BT introducing bandwidth limits
Posted by Tom Graham on 06 Jul 2004 - 15:22 | 76 comments

Bandwidth limits are a growing an inevitability with ISPs; NTL introduced them a while ago, and now BT appears to be doing the same thing. BT Broadband, who have seen massive customer growth in the past year, are targeting high network users, in an attempt to reduce pressure on their network. The new terms and conditions say this will affect only a small minority of users.

Each month, BT customers will get 15/30 gigabytes (512k/1meg respectively) worth of bandwidth. If they go over that, they will be charged for extra bandwidth by the gigabyte (£2/Gig). BT claims, correctly, that introducing measures like this will improve their offerings for most customers. And to be fair to BT, this will affect few people; 'mom and pop' users would never (ok, find it hard to) approach 15 gig of traffic a month. BT is targeting users that download movies, download large files, and generally put high strain on the network.

It would appear that BT customers have little choice in the deal, asides from voting with their wallets (and moving elsewhere). The only other major broadband provider that doesn't have these restrictions is Blueyonder.

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From BT's New Broadband terms and conditions:

Why is BT introducing usage allowances?

BT is introducing usage allowances on its Broadband products in order to offer a better and fairer deal to the majority of customers. The benefit of introducing usage limits is that it enables us to charge most users substantially less.
Usage allowances give you the ability to transfer up to 15Gb of data per month with the BT Broadband and BT Yahoo! Broadband 512kbps services or 30Gb of data per month with the BT Broadband 1Mb or BT Yahoo! Broadband 1MB services. The amount of data transferred is the total data received by the end user (downloaded) AND sent by the end user (uploaded) over their broadband service and is measured in Kilobytes (KB), Megabytes (Mb) or Gigabytes (GB). 1Mb = 1024KB; and 1GB = 1024Mb.

Check out the table below to give you an idea of what 15GB a month usage allowance may mean to you. All of these things - not just one of them - are possible within 15GB a month;

Surfing the Internet - 15 hours each day
Sending 250 JPEG pictures via e-mail every week
Receiving 250 JPEG pictures via e-mail every week
Downloading 250 music tracks every week
Downloading three hours of video clips every week
Listening to online radio for fifteen hours every week
Sending 3000 emails every week without (no attachments)
Receiving 3000 emails every week (no attachments)

Will BT start charging me if I use more than 15 / 30Gb per month?
These allowances have been set at levels that will not affect the vast majority of our customers.
BT will not start charging for usage above the allowances until early 2005. After this time, if you go over your monthly allowance you can decide if you want to buy more capacity, so you are in control of your bill. We will confirm prices for additional usage nearer this time but indicative prices for additional usage allowance top ups are currently £2 per additional GB, although we plan to develop a range of options that could make this even less.

What will I be charged if I use more than 15 / 30Gb?
Remember most customers will not be affected by these limits. In the event that you use up your monthly allowance, you decide if you want to buy more capacity, so you have control of your bill. BT will only begin to apply these charges in early 2005 and will confirm prices for additional usage nearer this time. Indicative prices for additional usage allowance top ups are £2 per additional GB, although BT plans to develop a range of options that could make this even less.

Leebobs 

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1. 1. 김경회 '04.7.20 12:23 AM 신고
   :-)*음..뭐대충도 모르겠소
   그치만 인터넷업체들 결국제살파먹기 라는생각이드네 ↓댓글에댓글
2. 2. 박수영 '04.7.12 2:01 PM 신고
   :-)*그렇군요... 간단한 웹서핑에 음악감상 이메일 사용만으로도
   기본요금이 다 날라갈 수 있다고 하니... ↓댓글에댓글
3. 3. 이창재 '04.7.11 9:25 PM 신고
   :-)*해석 좀..ㅡㅡ;;뭐 대충은 알아먹지만, 그래도 정확히 알아보고 싶은... ↓댓글에댓글
4. 4. 김효식 '04.7.7 10:42 AM 신고
   :-)*으흠... ↓댓글에댓글
5. 5. 심명혜 '04.7.7 7:29 AM 신고
   :-)*그렇구나 ↓댓글에댓글
6. 6. 박은식 '04.7.7 9:18 AM 신고
   :-)*뭐라하는기야~ ↓댓글에댓글
7. 7. 류기원 '04.8.16 10:21 PM 신고
   :-)*음.. 그런거였군,, 대충 이해가 갑니다;; 쯧쯧 ↓댓글에댓글

1. 1. :-)*음..뭐대충도 모르겠소
   그치만 인터넷업체들 결국제살파먹기 라.. 김경회 '04.7.20 12:23 AM
2. 2. :-)*그렇군요... 간단한 웹서핑에 음악감상 이메일 사용만으로도
   기.. 박수영 '04.7.12 2:01 PM
3. 3. :-)*해석 좀..ㅡㅡ;;뭐 대충은 알아먹지만, 그래도 정확히 알아보고 싶은.... 이창재 '04.7.11 9:25 PM
4. 4. :-)*으흠... 김효식 '04.7.7 10:42 AM
5. 5. :-)*그렇구나 심명혜 '04.7.7 7:29 AM
6. 6. :-)*뭐라하는기야~
   박은식 '04.7.7 9:18 AM
7. 7. :-)*음.. 그런거였군,, 대충 이해가 갑니다;; 쯧쯧 류기원 '04.8.16 10:21 PM