Have You Fought Your ISP Over Bandwidth Limits?

serutan asks: "Recently, a DC++-related mailing list I subscribe to has been buzzing with posts about letters from various ISPs in the U.S., UK, Australia and NZ, warning customers to curtail their download bandwidth usage to an 'acceptable' limit (generally 200 hours/month for three straight months). These are people who thought they signed up for unlimited access. Some of the letters hint that high bandwidth usage may imply illicit activity. All are vague on possible consequences, and nobody has mentioned actually being cut off by an ISP. One guy received an apology after talking to a supervisor about the meaning of the word 'unlimited.' Is this a growing trend? Have you received similar threats from an ISP? What was the outcome?" Of course, would it be so difficult for ISPs to stop advertising "unlimited" access, and instead include in the small (or not-so small) print exactly what the "acceptable" bandwidth usage is? If you did sign up for "unlimited" services and find yourself in this predicament, what have you done to get your bandwidth issues resolved?

Problems with Speakeasy.net

[Kenja]

I was paying speak easy for 768/384 and they where giving me 1536/768. The bastards.

Re:Unlimited = ??

[wcb4]

I think you are right.... eMusic redefined unlimited to mean 2,000, why can't the ISP redefine it? I think I will redefine "dollar" to mean one of the little copper colord coins, and I will gladly pay my ISP 50 of them for "unlimited" broadband.

Unlimited frequently is not.

[glomph]

One of the mobile phone providers advertises "UNLIMITED" minutes in one high-end package. In the submicrometer-sized print at the bottom of the ad it states that usage above 3000 minutes "is subject to review".

Reminds me of the old Dennis the Menace episode where Dennis sets up a lemonade stand with the sign "All you can drink, 5 cents". A thirsty customer gets a small paper cup, empties it promptly, and asks for more. Smart-ass Dennis replies: "That's all you can drink, for 5 cents!"

Bandwidth caps...

[Jacer]

I have a 200mb/day upload limit on my computer in my dorm via the school's policy. It makes it hard to run a decent warez server! Downloads are unlimited though. Not that it matters, sharing my connection with 30,000 other students kind of limits the speed. I have a nice yagi antenna on my Christmas list though. If I point it out of my window, I should be able to hit the access points, which aren't on the residence hall network. That's 200mb/s of untapped bandwidth. They won't notice if my room mate and I are using a mere 11mb/s!

Re:guilty until proven innocent?

[IsThisNickTaken]

"it is not a good bussiness practice to see your customers as criminals and treat them like that." Too bad the RIAA hasn't figured that one out yet...

Another Speakeasy Customer

[Limburgher]

I can relate to the guy above. I'm paying for 608/128, minding my own business, and then they tell me that in March, I'm getting pushed to 1.5/358, just like that, no choice in the matter, AND at NO CHARGE!

I am OUTRAGED! This, and they can't even be bothered to limit which ports I can use or tell me I can't run servers. . .assholes. . .:))

Comcast has started a capping methodology...

[Anonymous Coward]

...that mirrors the rolling blackouts used to meter electricity in Baghdad. They simply use their abysmal service levels as form of a cap.

Re:Problems with Speakeasy.net

[Anonymous Coward]

"The bastards."

So it was the Speak Easy people that killed Kenny...

Re:guilty until proven innocent?

[Lord Apathy]

I had that problem. They thought I was downloading movies. I fixed that thought. Told them the truth. I was downloading porn. Solved that prolem right away and haven't heard a peep out of them.

Re:guilty until proven innocent?

[GoofyBoy]

>I was downloading porn. Solved that prolem right away and haven't heard a peep out of them.

Now the techies know exactly which user's bandwith they should mirror.

Re:Reality check

[harlows_monkeys]

If there is a market for something, it will exist. That's the beauty of capitalism

OK, so where can I get a warp drive, transporter, replicator, and holodeck?

Re:Oh Come ON

[johnkoer]

As Homer once said:

"Aw, people can come up with statistics to prove anything, Kent.
Forfty percent of all people know that."

Re:Oh Come ON

[gavri]

Like it or not, 90% of those people who have high bandwidth usage are using it for illicit activities.

94.5% of all statistics are made up - Woody Allen

Re:Problems with Speakeasy.net

[frodo from middle ea]

No, but your poor attempt at a joke certainly did.

Re:Problems with Speakeasy.net

[rifter]

The original post was a joke about how good SpeakEasy's service is. What is the point to your comment?

That AOL's service is a joke?

High upload bandwidth indicates pirating???

[nessus42]

I take umbrage to the idea that having a high upload bandwidth indicates piracy! I use a lot of upload bandwidth, and it is only because I am using the Internet to backup the valuable mp3, XviD, and .rar data on my computer so that in case of disk failure, I don't lose everything.

Fortunately, I have a group of friends who are so kind as to provide me disk space on their computers to store these backups, and likewise I return the favor by providing them with disk space on mine.

Re:Speakeasy.net plays that game too

[slaker]

The dialup ISP I used to used let me maintain my connection indefinitely. I managed 1037 hours for a single connection, once (that's like 6 weeks and one day). They let me multilink free of charge, too. For $13 a month.

My mental image was of some admin on their end looking at my pair of 14.4 connections saying "let the poor bastard stay connected, he deserves it."

Re:Unlimited = ??

[dslbrian]

the marketing droids see "unlimited" as a convenient, useful buzzword

Hmm, if Ford or Chevy picked up on this I wonder if we would see the ALL NEW SUV with unlimited range (300mi), unlimited mileage (10mi/gal), unlimited capacity (6ppl if you squeeze them in). Just imagine the unlimited marketing potential!!

Re:Problems with Speakeasy.net

[Anonymous Coward]

Fractional T1's are not contended, get a calculator and do the math. You are an idiot if you believe cable/dsl providers pay anything like an end user for transit or line lease. If I advertise sale of a guitar it doesn't matter that my TOS say "by guitar I mean neanderthal nose flute."

You are obviously very intelligent, which is defined in my personal lexicon as "clueless asshat." Have a nice day.