Hi,
On 12/01/11 18:19, Robin Wilson wrote:
> I was particularly attracted to BE because they had completely unlimited services, whereas the others (Andrews and Arnold and LDNet) appear to have download/upload limits. Andrews and Arnold seem better on this front (their off-peak services are from 6pm and include weekends, whereas peak for LDNet counts as 9am to midnight!).
IDNet (With an I not an L - Curse sans fonts ;) ) do have limits. There
is a monthly overall limit and a peak (daytime/evening) limit. Whilst Be
may be "Unlimited" is there a fair use policy? I found IDNet's policy to
be very honest as they have no fair use policy other than the daytime
limit. Uploads aren't metered, only downloads. The only penalty for
breaching one of the download limits is £1 per GB of download you go over.
IDNet provide an RSS feed of your usage and their accounting system
notifies you if you go over or if it thinks you are likely to. For
example I had a download-a-thon the first week of one month and was
consuming data at a rate that, if it continued, would have led to an
"over" charge. As soon as my (usage per day) x (number of days in the
month) exceeded the bandwidth I was paying for I got the following email:
> Dear Paul Stimpson
>
> re: your broadband line number [REDACTED] (REDACTED)
>
> Over the time period 1/2/2009 to 7/2/2009 (6 days) you have downloaded 7.32 GB of data. Your monthly allowance is 60GB, 30GB of which can be used during the Peak Hours of 9am to midnight.
>
> Based on your current level of usage, your projected bandwidth use (data download) for a 30 day time period will be: 34.18 GB.
>
> If your current bandwidth usage continues then this would equate to an excess bandwidth charge of: £4 [£1.00/GB] for this month.
>
> You can monitor your bandwidth use online daily in the Customer Account section on the website:https://www.idnet.net/secure
>
> Kind regards,
>
> The IDNet Support Team
> support@???
Please note that these were old limits from the package I was on at the
time. The Home Superpro ADSL2+ package gives you 300GB to use at night
and 60GB that can be used any time, much more generous than the old
ADSL2 packages. All calls to support 0800 and are answered by a real
engineer. They don't discriminate on the grounds of OS choice. I once
asked a specialised question and ended up talking to the Chief Engineer.
Last year I moved to a new home in an area where the ADSL is notoriously
bad. I called IDNet and asked to do a home move. I was asked for the new
postcode. The sales person entered it into their system and I heard the
sucking in of breath. He told me that at best I might get half the speed
I was getting at my old house and at worst it might be as bad as 512k if
I'm on the end of a dodgy piece of copper. I was told I could proceed if
I wanted but, based on my usage history, there was nothing he could
offer me that he thought would make me happy and I was thanked for my
business.
The only game in (the "bad" end of) town is Virgin Media. I only wish
they were as open. If you google "virgin media" "detrimental use" you
will find a huge volume of upset people who have been threatened with
disconnection because they have breached VM's fair use policy but that
it is official VM policy not to reveal to customers what that policy is,
presumably in case everyone "works up to it". We are also subject to
traffic management on both upload and download. The stated objective was
that 75% of the network's total bandwidth was to be kept for streaming
services, rather than what most of the people I know want to use the
Internet for (everything they don't do on their TV)
I'm a prestigious downloader and I never had a problem with the limits
on the IDNet Home Supermax package. If you have an active ADSL
connection they will migrate you in and out for free on demand. The
minimum commitment is 1 month so I would recommend anyone give them a
go. There's nothing to lose and if you don't like the experience at the
end of the first month then you can get your MAC and move on.
Their community (
www.idnetters.co.uk) is a great and supportive place.
Customers of all ISPs are welcome. If you think I'm looking at then with
rose-tinted specs just go along, say you're considering switching and
ask how happy people are.
Cheers,
Paul.
