UPC: Acceptable use policy

kayser

Just got this letter from UPC. Have they downgraded anyone who exceeded their usage limits? This got me worried because, so far, I havent noticed any other isp offering 100 mb/s and a cap of 500GB.

Has anyone else got a similar experience with upc? What do you guys recommend? Would they downgrade my connection?

vibe666

they used to upgrade you instead of downgrade you, but since everyone has the same cap now, they seem to be going the other way and trying to slow you down.

not that it would make much difference being as you could smash the living crap out of 500gb in a few days with even their slowest package.

the letter is identical (aside from the heading etc.) to the letter i got sent for going over the 250gb limit on january 2009 on the 20mbps broadband (the fastest at the time).

it's got nothing to do with your neighbours experiencing slow speeds. after all, you could trickle down 1tb over the course of a month and have less of an effect in the short term than if you'd been hammering the crap out of it and downloading 500gb as quickly as you possibly could and then turning it off for the rest of the month.

fight it. tell them a 500gb cap is unreasonable for a 100mbps connection (maybe check other UPC territories, i'm pretty sure they don't have a cap/aup mentioned). you could download 500gb in around 12 hours if you could find somewhere that could serve you at the full 100mbps.

demand a UPC usage monitor so you can keep an eye on your downloads. question their own monitoring that set this alert off because you really don't think it's possible that your usage was so high (regardless of how you might feel about it).

UPC have been promising a usage monitor at least as long as I've been a customer (since november 2008) and it's never materialised. tell them you'll accept a downgrade if you go over their limits as long as they can provide you with an accurate online monitor so you can check your usage.

or don't, it's entirely up to you.

jor el

I've removed the attached letter from your post as you still had your account number visible. You can re-attach the letter if you like, but remove all personal detail first, for your own safety.

Nothingbetter2d

but if your downloading illegal content and go over your cap limit they flag you now under fair usage policy...

to quote UPC's fair usage policy sub sections 4. & 5.

"Section 4: Prohibited Conduct

As a general principle, you must not use the Services in any way that is unlawful or illegal or in any way that affects the enjoyment of other users of the Services or the internet. You may only use UPC systems, services and equipment in a manner that, in the sole judgment of UPC, is consistent with the purposes of such systems, services and products.

Any activities that improperly restrict, inhibit, or degrade any other person’s use or enjoyment of the Service and or the internet and related services, or represent (in UPC’s sole judgment) an unusually great burden on the network itself are strictly prohibited. In addition, you must ensure that your use does not improperly restrict, inhibit, disrupt, degrade or impede the ability of UPC to deliver the Service and monitor the Service backbone, network nodes, and/or other network services.

By way of illustration and not limitation, the following uses of UPC systems, services and equipment are prohibited:

You shall not post, publish, transmit, link to, otherwise make available, re-transmit or store material on or through any UPC systems, services or products, and/or undertake any activity, which is:
In violation of any law or regulation, which is enforceable in the Republic of Ireland;
Is threatening, obscene, indecent, defamatory, or blasphemous or is calculated to incite hatred against any ethnic, religious or other minority or is otherwise calculated to adversely affect any individual, group or entity
Is in breach of any instructions we have given you under the Terms and Conditions and or this User Policy
Deceptive or misleading on-line advertising or marketing practices are prohibited;
Sending “junk mail” or “e-mail Spam” is strictly prohibited as further defined in Section 6;
The resale of UPC’ systems, services and/or products, without the prior written consent of UPC is prohibited;
The Services are strictly for residential use only - commercial use of any kind is prohibited;
You must not use the service to knowingly or unknowingly cause any malicious code, including but not limited to transmitted Worms, Trojans or Viruses. Any account found to have been used to transmit such items can be subject to immediate suspension or disconnection of services without notice.

The following uses of UPC systems, services and equipment as described below expressly prohibited:
Attempting to circumvent user authentication or security of any host, network, or account (“cracking”). This includes, but is not limited to, accessing data not intended for the customer, logging into a server or account the customer is not expressly authorised to access, or probing the security of other networks (such as running a SATAN scan or similar tool);
Effecting security breaches or disruptions of Internet communications. Security breaches include, but are not limited to, accessing data of which customer is not an intended recipient or logging onto a server or account that customer is not expressly authorised to access. For purposes of this section, “disruption” includes, but is not limited to, port scans, ping floods, packet spoofing, forged routing information, deliberate attempts to overload a service, and attempts to “crash” a host;
Using any program/script/command, or sending messages of any kind, designed to interfere with a user’s terminal session, by any means, locally or by the Internet;
Executing any form of network monitoring which will intercept data not intended for the customer;
You must not use the Services to carry out Port scanning/probing (which is an attempt to identify an open gateway into another Internet user’s machine). Where it has been identified that an account has been used for this activity UPC may withdraw the Services without notice. You must not use the services to run any program that can be used to compromise the efficiency and security of network traffic.

Section 5: Intellectual Property Rights

Any images, photographs, articles, pages, designs, drawings, software, music, information and other materials published on the Internet and the Services are protected by copyright.

Published material on the Internet and on the Services does not mean it is available for anyone to copy. Unless the owner of that copyright specifically states that you may copy the work, you should assume that you cannot. It is an infringement of copyright to copy, reproduce, adapt, translate, broadcast or perform copyright protected material without permission, to make infringing copies available to the public or otherwise to knowingly deal in infringing copies. The Services must not be used, directly or indirectly, to transmit, publish, link to or otherwise make available any confidential information or trade secrets of any person or entity.

You shall not post, publish, transmit, link to, otherwise make available, re-transmit or store material on or through any UPC systems, services or products, and/or undertake any activity, which infringes or breaches any third party intellectual property rights (which shall include but not be limited to copyrights, trade marks, design rights, trade secrets patents, rights of privacy and publicity, moral rights and performance rights). For the avoidance of doubt, the installation or distribution of “pirated” software or other software products that are not appropriately licensed to the customer will constitute a violation of intellectual property rights. In the event of any disagreement as to whether materials posted, transmitted, re-transmitted or stored by a customer are in contravention of this section, the decision of UPC shall be final."

DarkJager

vibe666 wrote: »

it's got nothing to do with your neighbours experiencing slow speeds. after all, you could trickle down 1tb over the course of a month and have less of an effect in the short term than if you'd been hammering the crap out of it and downloading 500gb as quickly as you possibly could and then turning it off for the rest of the month.

fight it. tell them a 500gb cap is unreasonable for a 100mbps connection (maybe check other UPC territories, i'm pretty sure they don't have a cap/aup mentioned). you could download 500gb in around 12 hours if you could find somewhere that could serve you at the full 100mbps.

demand a UPC usage monitor so you can keep an eye on your downloads. question their own monitoring that set this alert off because you really don't think it's possible that your usage was so high (regardless of how you might feel about it).

UPC have been promising a usage monitor at least as long as I've been a customer (since november 2008) and it's never materialised. tell them you'll accept a downgrade if you go over their limits as long as they can provide you with an accurate online monitor so you can check your usage.

or don't, it's entirely up to you.

You have no come back, regardless of what you may think. A normal user won't go anywhere near 500gb in a month and the fact it's being breached would indicate a huge amount of possible streaming or downloading. As for your assertion that neighbours wouldn't be affected, of course they would. Anybody sharing the same line is going to take a hit from somebody else on it eating through bandwidth.

squonk

I've been in touch with UPC and I can confirm that the Broadband Extreme package imposes a new cap of 1000Gb p/m.

It seems that if usage drops below the 500Gb normal usage allowance that they will roll back the package to the original customer selection.

I'm pretty happy with that reply. 1000Gb should keep me happy!

vibe666

DarkJager wrote: »

You have no come back, regardless of what you may think. A normal user won't go anywhere near 500gb in a month and the fact it's being breached would indicate a huge amount of possible streaming or downloading. As for your assertion that neighbours wouldn't be affected, of course they would. Anybody sharing the same line is going to take a hit from somebody else on it eating through bandwidth.

what's 'normal' for a home user is a constantly evolving thing.

there is a huge amount to do online, from HD video (netflix, vimeo & youtube etc.), online content for games consoles & PC's (downloading game demo's etc.) all of which can easily run into multiple gigabytes of usage.

one person sitting in front of a single PC probably isn't going to use that much, but a family of 5 who are all regular net users will have no trouble going through 500gb in a month.

500gb is nothing on a 100mbps connection, not even half a days downloading flat out or less than 17gb per day spread out over 30 days.

even if you throttled a 100Mbps connection to never go over 2Mbps you could easily breach 500gb by 100gb in 30 days and someone using 2Mbps of the aggregated bandwidth of all the other 50mbps and 100mbps users in their area isn't going to make a dent in the available bandwidth.

personally my monthly average is considerably less on 100mbps than it was previously on the 20mbps or 30mbps i had before that and i haven't gone near 500gb for the last few months, even though I used to regularly touch the old 250gb limit and had to manage my downloads on a month by month basis using bandwidth monitoring on my router.

BUT it's fairly obvious that plenty of residential users ARE using over 500gb per month simply by watching how often the subject comes up on the forums, just like it was a year or so ago when the limit was 250gb and plenty of people were complaining about that.

the internet and what you can do on it is a constantly evolving thing and people will always find new and interesting (and bandwidth hungry) things to do online as their speed increases and giving people a 100mbps connection and a 500gb limit is like giving someone a ferrari and then only allowing them to put a fiver's worth of fuel in it per month.

vibe666

squonk wrote: »

I've been in touch with UPC and I can confirm that the Broadband Extreme package imposes a new cap of 1000Gb p/m.

It seems that if usage drops below the 500Gb normal usage allowance that they will roll back the package to the original customer selection.

I'm pretty happy with that reply. 1000Gb should keep me happy!

not bad for an extra 20 quid a month tbh, but I don't know why they can't just offer it as a package on the website.

squonk

I assume to not encourage overuse. I think that limit will be adequate for my usage habits anyway. They do seem to be willing and open to the idea of returning me to my regular package if/when I get back within the 500Gb limit. Right now I'm happy with the increased cap however and it's worth the money.

I can see a reason for maybe leaving a cap of 500Gb for their 25MB package. Guys on the higher package should be allocated a 1TB cap though. I think it comes down to the fact that if you give someone faster broadband, they'll find uses for the faster speed and download more. It's the nature of the beast and I can see the arrival of NetFlix and similar services putting users under pressure going forward.

In any case, they were decent enough about the whole thing so I honestly can't complain about them. They've given me enough cap to keep me out of trouble and off their radar and I'm happy with the cost increase right now.

kayser

vibe666 wrote: »

they used to upgrade you instead of downgrade you, but since everyone has the same cap now, they seem to be going the other way and trying to slow you down.

not that it would make much difference being as you could smash the living crap out of 500gb in a few days with even their slowest package.

the letter is identical (aside from the heading etc.) to the letter i got sent for going over the 250gb limit on january 2009 on the 20mbps broadband (the fastest at the time).

it's got nothing to do with your neighbours experiencing slow speeds. after all, you could trickle down 1tb over the course of a month and have less of an effect in the short term than if you'd been hammering the crap out of it and downloading 500gb as quickly as you possibly could and then turning it off for the rest of the month.

fight it. tell them a 500gb cap is unreasonable for a 100mbps connection (maybe check other UPC territories, i'm pretty sure they don't have a cap/aup mentioned). you could download 500gb in around 12 hours if you could find somewhere that could serve you at the full 100mbps.

demand a UPC usage monitor so you can keep an eye on your downloads. question their own monitoring that set this alert off because you really don't think it's possible that your usage was so high (regardless of how you might feel about it).

UPC have been promising a usage monitor at least as long as I've been a customer (since november 2008) and it's never materialised. tell them you'll accept a downgrade if you go over their limits as long as they can provide you with an accurate online monitor so you can check your usage.

or don't, it's entirely up to you.

Cheers for the detailed reply. I am a bit relieved that i am not the only one. Judging from the replies, I guess I will be safe if I dont cross the limit. I guess i can easily cut down to about half of it. But then, i hope they increase the cap because its a 100mb/s connection.

I hope i should be able to find a software that monitors the usage. Honestly, I am happy with UPC and dont want to lose the connection. There are very few alternatives.

Macronelf

DarkJager wrote: »

You have no come back, regardless of what you may think. A normal user won't go anywhere near 500gb in a month and the fact it's being breached would indicate a huge amount of possible streaming or downloading. As for your assertion that neighbours wouldn't be affected, of course they would. Anybody sharing the same line is going to take a hit from somebody else on it eating through bandwidth.

Anyone streaming Netflix in HD would destroy 500gb a month

vibe666

Netflix (apparently, according to twitter) needs a minimum of 1.5Mbps just to work smoothly, 3Mbps for DVD quality, 5Mbps for 720p and 8Mbps for 1080p (only mentioned on the PS3, but i'm guessing anything that could play back 1080p video), so anything up to 3.6gb per hour usage, so that's only two and a bit HD movies per day which would be nothing in a house with a few kids and more than one TV and that's without even counting any of the many other bandwidth hungry things you can do online these days.

RangeR

squonk wrote: »

I've been in touch with UPC and I can confirm that the Broadband Extreme package imposes a new cap of 1000Gb p/m.

It seems that if usage drops below the 500Gb normal usage allowance that they will roll back the package to the original customer selection.

I'm pretty happy with that reply. 1000Gb should keep me happy!

So, once you are giving more money to UPC, you are no longer interfering with your neighbours connections?

squonk

squonk wrote: »

I've been in touch with UPC and I can confirm that the Broadband Extreme package imposes a new cap of 1000Gb p/m.

It seems that if usage drops below the 500Gb normal usage allowance that they will roll back the package to the original customer selection.

I'm pretty happy with that reply. 1000Gb should keep me happy!

The latest letters though do say they will downgrade your speed to 30Mbps from 100Mbps and increase your cap.
Have you asked about that?

squonk

I'm not on a 100MB package. I was on the 25MB package so it's OK for me.

squonk

I've noticed the past few nights that my torrents have slowed. I've got one or two sites that I frequent that will give you all you can swallow on downloads so I'm usually seeing download speeds of from about 2.2MiB to 2.8 MiB on a 30Meg connection. In the past day or two the overall speeds have gone down to about 700Kbps or so but the speed fluctuates quite a bit, going from 300 maybe up to 1.1 but on average I'm getting 600 I'd say. I should probably reboot the modem again and test whetehr that helps. the thing is that I'm did a UPC speed test last night which indicated my connection was about a 13Meg one. I did also do a check using Glasnost to see if they were throttling me as I was recently put on the 30MB BB Extreme package due to overrunning my cap. Anyone else noticing similar behaviour? Do they have any type of QoS in place that might mean I'm now at the bottom of the pile when it comes to bandwidth allocation? The Glasnost test showed up nothing that would indicate they're throttling now. It may be just an intermittent problem. I'm not sure but I wonder if anyone has noticed anything similar?

gouche

This whole thing with caps is dated anyway.
As mentioned above, someone who trickles a couple of terabytes over the course of the month will have significantly less impact on the network than someone who opens it wide up and hammers it every now and then.
Providers need to revise how they present their packages especially with new services like Netflix and OnLive gaining more popularity.

digitaldr

It sucks that UPC have no bandwidth monitoring facility on their website - I presume it wouldn't be that difficult to implement. Anyway I use TomatoUSB firmware on my router (with a script for ftp backup of bandwidth stats) to keep an eye on my stats. Very easy to install but not suitable for all routers.