Slashdot Mirror
In UK, Broadband Limits Confuse Nine In Ten Users
Mark Jackson writes "ISPreview reports that 86% of UK broadband users don't understand the usage limits on their service, and nearly one million have reached or exceeded their ISPs limit in the last year. This is important because 56% of major providers are prepared to disconnect those who 'abuse' the service. However, it also shows how damaging bad marketing can be, with 6.2M people believing they have an 'unlimited' service with no restrictions. The UK Advertising Standards Authority is also blamed for making the problem worse by allowing providers to describe their services as unlimited even if there is a usage cap, as long as it is detailed in the small print. However, consumers are none the wiser with over 10 million broadband customers never reading their usage agreements and a further 1.8M not knowing whether they have read it or not. Unsurprisingly 7.5M do not even know their download limit, which is understandable when so few providers clarify it."
that limited unlimited plans are a bad idea.
Really, just throttle them based on how much theyve used in a given period. everyone wins. consumers keep their service, and providers can cut their bandwidth down a bit.
Show this to your friends and family that don't know what a real hacker is
The UK Advertising Standards Authority are a bunch of complete tossers.
They'll stop an Apple ad claiming the iPhone can reach the whole internet, but they let these ISPs advertise unlimited when it is anything but.
Double Standards anyone?
If I had an Ass, I'd call it Fanny Bottom, then I could slap my Ass; Fanny Bottom, on the Arse.
is why are companies allowed to describe something as unlimited when it's limited. If that was changed, there'd be no problem. The ISPs always say `most users....` then I lose attention. If most user don't use 50 gigs, then limit it to 50 gigs.
10% of the users using 90% of the bandwidth still leaves 10% for Grandpa to check his email and your sister to update her MySpaz.
Why punish those who actually USE what they paid for? I've had the same contract since BlueYonder "real" unlimited connections, and my usage hasn't changed. All that's changed is as soon as ive watched a couple of iPlayer programs, my downstream drops from 250k to 100k. My dad, mum, and brother don't notice, so there's 75% who don't understand and aren't affected. Only we know, and only we use it.
Finally had enough. Come see us over at https://soylentnews.org/
...usage caps were sold as a legit tool for ISPs despite advertising unlimited because these caps affected only a tiny minority of heavy users.
I'm not convinced 1million is a tiny minority. It's about time the ASA actually did some work for once and punished broadband providers for not advertising their caps more obviously. Last time it was brought up they said they didn't need to force them to change their practices for the above mentioned reason that caps were high enough to only effect a very small amount of users.
Even Plus Net which prides itself in being open and which is probably one of the most open out the lot can be quite evil. When I renewed my contract with them for a year I don't recall seeing anywhere (except perhaps in the depths of the contract which I did read but must have overlooked) that by renewing my contract I'd accept a change in the definition of off-peak from midnight to 4pm down to midnight to 8am.
Of course, it wasn't until I hit my 20gb on-peak cap within a couple of weeks that I looked into it and found I'd started being metred during the previously off-peak 8am to 4pm.
Similarly when I stuck with their old package I noticed my speeds dropped below their advertised maximum caps at times also.
If this is the kind of practice arguably the UK's most transparent ISP engages in it's no wonder users are confused about caps. The argument about the validity of ISPs imposing caps is one thing but the fact is that ISPs can't even be honest to their customers either and I'd argue this is the crux of the problem in terms of end user confusion on the issue.
Even if the users knew what their usage limits were, a huge majority still wouldn't have any reasonable sense of what that is. They have a vague idea of what the number means, but most can't even tell you how big a file is even when the number is staring them in the face, let alone when there's a constant stream of data trickling in every time they click a link. And that's not even getting into things like streaming video. The only way these limits will ever work is if the ISP provides some way of monitoring your usage.
This guy's the limit!
Where is it on this earth where governments are going to play their proper role in making sure the playing field is level and participants are not deceived?
Government's roles are to provide rule of law, not bending of laws, & adherence to meanings of words, not redefining them in advertising to suit a malicious manager.
Thanks Slashdot, two chances to plug http://superawesomebroadband.com/ in two days.
"Unlimited connections on static IPs. No download or upload limits. No port blocking, no packet shaping, no transparent web caches, no 'fair usage' policy, no logging, no Phorm, no ad-serving, no small print. Rolling 1 month contract. No lock in period. Direct Engineer Support 24 hours a day, every day. Good, not cheap. £60 /month"
Super Awesome Broadband
Whenever you see an ad claiming "unlimited" from an ISP you know limits in the small print, i.e. BT, Talk talk, Virgin, Tiscali etc. Send in a complaint.
http://www.asa.org.uk/asa/how_to_complain/complaints_form/
If I had an Ass, I'd call it Fanny Bottom, then I could slap my Ass; Fanny Bottom, on the Arse.
It proves that limited plans are a bad idea. They allow ISPs to charge more for data even as the cost of transmitting that data plummets.
They provide a very 2002 view of the internet and the way that it's connected.
They allow ISPs effectively to limit new services such as Internet Radio, Streaming video, video rentals, etc. simply for those who do more than look at email and surf the web (which you'd have to effectively retarded to spend $40-50/month for access to a paltry 1-2GB per month; you might as well use dial-up).
They're a bad idea because they allow ISP to delay upgrading their infrastructure.
Rate limits don't lower any price, they simply allow the company to raise prices to those who use more than looking at emails and surfing the net. Much like ISPs used to limit your modem connections to 30-60 hours a month; it's not tenable and sustainable.
Once you transgress this limit - whatever it happens to be, you get a letter (or email) telling you that you've broken the rules and if you do it again, you'll be cut off. However, this is completely arbitrary and un-testable as normal users have no means of challenging the veracity of the claim, nor of knowing in advance what this unspoken limit was.
So confused? yes, but confused that the ISPs are able to get away with such blatant mis-selling and arbitrary and un-appealable activites.
politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
When I moved to a new flat last year, I did my research and eventually signed up for one of the Entanet resellers. When I tell people I'm paying £20/month for 30GB peak (8am-10pm weekdays) and 300GB offpeak (all other times, including all weekend) they look at me as if I have a screw loose and invariably ask why I didn't got with Provider X who is half the price and "unlimited".
The problem, I explain, is that every provider I've looked at that offered "unlimited" had a FUP and from a site on the web (which i've sadly lost) I found out that that FUP could be down to as low as 5GB per month.
In the year I've had the broadband (living on my own), I've only managed to get at most 15GB peak and 70GB offpeak in a month. It's true I don't work from home, don't stream music or video during peak hours and download really big files offpeak - but I've not found it to severly impact my browsing abilities. Hell, I'll happily suck down a 500MB update in peak - simply because I have tonnes of it to go around.
Thankfully Entanet offer a nice set of tools to monitor my usage, so if I start to get near their limits (due to changes in the way I use the web) then I'll re-evaluate the options again. It's not like I'm tied in, I only have a months notice period.
Avantslash - View Slashdot cleanly on your mobile phone.
Was this:
People in the UK either don't read the contracts they sign, don't question things they don't understand (the fine print), and just sign, so they can get on the internet.
Same thing as the mortgage scandal on this side of the pond.
I'm not into government intervention.... I'm into an educated populace. If people actually READ what the FUCK they are signing, people wouldn't be signing these contracts. If enough people don't sign on to the crap, the companies go out of business.
Other companies will step up, if it shows enough profit to be made, to allow people to actually use their pipes. Yes, you might have to spend a bit more, but in the long run, more people are happy, and companies like the ones mentioned in the article would be, losing.... Business, customers, etc.
Simple, people, quit being sheeple and letting companies push you around by YOUR BEING IGNORANT.
I read my contracts before I sign them. I'd be a fucking idiot not to. If I don't agree with something, I scratch it out, and submit it. If it comes back changed again, I have to agree to it. If the company doesn't send anything back changed, my contract stands. Doesn't mean I'll win in a court of law everytime, but it does mean I've actually STUCK TO MY GUNS and actually decided to THINK for myself.
Seriously, READ THE FUCKING PAPERS YOUR SIGNING. Simple, to the point, and won't happen, since that would require people to be literate :(
The general populace is stupid. New news at 11. :(
--Toll_Free
Yup. Cancelled my Virgin broadband account recently, and it took about fifteen minutes to get through the laundry list of reasons. The staff member who dealt with the cancellation agreed with more or less every point on it, too. Finally he admitted that two-thirds of the staff had moved, mostly to Be.
Funny thing, apparently they've actually given up on Phorm due to customer complaints, have reversed their policy of making customers pay to report faults due to customer complaints, etc. The problem of course is that they didn't get around to reporting this to their customers, who continue to quit in droves. That said, it was their broadband limits that caused me to finally give up on them; they have incredibly low download limits at various times of the day. On one occasion I made the mistake of leaving streamed video turned on throughout the afternoon and they throttled the connection down to 'cannot even read email'.
In short, Virgin are total arseholes and Richard Branson needs a new brand name. This usage has somehow managed to tarnish the name even more than Virgin trains, which is an amazing accomplishment in and of itself.
What about legitimate internet video? I guess you just *have to* use services provided by your ISP or it's "partners?"
What about "tele-commuters?" Plenty of industries work with largish files and move them back and forth regularly (fMRI images anyone?).
There are plenty of uses for quality internet providers, it's just too bad they can't differentiate themselves from the fake "unlimited" providers.
"Knowledge is the only instrument of production that is not subject to diminishing returns" -Journal of Political Econom