Read if your on O2 Home Broadband Standard (old tariff)

Just thought i'd bring it to others attention that O2 seem to enforcing some kind of Fair Use Policy (FUP) on people who are LLU exchanges AND on the older "O2 Home Broadband Standard" tariff which came unlimited downloads.

I have been with them since 2009 and always kept to this tariff and every 12 months struck a deal where 6 months were free but importantly i was on the old tariff as i stream a hell of a lot of stuff and 95% of it is in HD.

So yesterday lunch time i got a call from O2 from a guy called Marcus Duffy in the Derry office in Ireland I have since found out he is in the FUP team, having said that i don't think he is that high up in that team (this is based on my own personal thoughts), he told me to cut my data useage down or i would be kicked off without fail, well after i had picked my chin up off the ground he told me the data useage figures were as follows:
Jan = 147GB
Feb = 59GB
Mar = Zero
Apr = 258GB

Now something is a miss here as i know every month i use something as i don't have a HD PVR and therefore watch some stuff via iplayer on the tv in HD, so i know there figures are screwed t o start with but that's another issue.

I came off the phone and was shocked more then anything, so later that day I rang back on usual number they have and spoke to a woman who was in the Derry office as well, she knew Marcus and went and spoke to him and the upshot being is I MUST limit my downloads on my unlimited tariff and must not go over 100-125GB per month otherwise that would be considered having a bad effect on my exchange hence they will boot me off.

I have contacted normal cust services on 3 or 4 times and each say your on an unlimited deal so download what you want bod even said we don't know what you download as we don't keep records, yea right....

Anyway more phone calls and emails today and marcus has told me he is emailed a list of people he must ring and tell to stop downloading or get the boot and that is what he was doing with me.

I have no idea what O2 are up to, maybe they are going to enforce a FUP of some kind afetr all i'm sure i was told limit was 250GB in the very early day and according to there figures i have gone over that, also i posted about this on another forum (which i'm sure i won't be allowed to link to) but the next day a guy called ColinR posted he had just had the same phone call as me, so just me and it could be a simple boob after all we all make mistakes but 2 of us on 2 days makes me think they want people like me, basiclly anyone of the old tariff they want them gone.

As i say it's still up in the air to some degree i'm waiting on a mod/admin from the other forum to comment on this but so far nothing and the silence is making me wonder are they doing a cull excerise and 100GB will not be there FUP limit.

It's just something I think you should all be aware off, I have no problem with a FUP but for Christ's sake tell me what it is, after all I know i would have downed more then 300GB in a month and never had any kind of contact like this from them before, I hope it's just ColinR and myself but you have been warned guys and girls just be carefull out there.

All1

In reply to a post by alloneword:

Just thought i'd bring it to others attention that O2 seem to enforcing some kind of Fair Use Policy (FUP) on people who are LLU exchanges AND on the older "O2 Home Broadband Standard" tariff which came unlimited downloads.

I have been with them since 2009 and always kept to this tariff and every 12 months struck a deal where 6 months were free but importantly i was on the old tariff as i stream a hell of a lot of stuff and 95% of it is in HD.

So yesterday lunch time i got a call from O2 from a guy called Marcus Duffy in the Derry office in Ireland I have since found out he is in the FUP team, having said that i don't think he is that high up in that team (this is based on my own personal thoughts), he told me to cut my data usage down or i would be kicked off without fail, well after i had picked my chin up off the ground he told me the data usage figures were as follows:
Jan = 147GB
Feb = 59GB
Mar = Zero
Apr = 258GB

Now something is a miss here as i know every month i use something as i don't have a HD PVR and therefore watch some stuff via iplayer on the tv in HD, so i know there figures are screwed t o start with but that's another issue.

I came off the phone and was shocked more then anything, so later that day I rang back on usual number they have and spoke to a woman who was in the Derry office as well, she knew Marcus and went and spoke to him and the upshot being is I MUST limit my downloads on my unlimited tariff and must not go over 100-125GB per month otherwise that would be considered having a bad effect on my exchange hence they will boot me off.

I have contacted normal cust services on 3 or 4 times and each say your on an unlimited deal so download what you want bod even said we don't know what you download as we don't keep records, yea right....

Anyway more phone calls and emails today and marcus has told me he is emailed a list of people he must ring and tell to stop downloading or get the boot and that is what he was doing with me.

I have no idea what O2 are up to, maybe they are going to enforce a FUP of some kind afetr all i'm sure i was told limit was 250GB in the very early day and according to there figures i have gone over that, also i posted about this on another forum (which i'm sure i won't be allowed to link to) but the next day a guy called ColinR posted he had just had the same phone call as me, so just me and it could be a simple boob after all we all make mistakes but 2 of us on 2 days makes me think they want people like me, basiclly anyone of the old tariff they want them gone.

As i say it's still up in the air to some degree i'm waiting on a mod/admin from the other forum to comment on this but so far nothing and the silence is making me wonder are they doing a cull excerise and 100GB will not be there FUP limit.

It's just something I think you should all be aware off, I have no problem with a FUP but for Christ's sake tell me what it is, after all I know i would have downed more then 300GB in a month and never had any kind of contact like this from them before, I hope it's just ColinR and myself but you have been warned guys and girls just be carefull out there.
All1

Well if it was me , and i was 100% certain that i was still on one of their legacy packages (unlimited) then i would just ignore the guy who has told you to use less or you will be kicked off their poxy network , and continue to use in the same way as before the call, Ignore it, should they cut you off then you can take them to the cleaners basically mis-selling services , and i think BBC Watchdog may take interest on this, but CISAS their ADR certainly would, put it this way they all would know about it if it was me, personally i would of argued with the FUP guy ,but that's me

They have probably seen your exchange is becoming congested and need to:

(a) spend money and increase bandwidth or
(b) kick off the x% heaviest users

They've gone for the cheaper option (b) it seems.

In reply to a post by Oliver341:

They have probably seen your exchange is becoming congested and need to:

(a) spend money and increase bandwidth or
(b) kick off the x% heaviest users

They've gone for the cheaper option (b) it seems.

Make a big song & dance about it, they will wish that they choose someone else , they sold an unlimited product, that's what it should be, or they owe the op some dosh, has they have mis sold him , and also possibly have breeched some other legislation too, If they have connected more customers to an exchange than their infrastructure will support then that is their own doing and shouldn't attempt to kick their loyal customers off their network Telefonica uk are bad news it would seem

The trouble is of course that the FUP says "if we feel that your activities are so excessive that other customers are detrimentally affected, we may give you a written warning" and "if the levels of activity do not immediately decrease after the warning, we may terminate or suspend your Services".

So I can't see how you could legally challenge it. The "unlimited with FUP" is not equal to "unlimited" has been argued to the authorities and they seem happy to allow it to continue.

In reply to a post by tommy45:

Well if it was me ...

Thus speaks someone who has been very vocal and effective in getting their own apparent problems with O2 resolved to their full satisfaction as can be easily seen from checking their posting record.

I think Oliver341 could very well be on the right track here. Not a general hit, but those where exchange or backhaul is becoming congested.

There could be a tie-in with some (related) other things going on.

There has been a considerable loss of customers over the last year or so. Given the fall in numbers it would be reasonable to have reduced any third-party backhaul as renewal dates came up, in the expectation that the new BE network would take over.

But the replacement Be network seems to be running into difficulties and delays, on an ongoing basis. Telefonica itself is not doing as well as usual, and the lack of authorisation of funds for the new network could be a factor.

My suggested double whammy of reduction of the existing network and delay of the new could explain the need to start enforcing the FUP that has always existed but not previously been relevant.

As for your worry about posting links to other forums, I don't think that has ever been a problem here. If it happens to be the O2 one then there is certainly no problem.

Maybe with lots of customers wanting cheap deals they can't afford to upgrade the network.

I know they could say no to a deal but.....!

Agreed and with home phone and line rental not being essential they cannot subsidise the cheap BB by call charges like BT talk talk etc.

In reply to a post by Oliver341:

The trouble is of course that the FUP says "if we feel that your activities are so excessive that other customers are detrimentally affected, we may give you a written warning" and "if the levels of activity do not immediately decrease after the warning, we may terminate or suspend your Services".

So I can't see how you could legally challenge it. The "unlimited with FUP" is not equal to "unlimited" has been argued to the authorities and they seem happy to allow it to continue.

The OP could surely argue the difference here,as even by o2's own evidence the OP hasn't used excessive amounts of data, nowhere near excessive
If the OP had been shifting a terabyte or more each and every month, then that could possibly be deemed excessive, but the usage they have shown, is not in any way excessive
FUP,
they in any case they are firstly supposed to contact the customer in writing, informing them about their FPU requesting that they start using less,
It could be another ploy of getting rid of those on legacy products, they have in the past used somewhat underhanded approaches to do just that,