First month on BT - Usage warning.

Drake5

Drake5

Drake5

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12 Dec 2005
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First month on BT and I already have a usage warning because I've just gone over 80GB.

I did have to re-download my steam collection a couple of times though.

Does usage get reset every month? They say if I go over 100GB they'll limit me to 1MB for 30 days.

Any idea if there is a contract cooling off period with BT as I'd like to go on to another provider.

Thanks
 
"Does usage get reset every month?
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I'm pretty sure it does, otherwise you've been even more suckered into paying the Big Tossers money for their rip off monopoly network schemes.

Any idea if there is a contract cooling off period with BT as I'd like to go on to another provider.
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You should check soon and bail asap.
 
Just gave Sky a call - They don't have a FUP but apparently my line can only support a 1MB Connection.

After arguing with the telesales person telling him that I'm on an up to 20MB connection with BT and do indeed connect at 12MBs, I finished the call and now back to square 1.

I don't understand why Sky are saying my line can only support a 1MBPs connection, if I did have them in maybe it'd connect higher anyway as surely it's the same cabling as BT?
 
if you plan on DLing that much ditch BT ASAP.
I personally wouldnt recommend BT if you plan on DLing or Gaming.
We've had no issues with Sky who we started wiht about 8 months back.
The connection has been hammered at times too.

Im assuming theres no cable in your area?

sky said we would only get 4Mb, we constantly get 12-14
 
Is it the LLU package?

Also, ISPs only guestimate your connection speed.

If you've connected to BT at 12Mbps then you will also connect at 12Mbps on Sky.
 
~Divine~Wind~ said:
if you plan on DLing that much ditch BT ASAP.
I personally wouldnt recommend BT if you plan on DLing or Gaming.
We've had no issues with Sky who we started wiht about 8 months back.
The connection has been hammered at times too.

Im assuming theres no cable in your area?

sky said we would only get 4Mb, we constantly get 12-14
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We don't have cable connections - I've been on sky BEFORE in this house though and connected at 14MBPs. I'm baffled as to why they're now saying 1MBPs.
 
If your already well into your first month on BT you won't be able to change ISP until the contract expires (or you pay up a huge early exit fee).

The useage limit resets monthly - but the traffic managed period doesn't - so if you went over the 100gig limit on the last day of the month you'd see peak time throttling for the next 30days not just that 1 last day - which is stupid.

From my experience their useage accounting isn't very accurate either - I've often had the 80gig warning email before my up and down combined exceeds ~60gig actual and 100gig email when my (fairly accurate) local logging shows under 80gig combined.

I've not had any problems for gaming, low pings and consistant connection with very little flux.



In the real world you are likely to see:

Peak time (6pm til midnight) P2P traffic throttling even when you've not exceeded the FUP - variable - during the world cup I saw it as low as 86kbit/s at peak time when I wasn't FUP'd even.
Random video traffic management - usually its not a problem but if your exchange is congested I've seen it limited to 800kbit or 2Mbit at peak times.
Once you get the "80Gig" email then you may or may not also experience 1Mbit/s peak time throttling but you almost definitely will see speeds limiting to around 2MBit during peak and more agressive throttling on P2P.
Once you "exceed" 100gig you will see 1Mbit/s on most traffic at peak times and depending on other conditions (such as overall traffic levels on the BT network) throttling to 2MBit/s on some traffic for 1-2 hours either side of peak. P2P will be agressively throttled (sometimes down to 30kbit/s) from approx 3pm til 3am but uncapped outside those times.

If your a really "bad boy" i.e. using 100s of gig every month for several months in a row - especially 24x7 torrents you may end up on the "naughty boy" virtual pipe, which clumps like users into a bandwidth limited virtual isolation from other users - where you will be contending with other heavy users for bandwidth which will result in very poor performance at peak times with variable latency and lots of spikes making gaming a pain.
 
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Rroff said:
If your already well into your first month on BT you won't be able to change ISP until the contract expires (or you pay up a huge early exit fee).

The useage limit resets monthly - but the traffic managed period doesn't - so if you went over the 100gig limit on the last day of the month you'd see peak time throttling for the next 30days not just that 1 last day - which is stupid.

From my experience their useage accounting isn't very accurate either - I've often had the 80gig warning email before my up and down combined exceeds ~60gig actual and 100gig email when my (fairly accurate) local logging shows under 80gig combined.

I've not had any problems for gaming, low pings and consistant connection with very little flux.
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Well this month is nearly over, so on my next month my usage will reset as long as I don't go over 100GB?
 
Once you hit the end of the month you will have another 100gig to use before you trigger another 30days throttling - but you will continue to see throttling well into next month until the 30days are up. If you exceed 100gig next month then you will see another 30 days tacked onto the end of the current 30 days.
 
I say move to sky asap if you can. Sky is one of the few providers that will never contact you no matter how much you download. however make sure you get their LLU service.

Btw, sky broadband has two tiers of customer service. Tier 1 is the people that pick up the phone when you call and they have no idea what they are talking about. Its the people that you spoke to and trust me they know nothing about broadband, speeds etc. If you can get 12mb with bt you'll be able to get 12mb with sky as well.
 
I received another email today stating my usage was over 100GB and now my speed would be restricted.

I only received the 80GB one the other day, I haven't downloaded a single thing since then so I really don't think I've done 20GB in that short amount of time.

If I choose to go with Sky even though I'm contracted with BT, will I get a bill off BT for the contract?
 
You can't just leave the BT contract :S they will want you to pay it all up in one go or if you get "lucky" just an early early exit free (which will be around 2/3rds the amount of your contract).
 
Rroff said:
You can't just leave the BT contract :S they will want you to pay it all up in one go or if you get "lucky" just an early early exit free (which will be around 2/3rds the amount of your contract).
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So, even if I was to go to Sky behind BT's back and set up a broadband package with Sky... Would this still work? Or wouldn't BT allow the switchover to happen as I'd still be contracted.
 
You need a MAC code from BT before you can sign up anywhere else I'm afraid. I would contact them and tell them you are not happy with the service, as far as you're concerned it is not doing what you were told it would when you were sold the package.

Tell them latency is awful and it is making gaming impossible which is one of your main reasons for having the connection. Stick to your guns and you might get lucky ;)
 
Finguz said:
You need a MAC code from BT before you can sign up anywhere else I'm afraid. I would contact them and tell them you are not happy with the service, as far as you're concerned it is not doing what you were told it would when you were sold the package.

Tell them latency is awful and it is making gaming impossible which is one of your main reasons for having the connection. Stick to your guns and you might get lucky ;)
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I just can't believe they expect me to pay full price whilst being limited to 1MBPs. IMO it's disgusting.

I can't even be bothered to call them because I know what BT Customer Service will be like. I might just get Sky in and hope they don't ask for a MAC code.
 
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