The reason I ask is because, in a conversation with a friend who is on NTL cable broadband, he told me that an NTL Tech. Helpdesk employee admitted that there isn't any way that broadband usage can actually be metered.

Then a couple of days later, I received the following e-mail from BT Broadband:

We’ve got some great news about TWO improvements we’re making to your broadband. And don’t worry, they are improvements at NO extra cost!

You’ll be aware that each of our products comes with a usage guideline. This is the amount of data you can send and receive through your broadband connection each month. However, as we don’t want anything to get in the way of your enjoyment of the Internet, we’re making two important improvements to the way usage guidelines work.

A new approach to usage guidelines – to give you more freedom

Although the vast majority of our customers are within the current usage guidelines for their product, some customers have told us that they feel restricted. So we’ve responded.

Our new approach to usage guidelines means you are free to use your broadband without the fear of being limited or charged.

From now on, if you occasionally exceed your monthly usage guideline there will be no need to worry, as you’ll be able to continue using the service as normal for the rest of the month without any restrictions or additional charges.

In fact, as long as you don’t regularly exceed your usage guideline by a large amount, you have no need to worry whatsoever. If you do regularly go over the allowance, we may contact you about moving to a more appropriate product for your needs. However given that the usage guideline for BT Broadband is more than enough for most people on this product, it’s unlikely this will be necessary.

And an increased monthly usage guideline at no extra cost

Additionally, as there are more and more things you can do with a broadband connection, we have decided to increase your usage guideline anyway. This means your monthly usage guideline will be increased from 15GB to 20GB, giving you even more reason to relax and enjoy your broadband.

And you don’t have to do a thing

In order to take advantage of these improvements to your service you don’t need to do a thing. More information and updated Terms and Conditions are available at www.bt.com/broadband/news These changes will come into effect on 15th October 2005.

Just thought we would tell you the good news. Thank you for being a valued customer of BT Broadband.

In a way, this seemed to confirm what I'd been told, especially as BT tend to take things away, not give:suspect:, but I was wondering what others may think?

Im prety sure broadband usage can be measured, my ISP (Tiscali, boooo) allow you to view the youre usage in the customer account area. Plus I have went over it before, and been sent a nasty letter (booooo). As far as i know they provide bradband cheap becouse: they share users bandwidth, and since peopel genraly dont use their line to full potential ISP dont have to buy (and therfore charge for) the full bandwidth. So when people go over that limit ISP's get abit ****** of and send you an angry letter. :)

Originally posted by Ann_x
The reason I ask is because, in a conversation with a friend who is on NTL cable broadband, he told me that an NTL Tech. Helpdesk employee admitted that there isn't any way that broadband usage can actually be metered.

Then a couple of days later, I received the following e-mail from BT Broadband:



In a way, this seemed to confirm what I'd been told, especially as BT tend to take things away, not give:suspect:, but I was wondering what others may think?

oh i got a letter from bt saying that they where scrapping the download limits then further down the page i was told i was downloading far too much ie 100gb

they really want to make there minds up

When we were with BT a few years ago and on dial-up we were using the BT ANYTIME package. Then they suspended our account for using it "too much". It was called bloody ANYTIME!

When I phoned them in a rage, their answer was for me to send them an email. An email? A bloody email? How could I do that when they'd suspended the internet account? Suffice to say I left BT immedaitely. :rant:

Not quite the same thing but it still smarts so took this opportunity to have a rant.

Feel better now. Thank you. :D

Technically it's not difficult to measure bandwidth usage, either on a second by second basis or over a month. I run softwrae on my system here to monitor traffic in and out, so it will be within the capabilities of an ISP to do this.

I've never been capped, and now I tend to pay for an uncapped service even though I come nowhere near any maximum bandwidth limits.

In fact, short of spending all day watching streaming video or downloading oodles of big files, I can't imagine how I ever WOULD get close to a typical bandwidth limit these days, even though I do web development and work from home quite a bit!

Joe :)

Agree with Joe P. BT most certainly will have ways of monitoring usage.

They have been threatening quotas since this time last year. Was gonna be introduced in May 05. I queried it with them when nothing happened and they said it had been put back to Sept 05. And now this change of tack.

Maybe they had problems with reliable measurement or enforcement. But I think it more likely this is what triggered their change of policy:
From BT Broadband
Although the vast majority of our customers are within the current usage guidelines for their product, some customers have told us that they feel restricted. So we’ve responded.

BT broadband and NTL broadband are different technologies. One is ADSL the other is cable.

It is definatly possible for ADSL ISPs to track data usage.

When you connect your ADSL modem/router it connects to a port on a DSL access multiplexer. The ports can track stastics such as bytes uploaded, downloaded etc which can be queiried and stored in a database by your ISP.

I really don't have enough knowledge about cable to be able to say whether it's true that they can't also do this. I am sceptical though, I would assume if they didn't have the abillity to do this they would just advertise a "use as much as you want" type of deal.

Any isp could run a MRTG type app on the IP ranges (to weed out high traffic) then drill down further detail, can also count packets of data sent from that users logon / IP total it up and thats the bandwidth the user has used.