all,

I have had my broadban dconnection with Demon for a while now and all has been fine until tonight, let me explain, I have been trying for awhile to increase my download speeds and efficiency and thanks to peeps on here I can now happily dl films/musicv etc very quickly. I noticed tonight my internet was slooow so I tried a few speed tests and discovered that I had a dl speed of 124kbps !!! my upload speed was twice as fast !!! I contacted Demon who said that bvecause I had exceeded their fair usage policy my service had been restricted for 30 days to 128kbps !! This is it turns out because I have exceededc 50gb in dl's in a 4 week period. Has this happened to anyone else ?

The problem I have with them is that I pay (£20 pm) for an unlimited service which they have now explained is not really unlimited !!!

Am I the only one with this problem ? Surely in this day and age it is not unusual to dl 50 gb+ ?

I am also mad because they did not warn or tell me this was about to happen.

So I am now after another isp that provide 'real' unlimited dl's, so any suggestons would be very much appreciated,

thanks,

J

downloading too many films?

call them up and ask for the MD of customer care's direct telephone line...

Good fucking luck with that.

You'll end up speaking to some twat in India who will lie to you about their name, the availability of their managers/supervisors; then he'll put you on hold for an hour while in the end, the phone will just hang up.

Demon customer service? A shadow of its former self. They were the bollocks - best around. Now they're a waste of fucking bandwidth and the electricity required to make a telephone call.

Mofos.

I had it with virgin today:

you cant be activated unless you call from home, I don't use a cell phone - this posed a problem.

the mere threat of concentrated rog made them give up procedure and do it anyways...

Tiscali did the same thing to me after a couple of warnings put me in the badboys list but it only meant Of couldn't DL with any great speeds between 6pm to 11pm. It's unlimited as in they don't charge you or cap you at certain point but they do ask you to be nice and consider others because the gits are too cheap to buy enough bandwidth because it cuts into there profits.

they do have to consider contention ratios in the price, cable seems to not care or it is a selling point, put 200gb trough in one stream in the past.

it really does piss me off, how are they allowed to advertise an 'unlimited' service which really isnt ? and capping my service without warning, whats all that about ? When I did call I follwed the instructions on their site and got the correct number, when I eventually got through (connected and cut off three times) I was told I had the wrong number, I asked for the right one and, again after getiing cut of several time I eventually got through to the same bloody person !!!! AGGHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!

You are right Keye, Demon used to be so very good but now they are so very very bad.

just rechecked my connection speed and its back up to about 4.5 meg so I must be on the 'badboy 5-11 list'

Modern technology my arse, why is it so many other countries get a far superior service and in our so called modern advanced country we constantly get f*cked over...........


OK, rant over, I will calm down and speak to them calmly tomorrow, which I am sure will work ????

J

Yeah, that sounds about right. The usual bollocky run around.

No one has any numbers

No one has the ability to transfer you to another department "it's a different system"

Ahh! A mysterious SYSTEM. OOooohhh. I'm just a lowly consumer, who doesn't understand the dark mystery that shrouds the SYSTEM. I'll just bend over, accept that unlubed, smile and ask for a repeat session next week, shall I? You fucking tools.

No one will give you their real names, or the names of their supervisors - who, incidently, are the only people allowed to make any decisions.

I got through to an english guy the other day and he was g

e2a: talking about modern tech and other countries - Korea (the good one) are on 150mb services.......

speak to a manager, get their FULL name and ask for their managers full name and email address, thay will then have to at least treat you as fair as the company says.

Yeah, it goes something like this...

"Hi, can i speak to your supervisor please?"
"Sure thing, Mr Keye sir. I'll put you straight through"
"OK, thanks, what's your name, by the way?"
"Hmphflesed..."
"Hanton?"
"Yes"
"H. A. N. T. O. N.?"
"Yes"
"Wow, I'm amazed i got that right. For a moment i thought you'd just uttered some bullshit and are just agreeing to everything i say."
"Putting you through now sir"
"Before you do that Hanton, can you tell me what your managers name is?"
"Hmphflesed.(inaudible)"
"Jonson?"
"Yes"
"J. O. N. S. O. N.?"
"Yes"
"Amazing, wow. OK, is he busy.... hello? Hello? Hello???"

<Phone rings for 100 minutes>

"Sorry, the telephone line you are calling has been disconnected. Sorry, the telephone line you are calling has been disconnected. Sorry, the telephone line you are calling has been disconnected. Sorry, the telephone line you are calling has been disconnected. Sorry, the telephone line you are calling has been disconnected. Sorry, the telephone line you are calling has been disconnected. Sorry, the telephone line you are calling has been disconnected."

yep, i got that today too, yet here i am talking to you, and they said that i could not be on till 2-3 days when a tech came out to me....

get the name first, nothing else matters, make them spell it in the nato alphabet if you are not sure.

Romeo,
Ocsar,
Golf,
Echo,
Romeo

You will not find one simply because they do not exsist, they cannot exsist because it is regulated by Ofcom, i managed to download about 600gb a month for about several months before AOl sent me a letter stating that they were going to cut my connection down to 4 hours aday. I told them straight, you can shove it up your arse and cancelled contract.

They said as a result of Ofcom checking my downloads and usage they order AOL to stop my connection or face charges. Every internet provider is regulated by ofcom from what I was told, soon as they step in the ISP, AOL, BT whichever you use they will often slow your speed down without telling you. This way you never reach peak download speeds so you cannot download high amounts of data per month.

The limit is 50gb per month, any higher and eventually Ofcom will get involved and cut the speed or speak with the service provider and in some shape or form it will effect downloads once they get involved. They may even cut your daytime connection, in my case allowing 4 hours a day to use it.

You may find speed during the day once Ofcom are on the scene will result in slow downloads, and peak downloads at odd times late or early in the mornings when you least use your computer, they are fuckers for doing this.

Im now with BT, after questioning them over and over stating, do i get unlimited downloads they eventually stated Ofcom may get involved if you use more than 50gb a month, had to really question them and keep on until they admitted this was the case with all service providers.

Blatent false advertising, also AOL are fuckers for cancellations, i had to threaten them with court in order to cancel my account, they refused to give me a code which i needed in order to change servers. They stated because I cancelled without asking for it that they were not willing to provide it unless i signed up or offered them a one off month payment.

I told them not a prayer and i will see you in court, a day or so past and they phoned me asking me to re sign up, wankers, so basically stated no and after much pissing about for 3 weeks with some indian women who I couldn't understand they finally gave me my code.

True, that - 50GB a month is rather a lot, and you wouldn't be able to find an ISP that wouldn't take similar measures if you downloaded that amount, give or take 10-20GB here or there.

They all use the same lines, anyway, and as someone already mentioned, they have to take into account the 'contention ratio' of the line, which is normally between 20:1 and 50:1 - this means that, say on your '8Mbit' connection, you're actually sharing that between 20-50 other subscribers - they take advantage of the fact that most people who are using the line are light users, just checking their email, surfing the web and watching the odd YouTube video.

If everyone sharing your pipe behaved as you did, and downloaded 50GB/month, the line would slow to an absolute crawl - this is nothing new - it's always worked this way.

a bit of 'security analysis' might sort it out, but do do want to go that far?

¿Err - come again, roger?

naughty thoughts, never mind

your deal probably has a fair usage clause that lets them do this, and most ISP user traffic streaming to prioritise QoS servcies during high demand. Bastards. Who needs this interweb malarky anyhow

RFC 1149

fuckem

At least those hemp seeds might finally come in handy, then.

P.S. - Don't forget to set the 'Evil Bit'.

I love these systems.

I came up with the gorilla and the feline p2p protocols.

too many drugs and too much time on my hands

I've never heard of Ofcom checking people's downloads and ordering an ISP to cut back their use, are you sure AOL weren't bullshitting you? AFAIK Ofcom have neither the ability nor the authority to do this. And why would they want to? You using a lot of AOL's resources isn't their problem.

I agree it's totally outside Ofcom's remit. There are plenty of large businesses who's connections can use a lot more data than that on a monthly basis. I'm with NTLworld, and probably download 1-2 GB a day, and I've never had any hassle.

I've never had an AOL account myself, but I've had to deal with them on behalf of other people. IMHO they are probably the worst ISP out there with no respect or regard for what the internet is about and using every trick possible to tie people into their service. I hate them with a passion.

I use a cable company and now get 20mb cable,
i am constantly downloading but have never had any trouble and never had my bandwidth capped.
It costs £75 per month, however thats my line rental (free calls 24/7 to other uk numbers) full telly package and an extra decoder in the bedroom. and for someone that doesnt leave the house very often its a godsend.

worth every penny imo

T1

my friend, recently got hold of some spare virgin stuff, modem & settop; Mmmmm fun with jtag is imminent so he says...

which cable company are we talking about t1 ???(pm if needed)

on bt myself and thinking of ditching it as its piss poor tbh .. just done a speed test getting a massive 234k...
wow fast innit???? then theres the disconnection every few hours

paying something similar to yourself and im not a happy shopper. tbh i think they have throttled are bandwidth due to the amounts we have downloaded in the past

peppi

That would be NTL cable (now Virgin Media) - I've heavily used these cable broadband connections in the past, and have never noticed any throttling, come to think of it - very rare that any service outages happen, too.

Another advantage is that you're not constrained in speed should you be far from your local telephone exchange, either, with cable broadband.

No idea, they stated in the letter that Ofcom had interveined and as a result you are limited to 4 hours aday, something about a fair use policy was mensioned in the letter, they said there hands were tied. So I basically said in this case shove it, they responded we cannot do anything, even after saying I would ditch AOL, they still didn't rectify it so I cancelled my account.

I wondering if it had anything to do with some trouble way back with the FBI, I basically got into some internet piracy fraud with them due to being a dick wad way back in 2003 on Ebay.

It sounds like it may have something to do with Ofcom's ruling on their 'fair use' policy, then.



Fromhere.

Also:



From here.

I had this with BT:
Q:"so its not really unlimited then is it?"
A:"yes it is, as long as you dont try to download too much."
<click>

As for NTL/Virgin:



From here.

I used to be with Eclipse, they had a 30gb per month peak limit (between 6.00pm & midnight) but off peak no limits & were spot on...for a while...

Now they are using crazy contention ratio's & bandwidth throttling so at peak my connection is approx dial up speed...when it works at all, the only time i got any decent speed, usually around 4meg on an advertised 8 meg contract, was in the wee small hours!

So now its a change to Sky Broadband, what used to be Easynet, they've taken on over 1 million new customers in the previous 12 months & unlike other isp's, they have little or no complaints & super fast downloads.

So for £10 pm i get 16meg d/load speed with NO limits, although there is an approx limit of 250-300gig per month but even this has never been enforced, NO bandwidth throttling, NO restrictions at all, & you get a nice Netgear wirreless router too!
If i wanted 8meg downloads that would be free!

I do an average of 150gig per month, & usually grab a full movie in under an hour.

So check out the Sky website,HERE or even the sky broadband section on digitalspy HERE for a more impartial review & info.

Got to say i am very impressed & is about the only isp in the country offering this service, about as unlimited as you can get, & at a bargain price too!

edit to add...another damn useful unofficial sky site... HERE

Thanks for the info mate really good to know. Ever thought about working for Sky? you sold that product to me well

Gotta agree with Eclipse.

I was with them for 16 months but then suddenly at peak times I couldnt even get 100K download speed but my upload speed was 3 times better, then I like the original poster learnt about fair usage policy (not that Id even exceeded it) contention ratio's etc etc and swiftly moved away from Eclipse.

If you want a decent connection at peak times DONT go with Eclipse! Rip off completely. What is the point in paying for Broadband and getting dial up speeds during peak times which chances are is the time you want to access the internet too!

I think Eclipse went downhill after they got swallowed up by Kingston Communications, they were a small friendly bunch from Devon,they were going LLU, i even got a letter telling me to expect up to 24meg download & 2 meg up, then that all got scrapped when Kingston came on the scene, then their contention ratio's went stupid, thats why the peak rate speeds went so crap, too many people sharing one line, all to save money. When i joined they were in the top 3 ISP's & the only one to offer no limits off peak, now they're in the bottom three ISP's.

I made sure i told them all that when they asked why i was leaving, who knows maybe someone might listen.

I spent days scouring the net looking for another isp, digital spy is always a good source of info & the fact that Sky could take on 1 million new customers in 12 months without going tits up, like Talk-Talk or Freeserve etc swung it for me.

I altered my Sky TV package & saved £30, moved my land line phone to Sky & now get free evening & weekend calls to anywhere in the UK, & now my broadband is £15 cheaper than Eclipse & i get over twice the speed either direction & no throttling or contention problems.

I reckon i've saved around £60 per month incl phone calls & got a better service all round, even the Sky Broadband call centre is in Leeds not fucking Bangalore!!!

I dunno about working for them, but i have no problems recommending them to anyone.

cheers for the info Gnu, would love to join Sky but can only get thier connect package where I live £17 p/m with a MASSIVE 40gb dl limit !!!! Cant get cable around here either, would love to bin Demon as they have benn complete arseholes recently,

call to their cust service

'sorry we cant help',

'can I speak to a supervisor or manager',

'no you can't, is there anything else ?'

aghhhhh - arse holes

Its gets me soooo mad, I pay every month and they treat me like a twat, all I want is a reliable, fast braodband service witha realistic dl limit, not some 40gb crap,

there must be a good one out there somewhere.........................................

J

dunno if its changed recently but 40/50gb used to be the top package on bt.

Well thats a major bummer, is it cos you live right out in the sticks somewhere? Try asking on digital spy, there are lots of very knowledgeable guys on there that might know a better isp?
Seems weird Sky want to charge you more for a slower/worse service dunnit?




I used to be with BT for about 3 years, faultless, never had a single problem....then they brought in their F.U.P. they offered me 40gig per month & £10 for ever gig over that....that would mean last months internet, if i were still with them, would be £1,800.00 plus my £30 per month!!!!

Sky rock at £10 per month!

i had an a phone bill over a grand once for dial up, fucking house mate, I got out of it by some direct debit magic (i never signed it, and I saw the bill - woops in the bin they both went), the ISP aslo lied about the free calls too.

cable always did me proud since.

Jay, try this site... SamKnows
Its a damn useful site & this search will tell you what equipment is in your local exchange & what isp's you can use, the Broadband Checker is on the menu on the left.

it's not a dl limit tho is it? its up&down? a bittorrent could run to 3gb+ total both directions for a film.

No its not, its another company, however i dont want to name them in a public forum as it would give my location away

T1

didnt read all the thread but if aint been pointed out all ya will more than likely get is a two word answer

fair usage

its might be in small print of ya ISP contract tends be in mosts regardless download claims the cop out clause to stop u gettin to much goodies

Aye it is both directions for sure, good old ofcom, they insisted on limits...i mean a Fair Usage Policy, being introduced to all isp's as there were big concerns about lack of bandwidth & piracy, thankfully due to isp's installing their own updated gear in exchanges, LLU, ADSL2, speeds are rapidly increasing & bandwidth/contention ratio's are not as big a problem as they feared, i reckon thanks to Sky, movies on demand, legal online downloads etc FUP's may soon be a thing of the past.... Sky is the highest F.U.P. limit in the uk at the moment, maybe more will follow, rumour has it O2 are doing similar but they are being a bit vague about it on their web site

I do a lot of p2p, but my max has been around 180gig, so an un-enforced 300 gig limit from Sky suits me sir!