Why doesn't Unlimited mean Unlimited anymore? :/

[bigredshark]

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.

I haven't taken anything back. And customer service isn't at issue here, I've already stated our customer service is first rate and we're pretty proud of it. In any industry there will be some cowboy outfit with appalling customer service, if as a consumer you don't like their service then go elsewhere, it might cost a bit more though.

I (and everyone else in this game) know your opinion quite well, we've considered it and decided it's such a minority of the customer base that it doesn't interest us. If it was profitable to offer you the service you desire then somebody is free to do it tomorrow, such is the beauty of the free market. But the fact that nobody has yet is probably an indicator of something. Either way, my considered opinion is that it's not worth our business considering as it makes no commercial sense.

 

[Durzel]

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.

No offence but what you've written here is a perfect example of consumer mentality taken to the extreme.

Consumer ISPs work on economies of scale, the vast majority subsidise the minority - that's the only way the system can work. That doesn't necessarily just mean bandwidth, it can mean technical support, equipment costs, etc. What we typically pay consumer ISPs per month would be exhausted in a single hour long phone call to a experienced tech.

Quite frankly if you think £40/month would or should entitle you to download several hundred GB of data every month then you have absolutely no idea how much the infrastructure costs, no offence. Speaking as someone who knows both sides of the coin (I'm a senior tech at a business ISP, and have Virgin Media as a consumer at home) I know that getting 20Mb for ~£35 a month is surreal.

 

[Participant]

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..

Fine, you've addressed the Telewest point but conveniently skipped straight past Sky, who are currently offering an uncapped unlimited service for less than the cable operators. Potentially your grey matter could only cope with addressing one point at a time?

Regarding being capped, you can now download high quality iplayer files that are around 400MB per episode iirc, and in conjunction with some hefty Windows / Adobe updates you are easily capped for what I see as reasonable usage.

Consumer ISPs work on economies of scale, the vast majority subsidise the minority - that's the only way the system can work. That doesn't necessarily just mean bandwidth, it can mean technical support, equipment costs, etc. What we typically pay consumer ISPs per month would be exhausted in a single hour long phone call to a experienced tech.

Quite frankly if you think £40/month would or should entitle you to download several hundred GB of data every month then you have absolutely no idea how much the infrastructure costs, no offence. Speaking as someone who knows both sides of the coin (I'm a senior tech at a business ISP, and have Virgin Media as a consumer at home) I know that getting 20Mb for ~£35 a month is surreal.

Well speaking as a senior tech you should know that times and technologies change, and 20Mb for £35 a month is nothing amazing and is far worse than people in Wapan and much of Scandinavia receive, especially when you look at the pathetic upload bandwidth. On this point this is another thing that ISPs are guilty of - quoting vast download numbers and hiding terrible upload numbers that are barely capable of even supporting the download speed.

And regarding the masses subsidising the minority, of course, it will always work that way, but everything's relative, and if ISPs eliminate the top 10% of bandwidth users they will have another 10% to attack next month.

 

[Matteysan]

Fine, you've addressed the Telewest point but conveniently skipped straight past Sky, who are currently offering an uncapped unlimited service for less than the cable operators. Potentially your grey matter could only cope with addressing one point at a time?

Regarding being capped, you can now download high quality iplayer files that are around 400MB per episode iirc, and in conjunction with some hefty Windows / Adobe updates you are easily capped for what I see as reasonable usage.

Sky still have a FUP which they deem acceptable in terms of usage, They still have an area of say theoretically 300gb as fair usage. If people start to abuse that then they will clamp down on those users. To say Sky offer completely unlimited is near here nor there, They still have a limit on what they think is acceptable.

 

[Participant]

They still have an area of say theoretically 300gb as fair usage

Link?

 

[Matteysan]

Link?

Okay maybe I was wrong with that just checked the site & it has no fair usage policy, you are correct sir. But it still wouldn't surprise me if they have some kind of policy in place for people using an awful lot of bandwidth & I did say theoretically

 

[Shoseki]

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.

I seriously don't give a flying monkey whether *your* company provides unlimited or not. The whole point is, that unlimited by definition means without limits. Just because a bunch of sales people have weedled out a way to con a large proportion of the population into believing unlimited means anything doesn't sway me.

As I said, I have no problem with the business model - it just needs to be properly documented. I want to know *exactly* how much of my bandwidth I am actually going to get, how much I am paying /b/sec, and I don't give a crap about the marketing etc.

Clarity = honesty... all you have established so far is that "things are complicated" meaning... the entire industry is dishonest.

 

[Participant]

Okay maybe I was wrong with that just checked the site & it has no fair usage policy, you are correct sir. But it still wouldn't surprise me if they have some kind of policy in place for people using an awful lot of bandwidth & I did say theoretically

Lol, so as long as I add "theoretically" to the end of anything I say, it doesn't matter whether it's true or not? Must remember that one .

 

[Matteysan]

Lol, so as long as I add "theoretically" to the end of anything I say, it doesn't matter whether it's true or not? Must remember that one .

haha well I should pay more attention to what they offer I guess, I didn't know it was truly un-metered I was going on basically what every other company does. But I was wrong & I admit that

I seriously did think they had a FUP But yeah that doesn't explain why I said theoretically I fail!

 

[nikebee]

Im shocked at all the people here who seem to think for the pennies you pay every month you should be aloud to download as much as you want when you want

There is a difference between paying £13k plus per year for a leased line as a dedicated service, and paying £20~ a month for an "Unlimited Service" though.

The reason people are so peeved at this is that it's being advertised as one thing, and sold as another.

If you bought an XL blue sweater, but received only a Medium green one - that occasionally stretched to Large sizes but then went down to a Medium again for the rest of the week.

If I went on holiday for a month and bought a rent-a-car to use - was told I had "unlimited usage of the car", but during peak times it would only go 10mph and if I drove over 10 miles a day I'd have to pay an extra £30... I'd be pretty peeved.

If something is sold as one thing, but the customer receives another... it's a bad thing, whether it's "Unlimited Broadband", an "XL Sweater" or a "Rent-A-Car"...

You can't tell me something is X but it's actually Y.

 

[bigredshark]

I seriously don't give a flying monkey whether *your* company provides unlimited or not. The whole point is, that unlimited by definition means without limits. Just because a bunch of sales people have weedled out a way to con a large proportion of the population into believing unlimited means anything doesn't sway me.

As I said, I have no problem with the business model - it just needs to be properly documented. I want to know *exactly* how much of my bandwidth I am actually going to get, how much I am paying /b/sec, and I don't give a crap about the marketing etc.

Clarity = honesty... all you have established so far is that "things are complicated" meaning... the entire industry is dishonest.

And I don't care much what you think you're entitled to. The ASA has yet to find fault with the unlimited marketing. Until they do then it's going to continue (and you could argue it's as much the consumers fault for a) being incredibly stupid b) provoking a price war between ISPs by only being able to see headline cost and nothing beyond).

Because you'd like it to be nice and clear is an incredibly naive reasoning, if one ISP offers that marketing then all other consumer providers basically must to if they're to win business. Because there will always be someone who will offer it, unless it's suddenly found to be a breach by the ASA then it'll continue. They can't ban it for no reason so as long as ISPs find ways of legally justifying it then it stays.

 

[z0mbi3]

snip

Fair point that. Didn't really occur to me at the time but when Pipex started enforcing their FUP a few years back, they weren't actually officially anouncing the gigabyte limit they were sending people letters out at. Even though second line support told me it was around 70 gigs a month, the fact that you're paying for a service should mean you know exactly what you're getting.

 

[bigredshark]

There is a difference between paying £13k plus per year for a leased line as a dedicated service, and paying £20~ a month for an "Unlimited Service" though.

The reason people are so peeved at this is that it's being advertised as one thing, and sold as another.

If you bought an XL blue sweater, but received only a Medium green one - that occasionally stretched to Large sizes but then went down to a Medium again for the rest of the week.

If I went on holiday for a month and bought a rent-a-car to use - was told I had "unlimited usage of the car", but during peak times it would only go 10mph and if I drove over 10 miles a day I'd have to pay an extra £30... I'd be pretty peeved.

If something is sold as one thing, but the customer receives another... it's a bad thing, whether it's "Unlimited Broadband", an "XL Sweater" or a "Rent-A-Car"...

You can't tell me something is X but it's actually Y.

The car analogy isn't bad. It's still unlimited, no matter what speed it goes.

This all ignores the fact, unlimited hasn't yet been found to be misleading and banned, and ISPs aren't going to voluntarily scrap it. Unless you can legally prove that 'unlimited' is misleading then you're going to be complaining for a while yet.

 

[Participant]

The car analogy isn't bad. It's still unlimited, no matter what speed it goes.

This all ignores the fact, unlimited hasn't yet been found to be misleading and banned, and ISPs aren't going to voluntarily scrap it. Unless you can legally prove that 'unlimited' is misleading then you're going to be complaining for a while yet.

Well what's your opinion, forgetting legalities and technicalities, and whether or not (snigger) the ASA have gotten off their arses and done something about the blatent fibs yet? Do you believe that it's misleading advertising such services as unlimited?

 

[V4NT0M]

You can't find anything cheaper offering the same unlimited service over ADSL?

be* ADSL2, unlimited £18 - £25pm... Not that I disagree.

I've worked in broadband since it was first being rolled out, the amount people get these days compared to what it used to be is insane...5 years ago it was £27.99 for 512MB with a usb modem, these days we offer 16x that speed, plus free international calling, take over your BT landline, that's with a wireless modem too for £25pm.

The problem is that people are stubborn for some reason because it says unlimited they just won't accept any other definition of 'unlimited' other than what they think it should mean.

 

[z0mbi3]

snip

You've got to appreciate where Shoseki is coming from though. You take your typical broadband advertising, right it's unlimited, ooh hangon there's an asterix there, right ok subject to FUP fair enough, lets have a look at the FUP, ah right ok so the FUP says it's not unlimited but doesn't say what the limit is either. Errr what am I buying if it's not unlimited?

 

[Matteysan]

The problem is that people are stubborn for some reason because it says unlimited they just won't accept any other definition of 'unlimited' other than what they think it should mean.

Because there isn't another definition of unlimited, there is either limited or unlimited. You can't call one thing unlimited & then go ahead & do another thing.

adj.
Having no restrictions or controls: an unlimited travel ticket.
Having or seeming to have no boundaries; infinite: an unlimited horizon.
Without qualification or exception; absolute: unlimited self-confidence.

 

[nikebee]

The car analogy isn't bad. It's still unlimited, no matter what speed it goes.

This all ignores the fact, unlimited hasn't yet been found to be misleading and banned, and ISPs aren't going to voluntarily scrap it. Unless you can legally prove that 'unlimited' is misleading then you're going to be complaining for a while yet.

Continuing on with the car analogy...

This "Unlimited usage of the Rent-A-Car" policy, if I go more than 10 miles a day, I can then drive no faster than 10mph for the next few days.

If I continually drive over 10 miles per day, the Rent-A-Car company will come and take the car away from me as well as fine me for going over my "Unlimited Usage".

Personally, I haven't been hugely effected by the bandwidth caps. I've been throttled a few times when doing some heavy downloading - and I don't do anything dodgy just download music (legally), watch iPlayer (and the like) and play Warhammer Online (including downloading 1GB+ patches).

But I'm just generally against the idea of companies proclaiming that a product is one thing - when in reality it isn't.

The whole "Up To 8Meg Broadband!" thing, I have no issues with... This was just ignorence on the general publics part... it was stated "Up To" and ADSL Max is all based on line distances and theoretical maximum speeds.

Claiming I can have unlimited usage, then "harming" my experience by slowing it down because I've downloaded a lot in the last few days... or indeed cutting me off because I've gone over me (un)limit(ed) service is another thing.

 

[z0mbi3]

The problem is that people are stubborn for some reason because it says unlimited they just won't accept any other definition of 'unlimited' other than what they think it should mean.

It's not what they think it should mean, it's what it does mean. The dictionary definition of unlimited should be what the advertisments are selling. If they aren't selling that then they shouldn't be using the word.

 

[Participant]

be* ADSL2, unlimited £18 - £25pm... Not that I disagree.

I've worked in broadband since it was first being rolled out, the amount people get these days compared to what it used to be is insane...5 years ago it was £27.99 for 512MB with a usb modem, these days we offer 16x that speed, plus free international calling, take over your BT landline, that's with a wireless modem too for £25pm.

The problem is that people are stubborn for some reason because it says unlimited they just won't accept any other definition of 'unlimited' other than what they think it should mean.

What's your point? This natural progression of technology occurs in almost every industry, and it isn't a reason to allow false / misleading advertising.

"Consumer's get more than they used to" is a terrifically pointless observation, since if you take every industry based on technology, things have progressed massively. Does the fact that 8 years ago a 2GB HDD was considered large mean that 1TB drives today are ridiculous?