Well I'd like to know for sure, here's a transcript of the letter I received dated January 2007.
'We need to let you know that usage on your broadband account is well above the 40GB per month, which is in breach of our Fair Use Policy (please visit www.orange.co.uk/terms to the policy).
Your average usage between November 2006 and December 2006 has been 58.71GB a month. This heavily affects the performance of our other broadband customers using the Internet.
You need to significantly reduce your usage immediately or we'll have no option but to close your account.
Your sincerely
Customer Support'
When I rang to complain the customer advisor at first thought 50GB was the limit, however the letter says otherwise. None of there staff seem to know for sure, so fine go download 41GB's worth and see if your account gets closed.
I agree with you. Nowg=here in Orange's terms or FUP does it state a limit. How can they enforce a limit that isn't stated and customers are unaware of.
I mentioned this to Orange and they said they would look into it. i ahve had 3 emails stating the limit is 50gb, that's what I work to.
Hmm I'm waiting on the dreaded letter as I have the old 17.99 a month package with a 2 gig cap
After downloading Vista this month I'm sure my usage was about 4-5 gig.
I would have upgraded to the new 19/99 a month package if it wasn't for the fact they now (didn't when wanadoo) force you to take out a new 12 month contract if you change package.
50gb is quite alot of downloads! so i don't think its unreasonable for Orange to say this is their "Fair Usage Policy" and I know what your saying about only going over it in 1 month but you said you had downloaded 120GB thats more than double th FUP........
Can't see the logic behind your reasoning as the as the FUP does not quote any specific figure so you can not say that the user downloaded more than double the FUP.
Joined: 16 Dec 2006Posts: 108Location: North Essex
I personally have no problem accepting a limit of 40Gb (e.g.) for the service for which I'm paying; for one thing I'm not paying a premium-service price, and for another I don't need to download more than 2/3GB per month anyway.
However, I do think that Orangemust be on thin ice when they advertise the "Unlimited" service like this:
"Get up to 8 Meg wireless broadband with unlimited downloads and inclusive calls to UK landlines starting 01 and 02 plus 100 international destinations"
(http://www.orange.co.uk/membercentre/ - my italics)
The account name can be argued to be merely a title, and the dictionary definition of "unlimited" therefore not relevant, but here they are clearly using the word as an adjective to describe the downloads one can make: unlimited, without limit, unrestricted.
The text I've quoted is not ambiguous - the meaning is clear, and directly contradicted by the fair use details of the terms and conditions and the letters people have received. I can't for a moment imagine how Orange can defend their position when promoting a service using these words, and, whether they've had their terms and conditions checked by lawyers or not, it must leave them open to legal challenge and allegations of unfair trading.
Well I'd like to know for sure, here's a transcript of the letter I received dated January 2007.
'We need to let you know that usage on your broadband account is well above the 40GB per month, which is in breach of our Fair Use Policy (please visit www.orange.co.uk/terms to the policy).
Your average usage between November 2006 and December 2006 has been 58.71GB a month. This heavily affects the performance of our other broadband customers using the Internet.
You need to significantly reduce your usage immediately or we'll have no option but to close your account.
Your sincerely
Customer Support'
When I rang to complain the customer advisor at first thought 50GB was the limit, however the letter says otherwise. None of there staff seem to know for sure, so fine go download 41GB's worth and see if your account gets closed.
un·lim·it·ed
[uhn-lim-i-tid] Pronunciation Key
–adjective
1. not limited; unrestricted; unconfined: unlimited trade.
2. boundless; infinite; vast: the unlimited skies.
3. without any qualification or exception; unconditional.
I was told by what seemed like a fairly honest CS chap at Orange that the soft limit (i.e they not holding ppl to this) is 40gb per month but at current as long as you are using less than 100gb a month they are unlikely to mention it
this is my 1st month and Ill test the waters for sure
either way we should start a campaign here - similar to one I saw in Holland which effectively highlighted what sh***y tricks the ISPs there were pulling a few years ago - draw yourself a graph with 1 axis "line speeds" and 1 axis "data limits" and youll see that as line speeds have gone up - data limits have gone down, almost like a mirror - outrageous
the campaign highlighted this s**t state of affairs and most if not all ISPs removed data limits completely for high speed lines/premium services they offer - my 8mbps cable was limited to 40gb at one point but that was removed completely, yay!
a campaign like this, once rolling will be supported by MPs, newspapers, independant ISP/telecom bodies and will serve to highlight those few services out there which genuinely have no data limits (NTL for instance!) and the swines will backdown for fear of losing their market share in what is a super competitive market place
anyone interested in helping me start a campaign similar to what I've described here from my time in the Netherlands please hit me up by mail, message or reply here
Joined: 29 Dec 2006Posts: 12Location: Wiltshire, UK
Well I've been monitoring my usage since I started this topic and have kept to just under 50GB a month for the last two months and Orange have not bothered me again about it. So my guess is the limit is 50GB before they start to get concerned.
The further thought occurred to me that maybe older customers may have a 50Gb cap whilst the newer ones have 40Gb if at some point they changed their contracts.
How long have those of you who have replied here been a customer? I have been since freeserve was just getting established and picked my install cd up from Dixons.
Ah now that brings back memories I had a 19.2K modem back then. That was painful surfing at that speed! Especially with the arguments with other family members who wanted to use the phone. I love ADSL soooo much!
Anyone else connect with a modem that slow in those days?
As far as I'm aware the FUP should apply to all accounts, the terms and conditions were changed quite sometime ago for them to do that so it could be applied to any of the older legacy accounts.
LOL I just posted about this in my "introduction" post
Nildram are taking over my broadband as of the 26th of this month after Orange messed me around over this same issue.
I went, wait for it... NOUGHT.TWO gigs over the FUP of 50 gigs in a month in November last year apparently!
They made great pains to say that the contract between me and Orange specifically prohibited this. Being versed in contract law, I informed them that I had the contract AND FUP in front of me, and asked for the section and subsection number for the clause they referred to.
TEN MINUTES on hold, and they said "Erm, it says if you go too high we'll let you know, then if it happens again we'll terminate your account."
"Ohh kaayy... but where does our CONTRACT say what is too high? What IS too high? Show me the figure. You said 50 gigs for "unlimited" and 30 gigs for your 8 meg service - WHERE does the contract say that? How can you use "too high" as a legal definition?" (I was laughing at this point)
They replied that they'd agreed to the limits ON MY BEHALF without telling me or providing me with a copy of that agreement. I explained about the Sales of Goods Act, Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts Regulations et al. and that until the contract was modified with appropriate clear English I would be caning my connection out of spite and DARING them to disconnect me so that I could challenge them for compensation in court.
Two weeks later and still nobody could answer my questions. Though strangely, my download speed dropped from 850 K/sec to 40 K/sec - bearing in mind I was only a week into a new month and had used about 4 gigs of my usage allowance defined by Orange. Wonder why that happened?
I requested a MAC and will be with Nildram broadband on the 26th Feb. Their FUP is much clearer, and says 50 gigs a month and string-free unlimited between 12am and 6am. "Just do your major newsgroup downloading after midnight and we won't have a word said against you" the manager at Nildram says. Suits me just fine thanks.
As for the "unlimited" definition this has long been a bone of contention with ISPs. However, from what some previous posters have said you should be aware that ISPs use the defence of "Unlimited refers only to the CONNECTION (we don't kick you off every hour or two hours like dial up does) - not downloads".
However as Orange clearly advertised UNLIMITED DOWNLOADS they're on thin ice. Putting an asterisk after the word "unlimited" and/or "downloads" doesn't do much to free them from advertising standards regulations, and wouldn't look too hot in court either
Joined: 29 Dec 2006Posts: 12Location: Wiltshire, UK
B****rds!
Just got another letter from them this morning. They say that I have now exceeded the FUP which is 40GB a month down from the 50GB in my first letter last year.
Between Jan and Feb I downloaded 56.04GB, okay I thought I was still within 50GB so a miscalculation on my part for which I do accept responsibility for but where the hell did this 40GB come from.
These amoeboid scum are really starting to p**s me off now. Along with this changing allowance goalpost, the amount of spam my email account is getting, the fact that I cannot send email to my Australian aunt thanks to Orange's servers being blocked by her ISP and the fact that they have gone back on their word to upgrade everyone to 8Mb is the last straw!
I will be requesting my MAC as soon as I decide on another ISP. Can anyone make any recommendations to a P2P friendly ISP?
I download a lot of TV episodes via bittorrent so would like an ISP who does not traffic shape. Also I will happily do it overnight so as not to eat precious bandwidth in the daytime.
I was thinking about UKFSN and their 30/300GB peak/offpeak package for £19.99. As they are on Entanet who are really a business ISP so the majority of their customers are offline at night when I want to use my connection the most.
I was thinking about UKFSN and their 30/300GB peak/offpeak package for £19.99. As they are on Entanet who are really a business ISP so the majority of their customers are offline at night when I want to use my connection the most.
Any thoughts folks?
Cheers
James
Hi James,
Simlar story to me, then. UKFSN are decent, you won't go far wrong with them. Consider also ADSL24 (.co.uk) as they're also an Entanet reseller, with simlar if not the same packages, and they have an 0800 support number, whereas iirc UKFSN is still 0870.
Ask them where it says in their FUP what the limit is?
If you mean Orange, I and some others on here have already done that and mentioned it on here. The response I received was that the 50 (now 40?) gig limit is contained in terms only available to Orange staff, effectively signing you up blindly to a contract of which you are not privy to the terms.
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