Broadband Bandwidth.

jambutty · 14-03-2008, 15:27

This applies particularly to BT but I should imagine that other ISP’s have a similar system. Freeserve or rather Orange or whatever it is called now has.

BT has and has had 3 different broadband packages the cost of which is based mainly on bandwidth.

BT Broadband Option 1 costs £17.99 per month for up to 5GB of bandwidth. Up to 6GB on the 1st April.
BT Broadband Option 2 costs £22.99 per month for up to 8GB of bandwidth. Up to 10GB on the 1st April.
BT Broadband Option 3 costs £24.99 per month for unlimited bandwidth subject to a fair usage policy.

When I changed to BT from Freeserve on the 23rd March 2006 I had the option of choosing a package and to enable me to choose the right one for me, there was a ‘calculator’ link on their web site. I was required to input certain details of my proposed usage and an estimate of the bandwidth used was revealed. In my case the figure that came back was 6GB thus I had to take up option 2.

If on two consecutive months I exceeded the allowance, BT would write to me to suggest that I take up the next highest option and for the second month I would be charged 30p per excess GB. From 1st April that goes up to 60p.

So what is wrong with all that? Nothing except that the ‘calculator is biased to push the new customer into a higher option. And to add insult to injury had my usage been less than 5GB for 2 consecutive months BT did not write to me to suggest that I take up a cheaper option.

During the month of February I kept a check on my bandwidth usage and it added up to just over 2GB. I had to do the check manually because nowhere on my BT Broadband account page was a facility where I could find out what my bandwidth usage has been in previous months or to date in the current month.

So I rang BT to try and find out what my bandwidth usage has been since March 2006. After more than half an hour of being sent from one official to another and listening to Mozart whilst waiting for someone to answer the phone I was eventually given a phone number of 0800 707 6044 where I got some answers – eventually and after more Mozart.

I made my point about the ‘calculator’ being biased to guide a customer into a higher option than they really need and also about BT not notifying customers when their bandwidth usage falls below their monthly allowance for two or more consecutive months.

Sadly they were unable (or unwilling) to tell me what my monthly bandwidth usage had been since March 2006. They could only quote me the last 6 months, which they did – an average of 3GB.

From the 20th March I will be on Bandwidth Option 1 at £17.99 per month. But, and here is the nice bit, I will only pay £14.99 per month for the next 12 months. There is an admission, if ever there was one, that BT knew all along that I was pushed into selecting a higher option (thus earning them more money) and that BT knew it was at fault for not informing me that my bandwidth usage was well below, not just 8GB but below 5GB. And of course that a customer has no easy way to find out how much bandwidth is being used.

It pays to complain.

jaysay · 14-03-2008, 15:38

thats bloody redicules Jambutty, I'm on Bt broadband, but I've never had to ring them for anything, but just imagine being on the phone all that time and having to listen to mozart, absolutely bloody redicules, Pink Floyd would be much better

yerself · 14-03-2008, 15:52

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fruit Conserve Sandwich (alias jambutty)

It pays to complain.

If so, you must be a millionaire.

jambutty · 14-03-2008, 16:21

It is people like me who do complain when something is wrong that gets things sorted instead of the wimps sitting back wringing their hands and tut tutting to their neighbours.

If more people complained when there was just cause to do so, we wouldn’t get ripped off so much.

cashman · 14-03-2008, 16:31

dont really know how much bandwidth i use, but spend many hours daily on the net,all i know,or care about is my bill is £12-99 per month with orange/freeserve/wanadoo or whatever they call it now, also get free calls to landlines in UK after 18-00 hrs etc through my computer phone n that seems ok to me.

agree with jambutty about complaining though,its no good bitching get em told.

blazey · 14-03-2008, 16:53

I thought internet services had all gone to unlimited downloads now.

I thought your bandwidth was the speed you get your internet from the telephone exchange thing?

BT advertises unlimited 8Mb internet, hence why I feel I am correct to an extent.

It also says...

Speed and download capability are in two seperate bullet points and the 8Mb comes under the speed bullet point, not the download limit.

The speed of your internet shouldn't increase over what they say you can get, because they check the maximum capable speeds from the telephone exchange... so I don't quite understand what you are complaining about because it doesn't seem possible.

Maybe Entwisti can enlighten us, as I am no computer genius

jambutty · 14-03-2008, 18:35

Quote:

Originally Posted by blazey

I thought internet services had all gone to unlimited downloads now.

I thought your bandwidth was the speed you get your internet from the telephone exchange thing?

BT advertises unlimited 8Mb internet, hence why I feel I am correct to an extent.

It also says...

Speed and download capability are in two seperate bullet points and the 8Mb comes under the speed bullet point, not the download limit.

The speed of your internet shouldn't increase over what they say you can get, because they check the maximum capable speeds from the telephone exchange... so I don't quite understand what you are complaining about because it doesn't seem possible.

Maybe Entwisti can enlighten us, as I am no computer genius

Let me enlighten you blazey.

Bandwidth is how much data passes between your computer and your ISP or if you like downloads. But downloads is a bit misleading as the bandwidth also includes uploads.

When you access a web site your computer sends a message to that web site which in effect says, “hello, I’m here. Can I look at your web site?” The web site replies with the web page data and you see the result on your screen.

Download speeds refers to how fast that data is transferred. ISP’s quote up to 8Mb or 10Mb in some cases in the full knowledge that most people will only ever get around 2Mb. Because not everyone can live close to an exchange and it is only those computers close to the exchange that will achieve 8Mb. Download (downstream) speeds are on average about 2Mb but upload (upstream) speeds are around 290Kb.

My upload speed is generally 288Kb and download 2.272Mb.

Download speeds are measured in Megabits whereas bandwidth is measured in Gigabytes. If both download and bandwidth were measured in the same way 8Mb would become approx 0.8Mb and 2.2Mb would become approx 0.22Mb but that doesn’t sound so fast.

There are 8 bits (small b for bits) to a byte (large B for bytes) but there is a start and stop signal as well so it makes a byte nine and a half bits. Most people accept 10 bits to a byte for ease of calculation.

Just to finish off a Megabyte is one million (1,000,000) bytes. A Gigabyte is one thousand million (1,000,000,000) bytes.

Just to complicate matters further 1MB isn’t 1,000,000 bytes but 1,048,576 bytes and 1GB isn’t 1,000,000,000 but 1,073,741,824 bytes.

Neil · 14-03-2008, 18:56

Quote:

The term "megabyte" is ambiguous because it is commonly used to mean either 10002 bytes or 10242 bytes. The confusion originated as compromise technical jargon for the byte multiples that needed to be expressed by the powers of 2 but lacked a convenient name. As 1024 (210) is roughly equal to 1000 (103), roughly corresponding SI multiples began to be used as approximate binary multiples. By the end of 2007, standards and government authorities including IEC, IEEE, EU, and NIST, had addressed this ambiguity by promulgating standards requiring the use of megabyte to describe strictly 10002 bytes and "mebibyte" to describe 10242 bytes. This is reflected in an increasing number of software projects, but most file managers still show file sizes in "megabytes" ("MB") in the binary sense (10242 bytes). The term remains ambiguous and it can follow any one of the following common definitions:

1. 1,000,000 bytes (10002, 106): This is the definition recommended by the International System of Units (SI) and the International Electrotechnical Commission IEC. This definition is used in networking contexts and most storage media, particularly hard drives, Flash-based storage, and DVDs, and is also consistent with the other uses of the SI prefix in computing, such as CPU clock speeds or measures of performance.
2. 1,048,576 bytes (10242, 220): This definition is most commonly used in reference to computer memory, but most software that display file size or drive capacity, including file managers also use this definition. See Consumer confusion (in the "gigabyte" article).
3. 1,024,000 bytes (1000×1024): This is used to describe the formatted capacity of USB flash drives and the "1.44 MB" 3.5 inch HD floppy disk, which actually has a 1,440 KiB capacity, that is, 1,440×1,024 bytes, or 1,474,560 bytes.

I will let you read that and decide if you are right or not. Personally I think of a megabyte as 1,024,000 bytes. It has only been changed so hard drive manufactures can con us into thinking their drives are bigger than they really are.

Quote:

Originally Posted by blazey

I thought your bandwidth was the speed you get your internet from the telephone exchange thing?

Basically it is Michelle, it has nothing to do with how much data you download/upload

jambutty · 14-03-2008, 19:13

Quote:

Originally Posted by Neil

Basically it is Michelle, it has nothing to do with how much data you download/upload

How do you work that out?