Why doesn't Unlimited mean Unlimited anymore? :/

[bigredshark]

In terms of many high-traffic activities being illegal, pretty much every ISP states quite clearly that their connections cannot be used for illegal purposes. If they really cared about it so much, they would pursue people who download a lot on the basis of this provision. The truth is, they couldn't care less what you download, so long as it does not "detrimentally affect other users".

Actually we do, if we receive a complaint from the copyright holder we suspend the connection as a matter of course, the user gets a chance to explain, it gets reinstated, we get another one, it gets ceased. I've no interest in serving high bandwidth users personally, they aren't profitable (they're subsidised from the rest of the user base) and they're reducing our profits (and my bonus) as a result. It's a business not a public service...

 

[Andrew_McP]

It wasn't so long ago that most of us were on dialup,

Indeed. It's always interesting to see the same old justifications wheeled out in threads like this. Six years into my broadband use I'm still absolutely amazed at what can be squeezed down our phone lines, and for so little money. When I see what many people seem to expect on their unlimited access packages I always smile.

Anyway, you make many very valid points. It's always nice to see rational points made even if such threads are never short of people who seem to have had their civil rights abused by not being able to download at maximum speed, 24/7.

We live in interesting times. I think the credit crunch is symbolic of the way modern perceptions have become totally corrupted in this decade. Whether it's unlimited credit or unlimited bandwidth, the same warped attitudes underly the problem, and it only takes a minority to wreck it for everyone else.

As ISPs come under the same kind of pressure that all other business now face, I think we'll see more squealing, not less in years to come.

Andrew McP

PS I would like to take this opportunity to apologise to the internet. When my o2 broadband went live a few weeks ago I DLed a 600Mb file at 2.1Mb/s just because I could. I owe the world some bandwidth.

 

[bigredshark]

What about the point I made, which is that many ISPs don't actually say what the limit is? If you have a specific limit in mind, why not make it public so that consumers can compare the offerings from different companies and choose the price/quality/quantity ratio they want?

I can't speak for other ISPs, I can't speak for marketing but we're reasonably clear we consider unreasonable usage to be consistently using substantially more than the average user. Defining it with exact numbers would actually be to the detriment of the 'average' user.

We don't impose a hard limit as I've no problem with somebody using 100GB one month and 30GB the next of the year.

 

[DampCat]

There's a whole load of idiocy in this thread...I do work for an ISP and designed most of the network. So, taken *directly*, this very minute from our monitoring platform, the percentage of users who've exceeded 100GB downstream traffic in the rolling month to date - 2.3%.

Or those exceeding 50GB download - 8.6%

Can you say minority??

And for those complaining about the minimum investment by ISPs, what exactly are you expecting? It's running the a business, which for 90%+ of users is perfectly adequate. You want to download at 5Mbps constantly, then hows about a reasonable price for that... £12.50 to cover costs to BT and admin, then £5.50 for each mbps, so thats £40...oh wait, thats somehow unreasonable....

I'd happily pay £40 for a connection i can use to do the things i do. I do not happily pay £30 for someone like you to decide if what i do is reasonable or not.

There's more than 1 way to run a business, you know. Low overheads are not the be all and end all. Better service = higher overheads in pretty much every example i can think of.. therefore lower overheads = lower level of service.. no?

You only get out of customers what you put in. You would make a tonne more money if you offered me, the minority, an option. We would use less of your prescious majority's badnwith, lowering your costs for them thus increasing your profit, then you'd be making increased profit + higher markups from me for my premium service.

Companies like yours are only in it to make money, and that's fine. But you hardly even deliver the service you offer. And it IS a service. If you dont want to deliver the service, do something else. You're lying to your customers (or, as discussed, you're not lying, but not teling the whole truth) and now you're upset that you're being called on it? When we call you with our issues you forward us to India, your men come round our houses and NEVER fix the problem, they have to send someone else back 3 or 4 times... or they disconnect your neighbours and plug you in instead, or they lay the cable less than an inch from the surface or your lawn then claim 0 responsibility when it gets cut by a gardening tool. You act like it's some kind of CHORE, and like we should be grateful we get your crappy service.

It's not right, and it's only in this country you seem to get away with it.

 

[barnettgs]

Does anyone else find it strange that broadband providers and mobile phone networks constantly advertise unlimited packages for bandwidth, texts etc but in reality they are almost all limited by a fair use policy or bandwidth restriction after a certain allowance etc.

Surely the OFT should stop people using the term unlimited when such packages have often very limiting restrictions?

Grrr. Rant over

It's the same with 'promise'.

 

[bigredshark]

I'd happily pay £40 for a connection i can use to do the things i do. I do not happily pay £30 for someone like you to decide if what i do is reasonable or not.

There's more than 1 way to run a business, you know. Low overheads are not the be all and end all. Better service = higher overheads in pretty much every example i can think of.. therefore lower overheads = lower level of service.. no?

You only get out of customers what you put in. You would make a tonne more money if you offered me, the minority, an option. We would use less of your prescious majority's badnwith, lowering your costs for them thus increasing your profit, then you'd be making increased profit + higher markups from me for my premium service.

Companies like yours are only in it to make money, and that's fine. But you hardly even deliver the service you offer. And it IS a service. If you dont want to deliver the service, do something else. You're lying to your customers (or, as discussed, you're not lying, but not teling the whole truth) and now you're upset that you're being called on it? When we call you with our issues you forward us to India, your men come round our houses and NEVER fix the problem, they have to send someone else back 3 or 4 times... or they disconnect your neighbours and plug you in instead, or they lay the cable less than an inch from the surface or your lawn then claim 0 responsibility when it gets cut by a gardening tool. You act like it's some kind of CHORE, and like we should be grateful we get your crappy service.

It's not right, and it's only in this country you seem to get away with it.

Right, I've just about finished laughing at your ignorance of both the industry and who I work for...

We don't do consumer broadband directly, we sell broadband connectivity to companies for their home workers and we do very well out of it because we have a reputation for excellent customer service as it happens. We're entirely UK based and have a fully resilient architecture (I doubt many consumer ISPs can say this.).

Actually the maths of supporting high bandwidth users just don't work out. That was £40 without making any money on it. Then add in the costs of policing high bandwidth users (5 times more likely to infringe copyright in our experience). Providing that service for 10% of people isn't worth it, not worth the hassle, extra costs, anything. Offers no advantage to us.

We deliver a service which is rated as excellent both by the users and corporate IT departments who actually pay for it at the end of the day. I'd say it's only in this country that people seem to think it's their birth right to something for nothing, super fast broadband the suppliers can't make a profit on for next to nothing.

At the end of the day, you don't like your ISP, go get another one. Zen offer unlimited, unshaped broadband and have first rate customer support - £80 a month. You can't find anything cheaper offering the same unlimited service over ADSL? I wonder why that is...maybe because it's not possible to make money on it? You think it is then go set up a business to do it if you reckon it's possible to do so well from it.

 

[Shoseki]

There's a whole load of idiocy in this thread...I do work for an ISP and designed most of the network. So, taken *directly*, this very minute from our monitoring platform, the percentage of users who've exceeded 100GB downstream traffic in the rolling month to date - 2.3%.

Or those exceeding 50GB download - 8.6%

Can you say minority??

And for those complaining about the minimum investment by ISPs, what exactly are you expecting? It's running the a business, which for 90%+ of users is perfectly adequate. You want to download at 5Mbps constantly, then hows about a reasonable price for that... £12.50 to cover costs to BT and admin, then £5.50 for each mbps, so thats £40...oh wait, thats somehow unreasonable....

Unreasonable doesn't cut it. Quit advertising unlimited if it isn't. No-one is arguing against the business model, but you have a finite bandwidth and you are selling unlimited number of people sharing it simultaneously. In fact, the more succesful your sales pitch, the worse it is for each individual.

Its not the facts that are annoying, they are perfectly acceptable. Its the lies that are unacceptable. Unlimited = exactly that - no limits. As in no no, no no no no, no no no no, no no theres no limit.

 

[bigredshark]

Unreasonable doesn't cut it. Quit advertising unlimited if it isn't. No-one is arguing against the business model, but you have a finite bandwidth and you are selling unlimited number of people sharing it simultaneously. In fact, the more succesful your sales pitch, the worse it is for each individual.

Its not the facts that are annoying, they are perfectly acceptable. Its the lies that are unacceptable. Unlimited = exactly that - no limits. As in no no, no no no no, no no no no, no no theres no limit.

Actually we don't sell unlimited so you're so completely wrong it's comical. And as for your arguments which plainly come from no experience of the industry, if we sold bandwidth strictly as uncontended you're broadband would cost £200 a month. So have fun with that. In additional it's not sold to unlimited people, the gateways have session limits which would technically prevent that anyway.

And unlimited doesn't mean that, obviously, otherwise the ASA would have done something long ago.

 

[DampCat]

Blah

You can laugh at my ignorance all you want. I obviously have no idea what it takes to run a broadband company because i dont run one. I do have an idea of what customer service is, and i've posted my opinion.

Dont post examples if you're going to take them back again afterwards. If makes for confusing discussions.

As the voice of the industry, i expect you to take my experiences and do something about it. Off you go.

 

[Matteysan]

Actually we don't sell unlimited so you're so completely wrong it's comical. And as for your arguments which plainly come from no experience of the industry, if we sold bandwidth strictly as uncontended you're broadband would cost £200 a month. So have fun with that. In additional it's not sold to unlimited people, the gateways have session limits which would technically prevent that anyway.

And unlimited doesn't mean that, obviously, otherwise the ASA would have done something long ago.

Then why do companies still insist on advertising unlimited!!!! That is the whole argument here. I know your company doesn't do it but a lot of them do! It is false advertising plain & simple.

 

[Raymond Lin]

I thought i download a lot, but even I only get to about 20% to my limit and i am on the second lowest tariff there is.

 

[Participant]

And unlimited doesn't mean that, obviously, otherwise the ASA would have done something long ago.

And that makes it ok in your eyes? And the ASA are a joke anyway. They only kick off if the press kick off first.

 

[bigredshark]

Then why do companies still insist on advertising unlimited!!!! That is the whole argument here. I know your company doesn't do it but a lot of them do! It is false advertising plain & simple.

Because it's not illegal and some rubbish ISP is going to advertise 'unlimited' unless it is illegal. Given that and the fact that the general public are as thick as two short planks and think they need unlimited broadband, either everyone else offers it, or they loose business.

 

[peetee]

Then why do companies still insist on advertising unlimited!!!! That is the whole argument here. I know your company doesn't do it but a lot of them do! It is false advertising plain & simple.

They do it because they can, one has obviously done it and now they all have to follow suite because they will lose customers, its down to the watchdog to sort it out, not the ISPs.
Some ISPs are less guilty than others using the term 'unlimited'.
For the prices we pay its inevitable that there will be a limit or traffic shaping, its naive to think otherwise, even if its advertised as 'unlimited'
Anyone who doesnt take advertisements with a pinch of salt deserves to be ripped off to be honest.

 

[just Scott]

Move to Be then. They're truly unlimited and don't traffic shape.

 

[Participant]

For the prices we pay its inevitable that there will be a limit or traffic shaping, its naive to think otherwise

WRONG!

Sky at the moment? Telewest when it was Blueyonder? They manage / managed it .

VM BT etc. are obviously doing it to subscribe as many people as possible, and the focus is on quality of subscribers not quality of service / connection.

That said my Virgin connection has been excellent and I only have trouble when I need to download Windows updates when I get home from work then decide to watch something on iPlayer after dinner. That is not excessive use in my books, but I'm soon capped, albeit only to 5Mbit, which is still fairly nippy.

 

[Matteysan]

I personally don't have a problem with my traffic shaping now, I know the limitations of what I can & can't do with my connection now during certain hours. Yes the watchdog do need to get on it & make sure companies are advertising the correct limits, it has already started with the "upto" business.

I've spoke to a few people around my area who aren't "technically savvy" & most of them didn't even know what the throttling was & why their speeds were awful in the evenings. I've had to explain the limits to them. This should be done in clear form when the user signs up. I don't believe people who take adverts for their intended use to show what a company does/offers to be ripped off. That is the whole point of advertising to show what they offer!

I know bandwidth is very expensive for the ISP's & I know they would lose customers if they didn't offer what other companies are showing to offer.

[Edit: Blueyonder were talking about traffic shaping well before it became the Virgin media name]

 

[starfighter]

Unlimited should mean unlimited imo. It is a joke to say unlimited and then underneath to say "2gb a month". Sorry but that is not on and imo OFCOM need to clamp down.

The problem with this is it leads to a market where ISPs only compete on price. Nothing else matters. If they were not allowed to hide the details in small print the customers might realise there is more to it and better ISPs will come out on top as it should be. Obviously some will only care about price but I bet many of the customers don't relise it exists and are being affected, some have stupid limits, especially mobile internet. It is easy to go over the limit, even for a light user legally these days.

And then the traffic shaping and port blocking is even worse. Good ISPs get punished because they purchase bigger pipes to allow for the peak bandwidth, by traffic shaping at peak times and not at low times you can have smaller pipes. More efficient perhaps but then why advertise and sell it as 24mb or 8mb. the good isp does the same and gets punished. They are purpusfully keeping customers in the dark. Not illegal but is it ethical?

 

[peetee]

WRONG!

Sky at the moment? Telewest when it was Blueyonder? They manage / managed it .

VM BT etc. are obviously doing it to subscribe as many people as possible, and the focus is on quality of subscribers not quality of service / connection.

That said my Virgin connection has been excellent and I only have trouble when I need to download Windows updates when I get home from work then decide to watch something on iPlayer after dinner. That is not excessive use in my books, but I'm soon capped, albeit only to 5Mbit, which is still fairly nippy.

well for starters if you used your brain you might have remembered what it was like back when telewest was blueyonder, there was no iplayer etc, heavy internet usage was tiny compared to the usage of today, everybody and their mother uses youtube etc, social networking is booming, adult sites have progressed to higher IQ and video content.
Torrent usage is rampant whereas piracy before was somewhat less common on that level with joe public only using napster/limewire to download odd songs, low quality movies and games, whereas now its weekly downloads of TV episodes, whenever new films are out r5s/Dvdrips are straight on download, the newest games are being downloaded(and console games) and people are getting albums instead of single songs.

You get capped after watching 1 thing on iplayer? I seriously doubt that, those FLV videos are heavily compressed..

 

[DailyGeek]

I don't think anyone on here doubts the technical limitations behind running an ISP so maybe the bickering on that could stop.

The problem lies with the term Unlimited. It simply is not in most cases.

I have a real problem with having speeds dropped on VM after downloading a few gig, which is easily done if I'm downloading a PS3 Demo and stuff on the PC at the same time (happens a lot)