Some more info from Josh Berry of Plusnet customer support -

Quote: "The service sold is unlimited this means without limits and until
they change this then it is very fair for people to use what they
have been sold."


That is true at the moment, so customers can use whatever they want but
since the changes to the BT pricing structure (i.e. the introduction of capacity
based charging) it is not sustainable to have customers using 300GB
going forwards.

At the current time 1.2% of the customer base on broadband uses 28%
of the bandwidth we use - you can see the problem here immediately as
these customers do not pay enough for their account for us to even break
even - let along make a profit.

Obivously this is delicate subject and close to many peoples hearts so
how we approach it is critical. We have been having an extended internal
discussion on the matter as well as working with the usergroup to work out
the best way of addressing this issue but the bottom line is that all ISP's who
use the new charging system will need to implement some sort of AUP on
useage or charge extra for heavy users.

Regards,
_________________
Josh Berry


At the moment they are tackling 0.3%, but I wonder how long it will be before
the net is widened for the other 0.9%?

"Plusnetsucks" <plusnetsucks@fmail.co.uk> wrote in message
news:c10caf8d.0411161921.441d90e3@posting.google.c om...
oh look 2 more new figures LOL

Oh if thats the case why let people even sign up??, Oh and then there is
the question that if they are so concerned about profit, why are they
upsetting a certain amount of users that could be paying anything up to
65.99 per month, im sure thats really gonna help their profit situation if
they lose customers that have been paying that amount of cash per month.
LOL perfect Plusnet logic I guess????


Perhaps if they actually started realising the possible effect that the
brainwave is gonna have instead of having secret squirrel meetings about it
they would have thought about the wording of their automated email that has
been sent out when its customers have tried to contact them regarding the
situation.

Is this the 'charging system' that is spose to come into effect next year?
Or is that something else im thinking about?


If i was with em, i would have gave them 24 hours to speak up in a language
we can all understand rather then the what i and others see as pure BS
percent figures they keep spouting, if they by that time were not
forthcoming on what is and what is not acceptable use i would have been
straight on the blower to cancel the account swiftly followed by the
cancellation of whatever means i paid by see come the end of the month
there was no "misunderstanding or confusion ;D" on whether or not i was
still a customer. In fact the way they have handled the sad situation i
would be cancelling the account even if i was not in there 0.3% (whatever
that means?) as i like to know what im allowed and not allowed to use with
any service i pay for. Especially if the company concerned has the nerve
to tag the word 'premier' to it.
While i can understand that they cannot indefinately sustain heavy use, how
the ^&*% are there users spose to know what is and what isnt classed as
heavy use?? when they havent even bothered to tell them a GB figure, a
monthly allowance figure, or anything else which makes good common sense.
This is just my opinion.... Oh yeah and im just a sad 56k user that doesnt
at the moment even have broadband, i would have said they must be joking,
but the situation and how it has been handled is so hillarious that the
word joke doesnt do it justice.

On 17 Nov 2004 in uk.telecom.broadband, "Dave" wrote:

Big deal. Seems like the costs from these 250 or so users would be
much higher than anything they bring in as monthly fees (and a portion
of those fees goes straight on to BT Wholesale for the link to the home)




--
PlusNet <http://tinyurl.com/24ymz> - I recommend them and save some cash.

"Dave" <notvalid.for@privacy.net> wrote in message
news:cnejgg$fs$1@news6.svr.pol.co.uk...
I think 200Gb a month far exceeds the fair usage of an unlimited service, if
one month you download 200Gb then the next only 20 then that is fair enough,
but these guys are downloading 1000Gb + in a couple of months, wtf is a
company supposed to do, I would say I am a fairly heavy user around 20-30Gb
a month download but fuck me some of these guys are downloading 500Gb.

It will be the minority that spoils it for the majority as is always the
case with these damn leechers, and before people spout about "unlimited"
usage I know the term unlimited should mean unlimited but come on, if I
offered you unlimited alcohol in a pub for 20 quid a night, would you sit
there drinking 200 glasses of wine just to put the pub out of buisness?

Use some common sense guys, dont take the piss out of companys genorosity,
or you will all have a stupid cap put in place, and terms and conditions
which tie you down.

With BT putting a 15Gb cap on there top service this must show you how in
the scheme of things you are taking the piss out of plusnet, If I had my way
I would put you all back on 56k and let you suffer

Ronny

"Peter M" <us-mail@rocketmail.com> wrote in message
news:1rrlp09e988oo66fdp525ka8tqjoq39rgh@4ax.com...
my point was that in the previous posters message they are whining about
profit, yet by upsetting customers, to the stage that some may leave is not
gonna help their profits is it?unless you think that by getting shot of
paying customers in any business makes money!

"Ronny" <Ron@Ron.com> wrote
snip....

I would kinda agree with that, its just a pity that the some of the people
that got the original email from them are not doing 200Gb

Thats rubbish, most which have had the email are nowhere near "1000Gb+ in a
couple of months" you should have a look on the adslguide.org forums to see
one person that got the email claims their actual use in the last 3 months
was just over 80Gb

I think 20-30Gb a month is perfectly acceptable, 500Gb i would say is not,
however its only a very small number that have reached that number, most
that got the email seem to be around the 100Gb-150Gb amount per month, Im
not gonna say if that figure is acceptable or not, obviously plusnet dont
think it is, however it might be nice if the paying customers knew what was
and was not, for all you know 6 months down the road you 30Gb may by them
be seen as unacceptable.

There is no proof that anybody has spoiled the service for anyone at all,
all the users know is that plusnet dont like 0.3% (whatever thats spose to
mean) users. As for the term unlimited, i dont think they actually use
that in their terms, however if they do then they should be selling what
they advertise, if they are not, that is against the law.

Some would, and they know they would, hence the reason no pub owner with
any brain would offer such a scheme.

Terms already technically tie them down, as for a cap, im sure some would
prefer that, at least then they would understand what is and isnt allowed.

The users that only use around 3Gb a month would probably say the same to
you about your 30Gb.

On Wed, 17 Nov 2004 06:30:50 +0000, Peter M <us-mail@rocketmail.com> wrote:

Hi,

In terms of the customers that we contacted you're right that £65.99 per
month wouldn't cover the costs we pay to BT Wholesale. The per GB cost is
around £1 so you can easily see how much it costs. On top of that there's
the port cost as well as the costs of all the other services and support
staff.


With Regards,

Dave,
--
| Dave Tomlinson Broadband Solutions For
| Customer Support for Home & Business
| PlusNet plc @ http://www.plus.net
+ ----- My Referrals - It pays to recommend PlusNet -----

"Dave" <notvalid.for@privacy.net> wrote in message
news:cnfign$mdq$1@newsg2.svr.pol.co.uk...
I was just using the statement from Plusnet, not from adsl guide

I dont see that as being "over the top"

I'm not with PN, so in that respect it doesnt effect me, but I would hope my
ISP would contact others who were abusing the "always on" privilege

Plenty offer "drink as much as you want" for a fixed fee, its why I used
that anology

But the users using 3 Gb would be better off moving to a capped service,
They have no cause to complain as they do not even need to be on an
un-capped service.

You pay £25.00 a month or whatever for the reason of using your connection
to download what you want when you want, it's not rocket science to work out
that people are abusing the "uncapped" status as being a free for all to
download as much as they like.

I'm not a big beliver of AUP and capping, but I can see why people bring
them in, it's because of the heavy users spoiling it for the rest.

I dont see 80Gb a month as big usage, but when I see people doing 150Gb+ it
starts get silly.

Ronny

Quite frankly I am astonished you did not just dump them just as most other
ISPs would do. I really don't believe that there is anything to be gained by
allowing a tiny number of users to abuse the system.

On Wed, 17 Nov 2004 13:13:05 -0000, Dave <notvalid.for@privacy.net> wrote:

Hi,



Certainly not everyone we contacted was doing 1000GB, I've asked the
person I think you are referring to to contact me so I can check it out.




It's isn't a case that we don't like anyone, want we are trying to do is
ensure that the for the vast majority of our customers isn't spoiled and
still offer the highest quality service to all customers.



The service hasn't been marketted as unlimited. For starters it wouldn't
be technically possible to offer an unlimited service because even maxing
out upload and download you'll hit a limit. But I'm being pedantic now.



They did this at a couple of clubs near me a couple of years back, but
people being people drank that bit too much, not for the clubs, but for
the police who asked them to stop this type of promotion.





With Regards,

Dave,
--
| Dave Tomlinson Broadband Solutions For
| Customer Support for Home & Business
| PlusNet plc @ http://www.plus.net
+ ----- My Referrals - It pays to recommend PlusNet -----

"Ronny" <Ron@Ron.com> wrote in message news:30145sF2p428nU1@uni-berlin.de...

On Wed, 17 Nov 2004 14:06:57 +0000, PlusNet Support Team wrote:

Ah-hah! Finally, a number I can work with! I think I was speaking to you
via the web-based support forum a few weeks ago, regarding what reasonable
usage would be. I can understand that you'd be reluctant to state a
specific figure as to what the definition of "reasonable" is, but I
(as well as many others, I think) just wanted some guidelines as to what
your running costs were so I could estimate what I would consider to be
"reasonable" given what I pay and what your costs are. And then of course,
if I decide to use less/more than that, that's my call, but at least I
know what the implications of my usage are for plus.net.

This £1/gb tells me exactly what I wanted! Thanks!

Out of interest, can you tell me what part of the connection between my
flat and "the internet" is the bit that BT charges approximately £1/gb
for? I mean, is it for the DSL network part from my flat to your DSL
terminating equiptment? If so, then presumably there are other costs you
need to pay to internet backbone companys, the linx etc.. that you peer
with - again out of interest, how much do places like this charge?

I'm just curious as to how DSL works from a social-economic perspective
(instead of a purely technical perspective, which I can dig up the details
on from numerous places around the 'net).

Steve.

"Trev" <trevbowdenATdsl.pipexDOTnet> wrote in message
news:ldSdndxzi-1k_wbcRVnygQ@pipex.net...

"PlusNet Support Team" <dtomlinson@plus.net> wrote in message
newspshl35vp26ihwnk@usenet.plus.net...
So from that am i right in saying (assuming) that a 22 quid per month 512k
user that goes over 22 gig in a month it cost you money??????????

On Wed, 17 Nov 2004 14:24:22 -0000, Peter Crosland <g6jns@yahoo.co.uk>
wrote:

I can certainly understand that, but one of the things we've considered as
that these customers have done nothing wrong. I have spoken to some
customers who are in this bracket or just under and they have just been
using the connection the way they see fit. It's only fair to give them a
chance to change, and if they'd rather leave us then we've a set of
processes in place to allow them to move to another ISP which we can
discuss on a case by case basis.

With Regards,

Dave,
--
| Dave Tomlinson Broadband Solutions For
| Customer Support for Home & Business
| PlusNet plc @ http://www.plus.net
+ ----- My Referrals - It pays to recommend PlusNet -----

Dave wrote:
yes it will. If you're costing them £100/month in bandwidth fees, and
paying £65/month in access fees they are better off without you.

If you want or need to shift 100's Gig/month put your hand in your
pocket and pay for a leased line. Bandwidth is really expensive.

On Wed, 17 Nov 2004 14:45:42 +0000, Steve <steve@x2.org.uk> wrote:

Hi Steve,

£1/GB is only an approximate figure but you can use it to cover every GB
from your property, through BT Wholesale's network on to our's and out to
the Internet, and would include both the BT cost and the transit cost.
The majority of the cost would be the part from you through BT to us as
the transit links cost a lot less than the BT Central pipes. Plus by
defination they'll carry less data between them as some traffic doesn't
leave our network e.g. visiting the portal. I don't have any exact figures
I can give you for this unfortunately.

I know I've not said much here, but if there's anything specific you need
to know feel free to ask.


With Regards,

Dave,
--
| Dave Tomlinson Broadband Solutions For
| Customer Support for Home & Business
| PlusNet plc @ http://www.plus.net
+ ----- My Referrals - It pays to recommend PlusNet -----

"Dave" <notvalid.for@privacy.net> wrote in message
news:cnfhoc$vpg$1@newsg4.svr.pol.co.uk...
"getting shot" of them DOES make sense

"Ronny" <Ron@Ron.com> wrote in message
news:30145sF2p428nU1@uni-berlin.de...
Oh well i guess one or the other has exagerated a bit
Again a guessing game!

Neither do I

Fair enough, im not with them either, but i do think they need to get the
story straight and then tell it to their paying customers, I kinda agree
about the ISP contacting you if needed side of things, but its pretty
pointless contacting you if there is nothing of 100% sense in the email.

In that case i can only assume they can afford to do that, rather then (and
i will use your figures ;D) asking them to stop at the 200th glass of wine.

Ah but using you analogy about heavy users, why should they??

Maybe they want a un-capped service as a safe guard, after all if you
choose a capped service with Plusnet and one month say you do find yourself
needing 30 Gb( ive used that cos by your admission thats your average) it
will end up costing them more then it would if they had paid for the
uncapped service.

Ah and thats were the arguements come into play, what is meant by
"uncapped"? What is meant by "what you want when you want" what is meant by
alot of these misleading words not only what PN but several ISPs love
tagging to their service.

No its to ensure that you are more likely to have a profit then a loss come
the end of the month.

As i dont work for PN or any ISP i dont think im in a position to say what
is 'silly' and what is not with regards to amounts of Gb, however i do
believe the users have the right to know.

"Trev" <trevbowdenATdsl.pipexDOTnet> wrote in message
news:ldSdndxzi-1k_wbcRVnygQ@pipex.net...
Thats another problem, different users, consider different amounts
acceptable, if PN would come forward with a clearly defined figure it would
basically kill the arguement.