Tag Archives: bandwidth

Orange really wind me up…

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So as you probably know, I recently built my own computer. It’s all going brilliantly. Except from one thing…

Orange are a little bit annoying sometimes. In fact, they aren’t what you’d call an A* ISP. Their router is a little shabby (it can’t decide whether it prefers English or French, and it often forgets that it has ever been turned on), and their customer service isn’t brilliant either.

However, the one thing that annoys me most of all is the poor management of bandwidth usage. It’s a pain. I know that Orange seem to provide 40GB of monthly usage but they give you no means whatsoever of monitoring how much bandwidth you have consumed in one month.

Then, they say that if you use more than 40GB a month they’ll send you a warning and then cut your speed to 512kbps!! What the hell? They won’t let you monitor your bandwidth but they’ll send you a letter if you go in the slightest over 40GB.

And then if you fail to lower your usage after that, they’ll cut your connection!

Frankly, I’d rather pay a little extra per month than have my speed throttled if I go over my usage. Doesn’t that seem like the more sensible thing to do from a company point of view? They make a little more money rather than loosing a customer.

Honestly I think Orange are making big mistakes and ripping us off. Bethere do unlimited 8MB broadband for £13.50 per month on a shorter contract (12 months, compared to Orange’s 18 months) and there’s no set limit on how much you can use per month!

Come on Orange, this is rubbish!

ISPs should just tell us the bandwidth limit, and not claim “unlimited”

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Following up from my investigation into which ISPs actually provide unlimited broadband, I am beginning to wonder why some ISPs advertise “unlimited” broadband when it clearly isn’t.

It confuses me – why can’t ISPs just advertise the amount of bandwidth that you are actually allowed to use rather than advertising a service that isn’t correct? Isn’t that some sort of fraud? I mean if I went out and bought five pints of beer and only got three, I’d be a little annoyed (honestly, I’m not like that – I don’t drink!, it’s just a scenario). It’s a similar sort of service.

Unlimited means something that has no limit. We all know that. So why are ISPs telling us a lie?

It just doesn’t make business sense to me. If you are an ISP, why do you want to tell customers they can download as much as they like when they really can’t? It just creates hassle – if users download more than you want them you have to send them a letter complaining that they are downloading too much, then another letter if they don’t have a reaction to your first letter, then threatening warnings about legal action, then court cases – it goes on and costs money!

Wouldn’t it just be simpler if ISPs just made it absolutely clear how much you can download per month without having to go through endless “fair use policies” that often don’t claim the usage allowances anyway? Aghh! This one is very frustrating.

Executive of iPlayer suggests ISPs charge for high quality iPlayer

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The executive in charge of the BBC iPlayer service has suggested that ISPs charge an extra flat rate charge of £10 per month to watch high quality streams of the iPlayer service. (Source)

In my opinion, I think that this isn’t particularly fair. If we are paying for bandwidth and speeds to watch this, why the hell are we being expected to pay for downloading (or streaming) content which we are allowed to in the terms of our ISP’s fair use policy.

Why should we pay even more? ISPs shouldnt charge us for bandwidth we already get in the terms of the contract. If you have 8MB per second broadband (or pay for this in the terms of your contract, even if you don’t physically get it) with say 40GB bandwidth usage per month (most “unlimited” ISPs allow that amount) then you shouldnt have to pay for any more, I think. A couple of high quality streams from iPlayer in a month won’t even get you vaguely close to 40GB. Perhaps, if you are on a more limited contract with perhaps 5GB usage, ISPs may well have to charge you, but most people have more usage than that.

iPlayer claim that currently the streams they run at the moment are 700kbps, but in 3 months time they may be up to 1.5mbps. Why? Do we really need that? iPlayer streams are perfectly good now, even on a large TV. It seems utterly pointless.

Besides, if you want high quality, just download the video. They tend to be very good quality at still a relatively low file size.

It just doesn’t make sense. ISPs are saying that the internet is slowing down because people use iPlayer too much and that hogs all the bandwidth. But it shouldnt. If we pay for a deal that theoretically should cope with the bandwidth that iPlayer uses, why are they complaining? Who’s to blame?

We already pay TV liscenses (well you do if you have a TV – or should be – but you don’t have to if you don’t have a TV in the house and don’t watch live TV), broadband costs, and equipement costs. The last thing people want is for ISPs to be charging us rediculous amounts of money for bandwidth usage we should already have.

It doesn’t make any sense at all to me. What are your thoughts?