UPC letter

Walker34

Hi,
I got a letter from UPC which claimed I had exceeded the 250gig monthly upload/download limit. It inform me that if it occurred again they would upgrade me to fiber channel broadband at in increased charge of €80/month.I am mystified how this could have occurred, but in the absence of proof to the contrary I have to accept it.

I originally signed up for what was then called "The Max Pack" which, as the name implied, was supposed to provide maximum speed of 20 meg broadband, but which never did. Now I am told that I am on 15meg broadband which seems to have been a "silent" downgrade....silent to me that is.

I have now set my router to monitor my download/upload traffic and to flash a warning light if I even begin to approach that limit. I was told about 6 months ago that if I was on 20megs I was going to be automatically upgraded to 30meg anyway. UPC had a promotion at that time to sign a new contract and be upgraded free. I posted here about it then.

What alternatives are there to UPC in this great choice ridden free market.
Is Sky any better......I have my Digital TV,telephone and broadband with UPC. Is there any equivalent provider on price and service.

billyboy01

Walker34 wrote: »

Hi,
I got a letter from UPC which claimed I had exceeded the 250gig monthly upload/download limit. It inform me that if it occurred again they would upgrade me to fiber channel broadband at in increased charge of €80/month.I am mystified how this could have occurred, but in the absence of proof to the contrary I have to accept it.

I originally signed up for what was then called "The Max Pack" which, as the name implied, was supposed to provide maximum speed of 20 meg broadband, but which never did. Now I am told that I am on 15meg broadband which seems to have been a "silent" downgrade....silent to me that is.

I have now set my router to monitor my download/upload traffic and to flash a warning light if I even begin to approach that limit. I was told about 6 months ago that if I was on 20megs I was going to be automatically upgraded to 30meg anyway. UPC had a promotion at that time to sign a new contract and be upgraded free. I posted here about it then.

What alternatives are there to UPC in this great choice ridden free market.
Is Sky any better......I have my Digital TV,telephone and broadband with UPC. Is there any equivalent provider on price and service.

Welcome to the club, the same thing happen to me before Christmas. I was charged an extra 70quid on top of my normal bill. Hence I cancelled on Wednesday without charge under the T&C's of there new 4th of January price hikes!:) Im gone with another Fiber power BB provider for BB and Phone, and FreeSat HD for UK TV and DTT for Paddy TV! Happy Days!

Walker34

NTL/Chorus TV,Phon,Broadband
Hi,
I inquired about this from Chorus/NTL last week and was given a number of differing prices. The sales guy kinda fudged the issue by insisting on pricing each item separately and inconsistently. I wanted to know how much the 3 pack bundle cost monthly. My best estimate is €76 in or around.It has Digital TV,Local and land line calls,and 6m/512k broadband internet.

Has anyone else out there got this package and what is your opinion of it. Is it as good as it sounds or has it serious shortcomings. A guy called to install mine but the line was not live and taps were missing.I am in Dublin 6 and with Eircom at present, on 2meg/128k broadband.TIA,John
Last edited by Walker34; 28-01-2008

NTL Max Pack
Hi,
I purchased the NTL Max Pack bundle back in 2007? sometime and spent a long time researching the various options available at that time. I was GUARANTEED on numerous occasions that the monthly charge was €86, and NO there were no hidden charges and it was a straight up deal.

Well its now 2010 and I have NEVER had one bill for the stated amount, in fact it is invariably between €110 or €130+. That's a 40% increase on the quoted price.....and no I don't make €35 worth of mobile calls a month, from my land line and very rarely ring outside Ireland.

Anyone else have a similar experience?

billyboy01

Well if your not happy with UPC. You have until the 3rd of Jan 2011 to get out without a breaking of your contract and being charged €200!

http://www.upc.ie/about_us/pricenotice/

If you want to leave, Email your name and address with your Account number to:

resolutionteam@upc.ie

vibe666

Walker34 wrote: »

What alternatives are there to UPC in this great choice ridden free market.
Is Sky any better......I have my Digital TV,telephone and broadband with UPC. Is there any equivalent provider on price and service.

Sky don't do broadband in ireland unfortunately, but their TV service is much better than the UPC equiv. although you will pay more for the sky equiv. of similar TV packages, whichever you go for. the HD options are significantly cheaper with UPC too, although you won't get as many HD channels as you do with sky.

if you live somewhere with magnet broadband, tv & phone service you might get a better 3-in-1 deal but they aren't available in many places.

billyboy01 wrote: »

Well if your not happy with UPC. You have until the 3rd of Jan 2011 to get out without a breaking of your contract and being charged €200!

http://www.upc.ie/about_us/pricenotice/

If you want to leave, Email your name and address with your Account number to:

resolutionteam@upc.ie

please stop scaremongering, he's not in a locked contract with UPC as he never signed up for any of the upgrades or downgrades so his original old contract has long since lapsed and he should be able to get out whenever he wants without penalty so there's no urgent rush for him to leave on a whim if he's not 100% sure.

nobody like getting nasty letters about overuse, but he's done the sensible thing and installed a bandwidth monitor so he knows for definite what his usage is and can manage it without going over the limit.

unless he has access to magnet he's not going to find an ISP in ireland with a higher cap than UPC so it's pointless leaving them just because they sent a letter about high usage when he can't prove that he didn't use what they said he did at the time. unless he can get magnet broadband he's going to have to move to a broadband provider with a lower cap and most likely a lower speed, possibly even at a higher price which makes no sense at all.

if UPC's bandwidth measurement was wrong and they send him another letter or upgrade him in the future then he will have evidence next time that it is incorrect and he can argue his case.

of all the people who have claimed recently that UPC are overcharging them for bandwidth they never used, i only seen one of them that was able to prove it wasn't actually used and that was because he was away on holiday and his modem was off.

one of my own machines was using over 5gb of bandwidth a day because of a rogue browser window that was open and doing god knows what (only had my router admin page, amazon.co.uk, ebay.ie, 3x boards.ie and a couple of other random legit websites open). as soon as i closed the tabs it stopped, but they were all static pages no youtube anything like that.

there's wifi hacking, other people in the house gobbling up bandwidth without telling you, add to that the possibility of spyware, virus's and trojans etc. chewing up bandwidth on any number of PC's and your bandwidth can disappear pretty sharpish without you even realising it.

the only way to be sure is with bandwidth monitoring software on your router measuring everything that passes through it and without that you have no accurate way to measure anything you're doing online with any real degree of accuracy.

PauricTheLodger

billyboy01 wrote: »

Well if your not happy with UPC. You have until the 3rd of Jan 2011 to get out without a breaking of your contract and being charged €200!

http://www.upc.ie/about_us/pricenotice/

If you want to leave, Email your name and address with your Account number to:

resolutionteam@upc.ie

Cheers for that price notice link. Any particular reason I didn't get a letter in the post about this?

Also, does that mean that the 15mb is going to be their fastest line from now on?

Facelessman

I got a similar letter but have not yet been charged extra.

I wonder is there a case for Comreg in that UPC are the only provider that I am aware of that charge for exceeding their cap but do not provide the facility for customers to check their usage.

As streaming migrates towards HD quality, this will become a much bigger issue. I subscribe to mlb.tv and NFL gamepass which stream in HD quality which download at approx. 800mb/1.3gb per hour respectively.

This article shows how much capacity streaming is taking up in the US. If Netflix or UPC themselves start offering a streaming service in Ireland then the cap will surely need to be revised.

http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2010/10/netflix-instant-accounts-for-20-percent-of-peak-u-s-bandwith-use/

Walker34

Hi,
Thanks for the comments folks...food for thought.Is Magnet available in
Dublin 6 and who exactly are they......just another name for Sky or UPC or are they truly independent.....might take a closer look.

Facelessman

Magnet are US owned by Hibernia Atlantic and completely independent. They have unbundled the Rathmines exchange and as such their 24mb package is available in D6.

I was with Magnet for 12 months before joining UPC and found no issues with their customer service/billing etc. They were even quite nice when I left and collected the modem from where I work. I left as I was only getting 12-14mb on the 24mb package as I lived in Ranelagh which was in the outer reach of the Rathmines exchange. Not Magnet's fault but rather a limitation of DSL broadband. I would recommend Magnet assuming you live closer to Rathmines.

billyboy01

vibe666 wrote: »

Sky don't do broadband in ireland unfortunately, but their TV service is much better than the UPC equiv. although you will pay more for the sky equiv. of similar TV packages, whichever you go for. the HD options are significantly cheaper with UPC too, although you won't get as many HD channels as you do with sky.

if you live somewhere with magnet broadband, tv & phone service you might get a better 3-in-1 deal but they aren't available in many places.

please stop scaremongering, he's not in a locked contract with UPC as he never signed up for any of the upgrades or downgrades so his original old contract has long since lapsed and he should be able to get out whenever he wants without penalty so there's no urgent rush for him to leave on a whim if he's not 100% sure.

nobody like getting nasty letters about overuse, but he's done the sensible thing and installed a bandwidth monitor so he knows for definite what his usage is and can manage it without going over the limit.

unless he has access to magnet he's not going to find an ISP in ireland with a higher cap than UPC so it's pointless leaving them just because they sent a letter about high usage when he can't prove that he didn't use what they said he did at the time. unless he can get magnet broadband he's going to have to move to a broadband provider with a lower cap and most likely a lower speed, possibly even at a higher price which makes no sense at all.

if UPC's bandwidth measurement was wrong and they send him another letter or upgrade him in the future then he will have evidence next time that it is incorrect and he can argue his case.

of all the people who have claimed recently that UPC are overcharging them for bandwidth they never used, i only seen one of them that was able to prove it wasn't actually used and that was because he was away on holiday and his modem was off.

one of my own machines was using over 5gb of bandwidth a day because of a rogue browser window that was open and doing god knows what (only had my router admin page, amazon.co.uk, ebay.ie, 3x boards.ie and a couple of other random legit websites open). as soon as i closed the tabs it stopped, but they were all static pages no youtube anything like that.

there's wifi hacking, other people in the house gobbling up bandwidth without telling you, add to that the possibility of spyware, virus's and trojans etc. chewing up bandwidth on any number of PC's and your bandwidth can disappear pretty sharpish without you even realising it.

the only way to be sure is with bandwidth monitoring software on your router measuring everything that passes through it and without that you have no accurate way to measure anything you're doing online with any real degree of accuracy.

Look myself and people I know have had major issues with UPC, unlike when the service was run by NTL, which never bothered me at all. Just got billed the correct amount and I payed, I have had nothing but bad customer care and out of the blue over charging was the last straw for me! But if you find them to be good and have no problems or are willing to take the changing of the goal posts crap from them. Well thats your choice!

But I have voted with my Cash, and have changed ISP and TV provider! As I am lucky to be able to get a similar BB/phone and TV option, that suits me.

jor el

PauricTheLodger wrote: »

Cheers for that price notice link. Any particular reason I didn't get a letter in the post about this?

No one got a letter about it. This is irrelevant to you anyway, as you can end your contract at any time by giving 1 months notice.

PauricTheLodger wrote: »

Also, does that mean that the 15mb is going to be their fastest line from now on?

Where'd you get that from? They have 25Mbps, 30Mbps and 100Mbps. They're just implementing price changes on the 15Mbps and lower ones.

PauricTheLodger

jor el wrote: »

Where'd you get that from? They have 25Mbps, 30Mbps and 100Mbps. They're just implementing price changes on the 15Mbps and lower ones.

I wasn't sure if it meant that they were reducing the speeds on the lines for some godawful reason. Cheers for that

Nollog

Walker34 wrote: »

fiber channel broadband at in increased charge of €80/month

Didn't it used to be 70 and called fibre ultimate or something?

vibe666

broadband extreme afaik. always been €80 per month for as long as i can remember.

GHOST MGG2

the "extreme" package is 80 euros a month..it isnt advertised...
Its a package that when the bad people who download too much porn
are sent too...much like a modern version of van diemens land:-p

Automan

Has anyone on the 5Mb or 8Mb packages ever got a letter for exceeding the 40GB and 120GB limits?

Walker34

Well I started mopnitoring traffic on my router on the 1st Janurary 2011 and eventhough its only the 24th of Jan my router reads 190.670 Gigs downloaded. I only downloaded ONE game upgrade totalling 680 megs and the rest of the time just browsed youtube mostly. My kids play Warcraft, Oblivion, Xbox360 Black Ops, ect but are instructed not to download anything in the way of upgrades/patches without telling me.

There is a switch on the router to disable wifi and I have been switching it off most of the time, my eldest uses Facebook on his ipod ocasionally, but other than that its off. So how the hell am I downloading such high volumes of data. I know my fair share of tcpip/networking/packetswitching and cant fathom how the traffic is being clocked up.

I use Backtrack for monitoring my area and what theyare using wifi wise, so dont see any evidence that anyone has hacked my wifi or broadband. My Router is rock solid and trying to hack it with Backtrack was virtually impossible using Live CD/Kismet/airodump/packetforge ect.

I have written to NTL/upc instructing them not to upgrade me to the extreme broadband........which I discovered they can do without consulting me.

Anyone have any suggestions on what might be the cause of thr traffic and how I might analyse it further.

dub45

Walker34 wrote: »

Well I started mopnitoring traffic on my router on the 1st Janurary 2011 and eventhough its only the 24th of Jan my router reads 190.670 Gigs downloaded. I only downloaded ONE game upgrade totalling 680 megs and the rest of the time just browsed youtube mostly. My kids play Warcraft, Oblivion, Xbox360 Black Ops, ect but are instructed not to download anything in the way of upgrades/patches without telling me.

There is a switch on the router to disable wifi and I have been switching it off most of the time, my eldest uses Facebook on his ipod ocasionally, but other than that its off. So how the hell am I downloading such high volumes of data. I know my fair share of tcpip/networking/packetswitching and cant fathom how the traffic is being clocked up.

I use Backtrack for monitoring my area and what theyare using wifi wise, so dont see any evidence that anyone has hacked my wifi or broadband. My Router is rock solid and trying to hack it with Backtrack was virtually impossible using Live CD/Kismet/airodump/packetforge ect.

I have written to NTL/upc instructing them not to upgrade me to the extreme broadband........which I discovered they can do without consulting me.

Anyone have any suggestions on what might be the cause of thr traffic and how I might analyse it further.

How did you discover this? I dont believe that they have any entitlement to do this at all.

Firstly there is this:

ComReg expects each service provider to implement a clear, transparent and policy for dealing with customer usage above any set thresholds. The policy should set out the rules for contract termination, including penalties, the charges that shall apply for any use above the threshold/limit, and the policy regarding migration of the customer to other packages, if applicable

UPC have no policy anywhere as far as I can see on this upgrading to a product which is non existent! You dont discover its existence until you are on it (unless of course that your read boards.ie)

UPC may quote their Acceptable Usage Policy (which proclaims itself to be part of their Terms and Conditions)

f you exceed your monthly data transfer allowance as determined by UPC, in our sole judgment, UPC may take any of the following actions, or any combination thereof:
Impose a charge of 3 cent per megabyte or part thereof for exceeding your data transfer limit; and/or
Upgrade your package to a package with a higher data transfer limit with the corresponding higher monthly fee; and/or
Downgrade your upload and download speed for a period of one month to dial-up speed, with your monthly fee remaining the same; and/or
Suspend your access to the services for one month, with your monthly fee remaining the same; and/or
Terminate your account as per the terms of the User Policy and UPC Terms and Conditions.

How can any customer be expected to agree to an upgrade to a product that they do not even know the existence of or the likely cost of any such product? (And bear in mind that up to recently there wasn't any way for a new customer to even understand when that might happen given the "unlimited" use of unlimited by UPC) Given the openness of that proviso UPC could charge a customer anything for the "punishment" product. Combined with the absence of any "official" method for measuring your usage it means there is a farcical anti customer situation. Imagine the ESB or Bord Gais being allowed to bill customers without them having access to a meter.

I would dispute any such attempted charge and request UPC to supply their policy as per Comreg's requirement.

vibe666

Walker34 wrote: »

Anyone have any suggestions on what might be the cause of thr traffic and how I might analyse it further.

there is a relatively new firmware for the Linksys WRT54G (and others) called Gargoyle that allows IP level bandwidth monitoring on your connection, so you can see exactly who is using all your bandwidth.

you can buy a linksys WRT54G online for around €40 and re-flash the firmware yourself, or buy a cheap little router with gargoyle pre-installed from their website.

you's be surprised how quickly it can go, even if you're not doing anything online.

i had a hung browser window on a machine that wasn't even being used gobble up 10gb in 48 hours last month which resulted in me going over the 250gb AUP (by 11gb).

you should bear in mind though that there are about 20 different model of WRT54G and not all of them are compatible with 3rd party firmwares so do a little research online to make sure you're buying the right one before you get your wallet out.

a good place to start is the wikipedia page for the router and the LinksysInfo.org forums.

good luck.

oh, and consider changing your wifi key to something totally random, just in case. but make sure you copy it down too.

I'm a big fan of an avery label stuck to the underside of a router with the wifi key on it, that way you can't lose the key without losing the router.

Walker34

the WRT54G has been around for a good few years,....I had one before moving to a Netgear about 5 years ago I think. I remember netheads raving about its hackability.

I use Youtube a LOT for tutorials ect but most are only about 25megs so I would have to be downloading 10,000 average Youtube videos to breach the limit.Thats 35 days of nonstop youtube videos. I like Youtube, ....but not that much, especially for tutorials.

I have a bridge installed to extend the WiFi coverage and am interested in the Gargoyle product...must read up on it. I cant help suspecting that NTL/UPC will use the 250gig limit breach to force people to take the Broadban Extreme product, and since now it costs €200 to get out of the contract its a costly business. And then what?....eircom with the ubiquotous "UP TO" 8 megs but probably only 3 megs in reality.

I use a really long PSK that takes a long time to hack and I change it regularly along with my router login details so Im reasonably confident that its secure.......??????
Then again theres DESSID......say no more! I like Dub45s comments and agree fully, this has to breach a dozen or more trade regulations.

slave1

Jazuz Walker, your usage stats are shocking given the pattern of use, I would never have expected that:eek:
Don't forget your uploads as well my friend.

PixelTrawler

I ran a checker over the last few days out of curiosity as I was streaming a fair bit of tv.

Few shows from iplayer, channel 4, rte etc and some light browsing.
Was averaging about 6gig a day (Down) so it clocks up fast.

Noticed about a 20:1 DL UL ratio over the days plus UPC possibly also count delivery overheads.

So just monthly steaming could eat the 250 gig

moonboy52

I use DD-WRT micro on my WRT54GS 5.1 Linksys.

It is the lite version as it is one of them with reduced internal memory i think.

Anyway it still has the WAN monitoring tool for traffic.

As a result i never go over my AUP limit.

If it bust today i would buy a GL on the spot.

Walker34

dub45 wrote: »

How did you discover this? I dont believe that they have any entitlement to do this at all.

It was stated in the letter I received that any further breach of the 250gig limit would result in me being upgraded to the €80 fiberpower extreme broadband WITHOUT further notice. Now THAT is worrying......now I am watching my download volume on a monthly basis, and have my routher set to disable the connection if I approach the limit.

jock101

Walker34 wrote: »

dub45 wrote: »

How did you discover this? I dont believe that they have any entitlement to do this at all.

It was stated in the letter I received that any further breach of the 250gig limit would result in me being upgraded to the €80 fiberpower extreme broadband WITHOUT further notice. Now THAT is worrying......now I am watching my download volume on a monthly basis, and have my routher set to disable the connection if I approach the limit.

UPC are chancers, they upgraded me without notice and charged me 80quid on top of the normal 42euro for the 30meg speed. Even though I had monitored my usage since I got one of those letters 4 months before, and had not exceeded the 250gb limit. I have left them recently! After some clown in there AUP after days of phone calls, admitted and then denied there was a modem conflict problem!

So be careful!:mad:

Walker34

I reset my router last night and let one of my kids back on the internet for one hour and he went straight to watching streaming video of a site called "That Guy With the Glasses" . It is very funney but within 1 hour he had downloaded almost 3 gigs........mystery solved! Over the Christmas there were 3 kids watchin that and other streaming TV shows including 4OD, (on seperate pc`s)....which is also popular. Its no wonder the 250 gig limit got breached. No hacking involved......just standard usage.
Looks like "Solyad" hit the nail there.

vibe666

Walker34 wrote: »

I reset my router last night and let one of my kids back on the internet for one hour and he went straight to watching streaming video of a site called "That Guy With the Glasses" . It is very funney but within 1 hour he had downloaded almost 3 gigs........mystery solved! Over the Christmas there were 3 kids watchin that and other streaming TV shows including 4OD, (on seperate pc`s)....which is also popular. Its no wonder the 250 gig limit got breached. No hacking involved......just standard usage.
Looks like "Solyad" hit the nail there.

that's the thing, UPC's idea of 'acceptable usage' is based on a world before streaming video was popular and streaming HD video didn't even exist.

the internet is a big place and it's growing bigger all the time, year on year.

dub45

vibe666 wrote: »

that's the thing, UPC's idea of 'acceptable usage' is based on a world before streaming video was popular and streaming HD video didn't even exist.

the internet is a big place and it's growing bigger all the time, year on year.

And also watching video is now an integral part of family life not an extra. All the more reason then for a reliable usage meter to be mandatory for all isps and a proper procedure to be put in place for contesting conflicts.

As I have pointed out before it is inconceivable that the absence of usage meters would be tolerated in any other area.

vibe666

dub45 wrote: »

And also watching video is now an integral part of family life not an extra. All the more reason then for a reliable usage meter to be mandatory for all isps and a proper procedure to be put in place for contesting conflicts.

As I have pointed out before it is inconceivable that the absence of usage meters would be tolerated in any other area.

it seems there's a bit of a backlash in canada over usage caps and overcharging for going over bandwidth limits.

this gave me a little giggle anyway:



anyone fancy starting up an Irish branch?