Broadband dl limit

yeah sexy but mine telephone line doesn't allow more than 4 Mb

Originally Posted by SexyHyde

when i was on NTL / Virgin and had capped internet i was never charged. With BT i was charged for everything over the cap, every time.

I used to be with Virgin on a 2Mbps connection. I downloaded a bit more than normal, but nothing particularly out of line considering my normal downloading patterns and yet they decided to cap our speed for 2 weeks at 80Kbps as a punishment - basically dial-up. They did again and we said stuff them and got a pretty good deal with Sky as we have a Sky TV subscription. I find it odd though, how Virgin were so jumpy when I downloaded 50GB in a month instead of 40GB, and yet Sky seem not to give a monkey's about downloading 250GB+.

Out of interest, how does BT's charging system work? Do they charge you a fixed amount per Gigabyte over the limit?

Originally Posted by abgabba

yeah sexy but mine telephone line doesn't allow more than 4 Mb

Ouch! Your line needs some updating, man! That's enough for gaming though, I suppose

Originally Posted by NickyBoyJunior

I used to be with Virgin on a 2Mbps connection. I downloaded a bit more than normal, but nothing particularly out of line considering my normal downloading patterns and yet they decided to cap our speed for 2 weeks at 80Kbps as a punishment - basically dial-up. They did again and we said stuff them and got a pretty good deal with Sky as we have a Sky TV subscription. I find it odd though, how Virgin were so jumpy when I downloaded 50GB in a month instead of 40GB, and yet Sky seem not to give a monkey's about downloading 250GB+.

Out of interest, how does BT's charging system work? Do they charge you a fixed amount per Gigabyte over the limit?

2Mbps sounds like the NTL days. Virgin seem to only go after the people that impact the service they provide, so if your bringing down the internet in your area they'll cap/restrict you so everyone else that gets crap internet doesn't moan to/about them. Sky only care about getting money so as long as you pay the bill they are fine and any quibbles they just blame BT as it's their phone lines they use.

with BT they charge you per Mb/Gb can't remember which one now, i've tried to put it behind me. the experience i've had with talktalk has be very good, i'm quite surprised as they were renowned for being very **** when they first came out and their pricing is so low i thought they would be much ****ter.

BE* who im with actually state that you can download as much as you like and they arent bothered, in their forums.

Originally Posted by NickyBoyJunior

Ouch! Your line needs some updating, man! That's enough for gaming though, I suppose

Updating is not up to me, is it??

4Mb is enough for gaming but it's only 300 MB (average) that I get when downloading.

Every ISP is different and depends on their individual outlook - I work for a UK Business ISP and we don't sell to consumers, purely for the reason that the consumer market mainly buys on price and you have a risk that consumers by percentage use more bandwidth, at the same time (6pm-11pm) then businesses - to get the price down ISP's will over subscribe their bandwidth as this is still quite expensive, imagine a core cost of £100 per Mb per month for an ISP - and you're selling 24Mbps service for £15 a month?

1:1 contention on a 20Mbps service (as you'll never get 24Mbps) will potentially cost an ISP £2000 per month to provide at 100% utilisation - including support costs and end user charges from their provider (around £7 per month for an end user) - figure £2 per month for support and that leaves you £6 for bandwidth

if they want to turn 15% margin they have £3 per user per month to supply the core network and transit - so thats 666 people all contending per Mb on the ISP network - figure in that at the dslam/MSAN you're already on a 50:1 or 20:1 contention ratio whether your neighbour is on the same ISP as you or not.....broadband technology is great but stack 'em high sell 'em cheap ISP's focusing on consumer market isn't unfortunately

My advise isn't to buy on price - and check fair usage policy - cheap broadband providers are betting on certain usage levels and anyone that doesn't fit into that has to be approached so that the majority get a fair service - that or they sell the service and it's a free for all which is another method - these approaches have benefits and drawbacks, for companies that police their network the overall satisfaction is high and average net user experience consistent, and users that don't fit the model aren't welcome and expensive to keep as customers

I can see why Virgin cap the top users from a business perspective - heavy net users break price model's for broadband in a world where internet traffic is still expensive when you move to the ISP's core - for the masses to get broadband for £20 a month you have to control the top percentage who over use

Couple this approach with the explosion in things such as spotify and iplayer, ISP networks are congested as never before - they need to provide even more bandwidth to everyone, not just the top users and this pushes up cost, and with a commodity driven market based on price they have to recoup that loss by charging for over usage - or letting it run and hoping that people put up with it - or traffic shaping to give realtime traffic a chance (voice, video, audio e.t.c.) and letting peer 2 peer and email take a hit when usage is high,

Gloomy huh? But for serious performance you need a business package - you pay more but get less contention and in some networks - like o2, BT & CPW they will actually prioritise business broadband traffic over consumer, as they pay more for the bandwidth on the core - just sucks that we have the technology like adsl2+ on broadband and upcoming fibre to the cabinet but the real throttle is in the ISP's networks, until the industry and market realise that you need to charge sensible prices for realistic performance we'll always be over subscribing or charging for over usage - it's down to the fact that ISP's can't keep up with technology bandwidth requirements - and technology is looking towards a "super fast" broadband network that gives everyone upwards of 10Mbps

/rant

Don't forget Gordan Browns pledge of having a nation all connected to super fast broadband of 2Mbps............... yes thats 2Mbps a speed which alot of people had access to back in 2000.