Why doesn't Unlimited mean Unlimited anymore? :/

I have this problem as well, I have Virgin's 20Meg and am constantly getting knocked down to 5mb, I download a lot of movies through the Xbox 360 marketplace and they are 6gb a piece for the high def versions, Also i tend to watch iplayer and Sky player a lot.

If you ask me this sort of usage is fair and it won't be long before it becomes standard practice, I bet other country's don't get slapped with the fair usage policy, if it all the exchanges and cabling need upgrading then they should do it.

It really ****'s me off because i often watch more than 1 HD movie over the Xbox 360 market place and it takes ages to download them, I wonder how much i can download at full speed before they cap me? im pretty sure it is less than 6gb as the speed drops when i am downloading it.

Just checked and they cap me at 3Gb, no wonder i am always finding myself capped, 3gb is not a lot at all, I wonder how much iplayer and sky player use up?
 
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anticonscience said:
I do think there are bigger things to worry about in the world other than unlimited* meaning unlimited*
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I don't really think thats the issue anymore.

It's the misleading adverts. Of course ISPs aren't the only ones that mislead people, but they are just the relevant topic in this particular thread.
 
Colbaker said:
I have this problem as well, I have Virgin's 20Meg and am constantly getting knocked down to 5mb, I download a lot of movies through the Xbox 360 marketplace and they are 6gb a piece for the high def versions, Also i tend to watch iplayer and Sky player a lot.

If you ask me this sort of usage is fair and it won't be long before it becomes standard practice, I bet other country's don't get slapped with the fair usage policy, if it all the exchanges and cabling need upgrading then they should do it.

It really ****'s me off because i often watch more than 1 HD movie over the Xbox 360 market place and it takes ages to download them, I wonder how much i can download at full speed before they cap me? im pretty sure it is less than 6gb as the speed drops when i am downloading it.

Just checked and they cap me at 3Gb, no wonder i am always finding myself capped, 3gb is not a lot at all, I wonder how much iplayer and sky player use up?
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sky virgin dont want you to download movies from other sits they want you to down load payg movies from there lines.
 
Colbaker said:
It really ****'s me off because i often watch more than 1 HD movie over the Xbox 360 market place and it takes ages to download them, I wonder how much i can download at full speed before they cap me? im pretty sure it is less than 6gb as the speed drops when i am downloading it.
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If you download more then 3000MB on the XL package (which I believe you're on at 20Mb?), between 4pm and 9pm, you will be throttled by 75% (to 5Mb) for 5 hours.

If you download more then 6000MB on the XL package, between 10am and 3pm, you will be throttled to 5Mb for 5 hours.

Personally, I download in bursts (new linux distros usually), and always from 1am-9am, at no other times, using uTorrents built in scheduler. The main problem I find is that regardless of how much I've downloaded, Virgins service is always ****.
 
mattheman said:
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.
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So you breaking laws and morals makes it all OK then? Eye for an eye?

It's responses like that, that make me annoyed with people that think they are "fighting the system" downloading - when they are just being cheapskates.

Rich
 
To be fair, there are a lot of "services" that abuse the "tragedy of the commons" to make a lot of money for poor service.

A call centre is a classic case. There was a time I am sure, when if you rang someone up and it was engaged or not - but then someone invented "call queues" and "service level agreements" and people suddenly decided that sitting in a queue was acceptable. Except that... the number of people using the service can go up and down, but the number of phone operators is a mystery.

Same with checkouts at a supermarket : potentially unlimited amount of shoppers, but limited number of checkout cashiers. People queue up waiting for service.

Well, even if you think you are not paying, you are paying *twice*. Once for the act of shopping, and once in time for the service. If you use a mobile phone you can end up paying *three times*, once for the service, once in terms of your time, and once in terms of the charges for the phone (minutes don't count for 0800 numbers etc and they aren't free).

Its pretty despicable but hey... people accept it. If your time is cheap, then you can give it away. But its the reason that people hire personal shoppers etc. I never do my own laundry, I pay the person at the laundrette to do it and it costs me twice as much - but I don't have to waste 3+ hours at the laundrette at the weekend...
 
Shoseki said:
To be fair, there are a lot of "services" that abuse the "tragedy of the commons" to make a lot of money for poor service.

A call centre is a classic case. There was a time I am sure, when if you rang someone up and it was engaged or not - but then someone invented "call queues" and "service level agreements" and people suddenly decided that sitting in a queue was acceptable. Except that... the number of people using the service can go up and down, but the number of phone operators is a mystery.

Same with checkouts at a supermarket : potentially unlimited amount of shoppers, but limited number of checkout cashiers. People queue up waiting for service.

Well, even if you think you are not paying, you are paying *twice*. Once for the act of shopping, and once in time for the service. If you use a mobile phone you can end up paying *three times*, once for the service, once in terms of your time, and once in terms of the charges for the phone (minutes don't count for 0800 numbers etc and they aren't free).

Its pretty despicable but hey... people accept it. If your time is cheap, then you can give it away. But its the reason that people hire personal shoppers etc. I never do my own laundry, I pay the person at the laundrette to do it and it costs me twice as much - but I don't have to waste 3+ hours at the laundrette at the weekend...
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If theres a large queue in a shop i'll just dump my food or goods there and walk out.
 
mattheman said:
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.
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It's called a free market. Small companies couldn't compete so they went bust, nothing illegal or immoral there I'm afraid. If they'd genuinely broken the law they'd have been sued for it long ago.
 
mattheman said:
before you guys moan about T&Cs why dont you read it and as the company what a section means, i'll 100% know they dont know.
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Amazingly enough, tech support monkeys aren't lawyers. Try speaking to their legal department and they'll tell you what it means, chances are you won't understand of course but hey.
 
anticonscience said:
Thought of buying a washing machine? :D
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Good question.

I used to do my laundry once a month and it cost me £25 ish. Now I have twice as much laundry as I work full time, I do it roughly every three weeks and it costs me £15.

52 weeks / 3 = 17.3r washes a year
17.3r * £15 = £260 a year

Cheapy washing machine costs £190
Cheapy tumble dryer costs £100
Electricity £? // Probably £20-30 per year
Washing ingredients? £10-£20 per year

So after about a year and a half it would probably be more economic to buy a washing machine. BUT

1) Service wash does *everything* so waching, drying, folding that takes a fair amount of time (at least half an hour per wash). If your time is cheap, then fine. But if you are earning a fair amount, then consider it a pay cut

2) The washing machine will be far far smaller than the industrial ones, so the quality of the wash will be questionable.

3) The tumble dryer will be small so it can take a lot lot lot longer to dry than the larger industrial ones.

Now, if you try and apply the £600 washing machine / £300 dryer to this model... you see where I am going.

For a large family maybe, just maybe...
 
platypus said:
I don't really think thats the issue anymore.

It's the misleading adverts. Of course ISPs aren't the only ones that mislead people, but they are just the relevant topic in this particular thread.
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Which is completely not worth complaining about. It's not illegal to advertise it the way they are, until it is (and it seems unlikely it ever will be) then they'll continue to advertise it that way. Because it wins business in a competitive market which has really thin margins.

Given that, consumers need to wise up. If you buy something on the strength of the advert alone and don't bother reading the small print, then complain it doesn't do what you thought it would, you're on your own, it's your own stupid fault for being an idiot and not bothering to actually read about the product.

While you may think the adverts are misleading, legally they aren't and thats what counts. This is a profit making business so outbreaks of goodwill aren't going to happen.
 
Shoseki said:
1) Service wash does *everything* so waching, drying, folding that takes a fair amount of time (at least half an hour per wash). If your time is cheap, then fine. But if you are earning a fair amount, then consider it a pay cut
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Bit of a poor excuse. It only stacks up if every waking hour you are doing something productive. If instead of doing the washing you were watching TV, playing a computer game or whatever then you aren't actually making money so it isn't a pay cut.
 
bigredshark said:
Legally they're not misleading anyone. What you *think* they're doing is your opinion and you're welcome to it, but it doesn't count for anything.
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You're being deliberately obtuse because its your business. Thats fine. And you keep on banding about customers being stupid and idiots.

You have a lot of customer contact in your job, do you?
 
Dist said:
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.
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That's the ffing point, mate. The FUP often DOESN'T state what you're getting at all.
 
RDM said:
Bit of a poor excuse. It only stacks up if every waking hour you are doing something productive. If instead of doing the washing you were watching TV, playing a computer game or whatever then you aren't actually making money so it isn't a pay cut.
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Thats a good point - business would call it "productive time". However, that is from the business perspective.

From the personal perspective, nobody does laundry because they enjoy it - they do it because they have to. In my belief, you are either doing something because you want to, or despite the fact that you don't. For most of your life, you are doing something that you don't want to and it is called "work", for which you are paid a wage. If you are working for yourself and not being paid, then essentially you are earning a negative wage because it is not time that you are spending doing what you *want* to do, which may be laying about :D

Nothing wrong with laying about - as long as you do it because you *want* to. Its your choice to do it.
 
neo202020 said:
That's the ffing point, mate. The FUP often DOESN'T state what you're getting at all.
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But the reason for that has already been explained. The limits are to prevent a user monopolising the contended service, and as such the limit depends on what the 'average' user is doing far more than what the high user is doing. If you were to demand they set a hard cap, they'd have to set it for a worst case scenario, which means a low cap. By keeping the language vague, they can protect people against service degredation due to heavy users, while allowing those heavy users the facility to download a lot if it's not affecting the service level for others.
 
platypus said:
You're being deliberately obtuse because its your business. Thats fine. And you keep on banding about customers being stupid and idiots.

You have a lot of customer contact in your job, do you?
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I don't think I'm being at all obtuse, legally it isn't misleading and anything else is just opinion. I've already said *I* think it's misleading in this thread but unless it's legally found to be so then it'll continue.

Anybody who just goes and buys because the advert says unlimited is stupid. I bought a new pair of headphone last week, I didn't grab the first box which proclaimed how fantastic the contents were, I spent a few hours reading reviews and bought something else entirely. Don't do your research, then you pretty much deserve to get stung.

My only customer contact is with our biggest clients, who fortunately have IT teams who actually know something.
 
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