Smart - excessive usage notification..

Mountjoy Mugger

Just got an email here at work advising me that

Over the past month we have determined that your current level of traffic usage is excessive.

Times, they are a changing......

MunsterCycling

Confess, how many GBs of pron have you downloaded in the last month?

Cabaal

I'm curious, how much traffic were you using....1TB?

No such thing as a unlimited ISP in fairness, ISP's are in it to make money same as any business....more reading at http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=58094826&postcount=11

Mountjoy Mugger

No porn, fyi (not that it is). Download/Upload total < 180GB. My lowest in some time.
Not a huge amount, IMO.

I appreciate the FUP, but I thought it would at least have been the same as UPC's.

paulm17781

Is this the first instance of Smart enforcing FUP?

byte

paulm17781 wrote: »

Is this the first instance of Smart enforcing FUP?

It's the first instance I've heard of anyway.

Mountjoy Mugger: Are you with Smart on one of the unbundled exchanges, or on the bitstream offering?

Hagar

What the F is FUP?
You sell me un-limited at a price and I buy it.
You want more? Charge more. I'll pay it.
Otherwise Fuk OFF, give me what I paid for.

paulm17781

byte wrote: »

It's the first instance I've heard of anyway.

I read in the last few day (please don't ask for source, I don't remember ) that they were up for sale again with a 50M deficit. I don't know if it's true but it may explain the sudden strict attitude.

machalla

This was in the Sunday Business Post a couple of weeks ago.

http://archives.tcm.ie/businesspost/2009/06/14/story42423.asp

"Smart Telecom Holdings is seeking to shore up its balance sheet, where liabilities currently exceed assets by more than €63 million."

It does seem like a cost cutting measure to me also. They laid off 30 of 90 staff a while back according to that article also. Its a shame really, they do have some of the best technical support of any of the ISP's in the country.

Mountjoy Mugger

byte wrote: »

It's the first instance I've heard of anyway.

Mountjoy Mugger: Are you with Smart on one of the unbundled exchanges, or on the bitstream offering?

On their Summerhill exchange since they launched all those years ago. One of the first unbundled, iirc.

Cabaal

Hagar wrote: »

What the F is FUP?
You sell me un-limited at a price and I buy it.
You want more? Charge more. I'll pay it.
Otherwise Fuk OFF, give me what I paid for.

If you want truly unlimited then be very much prepared to pay for it, cause there's no such thing as unlimited especially for residential services
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=58094826&postcount=11

Fair comes from Smarts right to protect their own network,

Hagar

I have unlimited 18meg broadband and it is unlimited. It even carries my digital TV. It costs €39.90 per month including unlimited free telephone calls to all of Europe and North America.

The real reason you have these FUPs in Ireland is because the service providers want to market one concept at a premium price but give themselves a let out to provide a lesser service. There's nothing "fair" about what they are doing. They need to seriously up their game.

Cabaal

Hagar wrote: »

The real reason you have these FUPs in Ireland is because the service providers want to market one concept at a premium price but give themselves a let out to provide a lesser service. They need to seriously up their game.

FUP's are nothing specific to Ireland though, look at the UK

BT, PlusNet, NTL etc all were unlimited and never enforced any FUP or caps for years but then heavy users started and reality set in and ISP's actually had to make money so they had to introduce FUP's

Again its not just UK, look at the states a number of ISP's over there now have FUP's or want to introduce them.

Sure it would be nice to have truly unlimited but ISP's have to make a profit to survive as well.

If you want a higher fair usage policy then look at a business package tbh

Mountjoy Mugger

Cabaal wrote: »

If you want a higher fair usage policy then look at a business package tbh

I would, if I could. They won't sell me a business package as I'm not registered for VAT.


There seems to have been a major shift in policy at Smart in recent times. We were often told on Smart's on support forum how they never hit people with a FUP. Now, all of a sudden things have changed. I'd imagine this somes from the bean-counter types and not frontline staff, with a view to saving more cash. I only wish they gave us some advance warning.

I'm seriously mulling over moving to UPC - a thing I'd never have thought possible. Damnit, Smart!

Hagar

Why not market what you are actually selling?

Say an 8mb line with 50gb per month cap?

People would buy that, why lie to them?

A service is either unlimited or it isn't. If it is limited then say so, be honest.

jor el

Mountjoy Mugger wrote: »

Download/Upload total < 180GB. My lowest in some time.

180GB is not a really whole lot. On an 8Mbps line, that translates to about an hour and a half a day at top speed. If you're lucky enough to be getting close to 24Mbps, that's about half an hour a day.

I see a thread about it on the Smart forums, and the admin has said they are looking into it. Hopefully they'll clarify their limits soon, instead of giving this very ambiguous information.

machalla

Mountjoy Mugger wrote: »

I would, if I could. They won't sell me a business package as I'm not registered for VAT.

It doesn't matter anyway, the "business" package has a FUP as well! In fact one of the other threads on the forum states that they sell this package expecting lower bandwidth useage on it overall but higher burst speeds. So in fact its being sold as a fast connection with low bandwidth useage...

I think it would be appreciated if they actually stated what the caps are rather than falsely claiming to be "unlimited".

hightower1

Did anyone here actually read the contract or sales fine print?
ALL of it refrences a FUP applies. If you read the FUP it tells you all excessive usage guidelines and procedures.

Its the case for all ISP's because thats what the law demands. So they did provide all the information but seems like proper attention wasnt paid to what was being signed.

Spear

Kharn wrote: »

I'm after getting this email too - I don't think 25 gigs a month is "unfair" for a service that advertises itself as having "unlimited downloads."

Time to start shopping around for a new provider methinks.

Odd, I'm definitely over the 25 gigs level, yet I didn't receive a warning. Wonder if it's specific to certain packages or exchanges?

Hagar

hightower1 wrote: »

Did anyone here actually read the contract or sales fine print?
ALL of it refrences a FUP applies. If you read the FUP it tells you all excessive usage guidelines and procedures.

Its the case for all ISP's because thats what the law demands. So they did provide all the information but seems like proper attention wasnt paid to what was being signed.

What Law? Please link to the relevant legislation, here in Ireland, Planet Earth.


Here's a link to the Smart Telecom page. Every single option clearly states "Unlimited download" just above the "Buy Now" in Big letters. No where is a FUP mentioned. You have to find a link to the legal section and then find it on page 9 of the agreement. Could it be hidden any better?

Misleading? Deceptive? False Advertising? You tell me.

Shiminay

I made a booboo in my calculations, I'm closer to 240 gigs than 25!!!!

Time to investigate if the pc has been compromised!!!

Spear

Hagar wrote: »

What Law? Please link to the relevant legislation, here in Ireland, Planet Earth.


Here's a link to the Smart Telecom page. Every single option clearly states "Unlimited download" just above the "Buy Now" in Big letters. No where is a FUP mentioned. You have to find a link to the legal section and then find it on page 9 of the agreement. Could it be hidden any better?

Misleading? Deceptive? False Advertising? You tell me.

The FUP is in the terms and conditions link, section 23, which I can't cut and paste as it's a restricted PDF.
http://84.203.253.201/termsandconditions.pdf
The first line states, "There are no specific download or upload limits imposed on you by us, except for our budget entry bundle product which has a usage allowance as notified. For customers on service tiers higher than the entry level product, we may require you to reduce your download and/or upload where we consider it excessive or for purposes outside of normal residential use to ensure a fair service to all our customers".

Hagar

It's on the bottom of page 9 right? Just as I said in my post above. Nobody is denying it's existence.
It just contradicts the big sales pitch for unlimited downloads.
Why not put it on the sales page in the same font size as "Buy Now"?

You don't think the terms of a contract are "laws" do you?
Contracts are not laws, legislation passed by governments are laws.

kaimera

my housemate got the same and was only doing ~10gb a day for the month.

apparently he made it into the top3 downloaders in the d4 area for smart

they may not have the same capacity in DUB as LIM cos he was pulling down ~60gb a day in LIM before he got a letter/email.

Not too happy about getting a letter on their 24mb service tbh given we have 2 lines with smart because of the unlimited/no contention.

they do fiber but the costs are bit wee bit much right now... 2000e install/600e modem/500e per month at last cost analysis we did!

Spear

Hagar wrote: »

It's on the bottom of page 9 right? Just as I said in my post above. Nobody is denying it's existence.
It just contradicts the big sales pitch for unlimited downloads.
Why not put it on the sales page in the same font size as "Buy Now"?

You don't think the terms of a contract are "laws" do you?
Contracts are not laws, legislation passed by governments are laws.

I can't tell if you're addressing those questions to me, but I certainly amn't defending them, just posting their vague FUP for information purposes. I consider what they've done to be false advertising and deceptive.

hightower1

Hagar wrote: »

It's on the bottom of page 9 right? Just as I said in my post above. Nobody is denying it's existence.
It just contradicts the big sales pitch for unlimited downloads.
Why not put it on the sales page in the same font size as "Buy Now"?

You don't think the terms of a contract are "laws" do you?
Contracts are not laws, legislation passed by governments are laws.

http://www.asai.ie/selfregulation/law.asp

Here it gives your answer, and I am sure you will rant on about how "misleading" is mentioned but bear in mind they define misleading as example not including terms and conditions apply. If a product does state terms and conditions apply that the owness is on someone buying a product or service to investigate what the terms and conditions are.An ISP is breaking the law if the terms and conditions are not visable before purchase. As you showed yourself the terms and conditions are clearly visable on the site within a matter of mins.

Instead of blaming ISP's for "misleading" why not read the fine print? If its so important in the first place?

In fact comreg state that if "unlimited" is a feature of a broadband service as long as its shows a FUP is in place and all pretaining information is avail on this before puchase then it is fine.

Bottom line here is that if you are so tempted by a sales pitch and the feature is very important to you that common sense would dictate that you would read the T&C's before signing.

machalla

This is digging WAAAAY back here but see point 8 in the first post on this thread. In the days of Garfield...

http://boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=224613&highlight=garfield+smart

GarfieldConnoly was explaining the product at the time

"8. Limits?

There are no upload or download limits."

Thats when I signed up to them.

I assume they have a clause that allows them to change terms and conditions, from "unlimited" to limited but they need to communicate that fact to the end users now.

At the moment there is a cap in place but no one has any idea what it is exactly as they will not tell their customers. This is definitely not the company I was happy to deal with in the past and recommend to all and sundry even when Eircon tried to put them out of business.

Hagar

Spear wrote: »

I can't tell if you're addressing those questions to me, but I certainly amn't defending them, just posting their vague FUP for information purposes. I consider what they've done to be false advertising and deceptive.

Sorry not directed at you, I thought you were directing at me.:D

Hightower1 wrote:

Here it gives your answer, and I am sure you will rant on about how "misleading" is mentioned but bear in mind they define misleading as example not including terms and conditions apply. If a product does state terms and conditions apply that the owness is on someone buying a product or service to investigate what the terms and conditions are.An ISP is breaking the law if the terms and conditions are not visable before purchase. As you showed yourself the terms and conditions are clearly visable on the site within a matter of mins.

Instead of blaming ISP's for "misleading" why not read the fine print? If its so important in the first place?

In fact comreg state that if "unlimited" is a feature of a broadband service as long as its shows a FUP is in place and all pretaining information is avail on this before puchase then it is fine.

Bottom line here is that if you are so tempted by a sales pitch and the feature is very important to you that common sense would dictate that you would read the T&C's before signing.

I'm not ranting, we have a separate forum for that.

I dispute that the FUP is clearly visible, it can be found, if you read through 9 whole pages of terms and conditions. The service provider is depending on people not doing that and signing up on the basis of the advertised service. They are playing on your trust. They expect you to believe that the terms and conditions will be inline with what their advertisement says.

The claimed "Unlimited Downloads" however is clearly visible and repeated no less than six times on the page I linked to above.

"Tempted by a sales pitch" is a very telling point to make in this context don't you think? The sales pitch does not reflect the services provided that's why I claim there is deception.

Finally, self regulation is no regulation, the ASAI have no teeth.

jor el

Hagar wrote: »

It's on the bottom of page 9 right? Just as I said in my post above. Nobody is denying it's existence.

I'd have no problem with the FUP, or where it's located, but I might have issue with their definition of Fair. It looks like, from this thread and the one on the Smart Forums, that they're idea of fair somewhere around 100GB (download) per month. That's a tiny amount on a 24Mbps line.

To me, I would consider fair to be 10GB a day. That's only maxing your line for 1 hour a day, hardly excessive. I still await an official response from Smart on their forum as to what they'd consider fair though.

Spear

jor el wrote: »

I'd have no problem with the FUP, or where it's located, but I might have issue with their definition of Fair. It looks like, from this thread and the one on the Smart Forums, that they're idea of fair somewhere around 100GB (download) per month. That's a tiny amount on a 24Mbps line.

To me, I would consider fair to be 10GB a day. That's only maxing your line for 1 hour a day, hardly excessive. I still await an official response from Smart on their forum as to what they'd consider fair though.

Their definition of fair is now officially 170 gig.

http://support.smarttelecom.ie/forums/showthread.php?p=24238#post24238

majiktripp

Got this email this morning too, bit annoying, was in and around the 337801.48 MB's so maybe a bit excessive for a month (although thats upload and downloaded stats combined).

MunsterCycling

Just in case Smart mods want to get snippy:

hightower1

I have to say thats just a bit odd screen capturing that?
I think if it bothered you in the first place and the unlimited downloads feature was so important that you'd have done a little more investigation on it before signing up for it?

As it stands NO isp in Ireland currently has a broadband pack that is not inclusive of a FUP so if you are so unhappy about it contact comreg? Advertising regulator? Small claims court?

I am sure if your correct and it is in some way deceitful the courts or regulatory body will agree and sort the whole thing out?

EVERYTHING these days has terms and conditions, it astounds me how people will "forget" this when the sales pitch gives the impression of something they want to hear? Its a sales pitch of coarse its going to sound great up front but we are diligent people I would think and would look past the hype and read something before I put my bank details to paper no?

z0oT

Hagar wrote: »

Why not market what you are actually selling?

Say an 8mb line with 50gb per month cap?

People would buy that, why lie to them?

A service is either unlimited or it isn't. If it is limited then say so, be honest.

Couldn't agree more.

Spear

hightower1 wrote: »

EVERYTHING these days has terms and conditions, it astounds me how people will "forget" this when the sales pitch gives the impression of something they want to hear? Its a sales pitch of coarse its going to sound great up front but we are diligent people I would think and would look past the hype and read something before I put my bank details to paper no?

They clearly state on each package "unlimited downloads". There's nothing vague or equivocal or ambiguous there. Burying a vague catch all phrase in a T&C doesn't make it okay for them to lie, and they did lie.

animaal

As a producer of confectionary, could I produce chocolate, with a big sticker on the front of the packet saying "chocolate, 500g", with small-print on the back saying "actually, it's only 250g"

How's this different to the ISPs?

Onikage

hightower1 wrote: »

I am sure if your correct and it is in some way deceitful the courts or regulatory body will agree and sort the whole thing out?

Now that's just naive.

Hagar

hightower1 wrote: »

I have to say thats just a bit odd screen capturing that?
I think if it bothered you in the first place and the unlimited downloads feature was so important that you'd have done a little more investigation on it before signing up for it?

As it stands NO isp in Ireland currently has a broadband pack that is not inclusive of a FUP so if you are so unhappy about it contact comreg? Advertising regulator? Small claims court?

I am sure if your correct and it is in some way deceitful the courts or regulatory body will agree and sort the whole thing out?

EVERYTHING these days has terms and conditions, it astounds me how people will "forget" this when the sales pitch gives the impression of something they want to hear? Its a sales pitch of coarse its going to sound great up front but we are diligent people I would think and would look past the hype and read something before I put my bank details to paper no?

Get a grip.

chalkitdown

So, lets see, I've lost 'Free line rental for life', 076 telephone number disconnected with no notice, it just disappeared causing me a fair bit of hassle as I'd attached it to lots of printed material and now 'unlimited broadband' has been removed.

Did these goons go to some kind of Michael O'Leary middle management charm school? What a ridiculous way to introduce a cap.

And who decided 170GB was a fair figure and that it should apply to all tariffs?

It looks like Smart are acquiring idiots near the top.

Seriously considering leaving after more than 3 years and countless recommendations to others.

Cabaal

In relation to unfounded comments that smart have made false advertisements by saying their packages were unlimited, until the ASAI say Smart falsely advertised then such statements are pure speculation and are 100% unfounded, incorrect and are misleading by anyone who posts them,

Smart have always had a Fair Usage Policy, which smart customers agreed to when they subscribed to Smarts ADSL services.

The very fact Smart did not enforce this policy for some time and now are means they have done nothing wrong, they are simply exercising their rights in relation to the agreement that you should have read before agreeing to it. If you didn;t like the fact that Smart had a fup in their T&C's then you should have voted with your feet and signed up to another company that doesn;t have a FUP (problem is no such thing exists in Ireland and other countrys).

Getting smart arsed with Smart employee's helps nobody, Smart like any ISP are in it to make money and in these harder times they must make money to keep going and provide services.

At the end of the day Smart still offer decent value packages and their LLU roll-out (despite massive road-blocks by Eircom and comreg) has been a very good thing for Ireland.

dub45

Cabaal wrote: »

even if Smart introduced a 100GB cap its still a pretty good value package, lads grass is not always greener....again look at the UK

It doesn't matter how good a package it is relative to something elsewhere or indeed here. This sort of pro isp response drives me crazy I have to admit.

The fact is that Smart are changing the goal posts and with lousy communication with their customers too.

Smart have trumpeted the 'unlimited downloads' as a feature of their products and now without any notice they are suddenly changing things.

If they wanted to do this in any sort of way that treated their customers with a bit of respect they should have notified customers in advance.

A global email is hardly that difficult to arrange is it? Something along the lines of 'as and from the xx of xx a cap will be introduced etc etc' Its hardly rocket science. ISPs regularly quote terms and conditions to customers. Here we have yet another isp showing scant regard for the spirit of t&c's

As chalkitdown points out they previously discontinued the 076 service without any notification to customers. And in the process 'paid for' credit disappeared. Disgraceful behaviour on the part of any supposedly reputable company.

I write as a satisfied Smart customer. I am not a heavy downloader so this does not affect me but the behaviour appalls me.

Cabaal

Spear wrote: »

They clearly state on each package "unlimited downloads". There's nothing vague or equivocal or ambiguous there. Burying a vague catch all phrase in a T&C doesn't make it okay for them to lie, and they did lie.

Section 23.1 of Smart T&C's clearly states FUP, further to this it states that if you exceed usage for whats considered normal residential usage they may ask you to cut back.

By industry standards across ISP's in Ireland and the UK for the average Joe user 100GB a month plus is considered excessive,

Smart didn't like, the problem is consumers assumped they could do what they want with the service and now because Smart are enforcing their T&C's "some" users are bitching about it.

Its worth noting that 23.2 states Smart reserve the right to also charge for excess usage, something BT, UTV, Eircom, Perlico, Imagine, Vodafone, Three, O2, Meteor etc etc (need I go on) all reserve the right to do also.

Nothing strange about what Smart has done, bandwidth costs money at the end of the day.

Cabaal

dub45 wrote: »

It doesn't matter how good a package it is relative to something elsewhere or indeed here. This sort of pro isp response drives me crazy I have to admit.

Its not pro, I'm just stating actual facts.
ASAI says the advertising is ok until this changes its not false advertising

Smart have trumpeted the 'unlimited downloads' as a feature of their products and now without any notice they are suddenly changing things.

This is an incorrect statement, Smart stated in their T&C's that they can notify users for high usage they are simply now doing this

Again they are changing nothing and are simpying doing what all their customers agreed to.

If they wanted to do this in any sort of way that treated their customers with a bit of respect they should have notified customers in advance.

They are now notifying customers that have exceeded whats considered normal usage for residential ADSL packages, so again what have they done wrong?

A global email is hardly that difficult to arrange is it? Something along the lines of 'as and from the xx of xx a cap will be introduced etc etc' Its hardly rocket science. ISPs regularly quote terms and conditions to customers. Here we have yet another isp showing scant regard for the spirit of t&c's

If Smart sent a global e-mail this would likely cause ALOT of unneeded calls to their support line, not from heavy users but from normal joe users who will never hit the high usage but maybe perhaps don;t understand the coms and/or people that are worried for no valid reasons (yes this actually happens in to ISP users).

Also Smart's T&C's state they will only notify heavy users so why bother e-mailing light users and average users who this will never ever affect?

As chalkitdown points out they previously discontinued the 076 service without any notification to customers. And in the process 'paid for' credit disappeared. Disgraceful behaviour on the part of any supposedly reputable company.

Very much a separate issue and belongs in the VoIP forum not Broadband, your free to start a thread in VoIP about this. Lets stay on topic regarding Smarts FUP on its ADSL products

I write as a satisfied Smart customer. I am not a heavy downloader so this does not affect me......

...and it won;t affect say 95% of Smarts home ADSL users, you have to remember that for any ISP heavy users are very much in the minority not the majority like some people on this forum appear to believe (as they are basing it on assumptions only and not actual facts)

Hagar

Cabaal wrote: »

Smart didn't like, the problem is consumers assumped they could do what they want with the service

Could that assumption in any way be connected with being "sold" an "unlimited download" service?

Most people have a moral compass of some sort and can tell right from wrong, my compass tells me that Smart were wrong by being sharp and selling something that they could never deliver.

Now that they have oversold and can't deliver people are realising that the Emperor really has no clothes.

dub45

Cabaal wrote: »

Its not pro, I'm just stating actual facts.
ASAI says the advertising is ok until this changes its not false advertising

It is pro because you are praising an isp's product - which is not the point of the discussion. You are also jumping ahead of yourself here - where have the ASAI said that the advertising is ok?

Cabaal wrote: »

This is an incorrect statement, Smart stated in their T&C's that they can notify users for high usage they are simply now doing this

Again they are changing nothing and are simpying doing what all their customers agreed to.

It isn't an incorrect statement - Smart have always given the impression to customers and would be customers irrespective of what's in their terms and conditions that they operated an unlimited download policy. There is such a thing as custom and practise. And Smart have now introduced without any notice a defined cap - that is not a fair usage policy.

Cabaal wrote: »

They are now notifying customers that have exceeded whats considered normal usage for residential ADSL packages, so again what have they done wrong?

This is an all of a sudden consideration of ''what's normal'' that's what's wrong.

Last month it was ok per the same terms and conditions under which it is now not normal???????

Cabaal wrote: »

If Smart sent a global e-mail this would likely cause ALOT of unneeded calls to their support line, not from heavy users but from normal joe users who will never hit the high usage but maybe perhaps don;t understand the coms and/or people that are worried for no valid reasons (yes this actually happens in to ISP users). Also Smart's T&C's state they will only notify heavy users so why bother e-mailing light users and average users who this will never ever affect?

You dont know that this will happen. However if Smart are effecting a significant change of policy and practise then all customers are entitled to know

Cabaal wrote: »

Very much a separate issue and belongs in the VoIP forum not Broadband, your free to start a thread in VoIP about this. Lets stay on topic regarding Smarts FUP on its ADSL products

No its not a separate issue because it illustrates similar behaviour on Smart's part in the past. This is not just about fup it is also about how Smart have gone about it and non communication in advance with their customers.

Cabaal wrote: »

...and it won;t affect say 95% of Smarts home ADSL users, you have to remember that for any ISP heavy users are very much in the minority not the majority like some people on this forum appear to believe (as they are basing it on assumptions only and not actual facts)

What does affect all customers of a company is that company's behaviour in relation to its customers. And this behaviour shows scant regard by Smart (yet again) for good communication with its customers.

And can I emphasise yet again that this is no longer about fup but the fact that Smart have now issued a defined cap for its products.

hightower1

What Cabaal is saying makes total sense, this was always an option for Smart like it is for any ISP. If it was illegal in any way they wouldnt be allowed advertise like this. Its not so they are.
If you dont like it change ISP but no matter who you use they ALL have a FUP.
"Unlimited" is based on the average household download per month, the FUP far exceeds this then the average household will view this to be unlimited. Comreg have all this info up and as long as they are satisfied that the FUP is sufficiently high they see nothing wrong with it being advertised as such.

When car adverts say "from €9,999" or something similar but the car in the ad is the to of the range version costing €15,999 do you cry foul when your in the dealership saying it doesn't look like what you believed it should be? They'd laugh at ya asking did you read the print at the bottom of the ad!


If you dont like it move to an ISP that has no FUP.

jor el

Cabaal wrote: »

Smart have always had a Fair Usage Policy, which smart customers agreed to when they subscribed to Smarts ADSL services.

Yes, but Smart have laid down a precedent over the last 7 years or so, where that FUP was quite high. Now, all of a sudden, it's very much lower, at 170GB combined up and down. It's also the same for someone who pays €34 for 2Mbps as it is for those paying €78 for 24Mbps, which is also unfair, IMO.

At the moment, they say these are just warnings, and no action is being taken against anyone. I'll wait to see what happens in 30 days time, when I guess they'll review the usage by all those who were warned.

Getting rid of heavy users may be beneficial, and something any ISP would like to do, but the negative publicity, and word of mouth, may do more harm than good. I've always recommended Smart because of their high cap, I'd have to think twice about it now, and depending on where this goes, it may be a recommendation to avoid.

I always leave Bittorrent seeding, as I don't download much with it, but I've looked at what it does, and even though I've limited upload to about 1/3 of available capacity, it still uploads about 1.5GB a day. That's 45GB a month! Time to knock that on the head.

dub45

hightower1 wrote: »

What Cabaal is saying makes total sense, this was always an option for Smart like it is for any ISP. If it was illegal in any way they wouldnt be allowed advertise like this. Its not so they are.
If....

That is not true - the mere fact that an advertisement appears does not make that advertisement legal.

hightower1 wrote: »

If you dont like it move to an ISP that has no FUP.

Its not quite that easy for someone in the middle of a 12 month contract who chose to sign up with Smart on the basis that they themselves had implemented their terms and conditions since they started up.

Smart have also introduced this new approach retrospectively which is quite extraordinary.

How do we know that next week it wont change again?

Meanwhile Smart go on proclaiming 'unlimited downloads' on their website!

Home Value 2Mb
FREE Technical Support
2Mb Down / 256kb Up
Unlimited Downloads
Free Wi Fi modem for all online orders
Terms and Conditions

And now poor Steve has become a liar!!! He mustn't have got his email yet!!!


http://www.smarttelecom.ie/Testimonials/Residential.aspx

No download limits means I can download whatever I want
Steve!

mrquiteaguy

lol Dub45 That was funny about Steve.:)

More Smart recycling.

170Gb Cap "Makes you fall in love with your Broadband all over again!":D

hightower1

Just three words there.... terms and conditions.

Means they can do what they want under the remit of those because it means its up to someone signing to read those fully. Its not their problem if their not read.


Word of mouth on something like this inst going to hurt them in any way at all. The average household will still see their downloads as unlimited cause they will never reach the FUP area. The only people who will talk about or even understand this and hence get this "bad word of mouth" will be the very small few who go above the average cap. Its just a numbers game really, the average household doesn't know nor care cause it wont effect them.

At the end of the day as much as it sounds like a poor showing or not , the clause was always there , it was signed for by every smart customer so they can enforce it whenever they choose, all regulatory bodies are ok with this, no amount of bad word or mouth will change the fact and there really is only one choice and thats tp change to an ISP with a higher FUP (I think thats UPC right now) but again the same situation applies.


Unless someone here wants to start an ISP with no FUP or terms and conditions. Of coarse it means they will need the very best network in the world considering they will need to cope with a truly unlimited amount of traffic on it and supply all that at a competitive price. Any takers?

dub45

hightower1 wrote: »

Just three words there.... terms and conditions.

Means they can do what they want under the remit of those because it means its up to someone signing to read those fully. Its not their problem if their not read.


Word of mouth on something like this inst going to hurt them in any way at all. The average household will still see their downloads as unlimited cause they will never reach the FUP area. The only people who will talk about or even understand this and hence get this "bad word of mouth" will be the very small few who go above the average cap. Its just a numbers game really, the average household doesn't know nor care cause it wont effect them.

At the end of the day as much as it sounds like a poor showing or not , the clause was always there , it was signed for by every smart customer so they can enforce it whenever they choose, all regulatory bodies are ok with this, no amount of bad word or mouth will change the fact and there really is only one choice and thats tp change to an ISP with a higher FUP (I think thats UPC right now) but again the same situation applies.


Unless someone here wants to start an ISP with no FUP or terms and conditions. Of coarse it means they will need the very best network in the world considering they will need to cope with a truly unlimited amount of traffic on it and supply all that at a competitive price. Any takers?

I don't know why your only argument appears to be based on extremes.

Most people realise there are costs involved in all of this. However it was Smart themselves that operated their download policy since they started and encouraged people like poor Steve (now sadly a liar for all time on the internet:)) to believe that the fup was so high he need not worry.

If Smart had treated their customers with a bit of respect and pointed out that due to increasing costs, the recession, the rain in spain or whatever that they had to rethink their policy etc etc and henceforth a realistic fup or cap would be put in place they would not have generated such bad feeling.

It is Smart themselves who created the expectation and allowed the practise not anybody else.

And poor Steve was presumably reading Smart's script!

At least in the much maligned financial world they have the decency to put in an asterisk and a subject to terms and conditions. Steve had no asterisk!