In reply to a post by Harry179:

This test unit would use way over my monthly allowance of 40 Gb of data. I was assured by Collen O'Connor at ICM Research that I would be allowed extra free data from my ISP to cover for their testing. My ISP at the highest level deny that. Also, I notice that the payments promised on completing the tests have changed from "£s" to "points"! Somehow I think what is going on is not above board.

Hi Harry,

This is Conor O'Kane from ICM Research. Seb has directed me to this thread today. I appreciate some of you have concerns which you have posted here, apologies if we have been slow to address them. So I've signed up to try to address some of these issues which have been raised and hopefully reassure you all.

The usage of the device as some have already noted is dependent on the speed of your connection. The faster the connection, the greater the data usage. As they also correctly noted, the majority of ISPs operate with unlimited usage and the majority of panellists will have no problems with their ISPs. The panel has been in operation for some time now and from the experience of longstanding panellists we do not anticipate any problems for you by the usage of the device.

Where issues did arise for some panellists on particular ISPs, we were able to come to an agreement whereby we could have their Fair Usage policy amended at the billing stage by supplying their phone number to their ISP. This has been working successfully for over six months for 450 plus paneliists and in the few cases where a charge was received due to an incorrect phone number, we covered the cost. Please be assured, if you have supplied the correct phone number you will not receive excess usage charges.

Obviously it would not be a sustainable project if the device was causing our panellists to incur charges each month!

Should you ever receive any warnings about charges from your ISP please get in contact with us as your ISP's customer services may not be aware of the FUP changes. It does not appear on the account details which come up when they try to assist you.

The points payments you reference are for our earlier recruits, our newvista panellists. I think some of you were supplied with an early version of the instruction leaflet which may have referenced them. They are paid with newvista points as members of an existing panel we run. Anyone recruited through ThinkBB will be paid by cheque. If you have not received your cheque yet and you are set up then the next batch is to be sent out at the end of this week, with the rest to go out next week.

You should also be receiving an update on your speed reading in the next few days if you have not had one yet, if you are successfully connected.

Again, apologies if we have been slow to respond to your queries, we will try to get back to you on the other issues raised here and any outstanding emails in the next few days.

Many Thanks,
Conor O'Kane
ICM Research
[email protected]

Is there any news on why the device tests on every hour without fail even when I'm using my connection?

The instructions say it won't test while I'm using the connection, have also emailed regarding this 4 weeks ago with no reply and have since unplugged the device until it can be explained.

I have stopped using the box as it gives me lag all the time while gaming and now no money just points no thanks but this is just a waste of time imo.

Hi Epyon,

Anyone who signed up through ThinkBroadband will receive payment via cheque. Only newvista panellists signed up months ago were paid with points. The next batch of cheques is being issued today, yours may well be among them.

We are investigating the issues which several of you have reported with testing causing lag issues on your connection. If you could send me an email with some more details on how have connected the device that may help to identify the problem. Should you no longer wish to participate in the trial then we are happy to send you a pre-paid envelope in which you can return the device.

Many Thanks,
Conor
ICM Research

Hi conor

how can it cause massive ping/lag spikes just by testing ? i can max my connection out up and down and my ping to my regular game server never goes over 80 yet when your box is "testing" i get ping spikes up to and over 400 ?

ive sent you several emails all have had no reply , even when you emailed me i got no reply !

Hi Bapteed,

I have asked that this be investigated and will try to get an answer for you - is the issue only affecting you when you are online gaming? It is not an issue that I have had reported to me so far (perhaps we haven't had a lot of COD players on the panel up to now). It may be to do with how your home network is set up as the device is designed to work with fairly simple home household arrangements. If you could send me some more details on your setup, how you have connected the device and how you in turn connect to your Playstation/PC etc we may be able to help configure your set-up so as to avoid this issue. As a stop gap solution, you could power down the device whilst online gaming if this is the only activity being affected.

Many Thanks,
Conor

yea its just on cod 2 doesnt seem to affect anything else , i have bt infinity 2 with the HG612 modem and HH3, PC is connected to the gigabit port on the hh3 and the device is connected on port 1

Hi Bapteed,

We would recommend that you connect your PC to one of the devices ethernet ports, this should allow the device to detect when you are using the connection. You should have no appreciable loss of speed on your PC but the device should then be able to detect when you are using your connection on the PC. Hopefully this will solve the problem, please drop me an email at [email protected] if you find it does not and I'll see if there's anything more we can do.

Many Thanks,
Conor

Hi Les,



Thanks very much for connecting up our Broadband speed testing device. We now have over 1300 devices reporting from all over the UK, providing speed data on the speeds of each of the main ISP�s and see how their different products perform. Your data is a great help to us, thanks for getting involved.



As promised, we plan to provide a monthly update on your own particular speed data though we may be able to do this a little more often.



The average Download and Upload speeds that your device recorded over the last seven days was



Download Speed = 61.38 Mbps



Upload Speed = 17.09 Mbps



If you have not already received your incentive cheque, it should be on it�s way to you very shortly.



Many Thanks,

The ICM Broadband Panel







No virus found in this message.
Checked by AVG - www.avg.com
Version: 2012.0.2197 / Virus Database: 2437/5141 - Release Date: 07/19/12

My error. jJust noticed I'd not logged in - so the letter from Conor O'Kane was posted by me, and not anonymous!