Freedom2Surf loses patience with data guzzlers

[SexyGreyFox]

Freedom2Surf has started sending warning letters to customers whose BitTorrent downloads have sent their bandwidth usage above 25GB per week. The letters threaten the termination of their broadband connection unless they reduce their usage in line with the ISP's acceptable usage policy and terms and conditions.

In the T&Cs the company reserves the right to terminate a connection 'If we in our opinion believe that termination of the Service is necessary to protect our goodwill or reputation and/or of our services or products (or necessary to protect the service provided by us to other users).

Several F2S users have reproduced the letter on the ISP's support forum, noting that their Connect Plus service is described as unlimited and has no advertised data cap.

http://www.pcpro.co.uk/news/84891/freedom2surf-loses-patience-with-data-guzzlers.html

 

[Stellios]

thats 100GB a month in purely torrent use, and im not saying torrents are purely pirate stuff, but thats a lot of games and films.

Yes, that is a bit of a dodgy policy, but a lot of ISPs are doing that now and you cant really argue with it.

 

[Vertigo]

You can argue with it if the advertising lead you to believe that it was a genuinely unlimited service and then they slap a cap on you!

I really wish the ASA would step in and sort these ISPs out. If they want to cap or throttle their services then that's fine, just stop them pretending they're not in the advertising!

 

[Rich]

I agree, on both points. 1) Too many people are taking the mickey with bandwidth 2)Too many ISP's are just lying about their service.

Make your minds up ISP's. Either cap or dont, but dont be misleading with your advertising. Im sure the first ISP to offer CLEAR guidelines, i.e not some smallprint in the AUP somewhere, will gain a lot of support.

Personally im reasonable happy with 75gig at the moment. Id much rather have more but im not going over that at all while the cap is in place.
I think 150gig is would be more than reasonable.

I would personally pay more for an upgraded cap or unlimited service.

 

[NickK]

The trend is just going to go up as online games eat at bandwidth and the Xbox360 market place will take megabites for demos, move trailers etc.

ISPs should have better market and capacity planning departments - it's not the users fault that they can't cope.
The old days of extreme usage being down to illegal movie torrents is old days - the legal download and utisation of domestic internet connections is rising.

Get over it and get with it is all I can say.

 

[R4z0r]

The old days of extreme usage being down to illegal movie torrents is old days - the legal download and utisation of domestic internet connections is rising.

Get over it and get with it is all I can say.

Are you kidding? Do you really think the majority of people going over these caps are using their service legitimately?

I know this has been done to death but seriously!

I agree that as technology progresses more bandwidth will be required but I think at the moment ~50GB is more than enough for most, legitimate, users.

It's not simply a matter of capacity planning. Do you realize that heavy users actually cost an ISP more money than they make from them? This is why ISP's have caps - they don't want business from users that use ridiculous amounts of bandwidth.

 

[Rich]

With broadband streaming of films and digital level TV just kicking off, legitimate users WILL be getting to those caps. I agree, it isnt happening yet, but over the next 2 to 3 years even average home users are going to be using the internet in entirely new ways.

God knows how our current infrastructure is going to cope with it but the whole capping situation will definately have to be addressed in some way.

 

[tolien]

Whether it's legitimate or not doesn't make an ounce of odds - at current prices, CBC is only cost neutral to an average of about 6GB/month.
Whether it's leeching movies off Usenet, or watching Sky by broadband isn't important.

The only answer is that over the next 2-3 years CBC pricing's going to have to drop, and significantly, or either

• a) video over ADSL isn't going to work
• b) a number of ISPs are going to go to the wall/get swallowed up into a big conglomerate
• c) the ISPs have to push LLU in a big way

Suspect we're going to see something in the middle of all three. The wonders of "competition"

 

[R4z0r]

With broadband streaming of films and digital level TV just kicking off, legitimate users WILL be getting to those caps. I agree, it isnt happening yet, but over the next 2 to 3 years even average home users are going to be using the internet in entirely new ways.

I agree.

The only answer is that over the next 2-3 years CBC pricing's going to have to drop, and significantly, or either

* a) video over ADSL isn't going to work
* b) a number of ISPs are going to go to the wall/get swallowed up into a big conglomerate
* c) the ISPs have to push LLU in a big way

My moneys on a mixture of B and C.

When IPTV does happen (And it will be years I would think) the capping systems will be different. For example, a lot of the very high bandwidth stuff (Movies, TV, etc) will be on the providers (BT and the big LLU players) network close to their edge routers and will have their own usage guide lines. So watching a 1GB movie won't be as much of a problem for an ISP as a user leeching 1GB from some user in the states.

 

[Intra-Agnostic]

Im with F2S , and ill put my hands up and admit to downloading a fair bit.

Some months have reached over 300GB. But then others less than 100GB.

What i find strage is their Bandwith tool in the members area, Its completely wrong.

For example, this month they have for me 23GB inbound and outbound.

And i know for a fact ive downloaded well over 70GB.

Im not complaining though.

Can someone tell me what unlimited ISP's are left? I though i heard someone say newnet, but ive just checked their site and its 60GB.

 

[Al Vallario]

Im with F2S , and ill put my hands up and admit to downloading a fair bit.

Some months have reached over 300GB. But then others less than 100GB.

What i find strage is their Bandwith tool in the members area, Its completely wrong.

For example, this month they have for me 23GB inbound and outbound.

And i know for a fact ive downloaded well over 70GB.

Im not complaining though.

Perhaps it only records normal HTTP transfer and not stuff like bittorrent? Either way, what on Earth are you downloading to reach 300GB/month? That's equivalent to a 1Mbps line being hammered 24/7 for an entire month!

I think R4z0r is bang on with the capping predictions; IPTV providors are likely to work with ISPs to provide content on a more "internal" basis. Unless I'm mistaken, there's more contention on international downloads than transfer over an ISP's network.

 

[Intra-Agnostic]

I dont use bittorrent, I use newsgroups.

And what i download is irrelevant, we are talking figures here

i just wish ISP's would be more forthcoming.

ie, a softcap is a cap whatever way you look at it, at least if they marketed it as a 100Gb a month package people would know where they stand.

And for the record, ive only ever done 300Gb twice, most months its 70-150GB.

 

[tolien]

For example, a lot of the very high bandwidth stuff (Movies, TV, etc) will be on the providers (BT and the big LLU players) network close to their edge routers and will have their own usage guide lines.

To get round the issue of expensive Centrals (neglecting LLU/cable for now), it's going to have to be on the BT side of the Centrals - and the regulator ain't going to like that.
Even the BBC's multicasting joy doesn't help the ISPs.

The other answer is the likes of Sky paying the ISPs to allow their traffic across their network. But that's going to be as popular as Christmas in a turkey farm.

 

[R4z0r]

To get round the issue of expensive Centrals (neglecting LLU/cable for now), it's going to have to be on the BT side of the Centrals - and the regulator ain't going to like that.

How it will be implemented remains to be seen (Although I personally think we'll see the mega-bandwidth stuff more and more tied in with BT's network as they roll out 21CN). The key point I am getting at is that caps and usage guidelines won't be too much of an issue. By the time IPTV really starts to get going there will probably be an entirely new acceptable usage system.

 

[Lummux]

In the case of IPTV i would assume most users will use there ISP's service, therefore the data is sourced from a server in their network. I would therefore assume they dont have to pay for that, just the data that is pulled in from the outside eg the net.
The result of this should be that the ISP's may have to upgrade there network, i would have thought.
I maybe wrong though!

 

[tolien]

I would therefore assume they dont have to pay for that, just the data that is pulled in from the outside eg the net.

Whether it comes in from the outside world or the ISP's network doesn't matter compared to the cost of throwing traffic across Centrals.