Broadband to be metered in U.K.'s 8mbps future

**MIG-31** · Feb 18, 2005, 08:43 PM

British broadband providers are on the brink of moving away from billing customers on the basis of connection speeds to a model built around the amount of data downloaded.

The move is likely to reinforce the existing broadband divide because consumers and small businesses in metropolitan areas could end up getting a much faster connection than those in more remote areas without having to pay more.

The catalyst is BT Wholesale's forthcoming trials into methods of increasing the maximum speeds possible over its ADSL network from 2mbps to 8mbps. This testing will begin in April, and UK ISP PlusNet has taken the move as a cue to reshape its range of broadband products.
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Read More: c|net

Logla · Feb 18, 2005, 09:43 PM

meh. why cant we all have gigabit fibre links to our doors? for free?

Asmoday · Feb 18, 2005, 09:45 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Logla

meh. why cant we all have gigabit fibre links to our doors? for free?

Because nothing in life is free

Seriously, imo that's a bad idea....i think there will be many unhappy customers with that system.
Off topic: Fiberoptic broadband is pretty common for the regular man here in Sweden, one Isp delievers 100Mbit here. But that is capped at 300Gb/month then it goes down to 10Mbit speed for the rest of the month...

***craig5320*** · Feb 18, 2005, 10:05 PM

Metered access would suck. But the new caps from NTL seem pretty crap too, 1 gig a day, pfff

MitchRapp · Feb 18, 2005, 10:08 PM

in MOntreal, Canada... our broadband Videotron guys limit us to 20gigs download and 10 gigs upload every month .... it's not bad but I always ALWAYS end up downloading 22 or 23 gigs .... and get charged an extra 7$ per gig .....

the speed's ok though .... i get 4.6mbit download and about 1mbit upload (tested it ..... it's all true ...... 530k/s downloads and 120k/s uploads)

magnus33 · Feb 18, 2005, 10:47 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Asmoday

Because nothing in life is free

Seriously, imo that's a bad idea....i think there will be many unhappy customers with that system.
Off topic: Fiberoptic broadband is pretty common for the regular man here in Sweden, one Isp delievers 100Mbit here. But that is capped at 300Gb/month then it goes down to 10Mbit speed for the rest of the month...

i am haveing a hard time feeling sorry for you...lol.

life with rogers cable (when it works) is a nightmare .

that and the 60 gig cap on there advertised unlimited service and your left wondering why me.

you go over the limit you get cancled.

time to move to sweden.

Judas · Feb 18, 2005, 11:54 PM

....SHAWs (were are you? west or east side of canada? west i understand has overall a huge advantage of the east) default cap with both high and extreme speed internet is 50gb... you can for a small bit extra get bumb up to anywere between 100gb to 200gb.... anything beyond 200 is usually or last time i checked... large amount of cash..

the start of last sumer to about christmas..... the internet in saskatchewan was worse then dialup..... some serious problems.. i actually helped fix it.... (according to them)

can't wait to get the phone over cable package...

FDM80 · Feb 19, 2005, 07:04 AM

I have a funny feeling there is a direct correlation between how fast a connection is and the average amount a household downloads in a given month.

Here where I am I've had fiber to my house for a week and a half, uncapped, and I'm loving every second of it. Going from 768Kbps/128Kbps to 5Mbps/2Mbps is like 2 different worlds.

Al_Vampyre · Feb 19, 2005, 07:50 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Asmoday

Because nothing in life is free

Seriously, imo that's a bad idea....i think there will be many unhappy customers with that system.
Off topic: Fiberoptic broadband is pretty common for the regular man here in Sweden, one Isp delievers 100Mbit here. But that is capped at 300Gb/month then it goes down to 10Mbit speed for the rest of the month...

LOL...I have trouble feeling sorry for you too mate...I can only dream about 10Mbit, I have a 1024/256 (uncapped line here) which I pay £35 (about E50) for...at max speed I could 'theoretically' put about 300GB through in a month...A lot of UK based lines are capped at 20Gb per month and then your service stops...not throttled down...stops altogether (or you can pay for the extra bandwidth you use)

The UK is constantly getting sh*t upon from a great height as far as the internet goes and mostly because we have one monster telco (British Telecom) who basically run the show...

kalx · Feb 20, 2005, 11:24 PM

cant see 8 mbit beign any thing new if its metered
we already have 4 mbit telewest lines with no limits so who the hell would go for bt , bt needs to give up on this metering stuff and realise that they will just loose customers with sucha policy already many have left to cable providers cos of high tarrifs and stupid caps.

Feb 18, 2005, 08:43 PM	#1
MIG-31 HardwareHeaven News Mod Join Date: Dec 2002 Location: Nottingham,UK Posts: 55,743 Rep Power: 444 System Specs	Broadband to be metered in U.K.'s 8mbps future British broadband providers are on the brink of moving away from billing customers on the basis of connection speeds to a model built around the amount of data downloaded. The move is likely to reinforce the existing broadband divide because consumers and small businesses in metropolitan areas could end up getting a much faster connection than those in more remote areas without having to pay more. The catalyst is BT Wholesale's forthcoming trials into methods of increasing the maximum speeds possible over its ADSL network from 2mbps to 8mbps. This testing will begin in April, and UK ISP PlusNet has taken the move as a cue to reshape its range of broadband products. _______________ Read More: c\|net __________________ Please Post Your News Submissions Here

Feb 18, 2005, 10:05 PM	#4
*craig5320* HH Administrator Join Date: May 2002 Location: Manchester, UK Posts: 8,276 Rep Power: 428 System Specs	Metered access would suck. But the new caps from NTL seem pretty crap too, 1 gig a day, pfff __________________

Feb 19, 2005, 07:04 AM	#8
FDM80 DriverHeaven Lover Join Date: Mar 2003 Location: Silver Spring, MD Posts: 136 Rep Power: 0	I have a funny feeling there is a direct correlation between how fast a connection is and the average amount a household downloads in a given month. Here where I am I've had fiber to my house for a week and a half, uncapped, and I'm loving every second of it. Going from 768Kbps/128Kbps to 5Mbps/2Mbps is like 2 different worlds. __________________ Verizon FIOS rules!

Feb 20, 2005, 11:24 PM	#10
kalx DriverHeaven Lover Join Date: Oct 2002 Location: Evil Mountain Lair Posts: 248 Rep Power: 0	cant see 8 mbit beign any thing new if its metered we already have 4 mbit telewest lines with no limits so who the hell would go for bt , bt needs to give up on this metering stuff and realise that they will just loose customers with sucha policy already many have left to cable providers cos of high tarrifs and stupid caps. __________________ ---------------------------------------------------> AMD FX51 / 2x OCZ 400 mhz 512MB DDR /ATi Radeon X800pro /19 inch DVI - - - - - - ---------------------------------------------------->

Feb 18, 2005, 09:43 PM	#2
Logla HardwareHeaven Extreme Member Join Date: May 2003 Posts: 3,311 Rep Power: 62	meh. why cant we all have gigabit fibre links to our doors? for free?

Feb 18, 2005, 10:08 PM	#5
MitchRapp a.k.a. pepiman Join Date: Dec 2004 Location: Montreal Posts: 998 Rep Power: 49 System Specs	in MOntreal, Canada... our broadband Videotron guys limit us to 20gigs download and 10 gigs upload every month .... it's not bad but I always ALWAYS end up downloading 22 or 23 gigs .... and get charged an extra 7$ per gig ..... the speed's ok though .... i get 4.6mbit download and about 1mbit upload (tested it ..... it's all true ...... 530k/s downloads and 120k/s uploads)