UK ISP Imposes Download Limits 704
Richard_at_work writes "The BBC news site is reporting that NTL have announced it will be imposing 1GB download limits per day for its users. As you can guess, reactions have not been mild :) One thing to note, NTL has said that they will only be persuing persistent offenders, so i guess they understand you cant track your usage to the byte! Also with NTL, they appear to ban the usage of VPNs, citing that their service is for resedential use only. Does this mean I can't email work now?"
D'oh (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:D'oh (Score:5, Insightful)
Either dump or control the 1% of customers using 80% of the bandwidth and everyone is happier because NTL can support more (paying) customers on the same bandwidth with better service. The only cost is a bit of bad PR which will evaporate with the noisy users.
These 1Mb cable connections are contended 50:1, so even 1GB a day is 5 peoples' share. It's not unreasonable, but people who have been treated to cheap peak bandwidth on the assumption that they won't use it all the time are getting a lesson in how much it costs.
James
Re:D'oh (Score:3, Insightful)
If I have to change my BB provider I will need to replace my cable phone with a BT phone line (Man they are going to love this). So I guess I wont be needing the cable one any more, and cos I will now not get discounts on my TV I am better off switching it to SKY (satelight), who are also the majority player in the UK. So this move could cost them alot more than they think.
James
Re:D'oh (Score:3, Insightful)
It's so much better, in fact, than putting caps on traffic and advertising fixed bandwidth rates, and ensuring that they can support those rates. Doing it that way would probably give their customers *good* feelings.
And in the Modern Business Era, giving good customer service is simply the wrong thing to do.
Re:D'oh (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm just pointing out, in case JamesO didn't make it clear, even if your line to the Cable company is 1 mbps, the Cable Company probably does not have that much throughput to their upstream provider. All broadband providers oversell for their capacity, on the perfectly accurate assumption that not all of your clients will be using all of their bandwidth at any given time. That's why you get 1 mbps for $50 per month: they're assuming you won't use it. That's a hard assumption for a business to make in these times of Kazaa, DIVX, and shoutcast.
Re:D'oh (Score:3, Informative)
Re:D'oh (Score:4, Insightful)
Why do you assume that anyone who downloads a 1M in a day is a leech? Mind you, 30Gig/month is (very arguably) above what a user might need... but 1Gig a day can be broken easily. :)
1. Linux install images (RedHat required 3)
2. Online movie rentals?
3. Music in non-lossy format (i.e. wav) -- 2nd albom will break the cap
4. I guess porn falls into #2
Re:D'oh (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm with NTL. At the minute I'm trying to find the right Linux distro to suit me, and I therefore regularly leave my computer on for extended periods of time to download linux distros. On average I'm only getting through about 800meg (est, but I'm a heavy net user, on net for many hours at a time), roughly per day without linux distros, so fair game to them, but when I go on a Linux grabbing session, I'm breaking 2-3Gb per day. But that might only be for a day or two. Every linux distro I've tried so far DOES NOT want to connect to the net through NTL anyway. It sets up my ethernet card fine, but won't allow any connections out. I'm thinking this is NTL's fault and not mine, but I dunno. So I'm still stuck with WinXP.
I'd rather they put the price up by £5-£10 and let me have my promised 'unlimited' bandwidth, rather than be restricted into calculating how much I can get away with.
Does this include playing games too? Cause I play a helluva lot of those too... and the bandwidth for that adds up...
As for porn... well...
Re:D'oh (Score:5, Informative)
Cheers!
Clarification of "cap" (Score:3, Informative)
Anyhow, it's all a bit academic now, seeing as I've had to move out of an NTL serviced area. I'm waiting to see if BT consider me worthy^H^H^H^H^Hwithin range of an ADSL service.
No VPN service? (Score:4, Insightful)
I thought technology was supposed to make our lives easier?
Re:No VPN service? (Score:5, Interesting)
I sincerely hope they keep removing things. The internet is something we can bring ourselves. I think its time for the people to be the government as it was always intended and do more like seattlewireless and houstonwireless and those wireless groups in Australia, etc...
Re:No VPN service? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:No VPN service? (Score:5, Interesting)
One could always invent their own VPN protocol that rides over normal TCP/IP and where you can configure the server's port. That would get around bans like this.
Re:No VPN service? (Score:2)
They just want to sell you a "business" account (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:You're full of shit. (Score:5, Interesting)
Easy. A redhat release. In fact I used to download them to home because my bandwidth at home was so much better than in the office, and the usage didn't impact anyone.
No news for me... (Score:4, Interesting)
1GB per day would be *very* nice indeed.
Re:No news for me... (Score:2)
And if it's not enough, then what would be the difference in price to upgrade your plan?
Re:No news for me... (Score:5, Interesting)
Actually 3 RedHat images == ~2GB right away. And pray that the download will not fail or you might use up even more of your quota.
I, personally, also like to download movie trailers... in highest resolution available. These are up to 60Mb each. And since fairly often I can't f**king download them, I have to stream them again for any of my friends that might be interested. And no, they don't look like they are cached on my machine...
Lesse... oh yeah, and I like to download game demos too. These tend to be 100Mb and more...
Re:No news for me... (Score:5, Insightful)
If you were an aspiring artist that allows anybody and everybody to download your artwork, that 4Gb won't last very long.
If you actually use those teleconferencing solutions (Netmeeting for example) with your friends that 4Gb will be gone in no time.
If you were trying to download fansubbed episodes of old foreign TV shows you can't get anymore, that 4Gb won't last you a season.
If you are interested in television commercials and want to download them in storable/indexable format, especially for old commericals, then you aren't going to get much with your 4Gb
If you are trying to download all of the independant free music online to try to find the diamonds in the rough, then you're 4Gb are going to fall short.
I've noticed a trend from MRTG that some games (RTS games in particular) take up a surprisingly large amount of bandwidth, especially if you are acting as the server in an 8+ player game. I don't have hard numbers, but I wouldn't be surprised to see that add up quickly if you are an avid gamer. I don't know of MMORPGs are worse, but if they are then it's almost certain that the 4Gb wouldn't be enough.
This is only the tip of the iceberg. As time goes on more and more people are going to start using high bandwith applications on a regular basis. I don't think there has every been a time where the amount of bandwidth people use decreases without some sort of drastic outside influence (bandwidth caps for instance)
I could turn the question around and ask: if you aren't using 4Gb a month then why are you paying the big $$$ for broadband service? It seems to me you aren't utilizing it enough to make it worth the $40/month minimum it tends to cost. You don't need 1.5Mb download speeds to surf the web, read email, or SSH around.
Re:No news for me... (Score:3, Insightful)
I'll say it agsin: P2P networking and "personal servers" are exactly the reason that DSL and cable will soon offer a cheap service which uses a webTV type box with a closed, no-storage OS.... And another more expensive service for users who want to run windows or linux on a machine attached to the net.
Come to think of it.. Why should I pay the same flat fee to browse the web and play a couple games of Quake when my neighbor runs a VNC session that chews up 400kb/s 24x7?
Re:No news for me... (Score:3, Insightful)
You pay the same flat fee for your web browsing as those running VNC sessions because you bought the same product. If you have a problem with that then can ask your ISP you limit your service and charge you less.
If you under-utilise the service you've bought then that's your problem.
Utter bollox (Score:3, Insightful)
If people using more than a gig a day are in a minority then it is they who should have to request special pricing from an ISP. There's no reason a majority of people who fit in some 'normal usage' bracket should subsidise extreme users by default.
To me it makes sense for an ISP to offer a broad range [ihug.com.au] of pricing options to consumers but if an ISP wants to go down the "one size fits all" route then it makes sense for the size and cost to fit the majority of users.
Re:Utter bollox (Score:5, Insightful)
Bandwidth means speed, not volume. (Score:3, Interesting)
I like to be able to listen to the occasional internet radio broadcast while still using my link for browsing etc (not possible over a modem).
I like to get something quickly when I download it.
It's nice when friends come over that they can just hook into my wireless network and use my connection without causing significant congestion on the link.
Re:No news for me... (Score:3, Informative)
Overall I think I get quite a good deal. I have a static IP so I can run my own little web server without hassle. My ISP runs some gaming servers that don't count towards the bandwidth limit and also host copies of Linux ISOs. Only incoming data counts towards the limit (the ISP says they may have a word in extreme cases).
The 4 gig limit is certainly reachable if you consume a lot of "heavy" media. But even then there's enough to download several hours of video a month and have plenty left for general use. If I hit the limit then I get charged 11c a meg which isn't bad if you just use it for mail and web browsing for the rest of the month.
You are right that high bandwidth applications will become more prevelant over time. Hopefully this will be tempered with new technology (eg improved codecs shrinking video further) as well as bandwidth costs being driven down.
Over all the broadband market in Australia seems quite healthy to me. There seems to be enough players to avert a monopoly situation and with ISPs like the one I use offering contract free broadband hopefully there will be enough fluidity to keep competition strong.
Re:No news for me... (Score:5, Insightful)
AT&T dialup used to send me frequent letters about "too much usage on my unlimited plan. After about the 5'th day I got one I sent back a polite letter. They said If I wanted 24/7 I should purchase the bussiness plan. I e-mailed them back with my service plan and basically said if they kicked me I am a student, have unlimtied time, and could probably find a lawyer who is willing to work for 80 percent of the winnings - go ahead and try. Apparently they were having difficulty with others doing this, made it metered and lost nearly all thier customers, then re-instated thier unlimited plan.
They can't have it both ways (have unlimted usage and require no one use much), if you offer "all you can eat" someone like me is going to come along and eat all they can.
Re:No news for me... (Score:3, Insightful)
Same thing with a Sushi resteraunt we like. They do all you can eat for $20. They mean it too, they'll keep bringing you food till you pop if you like (you have to pay extra if you don't eat it though). Now normally, it's a good deal for them. The unlimited thing (adn the fact they have the freshest fish in town) gets people to come in, and most people have trouble eating much more than say $30 at menu prices of fish. However me and my firends have been known to come in and eat tremendous amounts, in excess of $50 menu prices. Still, they do not complain. All you can eat means all you can eat.
The problem comes from companies that want to attract customers with unlimited deals (people like unlimited, even if they'd save money with a metered service) but then don't want to deal with the people that want to take full advantage of it.
The reason answer is in bandwith throttling and the like. During busy times, clamp the bandwidth an individual can use. They still get unlimited usage of it, it's just scaled back. I would lvoe a service that offered a huge maximum like 10mbit or something, and just clamed it to something reasonable during the day, like 512kbit or something. Better yet, have a device that does dynamic traffic shaping.
I do get sick of people that want to pretend like they are offering unlimited service and then bitch when people what to use it.
Re:No news for me... (Score:3, Interesting)
Even more sensible only restrict when contention actually is an issue on that part of the network.
Re:All you can eat bars, and bandwidth (Score:3, Informative)
Actually, it's a lot worse than that. It's more like the investors end up heavily subsidizing a very small group of people, because ISPs that provide "unlimited" bandwidth tend to do so at the cost of hundreds of millions of dollars a year. If they don't fix this leak, then noone gets broadband because the company goes out of business.
Think of it this way: you could run an FTP or leech DCC bot 24/7 at a maximum upload speed of 640Kbps. That's 6.75 GB a day and 202 GB a month. If bandwidth is insanely cheap at only $4 a gig retail, then that amounts to an $808 bandwidth bill, and you haven't even touched on downloads. Subtract the $34.95 the customer actually pays, and you're losing $773. Per month. Multiply by 1,000 for the 1% of the customers that are using bandwidth like this at a large DSL or cable provider.
Suddenly you're thinking "wow, ISPs are getting bent over the barrel." It gets better. Between 10 and 20% of broadband customers use more than 20 gigs of bandwidth a month. If you figure that they have to be using less than 8.75 to even break even just in terms of bandwidth, then they're paying twice as much in bandwidth costs as they're getting back in service charges. Oh, and by the way, that doesn't even touch the normal overhead costs like paying for systems administration or even customer service.
I heard from my boss that in 2001, Telus figured that the cost of providing ADSL connections to their residential customers averaged to $55 a month each. Unfortunately, they were selling it at $39.95 at most (so they could compete with Shaw Cable), and they had somewhere around 50,000 residential ADSL customers. Most ISPs are competing like this - bleeding money to gain market share, and the one that dies last gets to raise rates by 3 times (at least in theory).
Re:No news for me... (Score:3, Informative)
It costs ntl comparitively peanuts compared to a normal OC3/T3 provider.
Tim
Notes (Score:5, Informative)
NTL are one of the cable duopoly in the uk. The other party being Telewest.
NTL are in big big debt along with the majority of the telecoms business so this is probably a play towards limiting their upgrades for Internet connectivity in their cable division.
I don't suppport this and personally use one of their DSL competition who don't imit in this way - in stead I pay a similar fee get a flat 500kbps bandwidth and a block of IP addresses.
Sorry - typo :/ (Score:3, Funny)
And the thing is, i checked it as well to make sure there wasnt any typos
In other news (Score:4, Funny)
So? (Score:5, Insightful)
I mean.. how many days do you download 2 linux images at once?
Re:So? (Score:2)
Re:So? (Score:3, Interesting)
*cough*
My school does the same thing... 1Gig limit per day. They allow VPN's though (although they don't allow servers of any kind and say students are not allowed to give each other access to their computers! Sounds like a Stallman story I read!)
My cable ISP, surprisingly, doesn't do anything like this, but maybe they don't have any trouble with bandwidth usage (they do forbid VPN's though; they only want you to browse the web and do nothing else.)
Re:So? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:So? (Score:4, Funny)
yeah, but on the plus side it would make installing linux a seraphic event:
dweebs 0110 : 1337
"And on the third day he installethed Linux"
VPNs aren't just for corporations anymore. (Score:5, Insightful)
As far as downloads go... well, it's not like they're limiting it to 50meg a day or something. For the general populace, a gigabyte is plenty. And if they have to go over that--say, to download a new Linux distro--it'd be once in a great while, not Every Single Day.
Re:VPNs aren't just for corporations anymore. (Score:3, Informative)
KDE 3.1 was just released, so we're about to have, in a few days, final releases of:
Gentoo 1.4
RedHat 8.1
Mandrake 9.1
Others?
I'll be trying each out in turn. I suspect that will be more than a gig a day.
more links regarding this story (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/22/29246.htm
http://www.nthellworld.com/forum/showthread.php?s
Ouch (Score:2)
Ok, Ban inbound VPN sessions, given, but to block 'client' connecting outbound VPN's, they will definitly isolate more than a few people. Maybe this is just a conspiracy to move their users to a private IP address block ala NAT, baby!
Why are there so many angry users? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Why are there so many angry users? (Score:2)
Maybe for you it is but some of us use more data than that
if I were to find myself on those restrictions I would be insensed. Especially as ovber the last few months I usually average at least over 100GB a month
Re:Why are there so many angry users? (Score:3, Informative)
If you are paying more, fair enough. But for these £20/month schemes to be economical the companies offering them have to allow for reasonable usage levels amongst most users.
And what exactly is stopping them? (Score:5, Informative)
Now the best they could do is to sue for false advertising on "unlimited access". But once the cable company takes it out of the ads... everybody is screwd.
Well this really bothers me ... (Score:3, Interesting)
I know when a new release of any (insert free OS here) comes out on 3 or 4 CD images I want to download them all at the same time because I'm forking out $60+ US to be able to get all 4 of them in a few hours. Not to mention stream a little porn, web radio, or download just about everything I can from file planet.
Putting a limit on downloading to stop software piracy is the same as duck taping a cracked dam back together. The only thing I can see this benifiting is for the company to fuck over the consumer who has purchased a service. If they can't provide 3 meg/s to every person on the system at the same time with "always on" than maybe they need to re-think their business model.
Quite frankly I'm happy that Radio, DSL, and Cable are now offered in my area, makes things like this virtually impossible because of the tight competition for such a still narrow market.
Re:Well this really bothers me ... (Score:5, Informative)
That's the point of limited broadband, as you ask. It's not that customers sit on an always on service they never use, it's that customers sit on an always on service with normal use.
I doubt this move is to stop piracy or anything else except to stop them bleeding cash. It's kind of like flipping the closed sign on your buffet restaurant when the Klumps pull into the parking lot. Not that nice but good business sense, especially when too many of your customers are like that.
Re:Well this really bothers me ... (Score:2)
a little overhyped, dont you think? (Score:3, Insightful)
Come on, this type of reporting is getting out of hand. It clearly states that this is for residential use only. If you are using it for business why not pay more for it. Youll get better quality for one, since you will be on nodes with other business customers. Minus the occasional code red and nimda probes.
I originally had residential cable service, I then outgrew what it offered and realized the cable company was just using it to 'push' content, not a true internet connection. So I simply found a company that offered the service I wanted, I ended up on a business class DSL line with all the features I need, and none of the side stepping you get from residential accounts.
Basically, my point is that you just look like a moron if you only accept whats presented to you and dont look for options to better fit your circumstances.
I'm with NTL on tis one... (Score:2, Interesting)
What pisses me off is the "No VPN" rule. Unless I'm doing something stoopid like tunneling NetBIOS there is no additional overhead.
I think it's perfectly fair to ask customers to limit the NUMBER of IP packet that send and receive. But I think it's totally unfair to restrict what I fill those packets with.
1GB a day? Doesn't sound too harsh. (Score:5, Insightful)
- Increase the capacity of their network and pass the cost on to the customers in the form of higher subscription fees.
- Cap bandwidth usage per subscriber so that the total demand for capacity falls within the capabilities of the infrastructure.
Charging for bandwidth is fair, but I would like to see more flexible subscriber plans. Usually ISPs offer only a few limited home subscriptions with very low caps and limits, and business subscriptions that cost 10 times as much. Usually there is nothing in between. Also... not being allowed to run VPNs or NAT networks stinks. I'm glad my ISP has taken a flexible approach: basically they say "We sell you the connection; as long as you do not resell it, do whatever you want". Webservers, commercial activity, NAT networks, everything is allowed.
Re:1GB a day? Doesn't sound too harsh. (Score:5, Insightful)
You're forgetting the simple facts:
1) Service is advertised as "Unlimited" and "Always On"
2) Service is sold as "Unlimited" for a fixed rate.
Now granted, in the TOS there is probably a statement to the effect that NTL is authorized to change the terms of the service agreement at any time.
change your verb tense (Score:3, Interesting)
Service is now sold as "max of 1 GB/day" for a fixed rate.
Re:1GB a day? Doesn't sound too harsh. (Score:2, Informative)
Pop-ups (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Pop-ups (Score:5, Funny)
Any lawyers around?
Doesn't surprise me in the least (Score:5, Interesting)
NTL are the only ISP I know of that had their own hate site in the form of NTHell [nthellworld.com]. Which they then bought out, employed it's creator and turned it into a customer services forum thing.
Cute, huh?
Re:Doesn't surprise me in the least (Score:2)
NTL couldn't organise a piss up in a brewery (Score:3, Interesting)
NTL is a merger of some many local cable companies, and half their departments don't even talk to each other (a friend works there so I've heard how disorganised they are).
This is so much so that someone else I know has managed to get away without having to pay for her cable internet for a while (don't know if it is still going on though). All because they initially bodged the installation and it worked periodically (where they gave her a month free because of this issue), but then it worked fine... so she phoned up each month to complain, and they gave another free month... add to that the account wasn't capped at all, instead of being the usual 512kbps downstream!!!
So you have to wonder why they're in so much debt (at least they have a good infrastructure though).
Poor little bleating babies.. (Score:5, Interesting)
Of course, most ISPs don't charge for traffic between midnight and 6am, so their network gets slagged then, but it's not during a peak usage time for most people. And after you hit the limit, most ISPs will rate limit your DSL connection to 56/64/72k for the rest of the 30 day rolling window.
Sorry, but if you're doing more than 30GB of month at home, you're really lucky your ISP isn't just getting so pissed off that they report your downloads to the police
Re:Poor little bleating babies.. (Score:5, Insightful)
I think that's a really unfair assumption. While I'm sure there are quite a few people that use more than 30GB/mo. for illegal purposes, it seems like an indefensible non-sequitur to imply that such a fact gives any reason to believe that a person is doing something illegal simply because they also happen to use 30GB/mo....
It's that type of propaganda logic that supports the RIAA and allows it to continue functioning.
There's a LOT out there on the net. I could easily find 30GB of legal stuff worth downloading every day. Fortunately for me, though, I have better things to do, but the point remains.
Personally, I really fear that this type of stuff will start happening. It would be my guess that the type of people who do use that much bandwidth are not the type to spend lots of money on other forms of entertainment, because they seem to be able to get plenty right at their computer. Those are perfect targets for the RIAA and MPAA... And I'm sure they'd be more than happy to label anyone who finds entertainment outside the accepted forms a criminal.
Try 3GB per month! (Score:2)
Letter to subscribers. (Score:5, Funny)
Plus we're only able to log 1GB/day or less of your traffic.
So don't use VPN's and don't use more than a gig/day of traffic.
Thank you.
NTL World Total Information Awareness Division
Definiton of "Internet" (Score:3, Interesting)
n.
An interconnected system of networks that connects computers around the world via the TCP/IP protocol.
By definition it connects to computers "around the world"
If you are selling "internet" then you should be able to access whatever is pubically availiable over the "internet". Even if this means my work has publically made a VPN endpoint for me, I should be able to access it.
By restricting my access, you are no longer selling "internet" What you are selling is, well, not "Internet" I'm sorry, I just cannot come up with a term for what they are trying to sell, what word could one use to describe a network restricted to only certain type of activity to certain portions of the "internet". Maybe the word i'm looking for is "Shitter-net?"
So when they claim they are selling "internet" when in fact they are selling "shitter-net" wouldn't they be guilty of misrepresentaion of product or services?
-An american POV.
Be grateful (Score:5, Interesting)
So... (Score:2)
Re:So... (Score:2, Interesting)
as for the "setting up wireless access points and running the whole neighborhood (or country)" check out www.consume.net which aims to do just that.
Re:So... (Score:4, Interesting)
I am curous as to what they really mean by VPNs anyway. If I commit files to a sourecforge project, or any of my CVS servers about the place, using SSH is that a VPN? or do they mean the M$ VPN product that used to floor boo.com's global network about once per day.. or do they mean any IPSec connection? or PGPNet?
what about people who use SSL to check their email, or in fact any private citizen (or 'subject' as they are here in the UK).
they'll have to tear the SSH out of my cold dead hands.
I always wonder... (Score:2)
Until those lousy cable providers are more proactive against snuffing that stuff out, the limits should be high enough to account for that...
People are confusing ADSL with T1 (Score:5, Insightful)
On the other hand, the reality is that ISPs don't budget for everyone to have their connections maxxed out all the time. The only expect people to use a small fraction of the allotted bandwidth. Doing so allows them to offer generally high speeds, for a relatively low price.
Around here, a T1 connection (1.44 Mb/s) will cost you around $1000CDN per month. Why do these people seem to think that they should be able to get the same service for $29.95/month? Don't they understand WHY T1's cost so much more?
Aww, poor babies (Score:4, Insightful)
Further info (Score:5, Informative)
[nthellworld.com]
Massive thread on nthellworld.com, a offical ntl gripe site.
Complaint site [dont-pay-ntl.co.uk]
Basically, ntl are somewhat losing their nerve. I've exchanged emails with the MD of their home products range who claims to have only found out about this key strategic business decision on Saturday morning; he's either lying or incompetent, I suggest. The biggest gripe amongst the sane posters (barring all the "I pay for 24/7 and I'm going to damn well get it" breast-beating") is that the 128bps, 600kbps and 1024kps services all have the same download limit, making you wonder why you pay for the higher speed service.
It should also be pointed out that, unlike many other ISP's schemes, NTL offer no FTP mirror service with "free" bandwidth and recently started dropping alt.binaries groups [theinquirer.net] from their newsspool, which is in any event so slow as to be unusable. So for big alt.binaries downloads or Linux ISOs, for example, customers are forced to external sites, pushing up ntl's bandwidth.
The biggest fear is that this is the thin end of the wedge. In the last two weeks, ntl have dropped a few warez newsgroups and introduced a fairly generous cap that won't inconvenience too many people. That's all well and good, but many think it won't stop there; once you get the caps in place and the groups erased, you can squeeze them down and down. ntl is desperately short of cash, newly emerged from Chapter 11 protection, and this would appear to be a beancounter-led efficiency drive that is turning into a PR nightmare.
I was part of a similar revolt over a no-servers line in the AUP a few years back (more info [digitalspy.co.uk]) and ntl backed down and clarified their position with a set of clear-cut and sensible rules. Let's hope that happens again.
1Gb / day (Score:2)
i am on 2.5Mbit line, and, even when bombarding with 300k/sec downloads - i barely reach 1Gb per day, i get close - but, it isn't really that un-realistic is it?
Please note the facts (Score:2, Insightful)
* The cap is exactly the same for all 3 tiers of service (128kbps, 600kbps and 1Mbit).
* The prices for these services are £14.99, £24.99 and £34.99 respectivly.
* This is coming from the same ISP that recently did away with most of the binary newsgroups because it was easier than investing in some new hardware to cope with the demand.
NTL's network can't cope with the demand, and that's a fact. Rather than update their network, servers and infrastructure, they find it more cost effective to charge their mostly loyal users the same price for an inferior service. I'm sorry, but that just doesn't wash with me. Broadband is being sent back to the stone-age.
What are users doing with broadband? (Score:3, Interesting)
Here's what puzzles me: why do most broadband users pay for broadband service, which typically costs more than twice as much as regular POTS service, if not to pirate content on p2p networks? I know there are gamers out there that love the decreased latency, but what percentage of broadband users do they represent? I'm occasionally part of that demographic, but I only know a few other people that fit into that category. Some people like downloading and sharing uncopyrighted content (again, I'm one of those people [project gutenberg is awesome
So, really, I'm at a loss as to why people get broadband. Could it be that people really want web pages to load a split second faster enough to pay more than double price for internet access? If not, then what's going on? Clearly ISPs wouldn't disconnect or overcharge (too much
p2p is broadband''s killer app. Are broadband ISPs killing the killer app?
Maybe it's just that I'm under the weather and my brain's been in a low gear the past few days, but this doesn't make a whole lot of sense.
What the hell is the problem with 1GB? (Score:5, Funny)
"Residential" Internet (Score:3, Interesting)
Typically in any area (thinking Europe, UK, Australia - true for US too?) there are only one or two high-speed providers to choose from. They offer two tiers of service: one is with a fixed IP, costing $lots per month and where one is charged by the incoming MB; the other is a residential service with a temporary IP -- that is often forcibly expired, killing connections etc. once or twice a day -- with an affordable cost and a relatively high cap before per-byte charging comes in.
These residential services though don't offer the Internet per se, but some sort of diluted version. No fixed IP means no reliable servers. No home-served content for you! I haven't yet seen a mainstream provider that offers IPv6 addresses; if lack of IPv4 addresses were the only motivation for this IP cycling game, then surely they'd offer a stable IPv6 address. The access agreements further compound the situation, with restrictions such as this 'no VPN', or no web serving, or only one computer on the connection, or no multiple accounts, or so on.
The dynamic IP stuff also means that one is pretty much forced to use an SMTP relay for outgoing mail, as so many sites blacklist known dynamic IP blocks out of hand. T-online here in Germany is about to start charging for their SMTP relay service!
The whole point of course is to extract the maximum amount of money out of the market. These service restrictions aren't there to cover otherwise present costs or the like, they're there to provide a differential betweeen their services, so that the providers can extract more money out of anyone who might possibly want to use the 'net for anything serious.
In the same way that major Telcos dragged their feet with ISDN and the like in the UK and in Australia, pricing it per minute _and_ per byte, and thereby siginificantly delaying the adoption of the 'net by businesses at large, the current practices are also limiting the adoption of the Internet as a tool for anything other than passive content consumption.
If there were a level marketplace for internet services, then the situation probably wouldn't last. But of course this isn't the case when there are $10^8 barriers to entry against an entrenched monopoly or duopoly.
Getting around the VPN ban (Score:4, Informative)
Then all you have to do is get around the initial udp/500 IKE stuff.
I assume you could edit the ports that pluto listens on on both ends.
If ISPs blocked udp/500 and protocol 50 and 51, that would stop IPsec based VPNs.
Of course, there's always CIPE, and SSH tunnel, etc.
Old News :) (Score:4, Interesting)
I can see why some people would complain (Score:5, Interesting)
Right now I'm listening to Digitally Imported [di.fm] at 128kbps. Over a 24 hour period that will eat almost a gig and a half (granted, to be kind to their servers I turn it off when I'm AFK, but I'll still be listening to DI or SomaFM [soma.fm] 8-10 hours a day most week days, and potentially much more if I'm on some sort of coding binge). Add in IRC (maybe on multiple networks if you're a junkie or have special interests that have their own IRC networks, ie. GamesNET or Freenode), IM (which can be three or four different sessions if you have friends on all the major networks, thank god for gaim/trillian), a SSH session or two that you leave open for convenience, and fetchmail checking your remote mail server every 10-20 minutes or so and you could be using most of your daily bandwidth allotment on things you're not even actively doing, but that just kind of get taken for granted in the background.
If you're a gamer, Half-Life (which has the stingiest netcode I know of in a game that's still heavily played) will typically use almost 200MB over a 24 hour period. I know some people who almost play it that much, too. Other, newer games easily use 2-3x that much, especially if you tip them off to the fact that you have a broadband connection.
Anyway, it's true that bandwidth isn't free, and I don't even think NTL is doing anything particularly wrong by imposing a cap. I kind of wish Comcast would do it, then maybe all these people who keep their connections pegged at the max all day with file sharing traffic (like my roommates before I asked them to stop) would calm down and I could have a decent connection outside of 3am-8am. My likely small additional usage would be worth a reasonable overage charge to me under these circumstances.
I do think all their subscribers should be given the opportunity to bail from any current contracts without penalty, though, since they signed up for "unlimited usage".
Re:I can see why some people would complain (Score:3, Insightful)
I bet if you asked the business manager at the ISP they would be *delighted* to lose the class of customer for whom this is a problem.
Why Don't ISP's Scale Price Per Bandwidth Use? (Score:5, Interesting)
Selling unlimited access to all comers for the same price just encourages people to imagine that an ISP is a public utility and that access to bandwidth is a right.
On a related note.... (Score:3, Funny)
This is not what I paid for, and I will be writing to my MP. Just because Good is an omnipitent entity it does not give him the right to impose such limits on me.
Actually 30GB per month (Score:5, Interesting)
This probably won't be very popular, but... (Score:3, Insightful)
It would be tough for anyone to complain if they were charged $20/mo plus a dollar a gigabyte downloaded (or whatever is the bandwidth cost for your provider plus some fair markup).
I understand how the broadband companies don't want to raise prices on 90% of the users for the extra cost that 10% of their users incur.
So charge by use. I don't think anyone would argue "No, I shouldn't have to pay more just because I use more." There may be a few people out there that think bandwidth is free and unlimited, but.. well they're dumb.
Imagine paying $40/mo for gas. No matter how much you use. If you drive 4000 miles a month or 40. It doesn't make much sense does it? Bandwidth has cost per gigabyte just like gas has cost per gallon. It's not like 'pirating' software, where there's no additional cost incurred. When you use bandwidth, you are causing a cost to your ISP. You should be responsible for that.
That said, they shouldn't be bothering me with WHAT I do with the bandwidth I pay for.. that stuff bugs the crap out of me..
That Alan's provider.... (Score:4, Interesting)
Quote from his diary [linux.org.uk]
I'm just thinking how he'd react to "I'm sorry sir, I'm afraid you will have to stop using VPN". I sure wouldn't want to be the one making that call.
Eclipse (Score:3, Informative)
Around GBP 25/month buys me a connection to the second fastest ADSL provider [adslguide.org.uk] in the country.
There is no fixed term contract (I pay month by month), no traffic restrictions, no closed ports and very little downtime. Static IP addresses are standard and more are easy to obtain. In addition, all the usual webspace, mail and news stuff are included in the standard price.
I share the 512kb/s uplink with the three people I live with and two of our neighbours via a 802.11b. Between us we have a number of servers running so pretty much max out our bandwidth all of the time.
I suggest that anyone considering a switch from NTL consider them.
Anybody is better off outside Australia (Score:3, Informative)
Quotas and caps (Score:3, Insightful)
This problem reminds me of the late '80s when the phone companies wanted to charge modem users extra since they couldn't multiplex as many modem signals across the same line as they were using all available bandwidth (miniscule though it was at the time).
It's amazing how often people get Red Hat ISO's (Score:3, Insightful)
These people seem to download Red hat ISO's 4-6 times a week. Why not just come out and admit that 90% of the time you are downloading copyrighted material ?
The biggest bandwith hogs are
Pirate Software
Pirate Music
Pirate Video
If Red Hat ISO's didn't exist, it'd be OS service patches, or redownloading the virus definitions every 20 minutes being used to justify massive data bills.
No pure residential user in this world can justify 30 gb of data / month. And if you are using it for CVS or streaming video, bite the damn bullet and purchase a Business plan, and claim it on tax. You are ruining it for the true residential customers.
You're Lucky (Score:3, Interesting)
The solution: (Score:3, Insightful)
Geeze, why some people get all flustered when a cap is introduced on a low cost service is beyond me. Quit freeloading of other customers and pay for what you use.
As an NTL customer (Score:4, Interesting)
I've been with them for 5 years. Never been uphappy with the services they offer until now. I've even praised them up on here before. Apart from them closing down all their shops, reducing staffing numbers on the call desks, digging up the roads in my town for 3 years and forcing me to pay them three separate bills each month they are not bad.
The thing that makes me annoyed is that I first found out about them closing down alt.binaries through a friend. I knew they were on about upgrading their servers at some stage, I knew that they were thinking about charging extra for Usenet access - I filled in an online poll telling them I would consider paying extra. I would of paid if they had given me the option. I will now have to pay for another Usenet service which will only make bandwidth issues worse for them.
I found out about the 1Gb limit from Slashdot. Why have I not had a letter, a phone call, a god-damn-simple-email from them explaining this?
Now I'm one of these people that is connected to a P2P server 24/7. I'm not a leech, I don't download flat out at 600k all the time (impossible on most P2P networks). I am an average user. I get a 1 to 2 films each week and I like to evaluate some new software once or twice a month.
I pay a substantial part of my wages (7% of my gross income) to NTL for ALL my communication and entertainment needs. NTL is in the business of providing me with my needs - they don't do much else. What am I going to do now? Can they afford for me, as an average user, to switch to another provider? Another provider who would be cheaper and offer a higher upload speed as all ADSL providers seem to be doing at the moment. I am not getting the service I was getting last week, I am not getting the service I was getting when Usenet was functioning properly... and I'm still paying the same for it. I sorry but there are some simple sums for me to do as well now, even if I'm unlikely to go over the 1Gb per day limit. You get what you pay for, as the saying goes - or not in the case of NTL.
God damit, they even advertise on billboards about offering rich streaming media. More like poor steaming shit now.
Re:this is nothing (Score:2)
That is simply not true. A RedHat Linux iso set is something like 3 gigs.
Re:this is nothing (Score:3, Funny)
You obviously aren't running Debian unstable and getting daily updates of Gnome, KDE, Mozilla, and OpenOffice.
Re:this is nothing (Score:2)
I'm sure you can imagine what happens when I do publishing work. Uploading and downloading a single page of a yearbook to be printed is a number of megs.
Similar here in Iceland... (Score:3, Informative)