The existance or not of caps, unlimited downloads and a supreme being

WizZard

Well said Sponge Bob.

uteotw

chorus techy: at 30GB a month you are not a heavy downloader, you are a savy internet user.

Sponge Bob: Whatever Garfield says in Boards is not legally binding. The T&C is and if it doesn't define what excessive usage then this is just an arbitrary decision Smart will take without any valid justification.

Garfield: what actions are taken against <cough>excessive</cough> users ? Disconnection ? Throttled connection ? Blocked IP to download source ? You group them all on the same line ? etc... come on tell us.

About false advertisement, e.g. SmartTelecom, or any ISP, saying "unlimited broadband" and then punishing you for undefined "excessive" usage, I've found some Irish info http://www.valueireland.com/tips/clued_in_answers.htm

Irish Consumers are protected by the Consumer Information Act 1978 against misleading descriptions and advertisements and in case of false advertisement Irish consumers can contact the "Advertising Standards Authority for Ireland" http://www.asai.ie/

Even if I'm bitching I have to congratulate SmartTelecom for kicking Eircom in the nuts and having the balls to invest in their own independent network and finally offer real broadband (by today's standard) to Irish users at a decent pricing. I just hope they get it right, quality of service, quality of support and clear usage definition.

Steve S

Ardent wrote:

Can we park the discussion on excessive usage? If you don't like Smart Telecom's policy then don't avail of their service. Simple.

Would you say the same about a bank that offered an 'unlimited' overdraft facility but then slapped a fee on you when you overdrew 'excessively' (in their estimation)?

The point here is that the policy as stated is both incoherent (no limits except that there are) and probably illegal. It is perfectly reasonable to call on the Smart representative to clear the matter up.

Ardent

Steve S wrote:

Would you say the same about a bank that offered an 'unlimited' overdraft facility but then slapped a fee on you when you overdrew 'excessively' (in their estimation)?

1) Garfield has already stated that excessive bandwidth usage will be frowned upon. I thought he was quite clear about it. I don't why you're feeling so aggrieved about it - we all know all the major ISPs feel the same way about this kind of thing, don't see why this is coming a major shock to you.

2) I haven't read the T&Cs yet but I'm sure there's a mention of excessive usage in there.

It's not like you are being misled, now is it?

Edit: P.S. You wouldn't get a fee slapped on you but you might get throttled. There's a world of a difference.

Steve S

And why is it so hard for them to say what the number is?

I'm sorry but the idea that, once a number is mentioned, people are going to suck down software until they hit that number is just not credible.

Alternatively, Smart could abjure using the words 'unlimited' or 'no limits'. In that case, I would agree that there would be no basis for complaint.

It's the desire to play the double game of (limited) no limits that annoys people, myself included.

j_nolan

Sigh.

I wish that just once -- just once -- we could have it as good as everybody else... (in the developed world, of course) We're good people. We are.

God ****ing damnit! :mad:

I can't wait until I move. Where I download an episode of 24 in under 12 hours.

uteotw

Ardent wrote:

1) Garfield has already stated that excessive bandwidth usage will be frowned upon. I thought he was quite clear about it. I don't why you're feeling so aggrieved about it - we all know all the major ISPs feel the same way about this kind of thing, don't see why this is coming a major shock to you.

Yes, Garfield is quite clear that SmartTelecom won't like "excessive" usage and will deal with "naughty" users. It's not because ISPs do it all the time all around the world that it's always legal. There are rules to protect consumers and the Irish law seems pretty clear about false advertising "Goods should be as described" and the description is "Unlimited".

It is not clear what Smart consider as "excessive usage". Garfield says 100GB so does it mean 99.99GB is fine ? It's not because Garfield says so that it will be the rule. Smart has to define a precise usage limit if they want to penalise high download users otherwise they are doing false advertising and the process to report false advertising is pretty simple.

NTL says it clear (30GB/month) I don't know if it's in their T&C but anyone can chance it and you're not surprised if they contact you.

Smart should do the same.

Slutmonkey57b

There are 3 types of moron on this thread who need to shut up and listen to the answers below and stop fu(king spamming the thread.

1: Morons who want to know if the "phone point" in their house/apt/caravan will work even though they don't have a phone number.

**** There is a line into your house, it needs to be switched on then you need to apply for the service. Calling eircom or smart and asking them to connect your line is exactly the same process as eircom will be the ones switching it on. Call one or other of the companies but for fu(cks sake shut up.

2: Morons who want to know what "excessive usage" is and what the cap is.

**** Excessive usage is when other people can't use the service because you're downloading warez, now shut up you monkey. They'll do whatever they like with you and the rest of the users will thank them for it.

3: Morons who can't work out why Smart can't tell them how long it will take to get them out of their current contract with "Company X".

**** Company X are the ones you have to talk to about getting rid of your current contract, not Smart you moron. Smart cannot control what Company X is going to do to slow the whole process down, so stop asking them. Call your ISP and say
"Smart are the shizzle, youze guoise are crap. I'm dropping your contract as soon as I can get Smart in here."


PS: Stop annoying those of us who can get NO broadband by whinging about which of the several million BB offers you have you should take up.

colin300

Slutmonkey57b well said well said.
At least now maybe the people that skip to last page will relise nearly all questions have been asked 20 times.
Excessive usage come on people we all know what excessive usage is. It is when people try to fill there cap. If you haven't filled your cap dont try just leave it only if u have left it like that so you can download something important like linux cd's or something but come on u go downloading a movie a day i think u should go back to good old 14.4kbps and pray for the beginning of the next month when they bring u up again.

WizZard

I think Garfield has run away...

/me pats Slutmonkey57b on the back. Well said!

CiaranC

Slutmonkey57b wrote:

Much arrogant moaning , whingeing and whining

All three questions posed are perfectly valid, and at least one has not been answered to our satisfaction. If you have nothing to add to the thread other than insulting a large number of its posters, then perhaps you should stay out of it.

Excessive usage is when other people can't use the service because you're downloading warez

Thanks for clearing that up for us with another vague, undefined, nonsensical statement. Excessive usage is using all your segments available bandwidth, to the point where your peers are denied service? Gob****e. :rolleyes:

infomat

uteotw wrote:

About false advertisement, e.g. SmartTelecom, or any ISP, saying "unlimited broadband" and then punishing you for undefined "excessive" usage, I've found some Irish info http://www.valueireland.com/tips/clued_in_answers.htm

Irish Consumers are protected by the Consumer Information Act 1978 against misleading descriptions and advertisements and in case of false advertisement Irish consumers can contact the "Advertising Standards Authority for Ireland" http://www.asai.ie/

This did not protect esatclear users such as myself when Esat decided that our use of the service was excessive ... it was this event which prompted the establishment of IRELANDOFFLINE. Based on past experience I am not at all happy about the use of subjective phrases such as "excessive".

Despite what some may believe the "excessive" opt-out clause is not trivial

dub45

infomat wrote:

This did not protect esatclear users such as myself when Esat decided that our use of the service was excessive ... it was this event which prompted the establishment of IRELANDOFFLINE. Based on past experience I am not at all happy about the use of subjective phrases such as "excessive".

Surely it would be in Smart's own interest as much as anyone else's to clear up this fudge at the start? What is wrong with removing the 'no monthly limits' claim and stating something to the effect that Smart do not with to impose a cap at this stage and in the light of usage/experience will give users definite download guidelines after say three months of the product launch. (and in the meantime they reserve the right etc etc). If they do not do something like that I cannot see how they can come out on the right side of this particular aspect of the product.

uteotw

infomat wrote:

This did not protect esatclear users such as myself when Esat decided that our use of the service was excessive ... it was this event which prompted the establishment of IRELANDOFFLINE. Based on past experience I am not at all happy about the use of subjective phrases such as "excessive".

Despite what some may believe the "excessive" opt-out clause is not trivial

I don't know what esatclear offered at the time but did you complain directly yourself to "Advertising Standards Authority for Ireland" ?

halenger

dub45 wrote:

What is wrong with removing the 'no monthly limits' claim and stating something to the effect that Smart do not with to impose a cap at this stage and in the light of usage/experience will give users definite download guidelines after say three months of the product launch. (and in the meantime they reserve the right etc etc).

It's not as easy to advertise.

"No monthly limits" is incredibly easy to advertise. The other "easy" advertising option, that I see offhand, would be a 40GB cap for example. "Cap 10 times Eircom's standard" or something along those lines.

uteotw

Slutmonkey57b wrote:

There are 3 types of moron on this thread... bla bla bla... I'm a twat... more bla bla... I'm still a twat... and so on...

Wow, Slut you're so helpful, thanks.

So below is my suggestion for Garfield to avoid morrons like me asking the same questions over and over because I don't have time to read the 45 pages of this thread to potentialy find no answer.

1. create a new "SmartTelecom FAQ" thread to compile his answers from the original thread in a clear list.
2. state at the top and bottom of the new thread that no reply will be provided directly in it.
3. add a link pointing to the originial thread so that boards users can easily ask new questions.
4. update new thread regurlarly with new answers.

Moriarty

This is all split out of the now infamous smart thread. Continue all "discusions" of caps/whatever relating to smart services in this thread only please.

uteotw, something will be sorted out over the weekend along those lines, I'm just not sure which way exactly yet.

infomat

uteotw wrote:

I don't know what esatclear offered at the time but did you complain directly yourself to "Advertising Standards Authority for Ireland" ?

Before I proceed I should mention that discussing Esat story is not really fair to SMART ... at face value what SMART are offering appears to be very good value (Esat's "no limits" service was also good value) and it would appear that they, unlike Esat, know what they are getting from Eircom.

=========================================================

Four or five years have passed so I cannot remember the exact details but the following will give you some idea as to what happened.

I think the service was branded "Esatclear Surf No Limits" ... I suppose that one could argue that unlimited surfing is not the same as unlimited downloading but as Eircom were charging Esat by the minute the distinction is not relevant.

Esat offered unlimited time on line (dial up POTS or ISDN) but they had a general purpose opt-out clause stating that either party could cancel the contract by giving one month notice.

Personally I lodged a complaint to the regulator and a number of government agencies I also sought legal advice and followed this advice ... I was advised that at best the Advertising Standards Authority would instruct Esat to change their advertising material with little or no benefit to me. The regular was very helpful but achieved very little.

Others did complain to the "Advertising Standards Authority" but with no outcome.

As a result of massive protest Mary O'Rourke and her department were also involved but Esat claimed that Eircom was the cause of the problem because of their unreasonable pricing policy.

Esat claimed that they lost money if users exceeded a certain number of hours per month ... they had made the offer in good faith. What they managed to do was shift attention from what they did to what Eircom was doing (not doing). Esat made it appear that they were the knights in shining armour and that they had tried to help the ordinary joe get online at reasonable cost and because of their totally inept approach to the problem Eircom began to look very bad (not that this really worried them) and many people forgot about the original issue.

In reality what happened was that Esat had launched a service before knowing the deal that they would get from Eircom , it would appear that they thought that they would pay a flat monthly feed to Eircom but Eircom charged them by the minute... Because of their advertising they then attracted early adopters to the service the sort of people who download service packs from Microsoft and with the need for always on connections. Esat, then contacted people telling them that they would be automatically disconnected after an hour online and it would be necessary for the user to reconnect (there was a minimum charge everytime the user reconnected) and then they forgot to (or were unable to) implement this decision thus increasing their problems (many users did not bother to disconnect because it should have been automatic).

In the end Esat decided to terminate the contracts of 10% of their users and this had a much bigger impact than they had expected. They tried to justify their decision to the media by claiming that those they barred were hackers and that we had found some method to circumvent the software which terminated calls after an hour.

I believe that if they had contacted the power users explaining their problem the majority would have agreed to a price increase or some sort of cap.

Others with better memory than myself can correct the details if they wish.

As a matter of interest because I worked from home I was online about 8 hours per day ... mainly sending receiving mail and documents. I downloaded the equivalent of one CD of Data per month. This was considered to be excessive.

jimmycrackcorm

I find it bewildering how people are complaining about the lack of a definition on what is deemed to be excessive usage for the purposes of a cap.

I think it is reasonable to say that Smart have a large bandwidth capacity that fore the vast majority will offer near-unlimited usages. However it is obvious that if everyone took up on it that then it simply wouldnt be feasible.

In life - unlimited is not absolute. You have an unlimited capacity to eat fatty foods. Perhaps you might like to guess at what point it might kill you with a heart attack.

People who whinge about not knowing what the excess use is should simply choose eircom or the other isps rather than force Smart to play it absolutely safe and impose safe limits of 20/30gb. You take the gamble on signing the 12 month contract - the odds are good and remember the old maxim about gift, horse and mouth.

SkepticOne

jimmycrackcorm wrote:

People who whinge about not knowing what the excess use is should simply choose eircom or the other isps rather than force Smart to play it absolutely safe and impose safe limits of 20/30gb. You take the gamble on signing the 12 month contract - the odds are good and remember the old maxim about gift, horse and mouth.

I think this is a good point. People need to remember that once they sign up for Smart, they should not then whinge about being throttled or kicked off if they download an excessive amount. They have been warned in the T&Cs.

The vast majority are unlikely to have any problem whatsoever especially since it is a low-cost product and will appeal to light internet users.

Fair play to Smart for going down this route.

oscarBravo

j_nolan wrote:

I can't wait until I move. Where I download an episode of 24 in under 12 hours.

I've looked on the Fox website, and I can't find it: where's the link to these downloads?

uteotw

Infomat: Thanks for the details. I'm not surprised Esatclear went ahead with selling their offer without knowing what their Eircom deal would be. It's like they haven't looked at what happened before around Europe with the other National Telcos screwing up any new comers. In the end If Esatclear had a well defined opt-out clause then it's fine for them to cancel subscriptions.

SkepticOne: The T&C will warns about an undefined excessive amount. Users definition of excessive will differ from what Smart considers as excessive and this is going to cause problems. Also people don't subscribe to 2MB broadband if they are light internet users.

I still think this is false advertisement I'll email ComReg and AFAI to see what they have to say.

Jorinn

CiaranC wrote:

Ok, so in Sweden when you buy a 10Mb downstream internet connection for €30 a month to your house in the suburbs they make you sign a form saying you cant use it, do they? That would explain how they can afford to sell such great connections alright.

Care to explain what it is actually for then? Faster pings in Counter Strike? :rolleyes:

Actually it's 17.2288 EUR when i convert my bill on xe.com.

I do have a 96 gig cap though, which i don't think I have any chance of hitting only used a third of it while TRYING to hit it.

In regards to changing conditions and the cap and so on, we get 3 months notice in writing from the service provider. They can't just do it on a whim ala netsource style.

SkepticOne

uteotw wrote:

SkepticOne: The T&C will warns about an undefined excessive amount. Users definition of excessive will differ from what Smart considers as excessive and this is going to cause problems.

But the thing is, you know in advance that Smart reserve this right. Therefore, if you are the type that downloads as much as the pipe will allow you will naturally stay clear of this sort of service. Therefore no problems except for those who don't read the T&C.

Also people don't subscribe to 2MB broadband if they are light internet users.

At the equivalent of 10 euros a month, they will be getting all sorts of user including those paying per minute dial-up. To many of these the speed will be incidental.

BTW, if you are a heavy user, it is in your interest to have as many light users as possible on the service. They pay the same amount but don't clog the network for others to the same extent. This creates more bandwidth for heavier users.

A service for only heavy users would be quite expensive as each of them would need near-dedicated bandwidth. This high price would further insure that only heavy users are attracted to it. You would then end up complaining about the high price of broadband.

The 'uncapped' services we hear about in other countries, keep costs down per user by attracting large numbers of light users (by not charging heavily). This allows a certain number of heavier users who still pay the same price.

We got off to a very bad start in Ireland with the likes of Eircom charging 100 euros with a 3 gig cap. This has led to a sort of culture of downloading where people are forced to keep an eye on data transfer and everything is oriented around how much you download. It leads people to treat bandwidth as a scarce commodity - get as much as you can while you can - and this leads to heavy usage with people making sure they use up their cap.

In other countries, most people would not measure their downloads. As far as they are concerned they can do as they like since bandwidth would not be considered a scarce commodity.

Netsource ran into problems because they charged 70 euros a month (on top of line rental) and had no caps. This meant that only extremely heavy users joined the service. Smart's offering at the equivalent of 10 euros in in an entirely different league.

Smart, if they succeed in launching despite Eircom's tactics are quite brave in this approach since the market here is already tainted by caps. They will succeed if they keep prices down, appeal to the general user and deal with excessive bandwidth users firmly but with tact.

They need keep the precise details of what constitutes excessive use to themselves since otherwise many people (who otherwise might) not will make a point of using up what they feel is their entitlement.

Sponge Bob

It also depends on where the Hogs are and whether VLAN tagging can be used to clump them into contention groups where they are not 'really' noticed.

Smart will apparently have a 2.5Gbit backbone from each exchange to the core routers (or multiples thereof) but are unlkely to have more than say 1Gbit in the INEX . As for Bit Torrents they may hammer US links that are even smaller than that .

Torrents are not amenable to transparent caching while MS Servce packs are.

There are so many variables if hogs kick in and so many different ways to deal with them including packet based throttling . Again a 'special ' VLAN system can be used to deal with this. Only time will tell if Smart have lots of greedy horrendous hogs and whether they are FORCED to deal with them by capping .

Smart will have a large workforce to deal wth this , thanks to Huawei

SkepticOne

Sponge Bob wrote:

There are so many variables if hogs kick in and so many different ways to deal with them including packet based throttling . Again a 'special ' VLAN system can be used to deal with this. Only time will tell if Smart have lots of greedy horrendous hogs and whether they are FORCED to deal with them by capping.

The important thing is that they will have been warned up front by Smart and therefore have no grounds for complaint.

SantaHoe

infomat wrote:

They tried to justify their decision to the media by claiming that those they barred were hackers and that we had found some method to circumvent the software which terminated calls after an hour.

That's gas, I didn't even know about that.
The first I heard of any of this was the letter I got from them telling me I was being disconnected due to high usage.
No word of any 1 hour disconnects, not so much as a warning.
I wouldn't mind, but it's not like I was taking the píss with the service, having DUN software auto-disconnect at 8am like a lot of other people were.

I think SkepticOne has nailed it really, I have to admit when I first got broadband I felt that if I didn't use enough of my cap it was like I was paying for something I wasn't using all of... but it's a year later and I'm over it now
It's the 19th of the month and so far I've used just under 3gigs out of my 16gig cap... needless to say the next 9 days won't be a mad desperate rush to download 13gigs of shíte just for the sake of it.
I think it's just old habbits die hard... when we were all on dialup, you'd feel the need to get your moneys worth, the thought of reading a webpage without having a download going in the background was unthinkable

Although if people could just decide on one linux distro that they liked, we wouldn't have to worry about caps. :rolleyes:
Seriously wtf do you people be downloading that you have to worry about breaking 20gigs in a month?

_CyRuSS_

I'm on ntl's 1.54mbit at the moment, am considering making the change to smart bb, but there is a couple of things that I dislike...

1) As others have said, the upload speed, it should be 256k minimum, preferably faster.

2) The fact you say there is no download limit... Personally this sounds like something you'd say to attract people over to you, and then smack them with a download limit later when they're in contract. Like others have done.

What do you deem "excessive"? 5 GB a month? 30-60GB a month? 100GB a month? 200+GB? or 24/7 downloading using max capacity of the line?

That would be the decider to me.... i'd want at the very least 30GB a month, preferably over 100GB though, as I occasionally do over 100GB a month, which nTL don't seem to mind. (Yes that may sicken you as an ISP, but lets face it, it's broadband for a reason... and I know plenty of people in other countries who get away with 700GB a month without getting any wrist slaps. crazy!)

Either way i'd want to know what you'd deem excessive before signing up.

Sorry if you've already answered this, I didn't read all the pages of this thread

infomat

SantaHoe wrote:

Seriously wtf do you people be downloading that you have to worry about breaking 20gigs in a month?

Well here is what one person (I think that it was CyRuss) said:
"I'd want at the very least 30GB a month, preferably over 100GB though, as I occasionally do over 100GB a month, which NTL don't seem to mind. (Yes that may sicken you as an ISP, but lets face it, it's broadband for a reason... and I know plenty of people in other countries who get away with 700GB a month without getting any wrist slaps. crazy!)"

Based on this some people are creating data blackholes.

At this stage I hardly ever download more than 3G per month but I am now developing an interest in HD TV my requirements will begin to increase ... the problem is that while 100GB may appear excessive today it will be a minimal requirement within 18 months but as a service such as SMART becomes more popular there will be commercial pressure on them to limit the amount that individual users transfer.

Slutmonkey57b

CiaranC wrote:

All three questions posed are perfectly valid, and at least one has not been answered to our satisfaction. If you have nothing to add to the thread other than insulting a large number of its posters, then perhaps you should stay out of it.

Really? On pratically every page of the thread at least one of those questions is posed more than once, and answered usually by another poster if not Garfield himself. And in the very first post in the thread he told you that if he wasn't answering it was because he a)doesn't know or b)can't tell you. If after reading the same answer a couple of dozen times, you still don't understand, you're probably not ready for the computer age.

Thanks for clearing that up for us with another vague, undefined, nonsensical statement. Excessive usage is using all your segments available bandwidth, to the point where your peers are denied service? Gob****e. :rolleyes:

Mmmm. Was I taking the pi$$ too much dearie? Sorry. You know what they say - ask a stupid question, get a stupid answer. Ask a stupid question a hundred times despite the fact that you've already been given all the answer you're going to get, and you'll get dismissed as a moron. Tired of reading 400+ posts? Can't be bothered doing a search on the thread to find the answer? Well, if you weren't spamming the thread with something that's already been answered, you wouldn't have that problem, would you?

Incidentally, can anyone supply a reason why they would be using up a 100GB monthly cap without warez?

Linux ISO's? Don't tell me you don't have a cd burner. Download once, burn once, problem solved. Downloading the HL2 demo 150 times a month, are you?