No *fixed* download limits. More honest than "No download limits."

More honest?

"Fred" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed)...
> More honest?

NO! They still have a fair use or acceptable use policy which goes against
the Unfair Contract Terms Act. The ASA are instructed not to get involved.
The ISP enforces a contract that is unfair under the above act and Virgin
are currently being investigated for false and misleading claims on TV about
"no limits" when there clearly are. The contradictory statements appear on
their own website.
No fixed download limits only applies up to a fair usage which has a limit.
Getting the ISP to say what that is might be a job. Most ISPs are in breach
of contract, so if anyone fancies joining me in a no win no fee joint legal
action we could see most of them having to pay out compensation.
Most now restrict everything apart from web browsing which is unfair and not
in their contract.

Most ISPs like Tiscali can't provide the service they would like to offer so
employ network shaping to cover the fact they haven't invested in the
network ! The other con is "up to 8Mbps" - that depends on the network and
time of day. More often than not with Tiscali in the UK they manage
throughput much lower, but can get away with it because of the wording of
the contract.
It exposes how slow the systems in the UK really are from most ISPs.

When the going gets tough they kick you off or restrict you. If ISPs were
more honest they might get more business. Whoever offers "true unlimited
data use without restrictions" will make a fortune as most of us would pay
more. I certainly would as Tiscali is crap after they changed their
contract.

Dev wrote:

> "Fred" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
>
> > More honest?
>
> NO! They still have a fair use or acceptable use policy which goes against
> the Unfair Contract Terms Act. The ASA are instructed not to get involved.

Who exactly instructs them so ?

Graham

"Dev" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:45cfb319$(E-Mail Removed)...

> When the going gets tough they kick you off or restrict you. If ISPs were
> more honest they might get more business. Whoever offers "true unlimited
> data use without restrictions" will make a fortune as most of us would pay
> more. I certainly would as Tiscali is crap after they changed their
> contract.

Why aren't you using a business account which is unlimited.
You are prepared to pay more!

"Dev" <(E-Mail Removed)> writes:

> The other con is "up to 8Mbps" - that depends on the network and
> time of day.

No, it is always a con! With all of the fixed rate (512k, 1M, 2M)
offerings, the quoted rate is that after the ATM overhead has been
taken into account and the actual ADSL sync rate is higher than the
quoted rate. With 'up to 8M', this is the ADSL syn rate and the rate
using the same criteria as used for the fixed speed services is only
upto 7.15M. So claiming up to 8M when comparing with the fixes rate
services is a con as they are comparing apples and oranges.

On Mon, 12 Feb 2007 00:21:38 -0000, in uk.telecom.broadband , "Dev"
<(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

>
>"Fred" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
>news:(E-Mail Removed).. .
>> More honest?
>
>NO! They still have a fair use or acceptable use policy which goes against
>the Unfair Contract Terms Act.

If this is the case, then take them to court, you are guaranteed to
win.

> The ASA are instructed not to get involved.

By whom?

>Virgin are currently being investigated for false and misleading claims on TV about
>"no limits" when there clearly are.

By whom?

--
Mark McIntyre

Dev wrote:

> It exposes how slow the systems in the UK really are from most ISPs.

Nearly every UK ISP falls into this category. Everyone oversells
bandwidth at ridiculous levels (to the point that if everyone maxed
their connection simultaneously, you'd see sub-dialup speeds) on the
increasingly shaky assumption that people don't need that much bandwidth.

The first natural step is to apply data caps where there were previously
none. Heavy users then migrate among all the remaining ISPs until
everyone has applied similar caps. I'm not sure what you're hoping to
achieve by highlighting the holes in an ISP's ToS. Great, hit them with
false advertising and they'll pay a fine. It'll make absolutely no
difference to the service you receive.

The sooner people realise they're living on other people's subsidies and
that those other people are now starting to use their connections more,
the sooner we can get over this "unlimited" fallacy and start building
the infrastructure needed to sustain heavy use.

--
Jay L. T. Cornwall, http://www.esuna.co.uk/~jay/
PhD Student
Imperial College London

On 12 Feb, 11:35, Graham Murray <newsp...@gmurray.org.uk> wrote:

> With 'up to 8M', this is the ADSL syn rate and the rate
> using the same criteria as used for the fixed speed services is only
> upto 7.15M. So claiming up to 8M when comparing with the fixes rate
> services is a con as they are comparing apples and oranges.

BT were comparing with Bulldog and UKOnline 8000 services when
following the established path of including the ATM and other
overheads, rather than comparing with their own fixed speed services.

Phil

On Mon, 12 Feb 2007 14:59:23 +0000, Jay L. T. Cornwall wrote:

> Dev wrote:
>
>> It exposes how slow the systems in the UK really are from most ISPs.
>
> Nearly every UK ISP falls into this category. Everyone oversells
> bandwidth at ridiculous levels (to the point that if everyone maxed
> their connection simultaneously, you'd see sub-dialup speeds) on the
> increasingly shaky assumption that people don't need that much bandwidth.

Telecoms has always worked this way, and it would be absurd not to do it.
It's actually good for heavy users, because they are subsidized by light
users.

bob wrote:

>> It exposes how slow the systems in the UK really are from most ISPs.
>> Nearly every UK ISP falls into this category. Everyone oversells
>> bandwidth at ridiculous levels (to the point that if everyone maxed
>> their connection simultaneously, you'd see sub-dialup speeds) on the
>> increasingly shaky assumption that people don't need that much bandwidth.

> Telecoms has always worked this way, and it would be absurd not to do it.
> It's actually good for heavy users, because they are subsidized by light
> users.

Sure, but it's the "increasingly shaky" part of my quote that's
important here. If the infrastructure doesn't grow to reflect increases
in both individual peak bandwidth usage and group usage, then speeds
deteriorate over time.

As it stands, many ISPs (mine included, Demon) have trouble feeding
Youtube at peak times where there were no problems a year or two ago.
And that's for a low bitrate service. BT have done their job admirably
in reducing contention at exchanges where it arises. (I can pull 2Mbit
consistently at any time of the day to peered sites, and that's capped.)

A lot of the ISPs, however, are not keeping up and I'm not sure I can
blame them. Transit is a lot more expensive than the current pricing
model of most ADSL connections could sustain. Throw in stable pricing
with an increasing interest in services like BitTorrent and you have a
bandwidth disaster on your hands.

For the most part, I use Demon to connect me from my house to LINX and
then proxy through a peered server with uncongested uplinks to attain
decent speeds. Costs a fortune but it's a better service than most
business ADSL packages could provide.

--
Jay L. T. Cornwall, http://www.esuna.co.uk/~jay/
PhD Student
Imperial College London