BT targets broadband hogs

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jabulani

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Jabulani
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/03/23/bt_hogs/

BT is pulling the plug on around 4,000 broadband hogs because of "excessive usage". The giant telco reckons these punters - who make up less than 0.2 per cent of the firm's 2.3m broadband users - are consistently hoovering up more 100 gig each a month.
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Abuser or hog? Eish, why do they insist on calling me names???

( Actually I don't do over 100Gb, but one can try!! )
 
Why don't they just create an ADSL product designed for them?
 
BT is shooting itself in the foot, the "hogs" along with other people who disagree with this policy of theirs simply move on to another provider. the wonders of competition :(
 
So their average useage per subscriber is going to go down by bout 0.18GB, if I aint mistaken.

Like WOW, thats going to bring on HUGE savings for them :mad:
 
I spent last year in England and one of my housemates let me use his internet for free. (what a good guy) Anyway, it was BT Internet and we didn't know that they had this capping bull**** and I was going crazy with his 2mb account (first time with broadband) and I was downloading at least 100gb a month.

Anyway, apparently they sent him a letter of warning to stop the 'excessive' usage. Unfortunately he didn't actually get the warning letter for some reason and at the end of the next month they sent him a bill of like 150 pounds, 1 pound per GB in excess. I was so stressed out about it but it turned out that all he had to do was change ISP's and they forget about the amount owed.

So he changed to Be Unlimited's 24mb uncapped account for 24 pounds a month. Ah, it was a thing of beauty downloading at 2MB/s but unfortunately I only enjoyed it for about a month after which I came back home and am now back on my good ol' 56k.

Sometimes I think it was all just a dream.
 
Seriously tho, 100gb on a 20/40gb account is really hogging it AND it's written in the agreement about fair usage.

Considering it costs about R350pm for a 2mb line with 20gig allocation, that's hardly a bad deal.

I could download 100gb in a month, but I'd have to seriously ask myself what am I doing this for?

One can only assume these people are either :-

1. Unemployed - loads of free time
2. Lazy students - shouldn't have loads of time, but don't work at school
3. Addicts to sharing - downloading/sharing to get "kudos" on file sharing networks

If you look at it like this, a 40 minute TV programme at 700mb - that's 142 programmes, or 94 hours of viewing.

A high quality DVD rip at 4gb each - 25 movies - or 37.5 hours of viewing.

Or 20000 mp3 files - 1000 hours of music

Or 25 games, average playing time of each, 10 hours - 250 hours.

Get the picture?

It is most DEFINATELY excessive usage, there's no two ways about it.
 
bb_matt said:
It is most DEFINATELY excessive usage, there's no two ways about it.
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Ya it might be excessive, but what difference is 4000 less people going to make? if it was half of all their subcribers i would understand, but only 4000?
 
They are talking about 4000 users using 100gb or over each month, inbetween the usage allocation and 100gb, there's a 60 to 80gb "zone" which hasn't been mentioned.

All they are doing is sending out a message, you agreed to our contract, but you are breaking it, so we will have to terminate that contract.

It's business.

They didn't HAVE to get broadband, it wasn't FORCED upon them and they willingly signed that contract between themselves and BT KNOWING that thier allocation was set at a specific usage per month.

There is simply NO excuse for this, considering the fantastic quality of the service and the very competitive pricing structure.

If you sign a contract, you stick to it.
 
I don't think it's that competitive in relation to the rest of the UK market, for a few extra pounds a month you can have an unlimited ADSL2+ connection.

I consider the capped accounts in the UK to be a bit of a ripoff generally.
 
Yes, it is a thing of the purest beauty. It does have a cap though...

...500GB
 
mooK said:
Yes, it is a thing of the purest beauty. It does have a cap though...

...500GB
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I would try very hard to stay within it, I really would:rolleyes:
 
BT said:
hoovering up more 100 gig each a month
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100GB.. oh no heaven forbid.

0.2% is only 4600 customers.. they should rather move to Be or UKOnline and get a nice 22Mbps uncapped connection. Damn pirates! BT should send them each a parrot and a warning. :D
 
As a consumer, it must be really great to have options like that available to you :(
 
BTs stand on exceeding the monthly limits is fairly liberal and indicative of UK broadband providers. http://www2.bt.com/static/i/btretail/consumer/broadbandusage/index.html - They dont restrict your service and they dont make you pay for excesses provided its only exceeded occasionally. There are also plenty of other ISPs around for these hogs[sic] to switch over to. Must be nice eh? :)

What never fails to get me is the righteous few who call for people to justify their usage in these cases. I can somewhat understand it in SA but overseas?? Especially in the case of the UK where there are so many ISPs and so much bandwidth available. Get over it - it's none of your business.
 
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