To think that if I pay for 10MB broadband I should get it?

[alistron1]

I pay for 10MB broadband because we are not the most prolific internet users in the world. We don't download films, games, music. We don't stream live TV. We use our singular laptop to browse the interweb in the evenings when we are at home.

On a friday evening I do like to watch/listen to music on youtube...is that high usage?

Anyway, the past few weekends my internet has been unusable, eg taking ages for pages to load, youtube videos not playing. I rang my service provider and they told me that I was a 'heavy user' and was subject to traffic management. Having checked my T&C's on their website this evening (which took 5 minutes to load) people like me are throttled to 512kbps until midnight of the day we 'abuse' our allowance.

I have been monitoring my broadband speed - bear in mind I am paying for 10MB of broadband I have not (for the past month) received more than 3.

So in summary, I am not getting what I pay for, and am being 'throttled' when I do want to use the service for which I pay for!!

To add insult to injury, I am paying 64 quid for a package that new users can get for 25 quid a month, and new customers get a fancy set top box too. Bah.

You may, or may not, see this message 'cos the page will time out no doubt when I press submit.

Am happy for tech geeks to correct me re broadband speeds/whether I am a heavy user BTW.

contact ofcom about this, they are investigating ISPs that quote download speeds that you can't get.

I queried this with BT and got informed that your broadband will be upto not a guaranteed 10mb..

The further away from the exchange you are, the crappier your speed will be. Those at the beginning of the line will get decent speeds usually.

ours is only about 3 - and we pay for 10 - hopeless. We can't ever watch vids or stream tv, we can't have one online and one on xbox online ... if 2 of us are online it's sooooooooooooooooooo slow.........

If you are with Virgin Media (who I know to have strict traffic management), then you'll have either 750MB or 1500MB to plow through depending on which package. I think the average youtube video file is around 15MB (although some hd ones are more like 100MB) so you will be able to watch 50 or so during the day (if you are on the lower package) as traffic is managed from 10am - midnight at weekends. Obviously if you are watching the high quality stuff, that number drops quite a lot.

The reason why adsl lines speeds are quoted as 'up to' is that the speed you will get depends on how long the wire between your house and the telephone exchange is. The further away, the slower your internet will be. Virgin Media is cable though so this does not apply to services from them.

Silly Question, is your wireless secure?
Are next door torrenting films or hooking up their ps3 to it?

YABU to complain about not getting the speed... as that is line dependent and it will have been mentioned to you at some stage that it is an up-to service.

YABU to complain about traffic management restrictions if you have exceeded your allowance. However, has your ISP offered you a different package so that you can choose to pay more for more traffic? Does your ISP provide software/hardware to help you know how much traffic you are using (some ISPs provide a webbased interface which will show traffic levels).

If it is Sky, then they can upgrade you from Lite to Unlimited (though unlimited may still have some traffic management, check the small print). They also have a usage monitor - see Sky Broadband: Usage Allowance

With BTVision - there is I think an option in the My BT part of the BT website to show broadband usage. Also depending on the homehub used, it may be possible to obtain stats from that within Advanced Settings or Technical/Helpdesk.

Some info about traffic shaping - bit technical

YANBU to moan that new users get a better deal - I find it so annoying when companies don't look after their existing users. New users cost money to get and may or may not stay beyond the initial contract period whereas existing users may already be out of their initial contract and may stay with the service for many years to come. Alas not sure there is anything that can be done for that... apart from leave and take up the service from another provider (which may be tricky if you have many services bundled together such as phone/tv/broadband).

These things are advertised in a way that leads you to expect to actually get 10mbs but think about roads. I live near a motorway, pay for 70mph through taxes, but am lucky to get 20mph at peak time.

who are you with?

I'm with Virgin Media and used to have 10MB broadband and there are four of us using it at the same time, recently upgraded to 20MB to make it a bit quicker cost bugger all extra. Did a check and we get 16mb on average when busy never had any problems.

YANBU - I am staying with my Mum and am shocked at the shoddy service UK internet providers are offering. She pays a lot for her internet and for the first 5 weeks I was here she had about 1 hour of service a day. No hope of you tube at all, she is lucky to be able to check email. Even after repeated phone calls and forcing the call centre staff to run diagnostics on the line, and getting them to agree it was abnormally shitty service, they still ket saying it was a traffic issue and too many people were using the same band width. Why should a user be penalized for this? Surely if you are paying for service, you should get service.

I totally agree with you, flying. Luckily where I live now I don't have to share my line with too many people but where I lived before the internet was barely usable at peak times because my isp had too many people on the same connection. I can only imagine what broadband would cost if the isps had to lower contention ratios so that we could get a decent service even if our neighbours were streaming films all night though.

flyingspaghettimonster you are not paying for a service, you are paying for hardware. The difference is most of the costs are fixed, they can't just lay on extra internet staff. But the ISPs aren't doing themselves any favours advertising headline speeds that people rarely see. And if you are trying to get a signal down miles of 1950s copper cable designed for voice calls the ISPs know you won't get anywhere near peak speed for much of the day. If they had half a brain they would spell out TYPICAL speeds and charge less for people living a long way away from exchanges who always get reduced speed EVEN IF THE EQUIPMENT COST IS EQUALLy HIGH. It's not often I advocate PR reptiles, but I'll make an exception.