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Unlimited = 50Gb... who knew?

C

CortexRock

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Dec 3, 2006
413
0
Canterbury, England
Got an email from my ISP (Demon Internet) this morning saying I've abused my 'unlimited' internet access under the terms of their Fair Use Policy.

One of the reasons I chose Demon Internet over BT was that they advertised as an unlimited supplier. Turns out unlimited isn't as unlimited as I thought. Apparently, their definition of unlimited is 50Gb of downloads in a 30 day period... whereas BT state outright their limit is 40Gb per month.

Realistically with an 8Mbit connection, this means you can only download at full speed for 30 minutes a day... which sucks huge amounts of ****. I now face the possibility of having my connection speed reduced to 128 Kb/s for THIRTY DAYS!

Please support the petition to the PM (UK residents only) to stop ISPs being able to advertise as 'unlimited' when they are clearly not.
 
Looking at their website, the first information I found about their usage policy was:

Demon Home has no formal usage restrictions but is subject to the Fair Use Policy which can be viewed at http://www.demon.net/helpdesk/producthelp/aup/thusfup/
Click to expand...

The link clearly states 50GB over 30 days. It's probably also in the contract you signed. It's probably also in the near unreadable fine print on the TV commercials... Why are you downloading 1.600 GB a day for anyway? Even buying two albums off iTunes every day and constantly refreshing Macrumors you're not going to hit anywhere near that.

Even an all you can eat buffet is going to cut you off at some point.
 
I shouldn't have to justify to anyone what I do with my internet connection as long as it isn't illegal.

I've been a customer of Demon for over five years and this is the first time I've heard or seen anything about a Fair Use Policy. Realistically, you'd think they'd let people know via e-mail, rather than expecting their customers to wade through the small print on their website on the off-chance something might have changed.

The main point of my thread is to encourage UK ISPs to commit to fair advertising, which at the moment, the majority of them don't.
 
CortexRock said:
I shouldn't have to justify to anyone what I do with my internet connection as long as it isn't illegal.
Click to expand...

You don't need to justify it. I'm just genuinely curious what a home user needs 1.6 GB of data transfer daily for. Unless you're using it to conduct business with video, audio, or graphic editing, I actually can't imagine using that much per day on average. Even if you're using your connection to seed Linux distros it seems that that is something your ISP might not want you using your bandwidth for constantly.

CortexRock said:
I've been a customer of Demon for over five years and this is the first time I've heard or seen anything about a Fair Use Policy. Realistically, you'd think they'd let people know via e-mail, rather than expecting their customers to wade through the small print on their website on the off-chance something might have changed.
Click to expand...

The print was the same size as everything else on the site. If their policy had changed from the start of your contract until now they should have informed you either via paper mail or possibly e-mail. Usually paper mail is sent outlining changes in policy. If it wasn't, call them on it. If it was and you failed to read it then that isn't their fault.

CortexRock said:
The main point of my thread is to encourage UK ISPs to commit to fair advertising, which at the moment, the majority of them don't.
Click to expand...

You are asking them to commit to your definition of fair advertising. As far as I can tell they are within the rules of fair advertising, just not what you wish. Although if they did indeed send you information and you failed to read it, they attempted to inform you and you declined to read it.
 
CortexRock said:
I shouldn't have to justify to anyone what I do with my internet connection as long as it isn't illegal.

I've been a customer of Demon for over five years and this is the first time I've heard or seen anything about a Fair Use Policy. Realistically, you'd think they'd let people know via e-mail, rather than expecting their customers to wade through the small print on their website on the off-chance something might have changed.

The main point of my thread is to encourage UK ISPs to commit to fair advertising, which at the moment, the majority of them don't.
Click to expand...

Don't know if the UK is like the US, but its not uncommon for companies here to notify customers of any changes to policies with a little note on a billing statement or as an add-in flyer....Perhaps you overlooked this?

50Gb is a lot, but I too probably exceed this as I am constantly getting software from IBM over the internet on their Software Access Catalog.
 
SilentPanda said:
The print was the same size as everything else on the site. If their policy had changed from the start of your contract until now they should have informed you either via paper mail or possibly e-mail. Usually paper mail is sent outlining changes in policy. If it wasn't, call them on it. If it was and you failed to read it then that isn't their fault.
Click to expand...

You've obviously never tried to get hold of anyone who speaks English in Demon Internet customer services...

Also, I use my bandwidth for transferring high res images/layered PSD files to and from my clients via FTP. Quite easy to rack up the bandwidth like that.
 
My ISP changed their bandwidth policies 2 years ago with out notifying the existing customers. It was clearly stated for new customers however.

The service package I suddenly had limited me to 20gb a month transfer.
I called then up and pointed up that when I signed a contract with them and they with me there were no bandwidth limits in place and how dare they break contract with me. Especially when I have the three year package protection plan.
I now have a 150gb/month limit, which I am never going to use but point has been made.
Maybe when the OP signed the original contract there were no limits.
 
I might have to consider that... the next package up is only £5/month more, but even that only has a 60Gbyte transfer limit.

I can't really afford a full commercial package though, nice as it would be!
 
CortexRock said:
You've obviously never tried to get hold of anyone who speaks English in Demon Internet customer services...
Click to expand...

I don't live in the UK and also don't use Demon Internet so you'd be correct.

CortexRock said:
Also, I use my bandwidth for transferring high res images/layered PSD files to and from my clients via FTP. Quite easy to rack up the bandwidth like that.
Click to expand...

Since you have a business need for your internet aside from personal need you should probably upgrade to a business plan. You're attempting to use a home user service for heavy business purposes.

Leareth said:
My ISP changed their bandwidth policies 2 years ago with out notifying the existing customers. It was clearly stated for new customers however.
Click to expand...

This has happened to me before and I called up my ISP and got things changed appropriately.

kingjr3 said:
Perhaps you should upgrade to their Business plan. Those Fair Usage limits don't seem to apply to those plans.
Click to expand...

I agree. Also you may want to consider adding your higher tier internet into the cost if you're freelance.
 
While I thought I might get some negative feedback, didn't expect to get my posts pedantically dissected point by point. I guess some people never make mistakes, always read the small print and never, ever vent their frustration expecting support from fellow Mac users even if they don't really have a right to.

Such is life... :D
 
CortexRock said:
While I thought I might get some negative feedback, didn't expect to get my posts pedantically dissected point by point. I guess some people never make mistakes, always read the small print and never, ever vent their frustration expecting support from fellow Mac users even if they don't really have a right to.
Click to expand...

Oh I make plenty of mistakes and rarely read the fine print. But the fact that I make mistakes and don't read the fine print shouldn't declare a business to have bad advertisement policies. If they are at fault then I would agree with you... however in this instance it looks like it was something you weren't aware of and now that you are you'll take that into consideration in the future.

Good luck finding internet that works for you! That stinks they bumped you down to 128k for a month. That would probably drive me nuts enough to switch to another provider for that month! :)
 
Call them up and tell them you're going to cancel. Then see what they say.
 
Touche, 'Panda :)

There must be a great deal of difference between the expectations vs delivery of customer service in the US (or wherever you are). Must be that British thing where we just don't complain enough!
 
SilentPanda said:
Why are you downloading 1.600 GB a day for anyway? Even buying two albums off iTunes every day and constantly refreshing Macrumors you're not going to hit anywhere near that.

Even an all you can eat buffet is going to cut you off at some point.
Click to expand...

Tv shows, music, movies, video podcasts, etc. and you reach that pretty damn fast.
 
CortexRock said:
Touche, 'Panda :)

There must be a great deal of difference between the expectations vs delivery of customer service in the US (or wherever you are). Must be that British thing where we just don't complain enough!
Click to expand...

Maybe you need to sue over everything like we do :D
 
Diatribe said:
Tv shows, music, movies, video podcasts, etc. and you reach that pretty damn fast.
Click to expand...

Maybe.... but in order to afford to purchase that much digital content you'd need to be rich and have a lot of time on your hands to keep up with it all!

yg17 said:
Maybe you need to sue over everything like we do :D
Click to expand...

Ughhhh... I think I would only sue somebody if I believed they had malicious intent. Lawsuits in the U.S. are ridiculous.
 
You guys are so lucky fighting over 50Gb caps in first world countries. Mine is just 1Gb and It gets abused monthly. We even get calls from our ISP begging to upgrade this connection to a measely 3Gb:eek:
 
SilentPanda said:
Maybe.... but in order to afford to purchase that much digital content you'd need to be rich and have a lot of time on your hands to keep up with it all!
Click to expand...

$150 a month and two hours a day would achieve that. It is more than I'd spend on that stuff, but I wouldn't consider that the need to be rich or have too much time. And that is talking GB not Gb (Gb and you get this way faster)

Jasonbot said:
You guys are so lucky fighting over 50Gb caps in first world countries. Mine is just 1Gb and It gets abused monthly. We even get calls from our ISP begging to upgrade this connection to a measely 3Gb:eek:
Click to expand...

We are talking about data transfer a month not speed please don't tell me you have a 1Gb monthly data transfer limit. :eek:
 
Diatribe said:
We are talking about data transfer a month not speed please don't tell me you have a 1Gb monthly data transfer limit. :eek:
Click to expand...

I think he's saying his cap is 1 gig :eek:

Charter may be an unreliable piece of crap, but when it is working, they've never said anything about excessive usage. And I certainly can be excessive at times. OiNK FTW :D
 
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