Chorus/NTL Letter about excessive usage :S

Jonathan Smith

I got a letter which told me i downloaded in excess of 160gb, and that they upgraded to a 120gb usage limit pack.

I had previously thought that NTL did not have such a limit, and upon reading this letter I visited the UPC website and read the Acceptable Usage Policy. There it said that the penalty is 3 cent per megabyte over the limit.

Are they going to charge me for the excess usage?

I can't afford to pay €3000. Even if the upgrade accounted for it, thats still 40gb excess usage, which is €1200, which I cannot afford either.

I sent an email to them and have not got a reply yet.

Cabaal

Perhaps ring them as you'll get your answer faster, NTL recently changed their packages and I've never heard of a charge for going over but if its a new thing then your best bet is to get the answer to your question directly from NTL.

hightower1

Hi there,

Well as standard there would be a first warning letter stating that if it continues you will be upgraded or suspended for one month. The second will be pretty much the same except the afore mentioned suspension or upgrade. If you go to upc.ie you can check your usage cap on your product and if you google "du meter" this will save an app to your system tray allowing you to run reports on a weekly/monthly/yearly bassis to keep an eye on your down and up loads.

ps if you've not already seen you can upgrade your speed free on the upc site and this will increase you cap too

Jonathan Smith

hightower100 wrote: »

Hi there,

Well as standard there would be a first warning letter stating that if it continues you will be upgraded or suspended for one month. The second will be pretty much the same except the afore mentioned suspension or upgrade. If you go to upc.ie you can check your usage cap on your product and if you google "du meter" this will save an app to your system tray allowing you to run reports on a weekly/monthly/yearly bassis to keep an eye on your down and up loads.

OK, thank you for ythis information. Although I don't know how to login, LOL.

ps if you've not already seen you can upgrade your speed free on the upc site and this will increase you cap too

i cant see this. i can see the broadband ultra, which is what i have, but i cant c what ur talking about.

joolsveer

Is there any tool that can be used by an ntl subscriber to monitor volume of usage? I inquired of them before but they were not helpful. I am also on the ultra package.

paulm17781

hightower100 wrote: »

if you google "du meter" this will save an app to your system tray allowing you to run reports on a weekly/monthly/yearly bassis to keep an eye on your down and up loads.

du meter is no substitute for proper monitoring which UPC don't provide. If UPC are to threaten people they should allow a method for people to check their actual usage and not expect people to install inefficient third party products.

hightower1

again Paul your dead wrong, it is up to a customer to keep an eye on themselves, UPC provide guide lines to follow and thats all. Its like saying oh the cops are bad cause they will arrest you for drink driving?! "how am I to know I'm drunk" "they should provide me with a breathalioser at birth so i always know"???? wtf??? it is a rule and your responsability to stick to them not the person setting the rules.

paulm17781

hightower100 wrote: »

again Paul your dead wrong, it is up to a customer to keep an eye on themselves, UPC provide guide lines to follow and thats all. Its like saying oh the cops are bad cause they will arrest you for drink driving?! "how am I to know I'm drunk" "they should provide me with a breathalioser at birth so i always know"???? wtf??? it is a rule and your responsability to stick to them not the person setting the rules.

Xbox 360, PS3, Wii, Ipod, IP telephony any other network device! Du meter can not monitor them. UPC provide no way for customers to check their usage.

If people can't monitor their usage effectively, which they can't on UPC, it is UPCs problem. That said, 160Gb is excessive.

jor el

hightower100 wrote: »

again Paul your dead wrong, it is up to a customer to keep an eye on themselves, UPC provide guide lines to follow and thats all. Its like saying oh the cops are bad cause they will arrest you for drink driving?! "how am I to know I'm drunk" "they should provide me with a breathalioser at birth so i always know"???? wtf??? it is a rule and your responsability to stick to them not the person setting the rules.

If UPC set a cap, and want to charge for going over it, then they must provide an accurate method of monitoring usage, for the customer. I have always found a difference between DUMeter's stats and the usage stats from my ISPs. I'm not sure which one is right, but the ISP one is the only one that should matter as this is the number they will use when calculating any penalties. Therefore, it is up to the ISP to provide such a counter.

Your analogy is a bit crap too. A better one would be to compare it to a bank allowing you to overdraw your account, but not giving you any way to check your balance.

hightower1

Look, if you wanna go downloading huge amounts of data you already know your walking the line of the penelties. There are many apps out there to monitor yourself. The rules are set there and not up to the company to hold your hand all the way. Your an adult act like it. 160gb a month is blatent over use and this is not going to be an "iffy" issue. doing that amount you KNOW your treading the line. In which case you take steps to protect yourself. You know your spending a lot on your credit card? Do you shop more and go €10000's over your limit then whine at visa for not telling you?? No, its called mutual agreement that you are over 18 signing a contract and have some common sense and self controll.

dub45

Surely a quick look at the folder where you are downloading your stuff to will give you an idea very quickly of where you stand?

forbairt

hightower100 wrote: »

Look, if you wanna go downloading huge amounts of data you already know your walking the line of the penelties. There are many apps out there to monitor yourself. The rules are set there and not up to the company to hold your hand all the way. Your an adult act like it. 160gb a month is blatent over use and this is not going to be an "iffy" issue. doing that amount you KNOW your treading the line. In which case you take steps to protect yourself. You know your spending a lot on your credit card? Do you shop more and go €10000's over your limit then whine at visa for not telling you?? No, its called mutual agreement that you are over 18 signing a contract and have some common sense and self controll.

Last I checked ... I can see how much I have spent on my credit card ..
(while some people spend way too much on their CC .. they still have the ability to check it)

similarly ... I can check how many units of electricity I've used.

my god I believe even BT let me see my usage when I was with them

160 gbs while a lot for me ... with 4 people in a house wouldn't actually be that much ... watching 4oD ... Steam ... and other online services ... voip ... latest linux distributions ... virtual appliances and so on ...

Gran Hermano

paulm17781 wrote: »

Xbox 360, PS3, Wii, Ipod, IP telephony any other network device! Du meter can not monitor them. UPC provide no way for customers to check their usage.

If people can't monitor their usage effectively, which they can't on UPC, it is UPCs problem. That said, 160Gb is excessive.

+1, UPC are penalising their customers for not providing them with the
tools to monitor their own usage. They days of a customer having just
1 PC connected to a modem are limited and DU meter and the likes
will not monitor traffic across multiple devices on a home LAN.

Would it kill UPC to provide their customers with a web-interface
showing their current usage stats? Other ISPs seem able to do so.

hightower1

And what stops you calling their center? It is free phone after all? And also if you were with bt and dislike upc service so much why not change back? Or is it that you over all do like it but are nitpicking?

guil

high tower do you work for upc or what ur very defensive of them

forbairt

hightower100 wrote: »

And what stops you calling their center? It is free phone after all? And also if you were with bt and dislike upc service so much why not change back? Or is it that you over all do like it but are nitpicking?

I don't want to call you though ... I want to be able to log into a site to check my net usage statistics. I don't want to have to wait on hold or have to phone a premium number to get something that really should be available online.

The great thing about a forum is one can voice ones opinions ... give feedback and so on ... some people call it nitpicking .. some call it a discussion.

guil07 wrote: »

high tower do you work for upc or what ur very defensive of them

marcbrophy

how the hell can anyone d/l over 160gb in a month??

hightower1

Well it is a judgement call then, stay with UPC and unfortunatly for now have to call their center to get the most accurate reading poss or go to another isp for this but possibly lower speeds and higher price?
Personally I dont think its that much of an inconvenience to have to monitior mysel but I am on the 12mb line with only one pc.
"The problem, as you so poiniently put it is choice" - The Architect.

Cabaal

Hightower as I'm sure your aware most people with the higher end packages on any ISP have more then one PC, they generally have wii's, xbox, or PS3 as well as laptops.

While I'll agree that the end user can monitor their usage on there PC's this does not cover non-PC/Mac activity's and as such while I believe its fair enough to warn customers for excessively going over their cap I believe UPC would find it hard to win a case against a customer if they charged for going over the cap without them providing a monitor tool.

You'll notice the ISP's that do charge, Three, Perlico etc have usage tools on their websites and they clearly state current usage versus your cap which is more then fair to the customer.

However if a customers cap is say 20GB and the customer goes 1GB over and UPC charge the customer 30.72e for this 1GB without a monitoring tool being in place then they are clearly talking the piss and they'll be quickly brought to Comreg over such action.

I'm sure NTL can tell you your usage too but its not practical for a user to ring NTL and stay on hold for 10min+ each time to find this out, additionally NTL generally advertise there contact number as 1890 940 624 so while there is also a freephone number NTL don't make it readily available

Hightower I would also recommend that should you be a UPC employee that you state this clearly at this time, otherwise if its discovered later you and any aliases will be banned also please be aware that registering multiply accounts on boards.ie is against boards rules and you can be site banned for it. This goes for any ISP employees when discussing your employers products/services.

Cabaal,

hightower1

Ha ha Mark I have seen people downloading 560gb in one month!!! Fact. Son had got a ps3 in his room and his dad didnt realise it could log into the wifi!!! lol. Son was downloading all 560gigs on movies, games and music! Half a terra of data in one month and all in a ps3 now thats impressive.

Cabaal

marcbrophy wrote: »

how the hell can anyone d/l over 160gb in a month??

You'll find that 99% of the people that download this much and more download copyright material such as tv shows, movies, games etc.

While there are streaming TV services like BBC iPlayer these only tend to work in the UK so in Ireland your pretty limited what you can download thats very large and will use 100GB's in a month.

Just my view on this side of things
Most I've seen pulled down in a month was approx 950GB...pretty impressive on a 8MB line.

hightower1

Cabaal wrote: »

Hightower as I'm sure your aware most people with the higher end packages on any ISP have more then one PC, they generally have wii's, xbox, or PS3 as well as laptops.

While I'll agree that the end user can monitor their usage on there PC's this does not cover non-PC/Mac activity's and as such while I believe its fair enough to warn customers for excessively going over their cap I believe UPC would find it hard to win a case against a customer if they charged for going over the cap without them providing a monitor tool.

You'll notice the ISP's that do charge, Three, Perlico etc have usage tools on their websites and they clearly state current usage versus your cap which is more then fair to the customer.

However if a customers cap is say 20GB and the customer goes 1GB over and UPC charge the customer 30.72e for this 1GB without a monitoring tool being in place then they are clearly talking the piss and they'll be quickly brought to Comreg over such action.

I'm sure NTL can tell you your usage too but its not practical for a user to ring NTL and stay on hold for 10min+ each time to find this out, additionally NTL generally advertise there contact number as 1890 940 624 so while there is also a freephone number NTL don't make it readily available

Hightower I would also recommend that should you be a UPC employee that you state this clearly at this time, otherwise if its discovered later you and any aliases will be banned also please be aware that registering multiply accounts on boards.ie is against boards rules and you can be site banned for it. This goes for any ISP employees when discussing your employers products/services.

Cabaal,

I can assure you I am not a UPC employee and never was, in fact I know someone working there.

Now in answer to this ridiculous rant.... As i belive if you go over your cap you are not charged any extra you are asa I stated in my very first reply warned of this and given the boundries again. No company would be as hard line as you would like people to belive. Also as I have said before it may be inconvienient to have to call them but it does not mean there is no way to check your usage????

Cabaal

hightower100 wrote: »

I can assure you I am not a UPC employee and never was, in fact I know someone working there.

Now in answer to this ridiculous rant.... As i belive if you go over your cap you are not charged any extra you are asa I stated in my very first reply warned of this and given the boundries again. No company would be as hard line as you would like people to belive. Also as I have said before it may be inconvienient to have to call them but it does not mean there is no way to check your usage????

Please show me where it says you can call them to check your usage?
Any other ISP clearly states how you can check your usage in FAQ's or in marketing material...case in point Perlico.
Also I think anyone would agree thats its unfair to make a customer pay just so they can check their broadband usage, a simple tool on-line could fulfill this task and would stop needless calls to NTL's call centers which would in the long term depending on volumes save them money.

So lets say UPC don't charge, You still assume that no company would be hard line regarding usage, your obviously not known anyone who has been charged for going over their cap I can assure you it does happen...not much but it does happen

UPC however do terminate people's contracts for going over their cap,

marcbrophy

Cabaal wrote: »

You'll find that 99% of the people that download this much and more download copyright material such as tv shows, movies, games etc.

While there are streaming TV services like BBC iPlayer these only tend to work in the UK so in Ireland your pretty limited what you can download thats very large and will use 100GB's in a month.

Just my view on this side of things
Most I've seen pulled down in a month was approx 950GB...pretty impressive on a 8MB line.

I'm just thinking in terms of hard drive space on a system! Are people running out to the local hardware store to buy a new external h/d every second month!!

DemonOfTheFall

hightower100 wrote: »

I can assure you I am not a UPC employee and never was, in fact I know someone working there.

Now in answer to this ridiculous rant.... As i belive if you go over your cap you are not charged any extra you are asa I stated in my very first reply warned of this and given the boundries again. No company would be as hard line as you would like people to belive. Also as I have said before it may be inconvienient to have to call them but it does not mean there is no way to check your usage????

It would be trivial and almost free for them to implement a web based download monitor. Then it would be entirely their customer's fault for going over the cap. As it is there is no way at all, short of buying a very expensive router, to know exactly what has come in and out of your connection.

I reckon that they refuse to provide a download manager because they would prefer if anyone using more than 5gigs a month just fúcked off their network. Why else would they leave their customers in fear of hitting the invisible limits they put on their connections?

They spout crap like contention, but I have personally gotten letters from them in an area with no contention at all. Their incompetence in other areas eventually got rid of me as a customer, so score 1 for them I suppose.

hightower1

Cabaal wrote: »

Please show me where it says you can call them to check your usage?
Any other ISP clearly states how you can check your usage in FAQ's or in marketing material...case in point Perlico.
Also I think anyone would agree thats its unfair to make a customer pay just so they can check their broadband usage, a simple tool on-line could fulfill this task and would stop needless calls to NTL's call centers which would in the long term depending on volumes save them money.

So lets say UPC don't charge, You still assume that no company would be hard line regarding usage, your obviously not known anyone who has been charged for going over their cap I can assure you it does happen...not much but it does happen

UPC however do terminate people's contracts for going over their cap,

I said that no isp would be as hard line as you would like people to belive. ie you get immediatly charged per mb downloaded if you go over usage very first time.... As I stated to you before and will again for the third time now you firstly get a warning letter, then a second, then a possible upgrade or suspension. All the time it is free to call and get an exact usage limit from them.

~~ they DO NOT chrage immediatly over your cap
~~ they will not penialise you for first over use
~~You get TWO warnings before hand
~~ there are plenty of apps to monitor usage to varing effects


I'm not sure how clearer Ineed to make that for you but there you go k .

paulm17781

hightower100 wrote: »

~~ there are plenty of apps to monitor usage to varing effects

No there aren't! No app will take over heads or failed packets into account. Only UPC or an expensive router will give that information.

hightower1

well Paul there ya go, anwered your own problem there...

Buy an expensive router...
Call Upc...
Change providers...

Done? Thoise do seem to be the options????

paulm17781

And the issue only exists because of UPC's inefficiencies. Done.

inforfun

I am using net traffic meter myself.
That of course only tracks my pc usage, XBOX is not monitored.
And i dont have a clue what a few ours of PES2008 would generate as it comes to data traffic.
Only once i checked against UPC figures for a months, i had 40gb according to net traffic meter while UPC claimed i used 42 that month.
So i take it net traffic meter is pretty accurate.
At the other hand, i think UPC should provide the option to check your data usage in "MY UPC" on their website as long as they enforce data caps.

They seem to change their T&C also when it suits them. I started with 40gb of DL data to spend and then they changed it to DL&UL combined. 40gb on a 6mb line is a joke.

Still awaiting the upgrade to 12mb with 120 gb data which as i understood, would happe nmore or less automatically?

hightower1

paulm17781 wrote: »

And the issue only exists because of UPC's inefficiencies. Done.

Well if your not happy with their customer service, broadband usage cap monitoring, upgrade of speeds etc why stay? why not just switch isp????

inforfun

hightower100 wrote: »

Well if your not happy with their customer service, broadband usage cap monitoring, upgrade of speeds etc why stay? why not just switch isp????

It is not exactly broadband heaven in Ireland is it?
In other countries you pick the best one, here it seems you have to settle for the least crap one.

Do i now get the advise to leave the country?

paulm17781

hightower100 wrote: »

Well if your not happy with their customer service, broadband usage cap monitoring, upgrade of speeds etc why stay? why not just switch isp????

Because I have no other option for TV. If I did, I would leave them completely. As it is I have to use them for that so I may as well stay with them for BB. As soon as I find a viable alternative, I will be gone unless they start to improve.

marcbrophy

inforfun wrote: »

I am using net traffic meter myself.
That of course only tracks my pc usage, XBOX is not monitored.
And i dont have a clue what a few ours of PES2008 would generate as it comes to data traffic.

I believe there is a few progs out there that monitor netgear router activity and not just pc activity!
I done a quick google search there and saw 4 different programs in the first 5 results.
It is quite possible for people to monitor router activity if they are worried about multiple users or if they have external devices that connect to the router (X360 or PS3)

jor el

hightower100 wrote: »

I said that no isp would be as hard line as you would like people to belive. ie you get immediatly charged per mb downloaded if you go over usage very first time....

There are several ISPs in this country that do exactly this. Three and UTV both charge per MB in excess of the cap, with no warnings or leeway. I've also heard the Vodafone and Perlico also charge. Don't know anyone using these who have been charged, so can't confirm them.

hightower1

so basically you want to argue????

you come here saying their terrible....

Now your saying their great cause everyone else applies charges for over use????

What is it you want lol!

paulm17781

hightower100 wrote: »

so basically you want to argue????

Does anyone else find this somewhat humorous?

kensutz

hightower100 wrote: »

Ha ha Mark I have seen people downloading 560gb in one month!!! Fact. Son had got a ps3 in his room and his dad didnt realise it could log into the wifi!!! lol. Son was downloading all 560gigs on movies, games and music! Half a terra of data in one month and all in a ps3 now thats impressive.

Well that's a load of crap considering you can't fit a hard drive that big into the PS3.

Cabaal

hightower100, you seem to have an awful attitude when it comes to discussing NTL/UPC and dealing with others in these threads including paulm17781.

You can say what you want but like other ISP's with caps UPC could be alot more upfront in relation to allow users to track their usage, this could be improved and you can spout whatever stuff you want about anything else but this still holds true.

Regardless of what price a customer pays a telco for services they should still expect good services.

hightower1

Well seeing as you gripe all the time over something you have no choice in P i think its fairly ok.
You give out aout upc here but refuse to put up with sticking to 4 channels and then moving your isp solving you tv/ broadband pack but wont. you want all the channels and broadband at low price????
Images of child in their playpen sulking comes to mind

hightower1

kensutz wrote: »

Well that's a load of crap considering you can't fit a hard drive that big into the PS3.

I am only repeating what I was saw myself, one thing I think we all can agree on is that it is poss to connect everything to everything in I.T

paulm17781

hightower100 wrote: »

I am only repeating what I was saw myself, one thing I think we all can agree on is that it is poss to connect everything to everything in I.T

That's not even close to being accurate.

marcbrophy

kensutz wrote: »

Well that's a load of crap considering you can't fit a hard drive that big into the PS3.

You can hook an external HD up to a PS3 dude, d/l whatever you want!! :pac:

jor el

paulm17781 wrote: »

Does anyone else find this somewhat humorous?

Incredibly. I'm not feeding the troll anymore though.

hightower1

And Paul M's bull dog mouth over bites his puppy dog ass AGAIN. eg ps3 hard drive connections and apps for monitoring multips pc usage

hightower1

jor el wrote: »

Incredibly. I'm not feeding the troll anymore though.

The sound of someone being outted! lol.

Cabaal

hightower100 wrote: »

And Paul M's bull dog mouth over bites his puppy dog ass AGAIN. eg ps3 hard drive connections and apps for monitoring multips pc usage

Right am sick of this trolling, hightower100 banned for acting the muppet!

Cabaal,

jor el

Cabaal wrote: »

hightower100 banned for acting the muppet!

Aw But not before I was outed??

NIBBS

surely it's the responsibility of anyone that orders a Service (whatever that service may be) to know what the rules and limits are for that service, it's not like they are difficult to find, I have never had any sympathy for people who exceed set download caps and get charged for it, if you think it's fine to download 160GB of crap in a month you should also assume it's fair enough for exceeding your limit that you didn't bother finding out - or more probably just ignored.
I know the Telco's should also provide the Usage Information for people - it's not that difficult, UTV do it, but it's usually a bit behind so you never knew if you'd already exceeded it or were just on the limit, at the end of the day if you want to download that much stuff just find an ISP with an unlimited download option - at the end of the day you'll probably end up getting throttled at some point.

RoyalMarine

marcbrophy wrote: »

how the hell can anyone d/l over 160gb in a month??

im on 188.3gb this month not including uploads which are about 20gb.
i know ntl calculate both together so im over 200 now.

inforfun wrote: »

They seem to change their T&C also when it suits them. I started with 40gb of DL data to spend and then they changed it to DL&UL combined. 40gb on a 6mb line is a joke.

what ever you signed in your terms and conditions is what your held to. if they change their t&c they need to inform you of the said changes. if they change it on their website, then i dont see how they expect you to go running off to read it every time to see if there's something new.

my understanding of it is, the piece of paper i signed when i got it installed is the only terms and conditions im held to. they havnt called me or wrote to me informing me of anything thats new or different.

NIBBS wrote: »

surely it's the responsibility of anyone that orders a Service (whatever that service may be) to know what the rules and limits are for that service, it's not like they are difficult to find, I have never had any sympathy for people who exceed set download caps and get charged for it, if you think it's fine to download 160GB of crap in a month you should also assume it's fair enough for exceeding your limit that you didn't bother finding out - or more probably just ignored.

what about someone who doesnt have a clue about using a computer or the internet and just got it installed to e-mail and for their kids to use?

do those parents have to fork over the extra money because they "didnt bother finding out?"
80% of their customer's wouldnt have a clue what DU meter is or any other program that does the same.

also, how can they monitor traffic if its from an xbox? or a ps3?

du meter will only monitor traffic from the computer it is installed on. nothing else.

if NTL wont provide a method to monitor all traffic on the line, then its their fault. not the customer's.

Anti

Du meter has always managed to monitor what i download on a specific pc/laptop. And my linksys router with ddwrt firmware can manage the rest. And imagine my pain, im on a 30gn cap, which i can hit in 2/3 days