Bad news for BT ADSL customers.

[cHodAX]

I was just browsing and noticed this news post on The Register, if I have read it right it seems that BT are dropping prices across the board but introducing a download cap. The 512k service is being capped at 15gb a month which is a friggin joke if it is right. All this and BT haven't bothered to inform the customers

Anyway, go read it for yourself. uke:


http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/06/30/bt_broadband_price/

 

[Jaem-]

Hmm, unstable connection most of the time, and 1-2 week for engineers to come to fix things is making me wonder why I don't move to Blueyounder.

Last I heard Blueyounder inceased speeds for customers for free. :/

 

[Archeon]

Whats next? Fire-stations will only be able to awnser 50 emergency calls (40 of which will inevitably be pranks) a month? the Police will only be allowed to make 6 arrests a week? Hospitals will only be allowed to treat 2 people for cancer a year? I'd blame the government, but i've just remembered BT is private now

 

[cHodAX]

Hmm, unstable connection most of the time, and 1-2 week for engineers to come to fix things is making me wonder why I don't move to Blueyounder.

Last I heard Blueyounder inceased speeds for customers for free. :/

NTL upgraded all thier 512k customers to 600k and now 750k for FREE, BT feel they can offer a poorer service for £3 less but £7 more than the competition. Makes me sick tbh.

 

[Wij]

teehee - been on BT ADSL for ages but just before they did this I moved house and got cable. Go me \o/

 

[Skaven]

teehee - been on BT ADSL for ages but just before they did this I moved house and got cable. Go me \o/

Makes me happy im on aol tbh. People have slated them but ive had nothing but good things. Nice unrestricted 1mb connection , And i don't even have to use the annoying aol client to connect either

 

[Morchaoron]

Whats next? Fire-stations will only be able to awnser 50 emergency calls (40 of which will inevitably be pranks) a month? the Police will only be allowed to make 6 arrests a week? Hospitals will only be allowed to treat 2 people for cancer a year? I'd blame the government, but i've just remembered BT is private now

and you only be allowed 1 post a day

 

[GReaper]

Is this even an issue? You can choose any ADSL provider you want, why would anyone stick with BT with these caps?

 

[Cyfr]

Not having broadband for 2+weeks would stop me from changing, as im not a mad downloader but like to download a few games/movies a month..
Like atm on with freeserve, but they dont offer migration and I wanna move.. lucky im moving house soon so can get it as soon as I move in

 

[CliffyG]

Not having broadband for 2+weeks would stop me from changing, as im not a mad downloader but like to download a few games/movies a month..
Like atm on with freeserve, but they dont offer migration and I wanna move.. lucky im moving house soon so can get it as soon as I move in

The changover can be seemless as far as i know if you get the correct info from BT (just 1 ref number i think).

Jusy contact your prospective ISP and they should be able to tell you exactly what to do.

 

[stinkingD]

BT is still the only service available in certain parts of the UK. That's part of the reason why their prices are higher than the others, it's because it's enforced by the fair trade rules.

I have to stay with BT for a year due to conversion from ISDN. They have always been fine by me, but this bandwidth limit is a joke. Theres absolutely no friggin way I'd change to AOL though.

 

[CliffyG]

BT is still the only service available in certain parts of the UK. That's part of the reason why their prices are higher than the others, it's because it's enforced by the fair trade rules.

I have to stay with BT for a year due to conversion from ISDN. They have always been fine by me, but this bandwidth limit is a joke. Theres absolutely no friggin way I'd change to AOL though.

As long as you're near an enabled exchange why can't use other ISP's?

 

[Jaem-]

Is this even an issue? You can choose any ADSL provider you want, why would anyone stick with BT with these caps?

Also BT are linked with Sky, you need a BT line?

Have Sky have a nice package.

 

[CliffyG]

For ADSL you need a BT line but that does not restrict you to BT as an ISP. There's plenty to choose from, check out www.adslguide.org for more info.

 

[Jaem-]

Cool, nice link CliffyG

http://www.adslguide.org/isps/compare.asp?blueyonder=ON&bt=ON&cmp_action=Compare

Blueyounder vs BT compared ;P

 

[Oro]

Been using Blueyonder from Smellyvest for 2 years. I think I've had a problem maybe once in all that time.

And yep we all got a nice free upgrade recently.

I know Nico had a lots of problems with his Blueyonder connection though, so its not always perfect.

 

[Firebirth]

Try www.biscit.net

Ive been with them 6 months and havent had a problem thus far. You pay a little more than usual but the customers services are one of/ if not the best of all major ISP's.

 

[CliffyG]

Forgot to recommend my ISP, i use Freedom 2 Surf and i haven't had 1 outage for over a year. The last time i lost connection was on a sunday and it was up again within a few hours. I have only restarted my router due to config changes and spilling beer on it. Always get good game pings and good download speeds plus they are quite cheap. Check them out on adslguide, try to steer clear of the big comapanies whatever you do decide though.

Try this compare instead:

http://www.adslguide.org/isps/compa...lipse=ON&f2s=ON&nildram=ON&cmp_action=Compare

The last 3 are ones i'd say are good ISP's.

 

[cHodAX]

Is this even an issue? You can choose any ADSL provider you want, why would anyone stick with BT with these caps?

It is an issue because over a million people signed a contract with no download cap, now BT change the rules and haven't even bothered to tell those 1 million customers.

 

[Danya]

Glad I'm with Eclipse.

 

[lindleyg]

Blue yonder

I can heartly recommend Blue Yonder - been with them for over 2 years, any technical issues I've had (ones I've caused myself usually) have been fixed very fast over they're very techy helpline and I'm paying 25 quids a month and they've upped the service from 512 to 700 or something for free and there's no cap!

How many more reasons do you need?



(Dark Llama Knights)
Thrombus
Rincewand
Jakefrost
Henrie

 

[GReaper]

It is an issue because over a million people signed a contract with no download cap, now BT change the rules and haven't even bothered to tell those 1 million customers.

From ZDnet:

Although these bandwidth caps are being added to BT's terms and conditions and will come into force 28 days later, they won't actually be enforced until next year. By that stage, BT hopes to have brought in its flexible bandwidth service which will give it the ability to sell additional bandwidth to users with heavy requirements.

But even if they do disconnect you for overusing it, you can then switch to another provider as you'll no longer be in a contract with them?

 

[acei]

This is very bad news . People are thinking this will only stay with BT... It won't. BT, Wanadoo and NTL all have cap's on bandwidth usage... BT has 500MB/day, Wanadoo has variable cap's and NTL has 1GB/day (although NTL has never been strict with the cap and often allows people to go over them)... If the major broadband providers implement these cap's how long do you think it will be before the smaller companies start implementing them? Unless something like the gmail VS hotmail/yahoo happens then we're looking at many, many capped broadband companies

 

[Bunnytwo]

Wouldn't recommend anyone switches to NTL, their customer service truely sucks, they take ages to fix faults, never keep to appointments, then just turn up out of the blue and post a card saying they came round but you weren't in (even though you were booked for the next day and they made no attempt to inform you of the change) can you please rebook you appointment.

And while they don't put a cap on downloads, effectively they do by dropping your bandwidth for 30mins at a time so much you'd be better off going on a dial-up.

Basically NTL suck.

 

[Hintshigen]

I have two Broadband connections comming into my place. One is AOL's new broadband service at 1.1 Mbps with no cap, plus since you no longer need to use their program to connect to AOL, you don't have to worry about it hogging resources. And a nobody company providing me cable with no cap, localized though.

Caps won't last because the public won't stand for them, nowadays it's far to easy to hit 1GB a day with bandwidth happy games and large downloads

 

[snoz]

Plusnet or Nildram are only choices imo for adsl .. . Plusnet = £40 2mbit no download caps. Nildram who im with and dropped their prices today to £45 for 2mbit no cap. With nildram i get great usenet access for all my download needs and also 20ms ping to daoc servers no link deads etc etc. Nildram mostl ikely have the best routing in uk. They are a proper isp not one of these ADSL only ones or a telecomms company.

www.nildram.net

 

[cHodAX]

From ZDnet:



But even if they do disconnect you for overusing it, you can then switch to another provider as you'll no longer be in a contract with them?

Problem with leaving is the fact I have been with them for over 3 years and keeping my email address is important because I have it registered on many sites. The hassle of having to swap email addresses and all the messing around that entails is a real headache. BT will be breaching contract when they impose the cap but I am damn sure they won't admit breach so changing ISP's while be an added hassle. What bugs me most is that BT have only imposed this cap so that they can drop prices to compete with AOL/Freeserve, they have sacrificed the quality of the service just to try pull in new cusomters. Stupid thing is that they will only succeed in driving away loyal customers. The people who run these companies my be a real bunch of spaz's

 

[cHodAX]

Plusnet or Nildram are only choices imo for adsl .. . Plusnet = £40 2mbit no download caps. Nildram who im with and dropped their prices today to £45 for 2mbit no cap. With nildram i get great usenet access for all my download needs and also 20ms ping to daoc servers no link deads etc etc. Nildram mostl ikely have the best routing in uk. They are a proper isp not one of these ADSL only ones or a telecomms company.

www.nildram.net

Thanks for the recommendations Snoz, both sound good and not much more than I am paying BT for 512k but Nildram seem to have a great reputation so I will consider them when BT impose the cap.

 

[Skilgannon]

I personnally wouldn't trust BT.

I used to have an ISDN line, for work and internet access, supplied by BT. Worked fine until I received an email stating that I was in violation of the Terms and Conditions in that I left my line connected and unattended for prolonged periods.

I replied stating that I never left the line unattended and that I was merely playing a mmorpg. They refused to believe someone would sit online for 8+ hours at weekends and terminated my contract (or rather my employers contract as they paid for it).

Switched to NTL Broadband and apart from some minor annoyances it is a good service. My only issue with NTL is that they do not like you being on a private network or behind a firewall so if I need to log a support call I have to release IP and connect directly to the modem.

 

[Aithe]

They refused to believe someone would sit online for 8+ hours at weekends and terminated my contract

I actually find that rather funny, in some wierd way