Digiweb - Is this fair?

nd

I receieved this email from digiweb

===========
Dear Sir,Madam,

The bandwidth usage on your Digiweb DSL Broadband package over the last 30 days is as follows:

Upload: 35651 MB

Download: 8974 MB

Total: 44625 MB

Digiweb has a policy of allowing users flexibility on contended links however the figures above are deemed to be excessive and could impact the performance of the network for other users.

The purpose of this mail is to inform you that your DSL connection has been restricted to 128Kbps. This restriction will remain in place until one of the following actions has been taken

1) Your 30 day traffic usage falls back within the traffic quota advertised for your existing packageor

2) You upgrade to a higher package which offers a large enough traffic quota to deal with your current usage levels

In order to upgrade your connection you should contact our sales team on 1800285828.

Regards,

Digiweb
===============


I have their dsl Xtra product and have a 40 gb allowance and normally have a 3Mbps connection. For going 4.625 gb over the limit my connecting has been reduced to 128Kbps for a month! Does that seem fair to you all and think it's acceptable and is would you conplain to them about it if you were me?

Hobart

How long have you had the Digiweb connection? Ask them for a report covering your lats 3-6 mnths usage. Work out the average. Personally, I would tell them to cop on.

Gone West

just stop your bittorrent uploading!

nd

I'm not sure exactly but I think I've been with them approxamately nine months. Yes this is the first time they have ever told me that I've gone over the limit and yeah it seems totally ridiculous to me. I'd say fair enough if they reduced it down to 2mbs or 1.5 or something like that but 128kps!

nd

FuzzyLogic wrote:

just stop your bittorrent uploading!

I've no idea how I could possibly have uploaded that amount! I do use azeurous but I normally download as much or more than I upload and I don't even use it all THAT much.

kc66

There are different packages for differrent user requirements. If you need more than your package allows maybe you should not be on that one? I can understand being píssed off if its a one off thing but they need to enforce some sort of penalty. If they didnt then you could get the lowest package (even if it is slower) and download all you want.

nd

kc66 wrote:

There are different packages for differrent user requirements. If you need more than your package allows maybe you should not be on that one? I can understand being píssed off if its a one off thing but they need to enforce some sort of penalty. If they didnt then you could get the lowest package (even if it is slower) and download all you want.

Yeah but I went 4.625 gb over the limit on a 40gb allowance....And as a penalty I've had my 3mps connection reduced to 128kps for a month........you think that seems reasonable?

nd

on and the cheaper npackages have a lower limit....this is one of the more expensive packages.

zAbbo

nd wrote:

Yeah but I went 4.625 gb over the limit on a 40gb allowance....And as a penalty I've had my 3mps connection reduced to 128kps for a month........you think that seems reasonable?

Is it not a rolling 30 days allowance?

Which means your allowance is 40gb over 30 days, just wait a day or two, for the 30 day total to come down.

nd

zabbo wrote:

Is it not a rolling 30 days allowance?

Which means your allowance is 40gb over 30 days, just wait a day or two, for the 30 day total to come down.

I'm not sure about that......I presumed it was a monthly allowance.
Does anyone know if they have a utility on their website for checking your usage? I don't believe they have but am not certain?

peepsbates

nd wrote:

I'm not sure about that......I presumed it was a monthly allowance.
Does anyone know if they have a utility on their website for checking your usage? I don't believe they have but am not certain?

Get DUmeter for keeping track of your uploads/downloads

Sponge Bob

nd wrote:

I've no idea how I could possibly have uploaded that amount! I do use azeurous

Your aggregate usage (up + down) is now 40Gb but as the uplink speed is only 256k or 384k on a 3mbit package you HAVE been busy. I am not sure whether Digiweb have an aggregate cap or a download cap like some others.

If you have no idea at all thats dangerous, hopefully its not a spam zombie or a warez server that was 'installed' on your system

dub45

Have you checked your terms and conditions? It should all be covered in there. The most you will get here is speculation and maybe some sympathy but it is up to you to sort out the situation with Digiweb.

kaizersoze

Could be worse. If you were UTV that indescretion would cost you around €70.

ghostdancer

zabbo wrote:

Is it not a rolling 30 days allowance?

Which means your allowance is 40gb over 30 days, just wait a day or two, for the 30 day total to come down.

you'd think that wouldn't ya, but i was waiting a week for mine to come back down from 44gb, only back to full speed today after getting the email last monday that it was being restricted. i'm fairly sure i read somewhere on Boards that restricted accounts are only reviewed every week....having DU Meter installed and there being virtually no heavy download days that would have caused some kind of in-balance throughout the month, that's the only thing i can think of that makes sense.
between that, and 30day rolling transfer limit, it really is far too hard to monitor what's going, especially seeing as digiweb provide no stats information....

thankfully it's not as bad as 2 months back when i'd allegedly done 140gb that month, which wasn't remotely possible, but couldn't do much about it seeing as they don't have any itemised info on the site. having installed DU Meter at home here however i knew for a fact that it wasn't anywhere near what digiweb were saying. thankfully one of the other Digiweb tech support guys got it sorted out and got us back from the restricted service, which was actually 64kbps, but wouldn't even load webpages...

corepl

nd wrote:

I'm not sure about that......I presumed it was a monthly allowance.
Does anyone know if they have a utility on their website for checking your usage? I don't believe they have but am not certain?

I think it is. It's much better than charging customers per every extra MB.
Other European telcos use such approach.

Why are you surprised ? You have agreed to this in your contract.

Check if you can get Smart or NTL in your area.

Foxwood

ghostdancer wrote:

especially seeing as digiweb provide no stats information....

I've seen a couple of rferences to http://mytraffic.digiweb.ie. What's the story with that?

kc66

Foxwood wrote:

I've seen a couple of rferences to http://mytraffic.digiweb.ie. What's the story with that?

Thats for metro.

They use a 30 day rolling period and if your traffic goes back below your quota it automatically gets unrestricted.

Mutant_Fruit

I got limited today too. My sister decided to go on a downloading spree and transferred over 22 gigs in the last 7 days. So it'll probably be 3 weeks before i'm unlimited again. Needless to say she's been firmly warned now. Having a connection this slow is going to severely impact my regular usage now :mad: In fact, there's some things i *cannot* do now.

dub45

As a matter of interest do they warn customers upfront about this type of sanction? I had a quick look at the terms and condtions and there did not seem to be anything too obvious there (thats not to say its not just that I did not see it!) Surely something like this should be made very clear to the customer before they sign up?

ghostdancer

kc66 wrote:

They use a 30 day rolling period and if your traffic goes back below your quota it automatically gets unrestricted.

no, it doesn't, i've totted up my traffic from 30 days previously and it should have only taken 2/3 days for me to drop back down by 4gb, it took a week for it to happen.



dub45, yes, it's mentioned somewhere signing up anyway, i can't remember where but i definitely saw the "64kbps restriction for going over the limit" part before signing up.

MunsterCycling

Has anyone questioned the legality of imposing a restriction on an account from which you cannot check your usage online from the ISPs server? One for the toothless bunch in ComRag to deny is their responsibility I suppose...

Sponge Bob

MunsterCycling wrote:

Has anyone questioned the legality of imposing a restriction on an account from which you cannot check your usage online from the ISPs server?

there are 2 categories of restriction

1. You are billed for busting the cap. As the telco consumer is entitled to "Control Of Expenditure" in principle the ISPs who bill you for exceeding your cap should allow you the facility to check that potential overbill situation with online stats .

eircom do so they are entitled to bill you if you bust your cap , I believe perlico utv and imagine bill you so they should have such a facility and it MUST be accurate and up to date.

2. You are throttled after the cap is bust. No "Control of Expenditure" issue there . It would be an issue where Comreg should produce a code of practise and an ISP which throttles subscribes explicitly to that code of practise in full including a/c resetting parameters.

One for the toothless bunch in ComRag to deny is their responsibility I suppose...

email them and ask what their position is, info@comreg.ie . I doubt you will get a straight answer beyond the 'we can do nothing we are a poodle' type ones.

kc66

ghostdancer wrote:

no, it doesn't, i've totted up my traffic from 30 days previously and it should have only taken 2/3 days for me to drop back down by 4gb, it took a week for it to happen.

Yes it does.

ghostdancer

well then explain how it took a week for my restriction to be lifted despite dropping ~10gb off the period on which i did 44gb.

Mutant_Fruit

MunsterCycling wrote:

Has anyone questioned the legality of imposing a restriction on an account from which you cannot check your usage online from the ISPs server? One for the toothless bunch in ComRag to deny is their responsibility I suppose...

You can check the usage. Look 4 posts above yours.

On a similar note, i actually got 2 warning emails before i was restricted. So i assume anyone who gets restricted gets those same warning emails. The only problem is that i had email problems with NTL so i couldn't actually recieve those emails until yesterday. So they do give plenty of warning.

job

I have just been restricted too by Digiweb. No advanced warning at all...only found out as i emailed their tech support dept. Have been with them 2 yrs now and never had anything like this happen, nor have never been informed this would be happening.

The reason your DSL connection has become slow is because you are in restriction as you went over your allow packet limits

The package you are on is DSL xtre which allows you a traffic allowance of 40G Your current traffic is as follows

Upload 4.288G
Download 45.699G
Total 49.987G

There is no online way of checking your traffic this is something we are currently looking at, but if you call or e-mail support we'll be able to tell you your traffic levels

If you have any furture questions please contact support on 1890 940405 or e-mail support@digiweb.ie

Sent them an email about it, as when i signed up for my package, there was no cap at all and the contract i signed said that. That was the 4MB package, i have since downgraded to the 3MB package, but never signed another contract or agreed to any new terms and conditions.

With the connection this slow, can barely browse the net...getting my emails is another story, impossible at the moment. Not a happy camper !! :mad:

Sponge Bob

could be worse, could be O2 3G who will charge €907 for every Gb over the limit (75c+ Vat per Mb)

I make you 5.6Gb over which would cost €5000 if you were an O2 customer .

Their 3Mbit product was always capped . Their 4Mbit product is currently capped at 60Gb ....although it may not have been in the past when you had it .....and their 5Mbit product is capped at 100Gb despite costing €180 a month .

While I feel throttling is fairer than the systemic wallet raping we are used to from Irish telcos I also think there should be a Comreg throttling code of practise which is adhered to in full by all licenced carriers who choose to throttle .

This Code should include at least one warning by email in advance ..5 days before you are likely to go over if possible , a text if possible , a resumption date to be given , AND the web interface which seems to be a Metro Only web interface and not for the DSL users at all .

It would strike me that Metro customers may be throttled at present because they are the only ones who could have known but their DSL customers _arguably_ should not be throttled in the absence of such an interface and the edumacation program telling the punters where it is .

event

job wrote:

I have just been restricted too by Digiweb. No advanced warning at all...only found out as i emailed their tech support dept. Have been with them 2 yrs now and never had anything like this happen, nor have never been informed this would be happening.

The reason your DSL connection has become slow is because you are in restriction as you went over your allow packet limits

The package you are on is DSL xtre which allows you a traffic allowance of 40G Your current traffic is as follows

Upload 4.288G
Download 45.699G
Total 49.987G

There is no online way of checking your traffic this is something we are currently looking at, but if you call or e-mail support we'll be able to tell you your traffic levels

If you have any furture questions please contact support on 1890 940405 or e-mail support@digiweb.ie

Sent them an email about it, as when i signed up for my package, there was no cap at all and the contract i signed said that. That was the 4MB package, i have since downgraded to the 3MB package, but never signed another contract or agreed to any new terms and conditions.

With the connection this slow, can barely browse the net...getting my emails is another story, impossible at the moment. Not a happy camper !! :mad:

when you agreed to change contract, you agree to the terms and conditions of that contract

Buceph

If you copied and pasted that e-mail, I'd ask them to send you another one, and another. If they make the same upload/download mistake(it has to be a mistake, very few people upload more than they download) challenge them on it. Say that they're figures are wrong, and demand to be reinstated.

CarefulNow

This happened to me again this month. They were backwards. I had dowloaded more than I uploaded but first they said I had Uploaded more. I just asked for proof of my usage and they sent me it.

Boggles

Ring them and tell them you want it cancelled immediately and to send someone round to pick up whatever equipment you have belonging to them. Ye will be switched back to normal in no time!

watty

For a single user, normal "fair use" wouldn't ever come near the cap.

We have 5 users here and typically with downloading Linux ISOs, MS SP and other stuff we barely get to 1/2 the cap on 3M package.

The only people that ever have encountered hitting cap are either on a single connection shared to a whole apartment block or running torrents, often inexpertly setup with near 100% upstream (upload) running 24 x 7.

If you are running torrents, do check the uploading settings. Why should you be paying for the rest of the world more than you are downloading?

Cabaal

Sponge Bob wrote:

could be worse, could be O2 3G who will charge €907 for every Gb over the limit (75c+ Vat per Mb)

I make you 5.6Gb over which would cost €5000 if you were an O2 customer .
.

Could be worse also, if you were on NTL your account might be terminated!

Red Alert

Switch to an uncapped provider. If customers start leaving because of this sort of behaviour they will soon cop on.

One of the few reasons i'm staying with IBB.

watty

Generally uncapped means either the connection is so slow that it doens't matter or that it is very expensive, there is no free internet lunch.

Would anyone point to an exception? many so called "uncapped" you just don't know what the cap is, they reserve the right to throttle, charge more or teminate for exceeding "fair use".

Prisoner6409

To answer you question I agree it is very unfair. It would be different if you were a consistant offender and had been warned. They choose to ignore the fact that you normally stay within the limit and sometimes do not even reach it. IMO it's a bit overkill on Digiweb's part and puts me in mind of the IOL-NO Limits debacle.

spooky donkey

So am i to understand that with didi web yer cap includes upload loads as well as down loads. If to that makes the 30 and 40 gig caps seem a lot worse. I find this a little off putting if it is true as I was planing to get them in soon.

event

how much do some of you people download?

how can you legitimately download around 40 gig of traffic in a month?
im not accusing, im genuinly interested what you can download that is that much?

watty

A single person would need to be either insane or rich to do 20G of legitimate traffic in a month. Usually it is badly setup torrents (They are automatically resharing everything and may not realise it) or lots of people (whole apartment) on one block.


Sky by Broadband uses Kontiki to reshare your legitimate Sky download so that Sky pay for less server traffic. Parasites. Don't install it.

If you must use torrents to download learn what the upload settings do.

RangeR

watty wrote:

A single person would need to be either insane or rich to do 20G of legitimate traffic in a month. Usually it is badly setup torrents

I'm surpried at you Watty for such an totally off the wall remark considering a poster of your statur. It has been said multiple times across different threads in only the past week with multitueds of examples on how even a 40GB cap can be breached in a month by a single user. Not everybody uses torrents, not every body downloads / shares illegal material.

It is one of the easiest things to do, to break a 40GB cap, never mind the 20GB you can't get your head around.

spooky donkey

event wrote:

how much do some of you people download?

how can you legitimately download around 40 gig of traffic in a month?
im not accusing, im genuinly interested what you can download that is that much?

Well my traffic for a month now is about 60 gigs including uploads. I do a lot of work on a web site and transfer a lot of files back and forth with the other admin on same site. We also do a lot of work making game movies using fraps and a 60 sec frap file can be 100 meg. I also download TV stuff also. Its easy to use a lot of net when ya have no cap and dont have to worry about what youre downloading.

That said none of this has answered my question is yer cap wit metro using all of youre traffic up and down included? if so it makes a 30 gig cap seem a lot smaller to me.

watty

IrishTLR wrote:

I'm surpried at you Watty for such an totally off the wall remark considering a poster of your statur. It has been said multiple times across different threads in only the past week with multitueds of examples on how even a 40GB cap can be breached in a month by a single user. Not everybody uses torrents, not every body downloads / shares illegal material.

It is one of the easiest things to do, to break a 40GB cap, never mind the 20GB you can't get your head around.

Well I have 3 students and my wife sharing my (our) connection with 4th student at weekends... I've been using internet since 1994 and "online services" since 1986.

We just can't seem to use up more than 16 or 18G on worst periods of downloading multiple LINUX iso, online gaming, skype, etc...

There is a Server, 4 laptops, 5 PCs and a PS2 all online.

ALL my email has a "reflected copy" back to internet too. I just lack imagination as to how 30G or 40G is used up legitimately by a single user.

watty

Yes it is Up + down, not uncommon as it is TRAFFIC that costs money, not downloads.

30G is huge really. If you really need more for a legitamate purpose (??? what???) is can be purchased.

In reality very very few GOOD services are uncapped. A good service costs money to run. Despite what people think the Internet cost money for all the operators.

watty

I know LOTS of people that use internet, many of them students, and contrary to common belief hardly any steal stuff. Some won't even buy MP3s preferring the higher quality and flexiblity of buying their own CD.

No-one seriously interested in a Cinematic experince prefers divX downloads to a real DVD.

Mutant_Fruit

Playing (and updating) WoW and using Teamspeak can use > 5 gigs a month alone. Writing and testing a BitTorrent library can use > 200 megs every day that i work on it, so that's a few gigs a month. Downloading beta versions of MMO's can be a few gigs each (and a trial might be 1-2 weeks long) add in the *very* regular patches for the clients in these beta trials (i'm in 2 at the moment, won't be buying either though :P).

All in all, thats a lot of gigs.

EDIT: I prefer downloading HD Movie trailers than crappy 240x160 size ones. That's well over 150meg per trailer...

watty

Not many people are re-writing BitTorrent. I'd say compared with typical Internet user you are in a Niche Sport.

spooky donkey

Lads I think we are going way off, and im not trying to justify my self but here is an example of legal downloads.

Quote from TV.vom.
Lost, Desperate Housewives, Grey's Anatomy, Six Degrees, Ugly Betty, The Knights of Prosperity, and The Nine will all be available on ABC.com. The shows will hit the ABC Web site the day after they air on TV.

Thats 7 Shows X 350 meg is 2 gig per week. 8 gig per month. And thats just from one net work. I watch 6 of those 7 shows. Its easy to reach yer cap with out even thinking ya downloaded much. I dont watch TV at all. When Doctor who was on the TV i actually had to ask what number BBC1 was on our tv.

Anyway to answer the question raised in the thread title, I dont think this sliding window is fair but then you signed a contract to agree to it im sure, so ya have little choice to put up with it.

ShiverinEskimo

spooky donkey wrote:

So am i to understand that with didi web yer cap includes upload loads as well as down loads. If to that makes the 30 and 40 gig caps seem a lot worse. I find this a little off putting if it is true as I was planing to get them in soon.

AFAIK this applies to all providers - they were always advertised as traffic allowances rather than download allowances.

Foxwood

ShiverinEskimo wrote:

AFAIK this applies to all providers - they were always advertised as traffic allowances rather than download allowances.

BT: You will be entitled to use 30GB in either direction without penalty. i.e. you can upload 30GB and download 30GB in the same month without penalty. However if you upload 4GB and download 31GB then your account will be suspended.

NTL: 30Gb download limit

Eircom: Monthly megabyte allowance: 10 GB download / 1 GB upload


That's the big 3, all of which allow downloads up to the stated maximum of the allowance/cap/limit.

spooky donkey

thats intresting I dident know that, I thought they all had unlimited upload and caped download. Good to know either way.