the UK consistantly broke the CAP which was outlined in the terms and conditions of their contract with BT. BT has the right to cut them off-this is also the case with most if not all terms and conditions of BB contracts here in ireland.

and as such I dont think there is too much else left to discuss as its pretty clear cut.

oscarBravo

slave1 wrote:

folk make illegal steps - e.g. lending a film to a friend,

Whoah. Lending a DVD is illegal now?

slave1 wrote:

...taping a copyright broadcast off the TV...

You haven't backed this up yet. If timeshifting is illegal, what legal purpose does a VCR serve?

grumpytrousers

OscarBravo wrote:

If timeshifting is illegal, what legal purpose does a VCR serve?

(most of this OT..sorry) Playback of commercially available videotapes innit.

Your're dead right OB...and I was saying this over on Legal Discussion that there were cases in the early 80's between the telly stations and the VCR makers (JVC, I think, mainly) about the whole nature of this, and I think the idea is that (and this test was forumalated in a more innocent age!) say if you had needlework classes on a monday night and would miss Lost, there's nothing wrong with you taping it to watch it later. The notion would be that you are effecively still 'in sync' with the rest of the plebs, and you're staying within the terms of agreement/license that the copyright holder has with the broadcaster.

Anyway - short answer, if 'timeshifting' was illegal, sky plus wouldn't exist, now would it!

oscarBravo

grumpytrousers wrote:

Playback of commercially available videotapes innit.

A recording head wouldn't be required for that.

grumpytrousers wrote:

Anyway - short answer, if 'timeshifting' was illegal, sky plus wouldn't exist, now would it!

Zing!