NTL 1 gig a day broadband cap, new information

Zardon · Feb 9, 2003, 12:08 AM

For those of you in the United kingdom unaware of the recent policy changes that NTL have made to their broadband policies. Let me recap:

ntl: home's broadband and dial-up services are intended for normal recreational or educational use by individuals and families and our pricing and network architecture have been designed accordingly. Customers who use the services more heavily than a normal home user will reduce the performance of the network for other customers.

"Normal use" of the service is defined as up to 1 gigabyte downstream of data transfer daily (which equates to approximately 200 music tracks, 650 short videos, 10,000 pictures or around 100 large software programmes downloaded per day).

Today I emailed NTL regarding this matter.

Quote:

I am emailing on behalf of the members of my technology website www.hardwareheaven.com a 750,000 a day hit website with 20,000 registered members, we support hardware and drivers for computers and develop third party sets for graphics cards.

http://www.ntlworld.com/legals/user-policy.htm

http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/22/29246.html

I am very concerned about this policy statement and in fact limiting users to 1 gig download a day. Why would people pay £35 a month for a 1mbit line for this service? Theoretically you could reach that limit in just over 2 hours a day. if you offer a service and make people pay for it you should allow for the use of it 24/7 at the full transfer rate. Not for approximately 1/12 of the day, or at least reoffer the original £50 service with NO limitations !!

As stated in NTLs new policy:

"Customers who use the services more heavily than a normal home user will reduce the performance of the network for THE MAJORITY OF other customers. "

This is nonsense for a start, there are a certain amount of users per server and that server is geared to handle the bandwidth PEAK for all those connected to it at that time. This would only ring true if users had uncapped their modems and where abusing it. It appears Ntl want to lower costs for total bandwidth per month.

Many people pay over £1000 a year to NTLworld for a service and im sure like many they will find other UK alternatives who do not impose this ridiculous rule.

I received an email from NTL Aizad Hussain, Managing Director for NTL home services a few hours later. this was his reply.

Quote:

Dear Sir,

Background to Changes in our Acceptable Use Policy

In common with other UK internet service providers, ntl has always had
an Acceptable Use Policy. It's published at
http://www.ntlworld.com/legals/user-policy.htm and is referred to in our
Terms and Conditions.

Its purpose is to ensure that all our Internet customers receive fair access to the Internet at high-speed and at all times. It also ensures that no customer uses our service in a way affecting the service quality of other users. In essence, if one uses more than the maximum guidance level for a prolonged period of time, the service is uneconomic for us - and over time would restrict the performance of the system for the other users. This does not mean that we don't expect our customers to use the service at high 600K and 1Megabit rates for periods of time; it simply means that a continuous prolonged use starts exhausting the available capacity for other people in the local neighbourhood especially at peak time and affects our ability to offer the services at these attractive prices. Our attempt with this change is to inform people of the right level of usage as many people are unaware of the appropriate level. In most cases, customers have simply altered their behaviour.

Our network and our pricing are designed for normal, home users - the overwhelming vast majority of our customers - who will not need to alter their Internet usage by the change to the Acceptable Use Policy. Indeed, they will benefit from it - because our low prices are based on normal usage patterns. Other broadband systems (such as DSL), are also shared systems, and have similar policies. At the launch of BT Broadband almost a year ago, BT announced the same 1 gigabyte limit that we have recently published. See the following link to review BT's policy:

http://www.btplc.com/mediacentre/Age.../2002/an43.htm

So in fact, BT has been operating this policy for almost 12 months now whilst charging higher prices than ntl. We recognise that some customers are very heavy users and require high levels of usage for their specific needs. We will be working with a representative group of these 'power users' to determine the best way to accommodate their needs going forward. Should you wish to be part of that "power user" group please contact me at Aizad.Hussain@ntl.com and we shall be happy to accommodate a variety of our respected and valued customers.

Yours sincerely,

Aizad Hussain
MD, NTL:Home

EDIT: Just found out its a stock email from a published link and page on their website, isnt that professional.

~~David~~ · Feb 9, 2003, 01:10 AM

Thats messed up glad my isp dont do stupid **** like that

ToshiroOC · Feb 9, 2003, 01:55 AM

If the article gets approved, we may be getting /.ed soon...

ivan300 · Feb 9, 2003, 04:26 AM

i use shaw a isp in bc canada and they also have a dl cap. the funny thing is that i d/l almost 2x as much as my friends and they get phoned and i dont

,

on their website they say "Shaw reserves the right to set specific limits for Bandwidth Usage and charge for excessive Bandwidth Usage for residential Services at any time"

so im guessing they have no specific cap, so what would be overdoing it 20gb d/l + ?

ToshiroOC · Feb 9, 2003, 06:11 AM

Quote:

EDIT: Just found out its a stock email from a published link and page on their website, isnt that professional.

Well, makes me wonder, if all they are going to do is this in reponse to your email is do this, then they probably aren't going to do anything to enfore the cap...

Matth · Feb 9, 2003, 08:17 PM

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/2740621.stm

It's getting around!

Now other people have questioned the need for 1Gb (other than for downloading warez or porn), or lamented the situation in (say) Australlia, where capping is the norm - forgetting that it crept in THERE with one, then both major providers capped previously uncapped accounts.

Mind you, I have NO SYMPATHY for JERKS who boast of downloading 13Gb in one day - that IS abuse!

LPitt · Feb 10, 2003, 07:47 AM

NTL aren't right though as BT don't have a 1Gb a day limit on downloads.

The site says:

Quote:

BT Broadband is a mass-market consumer broadband product, designed for customers downloading up to 1 gigabyte of data a day. This would let you download either approximately 200 music tracks, 650 short videos, 10,000 pictures or around 100 large software programmes every day. BT may introduce further charges in the future for customers whose use exceeds this figure

Note that it says BT 'MAY' introduce further charges for customers who exceed this figure.

When this was announced I contacted BT for a confirmation on the charges and their official line was that someone downloading 1Gb a day would actually be someone downloading 7Gb a week on average - which is rare even for me!

Also, they have no plans to do this currently. It's their for the future in case the ADSL congestion becomes a problem.

Laurence

Matth · Feb 10, 2003, 12:44 PM

It also appears that the cap noted for BT ADSL, only applies to their retail BT Openworld version - other resellers will have their own, often better terms, and likely lower prices as well.

The same BT Openworld who caused a storm of protest and leavings by cutting unmetered dialup to 150 hours per month.

NTL's history reads REALLY badly.

From giving dialup internet free (with a second phone line?), or a very cheap 64k cable as part of the "Triple Digital" deal, to charging £10 (discounted to £5 for a while).

The TV packages have been rearranged several times, usually unfavourably to those on a single extra pack.
Channels have been dropped - eg. The Performance Channel, even though this is reportedly still available on Telewest.

It has often been reported, that NTL's aim, rather than any real progress, is to extract maximum income for minimum outlay, from an existing customer base who they expect to remain due to inertia or lack of alternative provision.

There is also this cosy little duopoly ... You are in an NTL area ir a TELEWEST area - and the cannot / do not or will not intrude on each others turf. If you're lucky, ADSL is an alternative, but going direct to BT Openworld for it is a really stupid move!

The NTL newsgroup servers have also been a bone of contention for a long time - the latest shghot being the removal of a swathe of binaries.

PS. Additionally, if not actually stated in the AUP, somebody on NTHELLWORLD reported being given a maximum of 300Mb per day for upload - though the service architecture does make upload traffic a lot more harmful than download

Feb 9, 2003, 01:55 AM	#3
ToshiroOC Unbiased. Join Date: Jun 2002 Posts: 4,812 Rep Power: 0	If the article gets approved, we may be getting /.ed soon... __________________ [img][/img] [color=White]Peace be with you, Joe.[/color] Driverheaven Staff Member (Supermoderator)

Feb 9, 2003, 01:10 AM	#2
~~David~~ Banned Join Date: May 2002 Location: Atlanta Posts: 959 Rep Power: 0	Thats messed up glad my isp dont do stupid **** like that

Feb 9, 2003, 04:26 AM	#4
ivan300 Booooo Join Date: Jul 2002 Location: Vancouver Bc Posts: 236 Rep Power: 0	i use shaw a isp in bc canada and they also have a dl cap. the funny thing is that i d/l almost 2x as much as my friends and they get phoned and i dont , on their website they say "Shaw reserves the right to set specific limits for Bandwidth Usage and charge for excessive Bandwidth Usage for residential Services at any time" so im guessing they have no specific cap, so what would be overdoing it 20gb d/l + ?

Feb 9, 2003, 08:17 PM	#6
Matth Flash Banner Hater Join Date: Jun 2002 Location: UK Posts: 3,426 Rep Power: 93 System Specs	http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/2740621.stm It's getting around! Now other people have questioned the need for 1Gb (other than for downloading warez or porn), or lamented the situation in (say) Australlia, where capping is the norm - forgetting that it crept in THERE with one, then both major providers capped previously uncapped accounts. Mind you, I have NO SYMPATHY for JERKS who boast of downloading 13Gb in one day - that IS abuse!

Feb 10, 2003, 12:44 PM	#8
Matth Flash Banner Hater Join Date: Jun 2002 Location: UK Posts: 3,426 Rep Power: 93 System Specs	It also appears that the cap noted for BT ADSL, only applies to their retail BT Openworld version - other resellers will have their own, often better terms, and likely lower prices as well. The same BT Openworld who caused a storm of protest and leavings by cutting unmetered dialup to 150 hours per month. NTL's history reads REALLY badly. From giving dialup internet free (with a second phone line?), or a very cheap 64k cable as part of the "Triple Digital" deal, to charging £10 (discounted to £5 for a while). The TV packages have been rearranged several times, usually unfavourably to those on a single extra pack. Channels have been dropped - eg. The Performance Channel, even though this is reportedly still available on Telewest. It has often been reported, that NTL's aim, rather than any real progress, is to extract maximum income for minimum outlay, from an existing customer base who they expect to remain due to inertia or lack of alternative provision. There is also this cosy little duopoly ... You are in an NTL area ir a TELEWEST area - and the cannot / do not or will not intrude on each others turf. If you're lucky, ADSL is an alternative, but going direct to BT Openworld for it is a really stupid move! The NTL newsgroup servers have also been a bone of contention for a long time - the latest shghot being the removal of a swathe of binaries. PS. Additionally, if not actually stated in the AUP, somebody on NTHELLWORLD reported being given a maximum of 300Mb per day for upload - though the service architecture does make upload traffic a lot more harmful than download