Amielucha.com » ireland http://blog.amielucha.com A web designers sandbox Mon, 16 Nov 2009 13:31:59 +0000 en hourly 1 How BT-Vodafone partnership affects broadband users http://blog.amielucha.com/bt-vodafone/ http://blog.amielucha.com/bt-vodafone/#comments Wed, 09 Sep 2009 11:06:32 +0000 Amielucha http://blog.amielucha.com/?p=8 Introduction This year Irish broadband providers are preparing few important changes for Internet users. The biggest of them is the transfer of individual customers and small businesses (companies that have 6 or less telephone lines) from BT to Vodafone. Both companies are promising that the transfer will be smooth, “everything will stay as it is”, “there’s no need to worry about interruption to your service” and “you can keep using your phone exactly as you have been”… “for now”. Everything seems to be fine. I shouldn’t care who the service provider is as long as I can use my phone and Internet the way I want. Let’s see if everything is as pretty as both networks promise.

Download Speeds

Currently BT Ireland is offering speeds up to 24 Mb/s but this option is available only in few locations across Ireland, everywhere else the maximum download speed is limited to 7.6 Mb/s. In reality the download speed in my location usually doesn’t exceed 6.5 Mb/s which is not too bad. The upload is limited to 672 kb/s (and up to 1024 Kb if you have 24 Mb/s).

Speedtest results for BT broadband

Speedtest results for BT broadband

BT also offers 1 Mb/s and 3 Mb/s (24 Mb/s where available) packages. What Vodafone is offering is a broadband package with a speed limit of 7 Mb/s which is 0.6 Mb/s slower than what BT’s fastest option. Upload speed seems to be set at the same level. The problem starts when you have the 24 Mb BT Package: as Vodafone is not offering such speeds at the moment your download speed will be reduced to 7 Mb/s (basing on the information provided by Vodafone’s representative).

Download Limits

BT’s customers have monthly transfer limits of 10 GB per last 30 consecutive days with the first package (1 MB/s), 30 GB with the second option (3 Mb/s) and “unlimited” if you decided to go for the fastest package. Wait a second… Why “unlimited” rather than unlimited? Well, the offer is subject to “fair” usage policy in which they state the following: “There is no hard and fast usage limit that determines if you are a heavy user as the parameters that determine heavy use vary with the demands placed on the network at that given time”.

[source: http://www.btireland.ie/home/legal.shtml]

Yet my personal investigation has proven that there is a hard usage limit of 100 GB of transfer during the period of last 30 consecutive days. If you exceed that limit your download transfer will be cut down to 128 kbps (0.128 Mb/s) – a limit that makes your browsing experience painful. That cap is sustained until your overall transfer (download + upload) throughout last 30 days is less than 100 GB. BT is using a lie in their marketing campaign to gain as many customers as possible. No matter how you look at it there is a download limit but the company is keeping it hidden from customers. The word ‘unlimited’ is used in inappropriate way and in my opinion it is unfair and misleading. I’m wondering how they can lie like that and get away with it for such a long time. What are all the lawyers doing? Vodafone in the other hand offers 60 GB of download a month (from the 1st to the last day of that month). There is no limit on the data you upload. But what happens if you exceed the limit? ]]> http://blog.amielucha.com/bt-vodafone/feed/ 0