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NTL ISSUES |
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The ntl:home Broadband CapOn 7th February 2003, ntl:home introduced a 1GB limit on the amount of data that could be downloaded in a single day by users of its interactive (i.e. Broadband) services. This restriction swiftly became known as "The Cap".This policy was quietly introduced by way of the Acceptable Use Policy published on the NTLworld website. Specifically clause 2, General Use indicates that nobody may use the services, either directly or indirectly:
(h) in excess of "normal use" bandwidth limits set out in this section. ntl:home's broadband and dial-up services are intended for normal recreational or educational use by individuals and families and our pricing and network architecture have been designed accordingly. Customers who use the services more heavily than a normal home user will reduce the performance of the network for other customers. "Normal use" of the service is defined as up to 1 gigabyte downstream of data transfer daily (which equates to approximately 200 music tracks, 650 short videos, 10,000 pictures or around 100 large software programmes downloaded per day).ntl had previously marketed and sold its residential customers a Broadband service which was described as "Unlimited use" and "an always connected, continuous service". The advertising leaflets pressed through letterboxes or sent out with bills, and promotions on their own web sites included phrases like: "ideal if you are a heavy sender or downloader of large files like music video or software". In response to the future which swiftly arose after the new AUP was published, ntl moved to calm fears of their customers. Guidance on ntlworld now shows that ntl will monitor usage for a period of 60 days (from 7th February) to establish those who regularly exceed the cap. Those unfortunate users will then be contacted and ntl will "provide advice". Users will also be allowed to occasionally exceed The Cap, perhaps twice in any fortnight. Interestingly this guidance also states such users will not be disconnected, just advised on how to moderate their usage. ntl:home has not advised their customers, in writing by letter or even email, of the AUP change, merely relying on the website. This is considered at best to be deceitful, and at worst may actually be in breach of ntl’s own contract terms and conditions with their customers. AntiCap considers The Cap amounts to a significant degradation in the contracted Broadband service, especially for higher speed subscribers. Ultimately we consider this amounts to an unfair change in the terms of contract and thus it should be unenforceable by ntl:home.
Effect of CappingThe following table sets out how much data you could theoretically download per day based on your service speed. Please note that this assumes your connection is running at maximum speed, In practice you are unlikely to achieve the full speed as your connection is contended with your neighbours so some bandwidth speed will be lost when they use their broadband service.
** This service speed is not advertised but applies to some customers in ex-Cable & Wireless areas with Set Top Boxes, the additional bandwidth being intended for interactive TV services, but apparently the system cannot differentiate use. In practice, the table shows that it is the silver and gold users who are most likely to be at risk of effects of The Cap. The table demonstrates the penalty of The Cap on the faster users, most of whom will have purchased fast connections because they wanted to use them heavily. There is no differentiation to reflect an equal time on line availability between service speeds. If a Cap must be applied (and we don’t think it should), this absence of a tiered limit is unreasonable and defeats the object of the faster connections. AntiCap must also take issue with NTL's own analysis of what a user can do with their 1GB limit: 650 short videos, they must be very short or poor quality. Sites such as launch.com and realone-superpass regularly stream at 300 mbps, and higher resolutions are available elsewhere. 200 music tracks, well maybe, but there is a law of averages, and again at what quality? And as for 100 large software programs, 10MB in today's bloatware climate is a very small software program, 100MB would be a better large size, i.e. only 10 programs a day. Ok so if you only have one computer the 1GB limit might not be an issue, but if you have a home network to support your family (up to 3 computers are allowed), you really do run some risks. We should point out that The Cap applies only to downloads. There is no published upload cap, although rumours abound of "unofficial" limits of perhaps 300MB a day. This could be a problem for many users; although the upload speed of the ntl broadband service is much slower than the download speed (they do not publish this speed). |
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© 2003 -
AntiCap UK |