Strange....or not!

[loverboy]

Regulars here will know of my bandwidth issues & an ISP that adopts a 'robust' traffic-shaping policy. I noticed today upload didn't fall away at the usual time, in fact I'm still pushing 35kb/s on eMule.......normally it would be 5kb/s at the very best at this time in the evening. I know I've been subjected to several 28 day 'punishments' for what my ISP considers excessive usage. I've actually downloaded considerably less in the last month so it could be I'm within what they consider acceptable limits & my 'punishment' is finished. However, the nasty & suspicious side of my personality has to consider the sudden improvement in service could be connected with me being out-of-contract with my ISP in a couple of weeks! I'm sure a couple of weeks of reasonable, consistent speed will more than make up for years of shite service!
.......and before anyone asks, I'm on a supposedly unlimited, uncapped package.

lb

[Phuzzy4242]

Sounds typical - almost all ISP's play that game. Are there any other ISP's you can switch over to? Can you bargain with your current one -- "Well, company B says they'll give me this and this and this for a lower price. What kind of deal will YOUR company give me?" Believe it or not, some ISP's give their salesmen leeway to make deals. Hope yours is one of them.

I'm on DSL and get 1792Kb down/448Kb up - when the lines are working right. I've had periods of 6 to 8 weeks where the connection would drop 20 times a day and the modem would recover - at 192Kb down, 32KB up. According to the ISP, it's in my house so they've used every stupid tech trick they can think of to avoid fixing the actual problem. They've told me I had bad filters, bad phone cords (one of their techs insisted the phone cord was plugged in backwards!), the modem had to be moved to another room, etc. like they're using the BOFH excuse generator. Suddenly, with me doing nothing at all (ahem, except for hinting I'm going to install satellite) everything starts working correctly. I wonder how that happened.

Keep after them. I know it's a long shot, but maybe they'll see reason.

[loverboy]

Because I'm nearly out of contract, they've already started telephoning me, obviously hoping to entice me to renew the contract. We have a serious problem in the UK with unwanted sales/marketing calls & despite being registered with the TPS I still get plenty. So far, all they've got is my standard response to anyone trying to sell me anything. I keep a small tape recorder/player next to the 'phone........



Next time they call I may well talk to them & say I'm impressed with the service improvement but they will need to demonstrate they're able to maintain it for a period of time before I'm willing to consider taking out another contract. That should hopefully at least buy me a little time with an improved service.
To be fair to them, they offer a good connection speed & rock-solid reliability........connection loss just doesn't happen unless we have bad weather. I appreciate their traffic-shaping activities are the result of over-usage & an ageing, crumbling infastructure but they should not be promising unlimited, uncapped access & not delivering.

lb

[Guest]

Thank you for this tube vid

[plonkah]

Balls to their policy - go elsewhere. UK offers some of best bb coverage in the world, if you cannot get an ISP which offers high-speed UNLIMITED (i.e. NO caps) for a reasonable price, you are doing something wrong. Avoid British Twaticom.

[ptguardian]

the dreaded ip unlimited game i can relate too well... cool video i am going to use it. (hopefully not to often)

[loverboy]

Balls to their policy - go elsewhere. UK offers some of best bb coverage in the world, if you cannot get an ISP which offers high-speed UNLIMITED (i.e. NO caps) for a reasonable price, you are doing something wrong. Avoid British Twaticom.

Sadly there is a great deal of difference between offering a service & delivering it. There are a couple of providers that do deliver the promised bandwidth but subscribing to them is dependent on demand & living in an isolated rural community I'm in an area not serviced. It's also worth remembering not all of the UK enjoys modern technology with fibre-optic cabling & sophisticated exchanges. Area-wise, the vast majority is still served by 40-year-old overhead wires & exchanges that have been upgraded in the cheapest possible way.In some cases telephone calls are more satisfactory using two tin cans & some string. Broadband requires better technology.......I find rope to be ideal!

lb

[emuler]

Sadly, its being seen over here too, especially in the mobile and wireless plans. They call it the fair use policy, or some crap like that. Why do they call it an UNLIMITED plan when they don't really mean it? If they are imposing a cap of say 10GB per month, call it a freaking 10GB per month plan and be done with it. This is begging for a class action suit for fraud.