Quick Usage Question

Nobody will care, expect possibly your family

(If it's advertised as unlimited usage, it has to be unlimited usage, those are now the rules)

Edited by kasg (Sun 25-May-14 15:19:24)

Not questioning your usage but that's impressive.

When I lived in a house of 5 students 1TB was the upper limit generally.

In reply to a post by pcoventry76:

Also thanks for putting your sig stats in. I am , i'd say about 100-150M from the cab and I hope to be able to get as "clean" as possible connection when it goes in on Wednesday

Should be AOK, I do pretty well, although I have come across full sync at 450m. I've actually been sync'd at 72152 for the past 6 weeks or so, with no interleaving, but it is prone to being knocked back to around 65M with interleaving for extended periods. Can't complain really, compared with the speeds I was getting on ADSL, being about three miles from the exchange.

In reply to a post by brandscill:

Not questioning your usage but that's impressive.

This has been my highest month ever at about 180GB, and that's with a lot of TV/radio streaming, but I can't see how I could get anywhere near 1TB. But then I was surviving quite happily with a 5GB monthly limit not that long ago.

Edited by deleted (Sun 25-May-14 17:33:35)

In reply to a post by pcoventry76:

Edit:: Also not really impressive when you consider I stream a lot of Music, Sky player and Netflix and Netflix will do at a minimum HD spec 3-4GB an hour. I have it on most of the day.

Legal streaming video makes up most of my transfer as well but I'm not really in the TB range, typically doing 200-300GB/month - a couple of months I've hit 500-600GB but that was accidental. No complaints from Plusnet so far...

I was hitting 200-350 GB a month on my 10 Mbps connection a few months ago (before I bought a NowTV streaming box). When I rejoin NowTV (either with films or entertainment) my usage may go up. I want to go for fibre but see no point paying for PN's unlimited "up to 76 Mbps" when my line is estimated at around 33.5 Mbps, so may get a line from someone else.

One thing I suggested some years ago was for PN, as part of their billing cycle, before they zero the usage figures for each day (as displayed on the 'Usage this month') to e-mail the figures to the customer and then zero them. At the time, I think I had a 60 GB limit, or it might have been different, but it was at a time when a user had no independent stats historically if they were charged for higher levels of use, so it would have been primarily of benefit before 'unlimited' came along, but for anyone curious as to their usage over a number of months it would also now be quite handy, and probably a tiny overhead for PN in terms of processing.

Isn't it still the cheapest Unlimited?

Also, with that estimate you may hit the 40Mbps sync they would put you on. In which case a rep will up it to 80/20 on request. But if you sync well below 40Mbps it wouldn't be worth it.

In reply to a post by kasg:

(If it's advertised as unlimited usage, it has to be unlimited usage, those are now the rules)

Post Office has "unlimited downloads" and when you hover over it, says "subject to Fair Usage Policy". Their Choose Your Package page says "UNLIMITED USAGE" but they have a monthly "fair use" limit of 100 GB !!

Feel sure a number of others still say unlimited (Tesco used to have a 100 GB fair use limit but were saying unlimited - not sure whether that has changed, as their current "12 months free broadband" offer is on, and their help pages seemed not to be working when I was hunting around for any FUP or what "unlimited" means at present).

Have seen comparison sites say "unlimited" but distinguish the likes of PN as "truly unlimited"

In reply to a post by ultra:

Post Office has "unlimited downloads" and when you hover over it, says "subject to Fair Usage Policy". Their Choose Your Package page says "UNLIMITED USAGE" but they have a monthly "fair use" limit of 100 GB !!

OK, I didn't think they were allowed to do that any more and use the word "unlimited" so either I'm wrong or they are getting round it. This is the current policy for their "premium" (advertised as "unllimited downloads") product:

If your usage exceeds 100GB in any month, we may reduce your upload and download speeds for the rest of that month. We will contact you to let you know we are restricting your service in this way.

That's pretty outrageous IMO.

Edited by kasg (Mon 26-May-14 09:10:49)

In reply to a post by pcoventry76:

:: Also not really impressive when you consider I stream a lot of Music, Sky player and Netflix and Netflix will do at a minimum HD spec 3-4GB an hour. I have it on most of the day.

Do you not sleep? By your explanation you watch 250 hours of movies a month - that's approximately 8 hours a day, (whilst listening to streaming music).

I'm impressed!

In reference to www.asa.org.uk/News-resources/Hot-Topics/~/media/Files/ASA/Hot%20To...:

� �Unlimited� claims are likely to be acceptable for telecommunications services that are subject to provider-imposed limitations if:
� They do not restrict or limit a service in a manner contrary to the average consumer�s expectations of an �unlimited� service
� The legitimate user incurs no additional charge or suspension of service as a consequence of exceeding any usage threshold associated with a fair usage or traffic management policy
� Claims that have the same or similar meaning, for instance, �Limitless� or �All you can use�, will be assessed by the ASA on a case-by-case basis.

In reply to a post by XRaySpeX:

� They do not restrict or limit a service in a manner contrary to the average consumer�s expectations of an �unlimited� service

How on earth can that be assessed?

PN wasn't the cheapest Unlimited when I looked around 6-9 months ago, but that might have changed (because of line rental charges from another supplier, which insists on using their line rental but at the time could work out at a similar price to PN).

Main 'plus' for the other was that they offer unlimited on an "up to 40 Mbps" FTTC.

If PN didn't have a limit on the lower speed option then I may be more interested (though I suppose after 11 years, they might negotiate a lower monthly rental for FTTC unlimited, considering how they were offering new customers up to 150 quid from the spring in 2013, and it's a bit of a kick in the teeth when a long-standing customer would get little or nothing as encouragement to upgrade - it was that which drove me to even start looking elsewhere!)

Rather than "getting round it" I think they might just be ignoring the rules, but then again, as indicated, with some web sites saying "Truly Unlimited" it suggests others are flouting the rules...

Tesco used to have small print suggesting they could charge an additional fee per GB for any excess (but they didn't state the fee, and when I queried this, was told via online chat that they didn't impose a fee, but contacted the customer. Other option in T+C was something on the lines of three warnings and then they close the account, so if that's still their policy, I think they'd be stepping over the line, if calling it Unlimited).

Edited by deleted (Mon 26-May-14 15:14:15)

Thanks for the link. Seems that an ISP could have a "get out" using snail's pace speed as method of limiting a user who exceeds the ISP's "fair use" limit, without them being described as suspending service and obviously with no additional charge. Though I'd still consider it a limit on the service, personally.

Pretty sure the "unlimited web browsing" on T-Mobile was just that (web browsing, but other traffic had an upper limit of (I think) 3 or 3.5 GB a month.

They're not, currently, offering cashback for new FTTC users, but just for clarity, before someone pulls me up on the suggested saving, I was adding the £10/month, 6 month reduction, to the £90 cashback offer that was in place in 2013, for a few months.

Edit: not on Quidco, for FTTC, but currently TCB has a deal.

Edited by deleted (Mon 26-May-14 19:40:42)

Plusnet are UNLIMITED mean Unlimited usages. But, I am pretty sure if you are downloading 1TB every days, then I think Plusnet will act it as abused to their network bandwidth with a final warning letter to the customer.

Edited by adslmax (Mon 26-May-14 20:56:11)

Didn't one of the staff d/l 2 TB during a month as part of the staff testing of the service?

1 TB a month should be quite acceptable and won't trigger "breaking the network" type thinking

Edited by deleted (Tue 27-May-14 08:32:37)

In reply to a post by adslmax:

Plusnet are UNLIMITED mean Unlimited usages. But, I am pretty sure if you are downloading 1TB every days, then I think Plusnet will act it as abused to their network bandwidth with a final warning letter to the customer.

a. - they wouldn't,
b. - it takes just over a day to download 1TB at 80Mbps so you would have to be downloading/uploading 24/7 on any normal product to get close.