BT 24mbit unlimited is NOT UNLIMITED

miftha

Just so folks are aware, the 24mbit service from BT which is termed as unlimited is NOT in fact unlimited. You do not have an unlimited download cap (which they do not publish)! This cap seems to be around 100GB per 30 day window, after that you are throttled!!

Their fair use policy will kick in and downgrade you to a barely useable 120kpbs (isdn levels) up and down. This they say is an automated system setup and all they can do is apologise!!

Beware! Bordering on false advertisement to me!

And for those that get on the, ‘what are you downloading’ bandwagon, it's none of your business my friend! I pay for a 24mbit service to download, if I want to surf the net, 1mbit (or less) will do!

paulm17781

From http://www.btireland.ie/AtHome_bb.shtml

***Download limits are subject to fair usage, please click here for details.

miftha

Please define unlimited to me then? Their policy is out of date!!!

For BT it means you can download unlimited to 100GB over 30 days.

I am not against a fair use policy that is reasonable including stating exactly what it is - no ambiguity!

What do they keep it vague? Hmmmmm.... I wonder.....

Elessar

This is one of the main reasons I just cancelled my BT account. I was throttled twice in a month.

It is false advertising. They can't call it unlimited when there are fair use limits applied to it.

The big contention here is that they don't tell you what the cap is. So you can never know when you are approaching the "fair use" limit. This is highly unfair as you can never know when you are going to be throttled.

BT can go f*ck themselves. Shower of f*cks. And not just because of this!

I'm getting UPC 20mb broadband installed today

minikin

Looks to me like BTIreland are letting the marketing dept run the show and their poor tech and support teams have to pick up the pieces...

Looking at the BT northern ireland site there is no mention of a 24mb, probably because they know it's not achievable.... the pre-order line checker seems to be different also... Tells you what speed you can achieve on your line... not what the exchange you happen to be connected to can theoretically provide.

We are getting very bad treatment from BT down here... as soon as the 6 month contract is up they will no longer be my provider.

godskitchen

Really people, we all know the term Unlimited (as well as other terms) have been hijacked by marketing (typing that word makes me feel sick) people............these same people have no idea of how the internet works and just look for headline figures such as 24Mb, which is also misleading as its "up to"........

We need to start a revolution in this country......lets start with the banks and work our way to the ISP's and marketing companies.......

:D:D:D:D:D

smellslikeshoes

NEWS FLASH: THERE IS NO TRULY UNLIMITED HOME BROADBAND PACKAGES IN IRELAND.

This fair usage stuff has been going on for years, there simply is no unlimited packages and no offense but if you thought otherwise you have probably lived a pretty sheltered life

jim o doom

smellslikeshoes wrote: »

NEWS FLASH: THERE IS NO TRULY UNLIMITED HOME BROADBAND PACKAGES IN IRELAND.

This fair usage stuff has been going on for years, there simply is no unlimited packages and no offense but if you thought otherwise you have probably lived a pretty sheltered life

You realise qualifying an insult with precursor "no offense", doesn't make it any less rude. Here is an example "no offense man, but you are a total douchebag". How could that NOT be offensive? well, uhh, I said like, no offense at the start didn't I?

smellslikeshoes

jim o doom wrote: »

You realise qualifying an insult with precursor "no offense", doesn't make it any less rude. Here is an example "no offense man, but you are a total douchebag". How could that NOT be offensive? well, uhh, I said like, no offense at the start didn't I?

You realize that when people put a ":P" its generally meant as tongue in cheek and not said in a serious way, and besides there is a big difference from calling someone a total douche and what I said even if it was meant in a serious way. Now move along and pick apart someone else's comments.

Red Alert

Why don't they just say 100GB cap or whatnot - only use unlimited if it is unlimited.

smellslikeshoes

Red Alert wrote: »

Why don't they just say 100GB cap or whatnot - only use unlimited if it is unlimited.

Because they can, and are let do it.

jim o doom

smellslikeshoes wrote: »

You realize that when people put a ":P" its generally meant as tongue in cheek and not said in a serious way, and besides there is a big difference from calling someone a total douche and what I said even if it was meant in a serious way. Now move along and pick apart someone else's comments.

My crappy work web connection blocks pictures so I didn't see da face senor. apologies (I likes picking things apart, especially my left nostril :P )

20goto10

I spoke to a nice chap in BT tech dept. The cap on all packages is 100gb on rolling 30 day period (yes all packages even the onces with 30gb or 40gb limits). The system checks your upload + download amounts over the past 30 days and if its over 100gb you get throttled. It checks twice a day. If you get throttled you will need to stop downloading for about 2 weeks, otherwise you're constantly going to dip just under and then go over again straight away.

Personally I think its a great system. I agree its false advertising but once you know how it works its very fair. I moved from UTV internet who cut me off completely when I hit the cap :eek:. And it also took them 8 months to "release me" as they put it from my contract even though my contract had run out and I had given them 1 months notice.

Terra

smellslikeshoes wrote: »

NEWS FLASH: THERE IS NO TRULY UNLIMITED HOME BROADBAND PACKAGES IN IRELAND.

This fair usage stuff has been going on for years, there simply is no unlimited packages and no offense but if you thought otherwise you have probably lived a pretty sheltered life

Actually smart broadband is unlimited....used too have them but then had too move house and not in my current area....but had 8meg broadband....was never throttled and always got top speeds.....downloaded loads and nothing ever said.

Best broadband I've ever experienced.

Bt are just nasty!! Along with all the other eircom type providers

smellslikeshoes

Terra wrote: »

Actually smart broadband is unlimited....used too have them but then had too move house and not in my current area....but had 8meg broadband....was never throttled and always got top speeds.....downloaded loads and nothing ever said.

Best broadband I've ever experienced.

Bt are just nasty!! Along with all the other eircom type providers

No, Smart has a fair use policy just like BT. Granted they are essentially unlimited for 99.9% of people but they are not truly unlimited.

aktelmiele

Im with BT and havent been throttled but the 100 Gig?? cap is something to keep in mind.

However, you are still able to download but at a lower speed hence unlimited.

When I signed up I dont remember there being anything about being unlimited at the same speed all the time.

watty

Only a 1:1 contention Business circuit or leased line is unlimited. All Domestic products have a Fair Usage Cap --somewhere--

charlie_says

miftha wrote: »

And for those that get on the, ‘what are you downloading’ bandwagon, it's none of your business my friend! I pay for a 24mbit service to download, if I want to surf the net, 1mbit (or less) will do!

Well said, those people piss me off something rotten. They are happy to pay 20 bucks for a CD though. Clever...

jor el

smellslikeshoes wrote: »

No, Smart has a fair use policy just like BT. Granted they are essentially unlimited for 99.9% of people but they are not truly unlimited.

True, but as far as I know, nobody has ever found out what Smart's fair use limit is. It has been said on their support forums in the past, that some customers were getting through 1TB in a month, without any problems. That makes it pretty much unlimited in my book.

miftha wrote: »

Please define unlimited to me then? Their policy is out of date!!!

I think a better question would be, define "fair use". At 24Mbps, doing full speed for 24 hours would get you about 259GB, two and a half times their monthly limit, in just one day. Now, of course no ISP could handle a permanent 24 hour maxed out connection, it would cripple their network, so what is "fair"? 1 hour a day at 24Mbps is 10GB, this would mean 10 days out of the month on BT's 100GB fair use. That's hardly fair, in my opinion.

BT's 24Mbps makes it ideal for downloading (legally even) HD films, such as those available on the XBox, but a 100GB limit equals just two double sided Blu-ray discs, or four single sided discs. Not great.

A 24Mbps product should have a limit of around 500GB, in order to be "fair".

As usual, BT haven't a clue what their doing. But in an effort to be fair, it's not just BT either, it's pretty much all ISPs in Ireland (except Smart).

koHd

jor el wrote: »

True, but as far as I know, nobody has ever found out what Smart's fair use limit is. It has been said on their support forums in the past, that some customers were getting through 1TB in a month, without any problems. That makes it pretty much unlimited in my book.



I think a better question would be, define "fair use". At 24Mbps, doing full speed for 24 hours would get you about 259GB, two and a half times their monthly limit, in just one day. Now, of course no ISP could handle a permanent 24 hour maxed out connection, it would cripple their network, so what is "fair"? 1 hour a day at 24Mbps is 10GB, this would mean 10 days out of the month on BT's 100GB fair use. That's hardly fair, in my opinion.

BT's 24Mbps makes it ideal for downloading (legally even) HD films, such as those available on the XBox, but a 100GB limit equals just two double sided Blu-ray discs, or four single sided discs. Not great.

A 24Mbps product should have a limit of around 500GB, in order to be "fair".

As usual, BT haven't a clue what their doing. But in an effort to be fair, it's not just BT either, it's pretty much all ISPs in Ireland (except Smart).

Spot on. With pretty much everything.

EKRIUQ

20goto10 wrote: »

I spoke to a nice chap in BT tech dept. The cap on all packages is 100gb on rolling 30 day period (yes all packages even the onces with 30gb or 40gb limits).

So even though I'm on the 30GB limit they won't hammer my connection until I go over 100GB? I'm at 35GB now and they haven't trottled me yet:)

Cabaal

I've explained this before and to save me typing it all again I've added this to the FAQ
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=58094826&postcount=11

murfo

Elessar wrote: »

This is one of the main reasons I just cancelled my BT account. I was throttled twice in a month.

It is false advertising. They can't call it unlimited when there are fair use limits applied to it.

The big contention here is that they don't tell you what the cap is. So you can never know when you are approaching the "fair use" limit. This is highly unfair as you can never know when you are going to be throttled.

BT can go f*ck themselves. Shower of f*cks. And not just because of this!

I'm getting UPC 20mb broadband installed today

i feel exactly the same, but i've only been with them since august so i have a while to wait before i can change over. my line can only handle 4mb so i've been downgraded from option 3 to option 2 (up to 6mb). the only thing is they haven't switched me over to ADSL from Bitstream so i'm stuck on 3mb for the moment and fear i'll have to lose service for a week while they switch me over.

The only alternative in the area seems to be UPC 20mb, how has it been since you got it? i've read varying reports here with come getting close to the 20mb and some getting total rubbish.

Does anyone know what the determining factors for speed/reliability are for UPC's service?

paulm17781

UPC is more likely to give you close to the advertised speed. DSL services are less likely, it is a limitation on the technology that it gets slower as you get further from the exchange, cable doesn't work that way.

This is mine over wireless



my upload is bad but that's normally higher if I use a wired connection. I don't use torrents so it's fine for me.

murfo

paulm17781 wrote: »

UPC is more likely to give you close to the advertised speed. DSL services are less likely, it is a limitation on the technology that it gets slower as you get further from the exchange, cable doesn't work that way.

This is mine over wireless



my upload is bad but that's normally higher if I use a wired connection. I don't use torrents so it's fine for me.

so are there any factors that affect the quality of service for cable? or is it just luck? i take it torrents are throttled then?

paulm17781

murfo wrote: »

so are there any factors that affect the quality of service for cable? or is it just luck? i take it torrents are throttled then?

I don't use torrents. I've heard they are on boards but I do not know for definite. Cable quality can matter, most areas have new cabling though. Busy areas can suffer from contention. I'm in Dublin city centre and am generally problem free.

Elessar

murfo wrote: »

i feel exactly the same, but i've only been with them since august so i have a while to wait before i can change over. my line can only handle 4mb so i've been downgraded from option 3 to option 2 (up to 6mb). the only thing is they haven't switched me over to ADSL from Bitstream so i'm stuck on 3mb for the moment and fear i'll have to lose service for a week while they switch me over.

The only alternative in the area seems to be UPC 20mb, how has it been since you got it? i've read varying reports here with come getting close to the 20mb and some getting total rubbish.

Does anyone know what the determining factors for speed/reliability are for UPC's service?

To be honest it's been a mixed bag. I can never get the full 20mb/s for long. I would get it early in the morning and late at night. Even then the speed constantly fluctuates anywhere from a few mb/s to 10mb/s to 15mb/s and so on. Even in the early hours it fluctuates. It's annoying me to be honest as I'm not really getting what I'm paying for, but at least there are no specific caps, no accounts of people being throttled and I'm away from BT.

And I'm downloading from private high speed servers.

murfo

cool, thanks for the replies paul and elessar. Only another 8 months to wait to be rid of bt:rolleyes:

BigEejit

I am on VM's 20Mb package in the Uk and even though my cable modem is showing 20Mb ->

The speedtest,net website is showing this:
So something is definitely fishy...

I dont think there is an ISP anywhere between the UK and Ireland that does not have that little asterisk after the Unlimited. I am on the XL broadband (20Mb) but if I downlad 10GB between 5 and 11pm my download speed drops to 200kb or something. Outside of those hours I have never been throttled. I downloaded GAT4 on steam in a couple of hours - 15GB this morning between 09:30 and noon

xbox36016

ya eircom 50gb on 7mb

Kopf

Just got my download rate capped to 128kbit by BT.

For how long can I expect this to last?

lazlo

This also happened to me on Thursday night. I was appalled, when I lived in town I had an 'unlimited' service with Smart Telecom and that exactly what it was. I never had any issues with my ISP apart from the odd outage once in a while. I signed up to BT's option 3 because I was under the illusion that I would be getting similar service.

On thursday night my internet speed suddenly choked on both my computers, I spent ages rying to rectify the problem myself and I resolved to call BT the next morning. When I called Tech Support and they informed me of their 'throttling' policy I became very very angry. On top of their misrepresentation of their services they do not even inform their users via email or phone when a sanction has been placed upon their account-this just adds insult to the injury. I work from home and my ability to work has now been undermined by my meagre connection.

I now yearn for my old apartment. The internet service is reason alone to consider moving back.

leninbenjamin

bah... i've just been throttled as well. their 'fair use policy' is ridiculous, it's an unspoken 100GB cap then? there was me thinking if i left eavy downloading to off peak hours i'd be ok... what's written on their terms and conditions certainly seems to suggest this.

Jonathan

20goto10 wrote: »

I spoke to a nice chap in BT tech dept. The cap on all packages is 100gb on rolling 30 day period (yes all packages even the onces with 30gb or 40gb limits). The system checks your upload + download amounts over the past 30 days and if its over 100gb you get throttled. It checks twice a day. If you get throttled you will need to stop downloading for about 2 weeks, otherwise you're constantly going to dip just under and then go over again straight away.

In fairness now this has been common knowledge among BT boardsies for ages.

A quick search would have brought up the massive threads on it.

The rolling cap is a good system, but the limit needs to be higher.

Tim131

Uggh, Just got capped this minute, noticed it was ridiculously slow, did a speed check, and am getting dia-up speeds to be honest. When can I expect to get my "unlimited" connection back?

I shall be ringing BT on monday to complain....

Jonathan

Tim131 wrote: »

Uggh, Just got capped this minute, noticed it was ridiculously slow, did a speed check, and am getting dia-up speeds to be honest. When can I expect to get my "unlimited" connection back?

I shall be ringing BT on monday to complain....

You broke the T&C's.. I doubt you are gonna get very far..

lazlo

jmccrohan wrote: »

You broke the T&C's.. I doubt you are gonna get very far..

He won't get far but their marketing department should be taken to task for the representation of their products. They should also be obliged to inform customers of any changes being made to their services.

**** BT.

Tim131

jmccrohan wrote: »

You broke the T&C's.. I doubt you are gonna get very far..

I know yeah, I figured as much.

But I'm going to say I didn't know about this capping, make up a bull$hit story, and ask as it's my first time if they can un-cap. If not, I'll just ask when I'm uncapped.

Prezatch

I also got throttled this week by BT. How long does it last for?

Jonathan

JoeyD wrote: »

I also got throttled this week by BT. How long does it last for?

Until your usage (up + down) from the last 30 days drops below 100GB.