So I gota letter from NTL today..

thewing

...asking me to limit my downloads to 1GB a day, and that my usage was affecting the bandwidth of others.I prob deserved it(done about 150GB since connected 1st of March), but I know people to have done more, and not received letters.....anyone else got letters?1GB a day is a bit low, I can keep it under the 40GB, just that I might do that over the course of a weekend.....!

At least there was no threats(charging/cutting off) in it, but I guess I'll have to cool it..

paulm17781

What exactly are you doing that requires more than 1GB per day? How much storage space do you have?

spartacus93

I'd go over a gig a day easy. Not every day, but a couple of days a month.

watty

1G a day is about 10 times "normal" usage. So given contention and "fair use clause" in T&C it is very reasonable.

thewing

If your using it for gaming etc, that would be normal use - but if your leeching files etc., then I guess you'll burst the cap pretty quickly.

Storage Space - Quite a bit....

I think that with the upgrades, they are possible getting more complaints, so therefore are stricter.I try to keep most of my d/loading to overnights, can't be causing contention issues at that hour surely?Between 5 and 10 weekdays is pointless anyway cos of the contention....

I thought I'd even calmed down, but according to Dustat, i did 7gb tues/wed alone....if they increase the speed, why not the cap?Cap can be bust in no time now...

DemonOfTheFall

paulm17781 wrote:

What exactly are you doing that requires more than 1GB per day? How much storage space do you have?

Why do people feel the need to post this question every time someone asks about download caps ? What do you care what he's doing with his bandwidth, he's only asking a question.

I got a letter too. Can do 10 gigs roughly in a day sometimes, but usually very little. I think the thing about users experiencing bad speeds is a load of crap, i never get under 2.97 mbps and pings are always grand.

Hopefully they raise it a bit for 10 meg

Noelie

there's not much point in 10meg if the dont increase Caps and upload speed, were the upload speeds increased when the last round of upgrades happened?

zuma

10Mbit connection and 30GB download CAP a month....this makes no sense whatsoever!

In the UK I think they raised the CAP to 75GB and that will probable increase as more people approach it.

Mistmyr

Got the same letter myself today....

Ok last 2 months im guilty over going over the limit but alot actualy but before and over the xmas period i was under it . as the above poster said i think that its the upgrades and possible impact on the network has has triggered the letters.....

i hope we get an increase in the cap when the upgrades go live

Anyway ill calm down now for awhile the oll HD was starting to fill up anyway.

Misty

IDMUD

40 gig cap per month but you can't use more than 1 gig per day. False marketing?

leeroybrown

thewing wrote:

but I know people to have done more, and not received letters...

They may well not be resulting in poor performance for other users where you might be.

DingDong

I'm on my third one of these letters. I think i better calm down a bit

thewing

Third!!That makes me think they have no facility to charge for overuse - there was no threat in the letter only mention of the contention experienced by others...I'll calm it anyway, but prob keep under the 40GB, but I'll def blow the 1 GB a day request...I'd have to pause my d/loads not to break that!!

jimmycrackcorm

zuma wrote:

10Mbit connection and 30GB download CAP a month....this makes no sense whatsoever!

would it make sense if I say that I don't download that much ( I have a life) but when I want to download something, I want it downloaded as fast as possible.

rogue-entity

Since Janurary this year to now, I have downloaded around 14GB. I have not even hit the old bandwidth cap (which was 20Gigs). I normaly just surf around, and occasionaly download large >200Meg files. But can I be candid and ask.

Forgive me for being rather uninformed if not a tad bit nosey but:
What stuff do you people download (except for disc images) that would use more then 1Gig a day and still be legal? And by extension need large >20Gig caps? By any chance are the majority of people here that complain about bandwidth caps and that use large amounts of bandwidth (several gigs in one day) the people that make great use out of P2P networks like BitTorrent for downloading movies and TV shows etc?

My view on this is that ISPs should provide a (more expensive) package that has no limits for you compulsive downloaders, and provide a cheaper package, thats capped, for those of us that dont require such large amounts of bandwidth.

Freddie59

rogue-entity wrote:

Since Janurary this year to now, I have downloaded around 14GB. I have not even hit the old bandwidth cap (which was 20Gigs). I normaly just surf around, and occasionaly download large >200Meg files. But can I be candid and ask.

Forgive me for being rather uninformed if not a tad bit nosey but:
What stuff do you people download (except for disc images) that would use more then 1Gig a day and still be legal? And by extension need large >20Gig caps? By any chance are the majority of people here that complain about bandwidth caps and that use large amounts of bandwidth (several gigs in one day) the people that make great use out of P2P networks like BitTorrent for downloading movies and TV shows etc?

My view on this is that ISPs should provide a (more expensive) package that has no limits for you compulsive downloaders, and provide a cheaper package, thats capped, for those of us that dont require such large amounts of bandwidth.

Very good suggestion. Like most users, I download little or nothing, but, I suppose, if you buy a product, and there's a string attached which they say they will enforce, then they (and others like them) are quire entitled to do so.

It's like doing twice the speed limit and then arguing with a cop that you did it because you can!:)

Jesus Wept

Hi guys... ok, stumbled upon this thread, never posted on boards before.

Got the letter from NTL 2 days ago, I wasn't impressed.

Yes I do download a lot of movies/tv shows, and last 2 days since the letter I've found myself not downloading, which I don't like, feels like been back in school and been told off.

Frankly, It's just a sign of how backward our country is, my swedish friend says he downloads twice as much as I do, and he or no one he has knows have ever hear of such a thing.

The reason I think they said 1gig a day, is that when it says 40gigs, they meant upstream as well as down, and up is usually about 1/3 of down.. i guess.

It reminds me of back in the day, when we had dial up connection, Esat had an 'unlimited' package, where you could connect as much as you wanted, and then sent out letters (I of course got one) to people saying they were abusing it and connecting too much, I guess they didn't understand the meaning of the word 'unlimited' as well as we did.

I think I might just ignore NTL and download as much as I want, hopefully everyone will do the same.

Sure I download more than the average, but some people download less than the average, are NTL going to start getting rid of their customers? I don't bother to complain when the cable tv stops for a few hours, like it does. And have you ever heard of someone been told they leave their TV's on too long?

Also, 1 gig really isn't that much in this day and age, its only about ..50 minutes of video, one tv show.

Why is our country always 20 years behind the rest of Western Europe?


Ok, checked out NTL.co.uk, they have a package for £34.99/€50.64 which allows 75gig download a month, only 10e a month more than what I'm paying.

If they want to create a new package, good luck to them, just wish they would stop bitching and moaning.

And as for their slogan

NTL Broadband: No Barriers

..I think that needs some editing...

SimonMaher

Rigger, that makes perfect sense. We should all download as much as we like and ignore NTL. And then presumably come on here and bitch about how bad the speeds are becoming. Self-defeating-logic I think

Pete

Jesus Wept

No, Pete, We should all come on here and use sarcasm as our only way of expressing our opinions, that makes sense.

If you read my post properly, you would see I said I'm happy if NTL create a new high usage package and charge me more. Also, for nearly the same money, you can download twice as much in the UK, from the same company.

And also, that it shows how far behind Ireland are when it comes to technology, no other country with an economy as strong as ours have these issues.

And as a moderator, I'd of hoped for a more intelligent response, instead of just a sarcastic one, great way to welcome a new member of boards.ie, and first time poster!

Nietzschean

DemonOfTheFall wrote:

I think the thing about users experiencing bad speeds is a load of crap, i never get under 2.97 mbps and pings are always grand.

Except those of us on NTL who do experence bad pings...probally due to being in the same group as several users such as yourself ...

PixelTrawler

The-Rigger wrote:

Frankly, It's just a sign of how backward our country is, my swedish friend says he downloads twice as much as I do, and he or no one he has knows have ever hear of such a thing.

You may have missed the news then that BT in the uk are disconnecting 3000 regular high downloaders, which they class as over 100 gig a month ( cant remember the exact link but it was on BBC news website in the last 2-3 weeks ) in the UK so its not just in ireland this happens....

and in fairness to NTL they are just sending letters requesting you take it easy... they havent cut you off or throttled you... its fairly reasonable

keyran

The-Rigger wrote:

If you read my post properly, you would see I said I'm happy if NTL create a new high usage package and charge me more. Also, for nearly the same money, you can download twice as much in the UK, from the same company.

First off it’s not the same company any more.

To be sending out a REQUEST with no threat attached asking you to stay within the guidelines of the contract you singed and agreed to is fair, there are other providers out there that will charge or cut you off.

As for your “leaving your TV on too long” statement that doesn’t cause an issue to other users so is not a comparison at all. The only comparison I can draw from that is people cutting into the cable and Stealing cable causing bad reception for all the paying customers and I can assure you if I was one of the ones paying and getting ****e reception I would want ntl to send out more then a letter.

The fact they offer speeds UP TO 2 3 and 6 Mb means that they could leave everybody cause the contention issues and when you call them and moan about not getting your full speeds say tough once you are getting any connection at all they are covered. It impresses me that they give a **** about the network enough to not worry about ruffling some feathers to keep it working well.

Also I am sure for all that ignore the letter they can be held solely responsible for what ever charges might be enforced as a direct result of people abusing the system.

kippy

Pretty much everything that can come up in this thread has already been discussed here so it may be worth checking for arguments and counter arguments......
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2054907115

Cabaal

The-Rigger wrote:

Yes I do download a lot of movies/tv shows, and last 2 days since the letter I've found myself not downloading, which I don't like, feels like been back in school and been told off.

Frankly, It's just a sign of how backward our country is, my swedish friend says he downloads twice as much as I do, and he or no one he has knows have ever hear of such a thing.

You subscribed to a capped ISP....if you want a uncapped service then get something like Smart or BT Business but untill then your logic is deeply flawed.

The fact you admit to downloading tv shows and movies which I'm going to presume are illegal does not give you some god given right to break the T&C's of a service you agreed to......plain and simple if you want a better service then prepare to pay the extra buck for such a service.

Jesus Wept

In response to Kippy,

Thanks for the link, finally a decent posting.




In response to JoeBloggs,

I haven't said sending letters is unreasonable, I've simply requested they create more options to cater for the market that exists.

The cap for BT is, from what I read, 100 gigs, on NTL UK it is 75gigs, here it is 40gigs, a mere 40% of what it is available on BT in the UK.

I don't understand why no one on this thread can support me when I say that our Internet access is behind others in Europe, and should be improved, instead of crying saying I am abusing the system.




In Response to Cabaal:

If you are going to quote me, have the good sense to read two sentences past the bit you copy and pasted, I've stated on my postings that I am happy to pay extra, I want NTL to come up with a new package, what is unreasonable about that!?

Also, this thread is nothing to do with illegal downloading, you are completly getting off the point, and if you have never downloaded a song in your life, then that's your choice. If NTL or any other Internet provider got rid of all customers that had downloaded anything illegal, they would be out of business, either way, its not what the post is about, and its a silly thing to bring up.

Also, your suggestion to subscribe to an uncapped service. Getting broadband, even in Dublin can be a bit of an ordeal, Smart Telecom make promises of delivering broadband even when they can't provide the service, even before it was possible for them to provide the service, they were sending me out forms to return to them, promising an engineer would be sent out within 10 days, all of which was untrue, and the service was not available.

Every time I called NTL, they would say it was not available in my area, they could not tell me when it would be, and when I asked could the inform me when it was, they said no, they wouldn't.

Irish broadband just doesn't work, I used it and got rid of it, the signal drops about every 30 minutes, also can take months to get an installation.

So in general, there are not many options in this country, and it is common to latch on to the only provider who can provide any service.


All of this goes back to one of my founding points, that we are behind the rest of the modern world in relation to Internet access, but most of you just want to act like I'm profiteering from my downloading, and trying to scrounge, despite that I've said I am happy to pay extra, if they could provide it!



In response to keyran,

I am not up on the day to day running of NTL Ireland and NTL UK, I assumed, that with the same name, branding and products, that they were the same company, if they aren't, they sure do a great job of looking like it.

You are missing the point, they should improve the network to improve the service.

I am not "abusing the system", I can easily pass 40 gigs a month, I am not downloading around the clock, I am not downloading in order to sell DVDs, etc.

If you were using your mobile every minute of the day, would you get a call from vodafone telling you that your calling too many people? No, you would get charged more.

My Swedish friend downloads twice as much as me without issue, we have always been way behind the rest of Europe/1st world countries in terms of Internet access, and it continues, this is another sign of it.

For 10e more than my package, you can get almost twice as much, 75gig, on NTL uk.

I'm not a little petty thief, screwing the system for all I can get, I am happy to pay extra, if its reasonable, and they create a new option, whats wrong with wanting some options?!


It may impress you that they are willing to send out letters, it would impress me more if they didn't have too, and started providing a better service, they are a poorly run company, but so are most companies I've ever worked for/encountered.

I know I've repeated myself a number of times, but you don't seem to of paid much attention to them the first couple of times anyhow

ghostdancer

thewing wrote:

...asking me to limit my downloads to 1GB a day, and that my usage was affecting the bandwidth of others.I prob deserved it(done about 150GB since connected 1st of March), but I know people to have done more, and not received letters.....anyone else got letters?1GB a day is a bit low, I can keep it under the 40GB, just that I might do that over the course of a weekend.....!

At least there was no threats(charging/cutting off) in it, but I guess I'll have to cool it..

in fairness, it's more of a standard suggestion of fair usage, AFAIK, there's plenty of people that do around 50 or 60 gigs a month and don't get letters or anything. 150GB is taking the piss imo. i don't think they actually mind going over the cap a bit, or going over the daily suggestion, just that smashing the cap the way you did is a bit much...

SimonMaher

Rigger,

You and logic do not seem to be best of buddies on this one. I was not being sarcastic, I was just trying to point out the irony of asking people to ignore the download limits and the letters and do what they like, and to justify it by saying that they should offer you better packages. As it happens, I think its a good idea to have packages that allow greater download limits,but for now, they are not there so I have to go with whats available and the limits I have signed up for.

In effect, what youre saying is that, for now, I should let my service suffer because you dont accept the fair usage limits because you feel there should be more packages which would allow you more downloading?

Im guessing you have given your suggestions to NTL as to what these packages should be and what you are prepared to pay for them. And of course I presume you have told them you are going to ignore their request to limit downloading and that you are advising other people to do likewise?

Otherwise its just all hot air.

Pete

CiaranC

Maybe its different now, but at no point did I agree to any download cap on the NTL broadband service. I simply added broadband to my existing TV services by telephoning the sales department, bought a cable modem, phoned NTL and had them activate the service with the MAC address.

Where is the download cap specified for you guys that are saying you agreed to it? Ive done multiples of the transfer limits bandied about here on many, many occasions over the last 5 years and never heard a word from them.

DemonOfTheFall

Nietzschean wrote:

Except those of us on NTL who do experence bad pings...probally due to being in the same group as several users such as yourself ...

Actually I don't think I go over the cap by much. I doubt I top 50 gigs.

My point was that there is no contention on my exchange. If there were, I wouldn't be using the connection so much.

So how about you keep your condescending attitudes to yourself, eh ?

bk

Ok, NTL don't offer a package with a higher download limit because they don't really enforce the cap.

They only right letters when you start effect other users on the same node. So a higher package would not make any difference, they are already allowing you to download as much as you can.

As for it not being fair, NTL have the fairest cap policy.

Digiweb disconnect you for the rest of the month once you go over the capand UTV chage you 1c a MB when you even go 1MB over the cap (this would cost you over €1000 if you downloaded over 100GB like on NTL.)

Frankly I have no sympathy for those of you who have being dowloading over 100GB a month, downloading copyrigthed material from the net that you have no right to.

BTW if you all ignore the letters from NTL, will start to kick people off or they will introduce charging or throttling for going over that cap. We don't want that, don't mess everything up for the rest of us, NTL offer one of the best BB packages in the country with the fairest policy on caps.

CuLT

Poor old IBB aren't even getting a mention here, every package from the 1MB breeze and up has no cap.

http://www.irishbroadband.ie/products_display.php?id=83

I've only ever seen Smart suggested in these debates, and lets not forget that there are several business level packages that have no caps (you don't even have to run a business to avail of many of these).

Can't get ridiculously fast speeds on NTL with no cap? Vote with your wallet and pay for a business package with another ISP if you're willing to pay more for no caps.

"It's better in Sweden!" Great, we've all been aware of that for many, many years. Users wave this information around as though it proves something, all it proves is that you have no grasp of basic economics.

Nietzschean

DemonOfTheFall wrote:

My point was that there is no contention on my exchange. If there were, I wouldn't be using the connection so much.

Just because you don't feel it doesn't mean it doesn't happen, ntl have some funky routing so one person maxing out a certain link can cause problems in my experence...

So how about you keep your condescending attitudes to yourself, eh ?

How about no.

bk

Nietzschean wrote:

Just because you don't feel it doesn't mean it doesn't happen, ntl have some funky routing so one person maxing out a certain link can cause problems in my experence...

It isn't routing, itis how cable works. Cable is a shared medium. You sare your bandwidth with all the other users of the segment on your local node. If some prick is downloading 100's of GB per month, then all your neighbours suffer.

bk

CuLT wrote:

Poor old IBB aren't even getting a mention here, every package from the 1MB breeze and up has no cap.

I suppose there isn't much use having an unlimited cap when it doesn't work for days or weeks on end or if you get speeds barely higher then dial-up.

CuLT

bk wrote:

I suppose there isn't much use having an unlimited cap when it doesn't work for days or weeks on end or if you get speeds barely higher then dial-up.

Sucks to be those people

My IBB connection has always been just fine.

thund3rbird_

The-Rigger wrote:

In response to keyran,

.......

If you were using your mobile every minute of the day, would you get a call from vodafone telling you that your calling too many people? No, you would get charged more.

you are not comparing like with like

with mobile providers you pay a monthly charge for x amount of minutes / x amount of call value
when you go over that amount you do get charged - as per the service details / t&cs.

ntl don't charge for going over the cap, they politely (content of letters has been posted before) ask you to reduce your usage for the benefit of others on the service and stay within the usage limits

as bk noted - if they adopted the same policy as other ISPs & charged then to exceed your cap by 100Gig would cost big bucks

there have been posts in this thread also where people bitched about not auto getting the 6meg upgrade while paying the same price
same goes for the cap - if other people are paying the same as you and sticking within the 20 / 30 / 40 gig limit then why can't everyone keep to it?

reeks of wanting your toast buttered on both sides

the abusers would be the first on the phone to ntl if the shoe was on the other foot and their service was effected by a minority that choose to ignore the cap.

would you rather receive a letter or possibly run the risk of having your 6 meg reduced to 512k or possibly less due to over(ab)use
this is another option ntl could take - it has been used by other ISPs before :eek:



mind you - as they don't charge / penalise I'd probably rape the bandwidth too if I could get it :rolleyes:

rogue-entity

Here is another option NTL could take, throttle all P2P connections to 56k. That will learn em

I wonder if NTL would mind less if you all did your heavy downloads in the "off-peak" hours when there are less people using the connection, in the same way that ESB is cheaper at night when the demand is lower.

Nietzschean

bk wrote:

It isn't routing, itis how cable works. Cable is a shared medium. You sare your bandwidth with all the other users of the segment on your local node. If some prick is downloading 100's of GB per month, then all your neighbours suffer.

I'm aware of how cable works, my issues normally arise when certain routes through ntl are saturated(normally to INEX peers)......

so slow dl from ftp.heanet/h365 + big ping, where as uk sites will give fine ping....

Nietzschean

rogue-entity wrote:

I wonder if NTL would mind less if you all did your heavy downloads in the "off-peak" hours when there are less people using the connection, in the same way that ESB is cheaper at night when the demand is lower.

that could potentially solve my issue anyway, it is implmented by some isps elsewhere iirc.... throttle p2p ports heavily during peak times....

CiaranC

Throttle P2P to allieviate ping response times issues for a tiny minority of users, great idea. Makes great business sense to be the only ISP in Ireland to do that and drive all your customers to DSL, just so one guy can get slightly higher scores in counter strike :rolleyes:

Believe it or not, people pay for broadband so they can transfers large amounts of data quickly. Without that function, its pretty pointless.

Nietzschean

peak times of 5 - 9pm? not going to annoy anyone except those downloading tv shows violating copyrights.....

I doubt you would see any shift in users away from NTL, people would just adjust their download habbits so illegal stuff comes in after midnight.....

And for the record i don't play counterstrike.

Snowbat

The problem with throttling P2P is it can affect anything that uses non-standard ports... Skype, VoIP, VPN, ssh/sftp over non-standard ports, new online services that the provider hasn't identified and put in a bypass for, etc.

Clearwire tried it and look what happened:
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2054848649

Apart from that, so long as users are staying within their agreed bandwidth limit, why should they have to suffer rate limiting on certain ports? They are paying for an internet connection, not a quasi-connection that only works properly on port 80.

Gateway

Bin the letter's!

I think I've had 4 of them at this stage. When I signed on the dotted line I signed up to a no cap service so that's what I expect and thats what I get. If they haven't even got the brain power to update there website what in the bejaysus are they going to do if I go over the limit. I couldn't give a toss about the bull**** they write in those letter's

That's the great thing about Lucan there's plenty of BB to chose from!

Nietzschean

emm there was a fair use clause, which they can happily use to rate limit your service or just kick you off.... (the whole no limits thing anyone?)

And as for choice, the other bb providers are generally much more restrictive in their caps...and tend to be slower too

Gateway

Nietzschean wrote:

emm there was a fair use clause, which they can happily use to rate limit your service or just kick you off.... (the whole no limits thing anyone?)

And as for choice, the other bb providers are generally much more restrictive in their caps...and tend to be slower too

There was no fair use clause, what there was was a "no cap" clause. Anyway that doesn't mean anything now because they've changed it. but who cares

So Nietzschean you're saying they have 2 choice's rate limit or kick me off. Well seeing as you've just promoted yourself to MD of NTL and left out the non existing 3rd choice here it is for you "NTL will charge you ?? cent for every MB over your cap"

I've already offer them those 3 choices but they don't want to bother implementing them, so until they do its a no cap service!

Nietzschean

Gateway wrote:

So Nietzschean you're saying they have 2 choice's rate limit or kick me off. Well seeing as you've just promoted yourself to MD of NTL and left out the non existing 3rd choice here it is for you "NTL will charge you ?? cent for every MB over your cap"

I've already offer them those 3 choices but they don't want to bother implementing them, so until they do its a no cap service!

Given thankfully users such as yourself are still in the minority they will hopefully opt for the rate limit/kick off methods as its got a much lower admin overhead than charging you

Gateway

Nietzschean wrote:

Given thankfully users such as yourself are still in the minority they will hopefully opt for the rate limit/kick off methods as its got a much lower admin overhead than charging you

I have no problem with that.

donspeekinglesh

watty wrote:

1G a day is about 10 times "normal" usage. So given contention and "fair use clause" in T&C it is very reasonable.

1Gb a day is normal use according to the NTL T&Cs last time I looked.
My p2p d/ling is confined to the hours between 0100 and 0800, and is usually in and around the 1Gb mark. Though in recent days it's been far less.

DemonOfTheFall

Almost all of my cap usage comes from NTL's own Usenet servers. I'm sure the same can be said for most heavy bandwidth users with NTL connections.

If there are contention issues in the routing inside their own network, between my house and their usenet servers then I think thats a problem with a poor network design.

I like to feel that I'm not doing anyone any harm by downloading stuff from their usenet servers, don't see why it would be contending bandwidth that other people need for anything else. If they have any sense there is a seriously fat pipe going to their usenet servers.

thewing

So I haven't d/loaded anything since last wed...have about 20GB to go for the rest of the month, so time to leech!!

I agree with Rigger, I'd pay an extra 10 yoyo a month for a bigger cap.Some people need speed, some need a high cap, but then others need both - that's us...

CiaranC

Same here, latency/ping times mean nothing to me, I have broadband to transfer large amounts of data, nothing else.