Fair Share Quota

[LeftEyeNine]

I'm placing it here for a little bit higher exposure.

Could you please specify if there is any kind of "fair share quota" of the internet access plan in your country ?

I am talking about the plans that you can subscribe marketed as being "limitless" here.

Although it is a limitless plan, there is a 50GB quota after which your maximum speed is withdrawn to 3 Mbits/sec (provided your plan promises a higher one) -and that cap was 1 Mbit last week.

For example I'm paying as much as ~33$ for a "limitless up-to-8Mbit ADSL" connection here. And when I go over 50 GBs of DL+UL, I'm restricted to 3MBits, which is at most 300-400 kb/sec of download until the end of that month.

Such application is claimed to be "practiced in most of the modern countries" hence the implementation here too.

So, how is it actually around there ?

Thanks.

[Moros]

It gets done over here too, but those providers who claim limitless, do tend to have quite a higher limit before reducing speed. Though the reducing part can be much more serious though. Of course if you pay some extra again, well you knwo the rest of the story.

Limitless, is limitless they should adhere to that. Though I never have problems with it though.

[Fragony]

300kb ain't that bad, what doesn't work with 300kB

[LeftEyeNine]

300kb ain't that bad, what doesn't work with 300kB

Not what I pay for, mate.

[johnhughthom]

In the UK the small print will contain a "fair usage" clause, though I've never seen an actual figure for fair usage. I would probably go way over 50gb most months, and have never had a cap applied. I know a few people who work in call centres for Sky, and apparently you pretty much have to be downloading almost 24/7 to get hit with a fair usage cap.

[classical_hero]

Be thankful you don't live in Australia.

[Tellos Athenaios]

For example I'm paying as much as ~33$ for a "limitless up-to-8Mbit ADSL" connection here. And when I go over 50 GBs of DL+UL, I'm restricted to 3MBits, which is at most 300-400 kb/sec of download until the end of that month.

Such application is claimed to be "practiced in most of the modern countries" hence the implementation here too.

So, how is it actually around there ?

Here there are two things, and they are quite distinct: data limits/plan and fair use policy.

Having your speeds capped once you cross a certain threshold (i.e. the data limit/plan) is not unusual for mobile Internet contracts and not necessarily buried in small print, but whether that is a bad thing given how outrageously expensive mobile data is... (some ISPs actually market it as a service to you... )

The second is more of a matter for fine/small print matter but yes it will be in there somewhere, too. However this is generally treated as breach of contract and grounds for termination. So the ISP will notify you of your breach first and repeat performance will see your contract terminated altogether. Mobile Internet ISPs may additionally cap your speeds, but ADSL/Cable companies do not bother with this as far as I am aware: they are bound to "unlimited Internet access" too much to dare twiddle the QoS dial.

[LeftEyeNine]

So we have caught up with "modern civilizations standards !!11" in terms of "fair usage" ?

Oh boy. We always get it all wrong.

[Tellos Athenaios]

No you haven't quite caught up. Limits may be there, but when I googled what such a limit would be all I got was a bunch of forum posts that say roughly:

• Nobody knows, certainly the helpdesk does not.
• "I downloaded 500GB in 3 weeks and I didn't run into limits..."
• A recollection of events from a court case about someone who downloaded north of 1Tb a month whose contract was apparently terminated over that.

Those were posts from 2007.

Infrastructure has been upgraded a bit since then, and in principle "unlimited" means "you're fine until we can finger you as the one who keeps using up all the tubes".

EDIT: That was about Cable/ADSL, not about mobile Internet.

[Veho Nex]

I'm placing it here for a little bit higher exposure.

Could you please specify if there is any kind of "fair share quota" of the internet access plan in your country ?

I am talking about the plans that you can subscribe marketed as being "limitless" here.

Although it is a limitless plan, there is a 50GB quota after which your maximum speed is withdrawn to 3 Mbits/sec (provided your plan promises a higher one) -and that cap was 1 Mbit last week.

For example I'm paying as much as ~33$ for a "limitless up-to-8Mbit ADSL" connection here. And when I go over 50 GBs of DL+UL, I'm restricted to 3MBits, which is at most 300-400 kb/sec of download until the end of that month.

Such application is claimed to be "practiced in most of the modern countries" hence the implementation here too.

So, how is it actually around there ?

Thanks.

Comcast
In california we pay some where around 50-75$ a month for 15mbs. Our cap is 250GB and if we go over 3 times they drop us from service.

[Fragony]

No you haven't quite caught up. Limits may be there, but when I googled what such a limit would be all I got was a bunch of forum posts that say roughly:

• Nobody knows, certainly the helpdesk does not.
• "I downloaded 500GB in 3 weeks and I didn't run into limits..."
• A recollection of events from a court case about someone who downloaded north of 1Tb a month whose contract was apparently terminated over that.

Those were posts from 2007.

Infrastructure has been upgraded a bit since then, and in principle "unlimited" means "you're fine until we can finger you as the one who keeps using up all the tubes".

EDIT: That was about Cable/ADSL, not about mobile Internet.

Had one of these 'dongels' and apparantly I broke the fair-use deal. Which is odd as it was too slow to even watch a youtube video, a 56k modem was faster. I used it only for internet and mailing. They cut me off after 2 months and wanted to make me pay for two years, yeah right see you in court no judge would go for that. Never heard from them (kpn) again.

[atheotes]

Here in India, they dont terminate your contract. I have a 2 mbps (upto 30 gb per month) ADSL connection that will drop to 256 kbps after the 30 GB limit. i pay ~$25 USD for it. You can increase the limit by paying more :). Of course if you pay some extra again, you can get more @ 2mbps. they do make it very clear though when you sign up.

when i was in US (virginia) comcast was notorious for dropping speed after 60 gb usage and there was no fine print about it.

[Andres]

It's not limitless, but I'd have to try very hard to go over the limit really.

[Fragony]

Here in India, they dont terminate your contract. I have a 2 mbps (upto 30 gb per month) ADSL connection that will drop to 256 kbps after the 30 GB limit. i pay ~$25 USD for it. You can increase the limit by paying more :). Of course if you pay some extra again, you can get more @ 2mbps. they do make it very clear though when you sign up.

when i was in US (virginia) comcast was notorious for dropping speed after 60 gb usage and there was no fine print about it.

I believe they don't do it anymore, it was just new when I got it. Costed 50 euro(!) per month, was as fast as a bucket of empty wheelchairs without wheels uphill and I couldn't possibly gone over the limit as I never downloaded anything, way too slow for that

[Beskar]

With Virgin Media, it is "Limitless", but if you download anything big during peak hours, they put you on the "slow-internet", for 3 hours. So the best thing to do with them is to play games and the like during stream hours and save the downloads for off-peak.

Even then, I am apparently on 100mb/s and I only seem to get speeds of 400kb/s on most downloads such as Steam. (when I downloaded Team Fortress 2 last night)

[edyzmedieval]

There's no limit whatsoever in my contract - the only limit is the physical limit of the bandwith that can go through the internet cables.

[naut]

Yes, most plans here are on a maximum cap basis. The size of the cap varies from provider to provider and also the type of plan. For example my plan is 200GB per month, speeds vary, I'm not sure what the speed is meant to be, but I'm lucky to get much more than 800kbs, with an average about 500kbps, which is ok, but Australia is very far behind on this sort of infrastructure.

[edyzmedieval]

Eastern European countries generally have the highest speed and the lowest caps - Romania and Bulgaria are examples of this.

[Moros]

It's not limitless, but I'd have to try very hard to go over the limit really.

Yeah we were at one time lagging behind when it came to this, but due to protesting and I think Quickenborne (or was it someone else) we now actually have it quite well.