BT Internet Fair Usage Policy

[Russ.]

Hi,

Ive just had an email from bt informing me that ive gone 3gb over the 50gb max download limit and that i will be charged an additional 90p on my next bill.
Whilst it is only 90p so im not too worried what i am feeling rather annoyed about is the fact that bt have always said they will inform you when you are approaching your usage limit...which suprise suprise they never have.

My final gripe is the fact that bt dont provide a tool to monitor your usage accurately, within my house there are 3 computers connected to the internet and an xbox 360. So it is proving difficult to monitor the household usage accurately even if i install bandwidth monitor on ever computer.

Anyone know were i stand in regard to telling bt well to shove their charges? How do i know ive actually used 53gb and that it isnt a billing error? its not like my phone bill where im provided an itemised bill, whilst i understand this is not really possible with an internet connection it IS possible to provide me with my usage on their homepage if they chose to.


Rant over, Russ

 

[cli0 172]

simple advice ... bin BT ... they are sh1t

cheaper ,better ISP's out there .

 

[Russ.]

i am planning to soon, got a couple of months left on my contract from when i upgraded to adsl max.

Only thing im not looking forward to is speaking to trevor from india about getting my mac code lol

 

[cli0 172]

hahaha true ,was a simple job for me + gave me pleasure in telling BT to stick it .

In my time having BT broadband i had very little problems ,but boy phoning Trevor made it a chore .... one reason i decided to change personally ,other than cost .

 

[Russ.]

i am quite a heavy downloader so doesnt suprise me ive been charged by bt...even though ive been cutting my usage right down this month.

ive been looking at tescos internet, my gfs with them and hasnt had any grief with them yet.

 

[cli0 172]

i changed to sky 16mb connection ,unlimited usage (i believe some restrictions) ,for £10 a month ,free wireless router etc ,never had a problem with them personally .... worth a look .

 

[richy22]

I tried to persuade my old man to go with someone other than BT for broadband
But he said he didnt want the hassle of having to go thorugh to different companies when things go wrong!

I.e ringing orange when theres problem with connection and Bt for problem with line!

Fool! Now we on Bt and its crap!

 

[KyleB]

had no problems with the BT 6.5meg adsl line that my dad has at home. 90p isnt all that much really though is it, is it worth the effort of contesting the charge?

 

[Russ.]

its more the principle. if i cant monitor my usage then what happens if i go wayyyyyy over the limit? itl be alot more than 90p. i really wouldnt mind the charge if i had access to a usage system when logging in to bts website

 

[dk]

check this out for a laugh, I am having the same problem with BT, I have exceed my limit 3 times in a row now, 73GB, then 52GB then 66gb and have now got this email

--------------------------------------------------------------------
Dear Customer,
This email is to advise you that last month you exceeded the usage allowance for your BT Total Broadband Option 4 service.

Your current monthly usage allowance is 50 GB.


Your total usage for last month was 66.07 GB.

Don't worry, we're not going to take any action this month. However if you exceed the allowance next month we will raise a charge based on £0.30 for every extra GB you use.
Alternatively, if you wish to avoid usage charges completely, you can always upgrade to BT Total Broadband Option 3, offering Unlimited Usage for just £26.99 per month.
For more details about this offer or for any other enquiries about this Email, please call 0800 707 6044, between 8am and 5pm, Mondays to Fridays.
Thank you for choosing BT Total Broadband.
Best wishes,
BT Total Broadband team

--------------------------------------------------------------------

The funny thing is that I am on a package they don't offer any more and I pay £29.99 for Option 4 knowing that it had a 50gb limit but also that as its the top package (even though its not available anymore) so i wouldn't get over charged.

Now the tell me I am going to get charged unless I reduce my package down to a cheaper one that costs only 26.99 and gives me unlimited usage lol?

I don't understand but I will be speaking to BT this week as thats a joke, I will reduce my package and accept unlimited usage, if they tell me there is still a fiar use policy I will tell them that unless they want to lost my business completely to a free service from Orange or SKy that I am entitled to then they will let me have a few GB's over, they are being ridiculaous when they charge so much they shoudln't moan about me paying £30 a month for the privilege of getting 70gb from them.

Oh well.

 

[Adam K]

check this out for a laugh, I am having the same problem with BT, I have exceed my limit 3 times in a row now, 73GB, then 52GB then 66gb and have now got this email

--------------------------------------------------------------------
Dear Customer,
This email is to advise you that last month you exceeded the usage allowance for your BT Total Broadband Option 4 service.

Your current monthly usage allowance is 50 GB.


Your total usage for last month was 66.07 GB.

Don't worry, we're not going to take any action this month. However if you exceed the allowance next month we will raise a charge based on £0.30 for every extra GB you use.
Alternatively, if you wish to avoid usage charges completely, you can always upgrade to BT Total Broadband Option 3, offering Unlimited Usage for just £26.99 per month.
For more details about this offer or for any other enquiries about this Email, please call 0800 707 6044, between 8am and 5pm, Mondays to Fridays.
Thank you for choosing BT Total Broadband.
Best wishes,
BT Total Broadband team

--------------------------------------------------------------------

The funny thing is that I am on a package they don't offer any more and I pay £29.99 for Option 4 knowing that it had a 50gb limit but also that as its the top package (even though its not available anymore) so i wouldn't get over charged.

Now the tell me I am going to get charged unless I reduce my package down to a cheaper one that costs only 26.99 and gives me unlimited usage lol?

I don't understand but I will be speaking to BT this week as thats a joke, I will reduce my package and accept unlimited usage, if they tell me there is still a fiar use policy I will tell them that unless they want to lost my business completely to a free service from Orange or SKy that I am entitled to then they will let me have a few GB's over, they are being ridiculaous when they charge so much they shoudln't moan about me paying £30 a month for the privilege of getting 70gb from them.

Oh well.

tbh they wouldn't care if they lost you anyway.

you use more than the average user, you are not the type of customer an isp wants anyway.

of course there will be an fup with the other bt package. all isp's have fup's, otherwise they couldn't sustain an "unlimited" package.

 

[dk]

check this out for a laugh, I am having the same problem with BT, I have exceed my limit 3 times in a row now, 73GB, then 52GB then 66gb and have now got this email

--------------------------------------------------------------------
Dear Customer,
This email is to advise you that last month you exceeded the usage allowance for your BT Total Broadband Option 4 service.

Your current monthly usage allowance is 50 GB.


Your total usage for last month was 66.07 GB.

Don't worry, we're not going to take any action this month. However if you exceed the allowance next month we will raise a charge based on £0.30 for every extra GB you use.
Alternatively, if you wish to avoid usage charges completely, you can always upgrade to BT Total Broadband Option 3, offering Unlimited Usage for just £26.99 per month.
For more details about this offer or for any other enquiries about this Email, please call 0800 707 6044, between 8am and 5pm, Mondays to Fridays.
Thank you for choosing BT Total Broadband.
Best wishes,
BT Total Broadband team

--------------------------------------------------------------------

The funny thing is that I am on a package they don't offer any more and I pay £29.99 for Option 4 knowing that it had a 50gb limit but also that as its the top package (even though its not available anymore) so i wouldn't get over charged.

Now the tell me I am going to get charged unless I reduce my package down to a cheaper one that costs only 26.99 and gives me unlimited usage lol?

I don't understand but I will be speaking to BT this week as thats a joke, I will reduce my package and accept unlimited usage, if they tell me there is still a fiar use policy I will tell them that unless they want to lost my business completely to a free service from Orange or SKy that I am entitled to then they will let me have a few GB's over, they are being ridiculaous when they charge so much they shoudln't moan about me paying £30 a month for the privilege of getting 70gb from them.

Oh well.

tbh they wouldn't care if they lost you anyway.

you use more than the average user, you are not the type of customer an isp wants anyway.

of course there will be an fup with the other bt package. all isp's have fup's, otherwise they couldn't sustain an "unlimited" package.

so you are telling me that BT would like to lose a customer that uses their phone service and subscribes to their top internet package, I doubt it, its all easy money for them, they hate losing customers to other phone companies, i could go with a non bt line and they shouldn't want to lose a customer paying them over £400 a year.

 

[dk]

just checked the site and from the middle of Jan the top package is unlimited so i am paying more than the top package for 50gb and i can downgrade to unlimited, its crazy, will call them tomorrow to get them to do it.

 

[Adam K]

just checked the site and from the middle of Jan the top package is unlimited so i am paying more than the top package for 50gb and i can downgrade to unlimited, its crazy, will call them tomorrow to get them to do it.

you will still have an fup.

and yes they wouldn't care if you left them as an isp. they might care if u left them for their other services, but i don't know the breakeven figures for those as i don't work for a company that supplies phone services.

7 to 8gb is around the breakeven point for an isp charging around £25 a month, so if you have loads of customers using way more than that then they are not making you a profit and you need a lot of very low usage customer cross subsidising the high usage customers.

 

[dk]

just checked the site and from the middle of Jan the top package is unlimited so i am paying more than the top package for 50gb and i can downgrade to unlimited, its crazy, will call them tomorrow to get them to do it.

you will still have an fup.

and yes they wouldn't care if you left them as an isp. they might care if u left them for their other services, but i don't know the breakeven figures for those as i don't work for a company that supplies phone services.

7 to 8gb is around the breakeven point for an isp charging around £25 a month, so if you have loads of customers using way more than that then they are not making you a profit and you need a lot of very low usage customer cross subsidising the high usage customers.

their FUP does not include extra charges though when on the unlimted package and thats what i want, i have one now when i am charged extra for going over when i can get one where i'm not charged and its cheaper, no brainer!

this is all new from BT as they have never had unlimited before, my 50gb limit was always the highest.

 

[Mark5290]

Be careful if you are swapping from BT to another ISP's 'up to 8mb' service as i am with Virgin.net on the 'up to 8mb' connection, during the daytime in the week i get a good 5.5mb - 6.0mb connection speed, but at weekends(peak time) my connection speed usually drops down to about 1mb, which is less than the 2mb i was on before.

Most independant ISP's say they no longer operate a typical contention ration on ADSL Max products, but regulate yours and everyone else's connection to how many users/heavy downloaders are on the same line at peak times, some claim to still be able to offer at least a 2mb connection at busy times.

 

[Final Maxim]

i was on BT top package which was 40 gig a month limit, i went over once by 4 gig and they emailed me saying they would charge if it happens again etc.

now moved to SKY broadband, and on an "upto 16 meg" line we got a good constant 10 meg on the main PC. its only £10 a month too but i think you gotta have sky telly to have the deal

 

[Russ.]

Be careful if you are swapping from BT to another ISP's 'up to 8mb' service as i am with Virgin.net on the 'up to 8mb' connection, during the daytime in the week i get a good 5.5mb - 6.0mb connection speed, but at weekends(peak time) my connection speed usually drops down to about 1mb, which is less than the 2mb i was on before.

Most independant ISP's say they no longer operate a typical contention ration on ADSL Max products, but regulate yours and everyone else's connection to how many users/heavy downloaders are on the same line at peak times, some claim to still be able to offer at least a 2mb connection at busy times.

we have the same with bt, i beleive alot of it is down to how busy your exchange is but im not 100% on that. Ive decided im going to phone my mate trevor in bt indias call centre at somepoint within in the next week and fight for my mac code

 

[Final Maxim]

the problems we had with our mac code with BT and SKY was absolutely pathetic, BEWARE!!!
i would type out the phone calls we made to bt and sky, from bt telling us to tell sky to take the marker off our line, and sky telling us we cant do that as it is illegal to and that it is down to BT who then said it was skys job to do it which it wasnt. we ended up phoning sky about 7 times n bt 7 times, no exageration. piss poor pathetic

 

[Aberclio182]

Bt are great, been with them since 2003, was always on the top package, upgraded to total broadband. Got a letter the other day from them saying we have just recently noticed you have not been charged for using our broadband service. Bugger only took them 3 years lol. Good bit however we will not be reclaiming the money and hope you enjoy your broadband at 26.99 lol b****cks!!

 

[Mells]

WTF do you guys download to be getting upto 70gb per month??

I download a fair bit and never really get anywere close to my 6gb limit. Fair enouth I dont download movies etc, but christ, I cant believe that somepeople are doing 2gb per day..

 

[Adam K]

WTF do you guys download to be getting upto 70gb per month??

I download a fair bit and never really get anywere close to my 6gb limit. Fair enouth I dont download movies etc, but christ, I cant believe that somepeople are doing 2gb per day..

i can max out my line and do around 30gb in a 24 hour period.

mostly download "linux iso's" though

 

[tommyboy]

WTF do you guys download to be getting upto 70gb per month??

I download a fair bit and never really get anywere close to my 6gb limit. Fair enouth I dont download movies etc, but christ, I cant believe that somepeople are doing 2gb per day..

i can max out my line and do around 30gb in a 24 hour period.

mostly download "linux iso's" though

30GB in 24 hrs? omg... my line would take forever to do that, lame 2meg :dapprove:

 

[Mells]

WTF do you guys download to be getting upto 70gb per month??

I download a fair bit and never really get anywere close to my 6gb limit. Fair enouth I dont download movies etc, but christ, I cant believe that somepeople are doing 2gb per day..

i can max out my line and do around 30gb in a 24 hour period.

mostly download "linux iso's" though

What linux distro do you use atm? I'm a ubuntu convert myself. I think I'll have a pop at Suse as everyone keeps saying how good its got atm.

 

[Adam K]

i can max out my line and do around 30gb in a 24 hour period.

mostly download "linux iso's" though

What linux distro do you use atm? I'm a ubuntu convert myself. I think I'll have a pop at Suse as everyone keeps saying how good its got atm.

i don't use linux.