 
Archivis
Your Daddy
Premium
join:2001-11-26
Earth
 ·Verizon FIOS
| Dear Valued Customer, We have implemented a policy on our network limiting a gig a day of transfer rates. We feel that you're all stupid and completely incompetent and don't understand what this means. So we'll just not tell you, charge you the same rates, decrease the level of service, and just assume that you're all too stupid to understand.
--
Hitman Forums | The Internet Hitman | Mr. Game & Watch owns all of you. | |
|
 | 
wonko3fc
Verbum sat sapienti
join:2001-06-02
UK | Re: Dear Valued Customer, Laugh? – Oh dear….
The 'exec' must have been taking advice from their own tech support staff - Who, most certainly are "Not technical enough to understand" | |
|
CS_Buddy
Black Mage
Premium
join:2002-01-03
Canada
clubs:
| Not Tech Enough To Understand?! quote:
NTL executives decided not to inform their customers about the decision to implement 1 gig a day caps because they didn't believe they were "'tech' enough to understand".
This has to be one of the poorest excuses for not informing customers of a pending change. I don't buy that for a second. They were too afraid to announce they were making the changes because if they had made it public, they'd have to explain their reasons for doing so ahead of time, and provoke arguments and debates which might prevent them from being able to pull it off.
If they believe their customers are not "tech" enough to understand what a 1GB daily cap is, then how do they expect to explain it to their customers when they cut them off and call them explain why? Isn't it the same thing? If you're going to have to call your customers to explain why their internet isn't working now they they have gone over the 1GB cap, how is that any different then sending out an email explaining it? In my opinion, the latter is kinder and would save hours of phone conversations with customers arguing the policy AFTER THE FACT. Were they even planning on warning customers since the policy did go into place, or were they just going to wait until they go over the limit and point them at the Acceptable Use Policy?! Think of how much time and money is going to be wasted arguing over the phone as to why they can't use the internet until the next day.
This policy is beyond ridiculous, especially in light of all the advertising that they have up still saying things like "unlimited internet usage" and "always connected, continuous service". This was poorly planned policy change and I can't believe they can get away with this.
My ISP has implemented a soft cap 10/5GB down/up per month policy. It hasn't even been put into full effect and I got emails MONTHS ago informing me of the changes that will be taking place.
"Not Tech Enough".... what a cop out.
--
Black Mage may be evil, but he sure does love that Canadian Forum | |
|
| 
lazarus_
join:2002-08-31
Resolute, NU
| Re: Not Tech Enough To Understand?! they would also have a fun time explaining why their customers bills are a bagillion dollars.  "um you went over the 'bit' cap which is too technical for your simple mind, so just pay the bill.." lol
--
Patriotism is virtue of the vicious | |
|
|
CS_Buddy
Black Mage
Premium
join:2002-01-03
Canada
clubs:
| Oh I don't think the have the mind to set up to bill them. I think they'll just be cutting their customers off at the knees once they get to the 1GB limit. It would probably be more humane to just throttle their connection down, but that doesn't seem like the case.
--
Black Mage may be evil, but he sure does love that Canadian Forum | |
|
Go Chargers7
Fa Shizzle Ma Nizzle
Premium
join:2002-09-24
Huntington Beach, CA
|  Lame
NTL is crap, no matter how many awards they buy for themselves.
Guess the U.S. isn't the only home of corporate criminals who make a habit of bending over customers.
--
When yer a pioneer, you're bound to get a few arrows in the butt.
[text was edited by author 2003-02-19 17:33:02] | |
|
| 
dvd536
as Mr. Pink as they come
Premium
join:2001-04-27
Phoenix, AZ
| Re: Lame said by Go Chargers7  :
Guess the U.S. isn't the only home of corporate criminals who make a habit of bending over customers.
Oh nooooooo!. the people in the UK have been getting reamed for years. i think they still pay a fee to make a phone call whether its across the street or around the world. anyone here have british telecom as their phone company? | |
|
|
panth1
The Coyote
join:2000-12-11
Boca Raton, FL
| HaHa... I don't think this company is too bright either. Saying that your customers are basically idiots is a good way to lose customers.
They must of got their business degree from one of those spam emails.. haha :P
--
Total Modems On This Upstream Channel : 485 (457 active)
Avg upstream channel utilization : 98%
| |
|
| |
plk
bo may sleep in loft
Premium
join:2002-04-20
Ogden, IA
| So put a big sign in your yard These companies spend thousands trying to make a good name for themselfs. Posting in this forum doesn't hurt them. A big sign in your yard will be more effective. Talk to some people on busy highways too. NTL internet SUCKS It will cut into their new customer base. This "base" is why they are doing the caps.... ie make more room for the new customer w/o buying more bandwidth etc. With no growth, they might figure it is time to keep the customers they have happy. | |
|
| 
LoonRadio
Tranquility Base
Premium
join:2003-02-13
Erewhon | Re: So put a big sign in your yard | |
|
|
plk
bo may sleep in loft
Premium
join:2002-04-20
Ogden, IA | LOL I like that. | |
|
asdfdfdf
@209.74.x.x
| ... Under UK law can you be held to agreements if you are too stupid to understand the terms you are agreeing to;)
I don't understand why most people don't demand a downgrade of service to the 128k level. This would allow them to still have reasonable speeds to do "basic internet" things, while hitting the company's pocket book. | |
|
|
CS_Buddy
Black Mage
Premium
join:2002-01-03
Canada
clubs:
| Re: ... For pulling a stupid stunt like this, I would probably be considering moving to another ISP. If they think that little of their customers then they don't deserve my business.
Telewest is a competitor of NTL, and their service has no such restrictions and they are even thinking about starting a 2Mbps service. Most of the ADSL companies in the UK don't have caps like this either.
www.dont-pay-ntl.co.uk has some protest letters up for their customers to send to various sources. The main point in them is:
said by www.dont-pay-ntl.co.uk:
Therefore I fully intend, unless the situation is resolved, in the first instance downgrade to a lower service (For which you cap at the same 1GB) and then look for another ISP, thus losing you business and potentially taking my phone and TV service options at the same time.
Given that there are plenty of ADSL ISP’s with no download limits and some are even cheaper than your package I can’t see me waiting around too long for you to realise what you have done.
--
Black Mage may be evil, but he sure does love that Canadian Forum | |
|
boogie74
join:2001-06-19
Neenah, WI
clubs:
| A bit about the source... Let's all keep in mind a few things... one of them being that the source of the "didn't think users were 'tech enough'" was not NTL, but Kingsley Smith. Mr. Smith is the host of a web campaign called "Don't-Pay-NTL" amongst other NTL hate sites.
What I find interesting is that the NTL terms and conditions for broadband usage (which can be found here) states quite specifically that (amongst other items) the following is grounds for restriction of services:
quote:
(h) in excess of "normal use" bandwidth limits set out in this section.
ntl: home's broadband and dial-up services are intended for normal recreational or educational use by individuals and families and our pricing and network architecture have been designed accordingly. Customers who use the services more heavily than a normal home user will reduce the performance of the network for other customers.
"Normal use" of the service is defined as up to 1 gigabyte downstream of data transfer daily (which equates to approximately 200 music tracks, 650 short videos, 10,000 pictures or around 100 large software programmes downloaded per day).
I don't know about anyone else, but I would definitely call that a full disclosure of the TOS. Am I missing something? Or is this a "complaint" from someone that has every reason to make up complaints for the sake of causing problems for a company??
Even more interesting is the fact that Mr. Smith was requesting that NTL remove (yes... remove) any and all mention of the download limits in the TOS.
He also had inquired (per his "report") as to why the company failed to notify customers 6 months in advance- not AT ALL, as this seems to lead us to believe, but 6 months in advance.
As it currently stands, the TOS for NTL (as with most service providers in ANY industry) clearly states that NTL reserves the right to change the TOS with or without cause and with the stipulation of a 30 day advance notice to the customer- which is apparently what had occurred. Mr. Smith, however, didn't agree that 30 days was good enough- he wanted at least 6 months.
Beyond that, there is also an FAQ that states that users that go over the limit (apparently you have to do it 3 days in a row to be noticed) aren't shut down anyways- they are notified that their usage was high and are given informational tips on how to lower it.
Besides- HONESTLY... is there anyone here that can really say that on a residential basis, they download more than 1 Gig of data daily? That's about 200 5 MB MP3 files... And NTL isn't counting server data- like gaming.
Boogie
[text was edited by author 2003-02-20 00:12:52] | |
|
| 
ThirdShifter
Premium
join:2002-03-16
Vernon Rockville, CT | Re: A bit about the source... i think a gig a day is pretty well justified... i monitored my bandwith for a week and it totaled at 6.6GB and i play games, download mp3s Divx all the good stuff.
--
Give peace a Chance | |
|
| | NaturlBrnklr
join:2002-03-19
My Place :)
| my bandwidth well heres my stats for the past little bit. Keep in mind im on a SLOW connection(400/150-half duplex no less)
DU Meter Daily Report
Period (Date) Download Upload Both Directions
27/01/2003 1.05 GB 270.14 MB 1.31 GB
28/01/2003 1.68 GB 295.35 MB 1.97 GB
29/01/2003 2.05 GB 295.00 MB 2.33 GB
30/01/2003 1.57 GB 491.46 MB 2.05 GB
31/01/2003 1.47 GB 627.58 MB 2.08 GB
01/02/2003 1.28 GB 657.13 MB 1.93 GB
02/02/2003 1.31 GB 338.79 MB 1.64 GB
03/02/2003 1.36 GB 447.00 MB 1.79 GB
04/02/2003 612.64 MB 189.29 MB 801.93 MB
05/02/2003 1.13 GB 767.88 MB 1.88 GB
06/02/2003 933.47 MB 1.05 GB 1.96 GB
07/02/2003 1.31 GB 483.67 MB 1.79 GB
08/02/2003 1.67 GB 172.80 MB 1.84 GB
09/02/2003 978.67 MB 737.63 MB 1.68 GB
10/02/2003 568.19 MB 1.34 GB 1.89 GB
11/02/2003 617.89 MB 1.08 GB 1.68 GB
12/02/2003 641.10 MB 1.22 GB 1.85 GB
13/02/2003 907.88 MB 572.46 MB 1.45 GB
14/02/2003 813.30 MB 947.22 MB 1.72 GB
15/02/2003 980.13 MB 1.10 GB 2.06 GB
16/02/2003 920.64 MB 559.38 MB 1.45 GB
17/02/2003 976.42 MB 630.20 MB 1.57 GB
18/02/2003 657.00 MB 659.95 MB 1.29 GB
19/02/2003 1.10 GB 808.72 MB 1.89 GB
sorry the tables dont line up nicely....the forum doesnt like all the extra spaces 
Edit: for got to make my point :\ 1GB doesnt take a whole lot of time to pile up...Just doing my normal web browsing i was shocked at putting up about 300MB one day when i wanted to see without getting anything but web usage. 1GB isnt hard to pile up with a decent connection IMHO. Esp. if you start looking at flash websites and so forth. Of course it also depends how much time you spend online
[text was edited by author 2003-02-20 03:01:06] | |
|
|
asdfdfdf
@xtraport.net
| Well, if you want to assume that the man is a liar who never talked to Bill Goodland or is just making things up, so be it. Bill Goodland will never admit to having said such a thing, if he did say it, so unless the conversation was recorded we will never know one way or the other.
You seem to choose to believe that everyone is a liar unless they can prove they aren't(or, to be more precise, to believe that everyone who is in conflict with your opinion is a liar; you don't seem to hold those you sympathize with to the same standard). I choose to take people at their word until some evidence arises to suggest they are lying. Maybe he is a liar. Maybe this isn't the justification that ntl uses for not trying to more clearly notify customers of the change. Still, it appears clear that they DIDN'T try to notify them. I agree they are under no LEGAL obligation to notify them. I can still see why the customers would be irritated.
As for the terms of service issue, it is doubtful that the terms you are seeing now were in place when the people who are complaining signed up for service. Of course these terms of service always say that they can be changed at any time and that the onus is on the customer to keep a constant eye on them, which covers their behinds on legal grounds, but it doesn't mean that the annoyance of customers is less justified.
I agree that 1GB a day isn't unreasonable. I also agree that the terms seem to make a good faith effort to provide some flexibility, rather than cracking down with rigid caps. The problem that these companies consistently have is the lack of transparency/ combined with the tendency to pull people into a service and then reduce the level of service. Anyone in business knows this is a recipe for pissed off customers. Telling those pissed off customers that it is their responsibility to keep an eye on the legalese of the changing terms of service isn't likely to do anything more than fan the flames. | |
|
| |
trinity
Premium
join:2002-11-10
UK
clubs:
| NTL BT etc - Lawyers & Clients regardless of the TOC this is another sad episode in the implementation of adsl\cable in the uk... unbeatable offers... read TOC (written by lawyers to ensure clients flexiblity in enforcing TOC)... sign on dotted line... .... unbeatable offer withdrawn\downgraded\capped... please refer to the TOC!
--
"be careful of the toes you step on today, they may be connected to the ass you have to kiss tomorrow" | |
|
|
|
|
·
Re: HaHa...