Anyone hit 750gb fair usage limit on 3 bill-pay unlimited? Fine or throttle?

Caspero

In my home broadband setup I'm considering going bill-pay to see if my speeds improve - currently not satisfied with the PAYG option I'm using.

Looks like the only provider that has a solid fair usage limit is Three at 750gb. I'm a little worried I might go over that though because I run backblaze for offsite backup of everything. Regularly hit 700gb+ at the moment.

Has anyone using that 30 EUR / month bill page mobile broadband package from Three exceeded the 750gb monthly fair usage? If so what happened?

Did you get whacked with a huge bill for the data over the limit or did they just cut you off / throttle your speed?

Did they notify you when you were approaching the limit?

Also: has anyone switched from using a 3 PAYG sim to a bill-pay one and noticed improvements in speed?

my3cents

Why would your speeds increase?

Will three wave a magic wand or are you suggesting they throttle some accounts?

I can get 300GB a month on a €20 pay as you go top up and really good speeds at off peak times. The problem for everyone is that peak times are congested no contract is going to sort that out.

Caspero

my3cents wrote: »

Why would your speeds increase?

Will three wave a magic wand or are you suggesting they throttle some accounts?

Heh - snarky way to phrase that question.

If you can't imagine a world where a business chooses to throttle less profitable PAYG customers who pay 20 EUR a month and not throttle more profitable subscription customers who pay 30 EUR a month, that reflects a failure in imagination. No magic wand required - just a business decision from Three.

Whether or not they actually have made that business decision is my question.
I didn't suggest anything because I don't know whether or not they have made that business decision. I am looking for evidence which suggests one way or another so that the question can be answered.

howamidifferent

I exceeded my 750GB last month and they simply added additional data for a €5 extra charge to compensate.

Caspero

howamidifferent wrote: »

I exceeded my 750GB last month and they simply added additional data for a €5 extra charge to compensate.

Interesting thanks howamidifferent. Did you exceed by a lot? I'm wondering if the charge would have been more if you breached by say 100gb.

Also did you get a text or email to let you know you were approaching the 750gb limit before you exceeded it?

my3cents

Caspero wrote: »

Heh - snarky way to phrase that question.

If you can't imagine a world where a business chooses to throttle less profitable PAYG customers who pay 20 EUR a month and not throttle more profitable subscription customers who pay 30 EUR a month, that reflects a failure in imagination. No magic wand required - just a business decision from Three.

Whether or not they actually have made that business decision is my question.
I didn't suggest anything. I asked.

You didn't "suggest" but you are obviously hoping for a "magic" solution.

If three make one account type faster then they must be throttling others.

imo three don't do that because they are happy enough to draw customers in with advertising that oversells the potential of the network.

I know of plenty of users on contract who don't have any better speeds than I do and we all get screwed at exactly the same peak times because of three overselling and under providing.

Caspero

my3cents wrote: »

I know of plenty of users on contract who don't have any better speeds than I do and we all get screwed at exactly the same peak times because of three overselling and under providing.

This part was useful information. I'll leave the rest without further comment.

howamidifferent

Caspero wrote: »

Interesting thanks howamidifferent. Did you exceed by a lot? I'm wondering if the charge would have been more if you breached by say 100gb.

Also did you get a text or email to let you know you were approaching the 750gb limit before you exceeded it?

I think i exceeded it by about 50GB, they did send a text when I reached the cap but it went to the sim in the router so I only saw it days later when using the admin interface. Along with another text advising I had been topped up for €5.

Caspero

howamidifferent wrote: »

they did send a text when I reached the cap but it went to the sim in the router

I thought/feared this might be how they send those notifications. What a ridiculous way to do it. Who on earth is going to see an urgent text in the admin interface of the router in time to do anything about it?

my3cents

Caspero wrote: »

I thought/feared this might be how they send those notifications. What a ridiculous way to do it. Who on earth is going to see an urgent text in the admin interface of the router in time to do anything about it?

Your lucky to get any notification at all. For years three didn't send any and just let the out of bundle data charges build up until some random amount three thought you were good for and then cut you off. It wasn't unusual for broadband customers to get hit with €200 bills for out of bundle data.

ED E

EditorSean has looked at his before. Three do no meaningful tariff based QoSing. The simple fact is most sectors are 150Mb. In areas where the fixed line options are poor or lots of low income people (eg students) live these sectors are very very busy. The way to solve this is not to offer massive caps, like Eir. But Three did it, the consumer lapped it up and Vodafone had to come down and play in the mud. Eir will follow soon.

I love unlimited @ €20/28 days but thats for my phone. There's no way it can do what the VM connection does.

Caspero wrote: »

I thought/feared this might be how they send those notifications. What a ridiculous way to do it. Who on earth is going to see an urgent text in the admin interface of the router in time to do anything about it?

It dates back to dongle days, the dongle was on one PC running a companion app so the notification would pop up on screen. Now with Mifi/Routers that process is broken.

wonski

Caspero wrote: »

Heh - snarky way to phrase that question.

If you can't imagine a world where a business chooses to throttle less profitable PAYG customers who pay 20 EUR a month and not throttle more profitable subscription customers who pay 30 EUR a month, that reflects a failure in imagination. No magic wand required - just a business decision from Three.

Whether or not they actually have made that business decision is my question.
I didn't suggest anything because I don't know whether or not they have made that business decision. I am looking for evidence which suggests one way or another so that the question can be answered.

Had both pre and post pay accounts with them and no difference in speed.

The profit difference between 20 and 30/month wouldn't be worth it anyway. If you are going to use or exceed the bandwidth you are going to be less profitable anyway and the more customers like you the more the network gets congested, and the more "less" profitable payg customers are going to switch to another provider.

In short you cost them money and customers