Downloading Speed Being Cut!

[DJ Tucker]

Today i received an e-mail saying that "in this month of july your download usage is at 80GB and the fair usage policy allows 100GB a month per household". "This is a warning that if you go above the 100GB usage limit your download speed will be reduced from current 14MBPS to 1MBPS for 30 days!

Now i monitor my download usage and i have download 5.8GB this month and that leaves 74.2GB for the rest of the house that have all said they have not been downloading. Including me there is 4 in this house and the other 3 don't download (apparently). they make me physically

[bubba]

and people say that digital downloads will be the end of physical media.

100gb in a month, if you think about it, can go real quick with 4 people in a house all pulling email, youtube, hulu, ect..

Hell I had 500mb in email alone in the last week from the email groups I belong to for drawing/art, this plus my kids watching shows on Hulu, Nicktoons, cartoon network... maybe I need to check my usage

[DJ Tucker]

lol i just need to tell the others to cut the download or we wont have the internet for a whole month as 1MBPS will kill the internet for even 1 person let alone 4!

[Sttm]

I ran into the same problem with Comcast.

If they are like Comcast they are giving you a 100GB "Bandwidth" limit which means up and down. Just general web browsing adds up a lot faster then you would think. For instance if you watch an hour long like say House on Hulu, that can be over 300mb. Watch 2 shows a day, 600mb, every day, thats over 18gb a month. 5 of you doing it, there you are at the cap. Video Games can eat up a lot too, as there is a lot of back and forth over long hours of use. Using a bandwidth meter I think I remember measuring TF2 at about 750kb a Min.

Back when my Brother moved in he paid up for the 50mbps comcast line $130 US!; which has a 250GB cap, like all comcast lines! Paying 8 times as much for internet that is 30 times as fast does not get you more Bandwidth. That first month we used up about 300 gb of Bandwidth, then the second month over 700gb of bandwidth, and we got their knock it off email.

Where I live the only alternative is 6mbps ATT dsl, which I had for years previously; and I just OD'd on 2 months of 50mbps service and like fuckin hell if I was going back to the dark ages. So the solution we ended up going with was to pay Comcast $190 a month for a 50mbps Business Class internet line; which they do not cap bandwidth on. Its extortion is what it is, but we got hooked on fiber crack.

You probably have to see if you can get on an unlimited plan, through a business account or possibly just a higher tier plan, youd have to check with your provider. 5 of you, so I guess if you all chip in it wont be that bad. I dont see you guys constantly making it under 100gb a month unless you give up web video; and what is the fuckin point of broadband without that!

[hnzw_rui]

and people say that digital downloads will be the end of physical media.

100gb in a month, if you think about it, can go real quick with 4 people in a house all pulling email, youtube, hulu, ect..

Hell I had 500mb in email alone in the last week from the email groups I belong to for drawing/art, this plus my kids watching shows on Hulu, Nicktoons, cartoon network... maybe I need to check my usage

Exactly. Downloading the official StarCraft II installer (7GB) today. Hate the stupid Blizzard downloader (never used it before). Hated it even more when I noticed they had p2p enabled by default. I was wondering why my internet was going slow so I checked the router and noticed I was maxing out my upload speed. Didn't even know what was causing it until I opened the preferences for the Blizzard downloader. Heck, if I wanted to use p2p, I would've just downloaded via torrents. You pay separately for the license key anyway. The torrent would've finished much faster, too.

I'm also on a bandwidth cap (Charter: 25mbps, 250GB/mo) and we do a lot of video streaming (Netflix, Hulu) plus the occasional Amazon VOD purchase/rental (cancelled cable TV service) so I'm always mindful of bandwidth usage. I'm already paying $60 for the game which is the same as the retail box version. Blizzard's not incurring costs for physical media (discs, packaging, etc), nor sharing profit with retailers. They sure as hell could pay for the bandwidth used themselves.

[DJ Tucker]

100GB here in the UK is the most you can get as the fair usage policy doesn't go higher than that on any ISP

[Sttm]

Thats terrible. If they wanted true fair use they would change the bandwidth based on the number of residents. But then fairness has never been something telecom companies are interested in.

[hark]

I'm not sure if recommending an ISP is allowed (might be considered advertising), but my ISP gives me 200GB a month bandwidth with a choice of unlimited bandwidth for $10 extra. They operate in Canada, which typically has extremely low bandwidth caps. I'm so happy I found out about them, otherwise I would be stuck with 50GB or so a month.

[kenc51]

With ALL ISP's you also have to agree to their "AUP" (Acceptable usage policy)
while most think this only covers stuff like port scanning and child p0rn, it also covers bandwidth.

For ISP's in the US 90% of all the trafic is coming from within the US so the charges (to the isp) for all that data is minimal.
Especially since most isp's do deals with others for them to carry their traffic (peering)

While in Europe in a lot of cases if someone wants to stream some video, it have to come accross a pipe under the atlantic.
MCI etc. then charge your ISP for this and the bandwidth available is limited, so this gets passed onto the user.

We done a deal with Google here so they have their own local datacentre hosting youtube etc and we give them either a 1 or 10Gbit link directly to our core network. Our customers then get really fast youtube access and it doesnt cost us in bandwidth charges with the larger peering companies.

The reason for the cap in the UK i proly just down to costs. The ISP has the make some money back after upgrading their network. After a couple of years enough customers upgrade to the higher speed packages then increasing profits. After this download caps can be removed.

There's really no such thing a completly unlimited as they always have a hidden limit, but it's usually 500GB to 1TB/mth.
If you need more than this, you need to pay for it via business line

[smack323]

As far as I know I dont have a cap. I guess I never used enought to get the warning letter.

[Sttm]

Well not all of them have caps yet. Like with ATT I never had a cap for the 5 years I was using it, and they probably still dont on their DSL; but I bet their Uverse service is capped or will be shortly. Caps are still relatively new in a lot areas of the US. Comcast did not have this cap a year ago in this area.

[DJ Tucker]

well i have now been hit and knocked down to 1MBPS as the 100GB bandwidth is maxed

[bubba]

you did 100GB already? or is this the throttling from last months overage?

[hnzw_rui]

well i have now been hit and knocked down to 1MBPS as the 100GB bandwidth is maxed

Ouch. I actually installed Tomato firmware on my router (Linksys WRT54GL) so I'd be able to monitor bandwidth going to and from the modem. I highly suggest you also have some form of bandwidth monitoring set-up.

[DJ Tucker]

yes i have hit the 100GB download in 2 weeks due to someone in this house downloading so much and not stopping after a specifically told them to do so! and i will defo get a bandwidth monitor so i can monitor all bandwidth usuage from everyones computer!

[bubba]

Beatings will continue until moral improves, well in this case downloading ends.

If you have a wireless connection I would look at redoing all the pass keys and watching that for someone "borrowing" your bandwidth.

[Sttm]

And to think I couldnt manage trying to limit just myself to 100gb a month, ouch. Hopefully a better option comes along. Can you wire up another provider at the same time, and have them on one, and you on the other?

[DJ Tucker]

cant get more than one ISP at a time here which sucks but the guys have now realised the performance hit and are getting really annoyed and having a go at me it's not my fault they downloaded even though i gave them prior warning

[Zelig]

I'm looking at moving in the near future, and I'm finding it telling that I'm looking at ISP options in areas I'm considering, and taking those options into consideration. Sadly, almost anywhere I move to outside of East Asia or the Nordic countries is going to be a step down from what I currently have available.

Ouch. I actually installed Tomato firmware on my router (Linksys WRT54GL) so I'd be able to monitor bandwidth going to and from the modem. I highly suggest you also have some form of bandwidth monitoring set-up.

Tomato is probably one of the best firmwares for bandwidth monitoring.

[Sttm]

I'm looking at moving in the near future, and I'm finding it telling that I'm looking at ISP options in areas I'm considering, and taking those options into consideration. Sadly, almost anywhere I move to outside of East Asia or the Nordic countries is going to be a step down from what I currently have available.

Ouch. I actually installed Tomato firmware on my router (Linksys WRT54GL) so I'd be able to monitor bandwidth going to and from the modem. I highly suggest you also have some form of bandwidth monitoring set-up.

Tomato is probably one of the best firmwares for bandwidth monitoring.

Hmm what do you have now?