BtYahoo BB

[pipme]

More detail on 'limits' and procedures ... With the new 2Mb service ..

Package: Monthly Usage Allowance:
BT Broadband Basic, £17.99 1GB
BT Broadband, £24.99 15GB
BT Yahoo! Broadband, £26.99 15GB
BT Yahoo! Broadband, £29.99 (available 24/03/05) 30GB

6. What happens if I exceed my monthly usage allowance?
In the unlikely event that you exceed your monthly usage allowance (remember these are more than enough for the vast majority of users) the speed of your connection will be reduced to 150kb until the start of the next month, when you monthly usage allowance will be reset.
If you exceed your usage allowance you will have three choices; you will be able to continue to surf and download at a reduced speed of 150kb - that's still three time the speed of dial up - for the remainder of the month, or you will be able to top up you usage allowance on bt.com by purchasing additional capacity at £1.95 per 1GB unit, or alternatively you may wish to consider upgrading to a higher usage capacity package.

7. How will I know I have exceeded my monthly usage allowance?
You will receive e-mail alerts when you have used 75% of you usage allowance and again when you used 90% and 100%.
For BT Yahoo! Broadband users any e-mail usage alerts will be sent to your primary BT Yahoo! mail address. From 1st May 2005 the facility to monitor and manage your usage allowance online will be made available within the "My Account" area of bt.yahoo.com.

10. How will usage top ups work?
Usage top ups work rather like a reserve petrol tank, if you purchase a usage top up, it remains available to you until it is used up - there is no time limit on when you have to use it by. And you will only be using the usage top up until the start of the next month, when your inclusive monthly usage allowance is reset. If, at that point you have any top up left over, it will remain in reserve for you should you need it again in the future.

11. How much will usage top ups cost?
Usage top ups will be available in units of 1GB priced at £1.95 inc. VAT per GB.

12. Does the monthly usage allowance apply to upstream and downstream capacity?
Yes, the usage allowances refer the to the total amount of data that you send to and receive from the Internet.

So there we go !! A neat usage monitor package would be useful.

Anyone know of one ? Something similar to the excellent 'Internet Connection Viewer' ( http://www.freedownloadscenter.com/...Online_Timers/Internet_Connection_Viewer.html ) Which monitors usage etc of dial-up connections brilliantly - would be good.

P

 

[AdamW]

My parents' BT BB has been upgraded to 2mb too, my bro is livid at the cap!

Bandwidth is really not as expensive as they make out! They are running a 50:1 contended service anyway, so with 50 2mb customers they only need 2mb of bandwidth (although this is averaged out over thousands or millions of users really).

A quick google reveals there are 1.4 million BT BB customers. So, assuming they are all 2mb now, that is only about 56mbps required at a 50:1 contention ratio. As far as I am aware, such a connection speed (that is only just over the speed of a single optical channel) only attracts a cost on the order of £10K a year (prices from a few years ago when I last looked at this). So, let's say £1K a month for the bandwidth alone. But on that bandwidth they are charging £28M in subscriptions!

I know that is a simplification, but what I am getting at is bandwidth is a tiny part of the cost. No need for caps, they could easily absorb the cost of buying a bit more bandwidth to reduce contention. I would switch to them if they removed the caps, I am on 512 (well, 576kbps) but cap-free.

 

[AdamW]

Not to be outdone by all you two-(mega)bit BT-Yahooers, this morning I looked into switching to a different ISP to try and get a 1 or 2 megabit uncapped connection... I kinda accidentally missed and went for the uncapped, unlimited 4-megabit connection instead though Ooops!

They reckon 15-20 working days absolute maximum until the change is complete, but it usually takes less. I hope they're right!