[ronnier]

This really disturbs me. I just moved to Seattle where I signed up for Comcast internet. A couple of days later, my connection stopped working until I activated my account on comcast.com. I did, and the first thing I saw was

High-Speed Internet Data Usage: 17% 43GB of 250GB

They sure hide that fact when you signup, not that I have any options, as Comcast is the only provider where I live. This is a horrible direction we are heading. And, if you go over the limit, they call and warn you. If you go over again, they cancel your account.

[ronnier]

http://customer.comcast.com/Pages/FAQViewer.aspx?Guid=3ca542...

The vast majority - more than 99% - of our customers will not be impacted by a 250 GB monthly data usage threshold. If you exceed more than 250 GB, you may receive a call from the Customer Security Assurance ("CSA") team to notify you of excessive use. At that time, we will tell you exactly how much data you used. When we call you, we try to help you identify the source of excessive use and ask you to moderate your usage, which the vast majority of our customers do voluntarily. If you exceed 250 GB again within six months of the first contact, your service will be subject to termination and you will not be eligible for either residential or commercial internet service for twelve (12) months. We know from experience that most customers curb their usage after our first call. If your account is terminated, after the twelve (12) month period expires, you may resume service by subscribing to a service plan appropriate to your needs.

[citricsquid]

Same here. I'm with BT in the UK and I'm on an unlimited* plan with a fair usage policy. This is fine by me, I held off downloading until night time (for both my own convenience and others) but because I had 2mb/s download and a Steam library of 200+ games, I figured I may as well DL my entire library at once. After a couple of days I'd downloaded over 300GB, one night I get an email saying blah blah fair usage cap has been hit. So now I'm capped at 1mbps between 5PM and midnight every day for 1 month (thankfully the cap is lifted tomorrow) because my "unlimited" plan has hard defined limits that aren't publicised. Try finding the limit for the unlimited plan I have and it doesn't exist, yet EVERYONE gets capped at 300GB/m. In a normal month I use ~150GB and would stick to that if I'd known about the defined limit, the misleading nature of it sucks.

I don't mind limits, unlimited is impossible, but when the limit is the same for everyone regardless of how the service is used and then tout it as unlimited... it's ridiculous.

[slavak]

Wouldn't that be considered a breach of contract? I know that if this happened to me (Israel) the first thing I would do is call up my ISP and threaten a lawsuit unless they provide me the service I signed up for.

[jarek]

Some small print in a terms and conditions document probably says something like "we reserve the right to Manage Our Network (read: throttle you) as we see fit." Also "we reserve the right to terminate the contract at any time for any reason."

[slavak]

This probably depends a great deal on the legal system where you live. Over here there's a decent chance of a "small-print" condition like that being thrown out if it was ever challenged in court. Of course it also helps that usually you sign up with an ISP over the phone, without actually signing any physical contract they can fill with "small-print".

[ZoFreX]

> unlimited is impossible

Tell that to Virgin. Pay them enough money and they give you real unlimited (as do several other ISPs). BT sucks, but that's pretty widely-known now. The UK is certainly not in the same position as Canada, as we have several options that are genuinely unlimited.