Why doesn't Unlimited mean Unlimited anymore? :/

[Angilion]

TBH i dont see any problem with the term unlimited. If people read the usage policy and such before paying for a service they will know exactly what they are getting. If people dont bother to read it and just agree to everything put infront of their faces then its their own fault if they run into fair usage problems.

Unfortunately, that is not true. It is common for ISPs to use unspecified restrictions on use, covered by some general language in the T&C that could mean anything or nothing.

For example, I've read the T&C for my contract with my ISP. It does not state that the service cannot be used for P2P except, perhaps, for a few hours in the middle of the night. It does not state what the monthly cap is. It does state that there aren't any limits on the service (i.e. that the service is unlimited), which is not true.

 

[Angilion]

hehe i was one of the 1st too join them in this country, infact i was one of there 1st customers, never forget that september 2005 i think the year was, 24meg bb one of the 1st in the country. best bb provider.

They appear to be offering an unlimited service with 8Mbps downstream and 1.3MBps upstream for £14 a month (£8 on offer at the moment). If so, how can they afford to do that?

If it's actually true and if they allow P2P use, I'll be getting a migration code ASAP. Even if it's fake unlimited with a reasonable cap, I'll take it. I doubt if I use more than 30GB most months and I don't need more than 8Mbps. I go back to the days when the choice was 300/300 or 1200/75, and I recall thinking that a 14.4K modem was really fast

 

[RDM]

Unfortunately, that is not true. It is common for ISPs to use unspecified restrictions on use, covered by some general language in the T&C that could mean anything or nothing.

Then don't sign up with an ISP that doesn't give clear terms?

 

[bigredshark]

It depends also on what you call unlimited, I have seen 2gb being advertised as unlimited. Do you seriously think that is fair, is a old woman going to think 2gb, ahh yes iplayer uses 4.5.646546mb and i watch 3.56 hours per month etc etc, no they just see unlimted and buy it when it could be a prduct sold at £10 a month.

There are limits to proetect the isp, ie 50gb a month is fair as it would cost the ISP like £30 or so, if all users did that and paid £10 it wouldnt last. but some really are silly, they do not even cover minimal usage.

No I expect an old woman to watch tv using that traditional medium called a television.

I don't know where 2GB as unlimited comes from, the only place I've ever seen that is mobile 3G broadband which is so obviously different.

You need to look at your maths a little bit also, 50GB is sustained traffic of 200kbps for a month, it wouldn't cost anywhere near £30. Even if they only used it between 5pm and 11pm then it would still be only 800k sustained traffic over a month and cost next to nothing.

 

[bigredshark]

They appear to be offering an unlimited service with 8Mbps downstream and 1.3MBps upstream for £14 a month (£8 on offer at the moment). If so, how can they afford to do that?

If it's actually true and if they allow P2P use, I'll be getting a migration code ASAP. Even if it's fake unlimited with a reasonable cap, I'll take it. I doubt if I use more than 30GB most months and I don't need more than 8Mbps. I go back to the days when the choice was 300/300 or 1200/75, and I recall thinking that a 14.4K modem was really fast

Well, it's not unlimited, it's subject to a fair use policy which isn't defined and they've (apparently) yet to implement. So it's broadly the same as everyone else.

They're also still growing, as their network gets busier the experience will change and/or the FUP will actually start to mean something.

 

[bigredshark]

Sorry but i think that counts as a personal attack, you have no idea how the industry works, media industry is centered around profit sick profits.

i'm not scamming just using my nut reduce my costs just like a company, however you dont seem to understand how it all works, ex media companies refused to give a donation for using bit torrent tech for there software sales, bet you didnt know that.
Same with software sales and the cost of cd dvds etc... your paying more than a fair price, anyway not going to go into it, need sleep.

Thats the poorest justification I've seen for breaking the law in a long time. You're just being cheap and downloading stuff illegally, no matter what you think, the price is the price, either pay it and get the content or don't and don't. Don't try to justify obtaining it illegally.

 

[bigredshark]

How often do you read the EULA to the games you install?

these guys aren't snake oil salesmen, i shouldn't have to trawl through pages of jargon just to make sure i'm getting what they seem to be advertising.

Well if you don't and get stung it's 100% your fault. That's how the law works, they gave you all the details and if you failed to read and understand them before indicating your agreement thats not their fault.

 

[Shoseki]

Well if you don't and get stung it's 100% your fault. That's how the law works, they gave you all the details and if you failed to read and understand them before indicating your agreement thats not their fault.

Quite frankly, the law is abused by companies... it shouldn't be "ALL AMAZING STUFF *" where * = no amazing stuff but you need to be a lawyer (or hire a lawyer) to understand that.

Its exploitation for profit. Gz.

 

[bigredshark]

Quite frankly, the law is abused by companies... it shouldn't be "ALL AMAZING STUFF *" where * = no amazing stuff but you need to be a lawyer (or hire a lawyer) to understand that.

Its exploitation for profit. Gz.

It's advertising! What do you expect? 'Our product is alright'

If you don't read the details of what you get and understand them then it's your own dumb fault for signing up for it. It's not like dodgy and misleading advertising is limited to ISPs.

 

[mattheman]

They appear to be offering an unlimited service with 8Mbps downstream and 1.3MBps upstream for £14 a month (£8 on offer at the moment). If so, how can they afford to do that?

If it's actually true and if they allow P2P use, I'll be getting a migration code ASAP. Even if it's fake unlimited with a reasonable cap, I'll take it. I doubt if I use more than 30GB most months and I don't need more than 8Mbps. I go back to the days when the choice was 300/300 or 1200/75, and I recall thinking that a 14.4K modem was really fast

400gig i think you can downlaond a month then they just email you, we think your down loading too much.

 

[mattheman]

Well if you don't and get stung it's 100% your fault. That's how the law works, they gave you all the details and if you failed to read and understand them before indicating your agreement thats not their fault.

Well ive gone thru terms and conditions, i've asked companies what does this mean, reply we dont know. So if they dont know how are you meant to know.

 

[mattheman]

I don't mind caps. What I do mind is caps that customers are not told about and limited "unlimited" packages. No messing about with arguments like "well, 'unlimited' is not supposed to mean unlimited use".

IF the packages were advertised honestly, it would be a lot less of a problem and customers could make an informed choice.

The only thing that bothers me at the moment is that AOL UK no longer allows P2P at all except in the early hours of the morning, maybe. I've no idea what their limited unlimited cap was or is - they refuse to tell customers what it is - or if I ever exceeded it. Probably not, but with all the deception from ISPs it's impossible to know. The total block on P2P of all kinds in an "unlimited" package is a step too far, especially when added to the now crappy service. I don't use P2P much, but I do want to be able to if I want to. I don't even care if it's throttled down to 1Mbps, even 512Kbps.

So now I have to look for a new ISP and it's impossible to tell what any of them are really offering because most or all of them aren't honest about what they're really selling. Nice.

a lot of them port block, speaking to customer services and asking do you block ports and which one is like talking to a brick.

 

[platypus]

that sounds wrong tbh, you should give them a ring.
A 20mb gets capped down to what? iPlayer videos are low quality, they could stream on a 1mb without a hickup tbh.

Virgin Media is a joke at peak times. It's bad enough at non peak times..

 

[platypus]

If you don't read the details of what you get and understand them then it's your own dumb fault for signing up for it. It's not like dodgy and misleading advertising is limited to ISPs.

And here we have the crux of the ISP position. Other industries mislead their customers, so it's fine when we do.

 

[mattheman]

Thats the poorest justification I've seen for breaking the law in a long time. You're just being cheap and downloading stuff illegally, no matter what you think, the price is the price, either pay it and get the content or don't and don't. Don't try to justify obtaining it illegally.

Nope, large companies abuse their power did you know that large companies in the last recession were responsible for lots of small companies going under?
they broke laws and morals.

 

[decrypt3r]

BT has 100GB fair usage, then restricts speed down to 512kbs for rest of month

 

[mattheman]

Virgin Media is a joke at peak times. It's bad enough at non peak times..

my mate was going to go with virgin till we found out about all the little bits they dont tell you, port block throttling during certain times of the day etc...

 

[antijoke]

Don't have any problems with Sky broadband, I download what I want when I want. I would never use AOL/TalkTalk (after working for CPW I know how dire the service is) and after reading how Virgin/NTL also port block I would never go with these), people need to research before they buy a product, you cannot just sign up and then moan about the T&C's afterwards.
Orange now offer me unlimited (fair usage policy applies) text messages ( i think 3,000 a month)who would really want to send mroe than 3,000 texts a month?

I do think there are bigger things to worry about in the world other than unlimited* meaning unlimited*

Just my 2 cents.

 

[Shoseki]

What we as consumers could really do with is a consolidation tool that not only measures/tests connection speed, but also collates all of the information (anonymously) by address/provider and provides a visualisation so that we have an accurate representation of what is actually out there.

And done independantly so that it cannot be "gamed" by people in the industry.

 

[Durzel]

To be honest all of the consumer ISPs are broadly the same, the ones that people think "oh they'll never cap" either just don't do it currently because they happen to have a better ratio of regular users vs habitual leechers, or they do and it's undocumented, or they're planning to do it. Either way when you come across an ISP who "doesn't cap" you can be sure that the leeches will migrate to it en massé, thus forcing them into a position where they too have to cap - it's a self-defeating prophecy.

The likes of BT are lucky in that they have such a massive userbase who does fall into the "check email twice a day, do some Google searches" - these people massively subsidise the small minority who spend 24/7 queuing up the latest movie DVDRs and game ISOs, like - I imagine - quite a few of the vociferous people in this thread. That said even BT will only give leechers a limited amount of latitude.

Some interesting reading for the uninformed....