With the likes of Sky by Broadband, 4 On Demand and BBC iPlayer it's getting increasingly easy to rack up quite a high usage. Throw in 2 or more PC's and it gets even harder to keep track of what you're using.
It would probably be much clearer if they advertised their packages as 40 or 50g whatever it is instead of "Unlimited" its totally misleading to the average person, funny how the bigger the ISP the more dishonest they are in every aspect knowing that people will trust them, ide love to see how long they keep their customers on a 1 month contract instead of 12 and 18 lol.
Starter Pack (the old one with speedtouch modem) used to be a trial period, you could cancel within 30 days, there were not THAT MANY cancelations to be honest, just a few.
Deevon, no offence intended, but as Elhana has implied, you're being a bit naive if you think it's only illegal file sharing which takes people over their "unlimited" "Fair" Usage Policy limit.
Besides those things mentioned by Elhana, I can add all those pesky Windows Updates, hundreds of emails, (legal) music downloads, any number of (legal) film clips (whether provided by film-makers or made by amateurs), and patches/updates etc for games or programs, some which are done on a dailly basis. And there are countless other possibilities I haven't listed.
These days, it's very easy to rack up the data transfer (especially when Orange are counting it in both directions). I have 3 PCs and a laptop (I just never dispose of an old one!) so it's easy to reach 30-50GB.
With Nildram, I had a 50Gb limit (with unused quota carried over to the next month) and I was reaching 35-40Gb downloads on average I think. But that was with an approximately 1.8meg connection. I'm now on 2.9meg (when Orange aren't throttling it to 500k!) so it becomes even easier to break Orange's ambiguous rules.
They are plainly trying to catch people out by not providing a download monitor through their site and by taking calculations so far back that they penalise "heavy users" before they've had a chance to try to cut back on their usage. A pretty slimy way to act.
To compound matters, ever since they started throttling my connection, I've been getting a heck of a lot of timeouts and "server not found" messages when browsing the internet, and not only when I'm stuck with 500k. It may be co-incidence but it seems very odd it started at exctly the same time.
no offence taken and some good examples too, but still you have to ask yourself its 50GB, orange as a whole do not specialise in the "elite" downloaders its mainly for casual home use, something i never can get my head around but at the end of the day almost every company has a fair usage policy, might be a bit different to the 40-50gb limits, some companies are doing 500GB a month packages etc but they are like £50. i tend to rattle the Virgin media connection i have, can rack up about 12GB-18GB in one day ( downloading pictures of flowers ofcourse lol ) and have never been hit by Virgin at all (apart from there traffice management system). But then again Virgin media if fibre optics and cable, it possibly can handle the strain of getting rattled more than what ADSL can.
Joined: 13 Aug 2006Posts: 1689Location: Marylebone Central London
At the moment Bethere have no download limits and have no plan to change that in the near future 300GB is no problem with them as stated on their member forum, they do have a FUP but as yet have never used it.
Having said that im sure a year from now things will be different once 02's base kicks in on the network although they still seem to be keeping up with demands major upgrades started this month to exchanges.
ISP's will have no choice but to meet demand if they are going to offer IPTV and the like if they want to sell it 30 to 40g a month will be useless.
We shall see
_________________ ex Freeserve/Wanadoo/Orange Blog
Just to confuse matters further, last night, when I did my speed test, I discovered at 2am that my speed hadincreased from its usual 2.9mb/s to 3.9mb/s, a whole 1mb/s increase! Maybe it was a glitch (I was a few minutes too late to check just now before I was cut back to 500k again) or maybe they are increasing my uncapped speed to ensure I download too much since I'm on course to be well under 40Gb this month!
24/09/07 20:18
IP profile for your line is - 3000 kbps
DSL connection rate: 448 kbps(UP-STREAM) 3776 kbps(DOWN-STREAM)
Actual IP throughput achieved during the test was - 156 kbps
And now it's
Quote:
24/02/08 02:38
IP profile for your line is - 4000 kbps
DSL connection rate: 448 kbps(UP-STREAM) 4800 kbps(DOWN-STREAM)
Actual IP throughput achieved during the test was - 3665 kbps
2. Assured Rate Test: -provides background information.
Assured Rate IP profile on your line is - 500 kbps
Actual IP throughput achieved during the test was - 2815 kbps
So I'm assuming that's just a nice surprise from BT.
1. Best Effort Test: -provides background information.
IP profile for your line is - 3000 kbps
DSL connection rate: 448 kbps(UP-STREAM) 3872 kbps(DOWN-STREAM)
Actual IP throughput achieved during the test was - 2756 kbps
2. Assured Rate Test: -provides background information.
Assured Rate IP profile on your line is - 500 kbps
Actual IP throughput achieved during the test was - 1972 kbps
What's going on? Why should my profile have increased to 4mb/s and then gone back to 3mb/s after 5 days? Has somebody been testing new equipment to increase the line speed and decided it's not stable enough?
Very disappointed if I'm not going to retain the faster speed, especially since it makes up a bit for being throttled back for 6 hours per day.
When you tested your line wasn't physically able to go any faster.
For a 3.5meg profile you need a 4000+ sync rate at least. When on ADSL Max Orange don't really control the sync rate, it's done automatically.
When you tested your line wasn't physically able to go any faster.
For a 3.5meg profile you need a 4000+ sync rate at least. When on ADSL Max Orange don't really control the sync rate, it's done automatically.
I understand that my sync rate needs to be higher than the profile I get but what I'm still struggling to understand is why my sync rate should have increased by 33% for all of 5 days before reverting to 3000kbps again.
Either it's a physical problem at the exchange, on the line, in your wiring, etc. Or it's some sort of transient effect where it actually improved the signal coming through for some reason, seen things like that before where certain things actually improve a hidden problem.
Well, no.
It's just a possibility, one of several that could explain it. Getting Orange to run a line test would be a good first step, because you're on ADSL Max there's little chance at any downsides for doing that and it could get you faster speeds if they fix any issues.
Exactly the same thing has just happened to me. Same letter, same download speed cap. Despite the letter saying I might be restricted at peak times, I am actually capped to 60.8 kBps 24 hours a day. I phoned the overseas call centre this morning who said that they would be keeping an eye on my usage for the next few MONTHS and if i was frugal enough, would reinstate all or part of my download speed.
In effect, I'm on a 512k contract, advertised everywhere at 8Mb
I asked for my MAC code, as even the worst other providers don't throttle speeds outside peak times. I'm phoning back in an hour as the customer care teams are UK based and aren't at work yet. I know I'll have to pay up for the remainder of my contract, but I've had enough of Orange...
OK, here we go. I've just been on the line to Orange Customer Care, who say that there's definitely no cap on my line between 6am and 6pm. But there is: if I set my router to bypass Orange (www.kitz.co.uk) and run straight to the exchange I get my normal 1700kbps speed. Using the speed test at mybroadbandspeed.co.uk shows I am restricted to 486kbps - and it's now 9 in the morning. Orange are adamant that there's nothing throttling my downloads, so either someone is telling an untruth, or the Customer Care team don't know what is happening.
As far as i am aware. no other ISP has peak hours that run until 6am in the morning. And none caps speeds round the clock.
I asked for my MAC code, which was assured would be with me in 3-5 days, so I'll keep you posted....
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lol ) and have never been hit by 
Maybe it was a glitch (I was a few minutes too late to check just now before I was cut back to 500k again) or maybe they are increasing my uncapped speed to ensure I download too much since I'm on course to be well under 40Gb this month!
