O2 Broadband Unlimi-what?

[siravarice]

So about a week ago I received a bubblewrap lined envelope from O2, with a little sticker on it saying "returns package". I thought it odd that they would be cancelling my connection at the end of my contract, as I thought they just carry on the contract but you aren't obliged to stay with them as you have seen out your contract. So me and my Mum (she is the contract holder as I had to get it through my phone contract, which she holds because I wasn't 18 when I got my phone) went into an O2 store to ask about it. The guy in there said it was very odd, but that we should phone up support because they will be able to tell us more.

So I just phoned them up and couldn't believe what I was hearing.

Apparently I went over their fair usage policy (which I checked) and that they are cancelling the contract on the 25th Septmeber. When I said that they didn't tell me, they claimed to have phoned me THREE times on my Mobile, which is only off at night and is always on loud. They also claimed they sent my many letters, which I have yet to receive. To their credit they did sent me emails about it, but they failed to mention that it would be sent to the O2 webmail they host that comes with each broadband package, something which I didn't think to check because I didn't know it existed.

When I questioned the guy about their fair usage policy, he claimed that the limit was stated in it, which it wasn't about eleven months ago. He then said it was around 70GB a month. I told him that was false advertism, that 70GB is a very low limit, especially when you are a gamer, and living with a media student (the fiancé). He said that it was so that everyone got good service, which I never really had with their intermittent connection and sometimes shocking download speeds. Luckily the guy I was talking to said that I had my MAC key in an email that was sent to me, so without further ad due I told him to shove it, that their service was crap and that I would gladly move to sky as their unlimited broadband is actually unlimited, and that its also cheaper.

So yeah, don't go with O2, they are f*****g s**t.

 

[thestepster]

ha ha ha well its not often a company cancels on u! get on sky mate its good stuff unlimited totally

 

[I Hunta x]

The only major net company that is truely unlimited is virgin on there 50 meg package (it isnt counted into the fair usage policy at all

) on there lower packages tho you get limited to 50% if you go over so much in the aloted 8 hours but then back up to 100% after that 8 hour slot.

 

[Diablo]

I'm getting sick of these so called unlimited services. The way I got round my one is that I get the best speeds at night when I'm not metered. I don't like having to do all my big d/ls overnight though. Surely ASA/trading standards ought to start checking up on all these unlimited packages.

 

[zak4994]

The only major net company that is truely unlimited is virgin on there 50 meg package (it isnt counted into the fair usage policy at all

) on there lower packages tho you get limited to 50% if you go over so much in the aloted 8 hours but then back up to 100% after that 8 hour slot.

Sky are also truly unlimited.

 

[siravarice]

Yup, sky it is!

 

[siravarice]

I also intent to use up as much bandwidth as possible before I leave

 

[thestepster]

yeah ive been with sky for 4 years and never been capped ever runs as fast as it does 24/7 and come months ive downloaded 500gb and nothing gets mentioned

 

[I Hunta x]

Ah fair enough on the truely unlimited, never had a good look through there T&S stuff, but most people ive talked to/know who are on sky have nothing but problems with actual download speeds and sometime stability, 4 people i play on xbox live with usualy rarely get above 10meg download speed from actual downloads and speed tests, usualy its like 7.5-12.5, 2 swaped over to virgin recently (1 20meg & 1 50 meg) and there getting consistant 20 and 50 down now.

 

[BloomerzUK]

It's happened to someone on KustomPC's/OcUK also:

http://forums.kustompcs.co.uk/showthread.php?t=49710

 

[siravarice]

Thanks for posting Bloomers, I was amazed when he said he was running on a 40GB fair useage cap. 40GB is nothing to me.

I'm currently downloading Blazing Angels 2, along with about 25GB of other things at the moment

 

[alicarve]

im with orange and they just slowed my internet speeds by half when i went over my 'unlimited usage fair use policy' i rang to complain and all they said was it will slow others people internet down, but after a month it went straight back up and my internet is now quicker, was on 5.5mb download now on 6.5mb, so cant complain.

 

[Raging]

need to get with the better half of 02,BE they are awesome i dont think ile ever change isp again

 

[mrapoc]

I'm with Idnet 30gb on peak, 30gb off peak. Does me fine, plus as its stated what I get they can't/don't throttle or traffic shape - also very nice people with free and effective support whom I can just call up and get an answer in 3 or so rings

You do pay a bit more, but a monthly contract of which I havent left in about 2-3 years now i'm satisfied

 

[alienware]

I missed this.

It depends on what line you are on as to how much o2 will eff you around. I am on a non LLU line and have been treated terribly. I got it last October(09) and it was bloody awesome for the first month. I was hitting 8m which on my lines is almost unheard of.

I then got an email from o2 saying they were going to upgrade my lines to make things even better. I really thought that the premium I paid was well worth it.

At the end of November 2009 they upgraded my lines alright, and after that I struggled to go above .25m. It was absolutely terrible and I couldn't even watch a Youtube video. So, I phoned a few times to complain and they always said "we will get a tech to call you back". They never called back.

I was beginning to realise that complaining was going to get me nowhere and I was screwed. Then one day I noticed when I was doing a speedtest that I was being connected to Birmingham. Which wouldn't be a problem apart from the fact that if I step out of my house and turn around my arse practically drags on the coast.. The south coast. I am about 2 miles as the crow flies from the bum end of Britain, yet, there I was being connected to an exchange 450 miles away.

So I phoned again, over and over, and eventually they would sort it and I would be connected via Maidenhead (in Kent, about 100 miles away) which was the closest to me. At which point my net would be nice and fast, for about two days, before it defaulted back to either Birmingham or Manchester.

This went on until June of this year (too long !) and eventually it became super fast. Awesome ! I can download all of the South Park eps I lost in the hdd crash last September !. I own all of the SP seasons on DVD but ripping them takes longer than downloading divx rips, so I figured sod it.

At the end of the month the phone rang. It was o2, who wanted to tear me a new one for breaking the fair usage policy. The phone call went a little something like this...

"Hi Mr XXXXXX. This is Michelle from O2 customer service. We would like to inform you that you broke our fair usage policy last month"

"Erm, what do you mean 'fair usage policy' I thought that paying £25 a month had no limits broadband like you told me when I signed up?"

"Ahhhh, see, you need to read the fine print. Our unlimited broadband is only unlimited within the terms of our fair usage policy"

"OK, then what, pray tell, do you consider to be fair usage?"

"Less than 60gb a month"

"OK then, can you bring up my total usage for last month, and the ones before?"

"Erm.... Sorry no, I can't do that"

"OK then, are you aware that for six months my internet simply hasn't worked? and I would have been lucky to use more than 5gb a month?"

"Sorry no, I wasn't aware of that"

"Well, now you are. And, if your internet wasn't so f*****g s**t then maybe I would have been able to spread my bandwidth out a tad and not fallen foul of your fair usage policy. Fact is this connection has been so f*****g awful that I haven't even been able to sniff the arse of your policy, let alone break it.. So, I am offended that you have called, f**k you".

*phone went down*.

Then I was mad. I figured that they had no problems phoning me when they wanted to whine about me using too much bandwidth, but when the shoe was on the other foot and I dared to phone them they just palmed me off with a load of old bolacks and never called me back. So, I started a "shawshank redemption*" vigil, phoning them three times a day whenever my net was gash.

In the end it became good. However, if I tried to use Rapidshare or Megaupload (where I hold premium accounts to send enormous artwork PSDs to companies and my friends) it took about ten minutes to load the page, let alone use it. Upload simply timed out and I was getting about 3k a sec on down.

I phoned about fifty times and each time they would send me to a file of THEIR CHOICE before telling me there was nothing wrong with my connection. In the end I became rather forceful and finally got them to admit that they refused to help me with rogue sites (in their opinion of course, totally ignoring the legitimate reasons for usage) because I was PROBABLY using them to share illegal files. So again I got absolutely nowhere and just hit a brick wall.

Needless to say that come October I will be ending my contract with them and going elsehwere. o2 is SO BAD that I couldn't even play my friend in Maryland USA at SFIV because it would just keep disconnecting. I realise that most of the problem is because of my non LLU line, but I don't understand why o2 charge me more than any other ISP for broken promises, * and lies. I might aswell pay the lowest possible price, because no matter what I do or who I go with it's always going to be s**t.

* Shawshank redemption vigil. You know the bit where he is trying to get the state to give him a library grant? and they ignore him so he writes a letter OVER AND OVER AND OVER until they finally acknowledge him.

 

[siravarice]

What a great little read Alien! I am currently RAPING their internet connection, constantly downloading and uploading anything I can get my hands on before my contact is up. Hopefully I you get it all sorted soon!

 

[mayhem]

this remind me of when i typed this up to the head of virgin media quite a while ago. (had to sift though my emails to find it again ..

From: Michael wood <!!!!!!!!!>

To: Berkett, Neil

Sent: Thu Feb 26 12:55:09 2009

Subject: Virgin media , exploding cable modems and lies !!!!!!

Well i could not believe what i was told buy technical support in a far off place called India today when i phone to sort out my cable modem. This is for real ..... Considering email them with this ....

To start off nice and simple i pay the old £25 for a 10mb connection and for the last few weeks have only been getting 2mb even after 12 at night. thinking at first i must have hit there cut off limit. But over the last few days i noticed my kids haven't used there PCs and ive had hardly any downloads or uploads for that matter going on. So after phoning there normal help desk i was put through to India broadband technical support.

Now after the nice fellow introduced himself as Steve (ill let that one go) and asked from my name "Mick". He went on to read his manuscript of how i must unplug the cable modem and re set it which i didn't complain about and just did it to keep him happy. I then re ran a test and saw i was still only connected at 2mb. Then he gladly kept reading from his screen that i must remove all my Cookies (cool this is getting interesting) and make sure my virus protector is turned off (now hes relay going some ware here) so i obliged him anyway. Then he told me to re test my line and he would check it from his end. Again still connected at 2mb lol.

Again after he came back after waffling a loading of Hindu speech to his mentor whom was sitting right next to him and then his mentor calling him Rujal (not steve) and me listening and him not knowing i understand a little Hindu my self he said "please turn off your cable modem else it may (now these are his words not mine) BLOW UP ..........."

what !!!!! he can blow up my modem all the way from India ... HOLY COW .... How can he do that .... Rujal ops i mean Steve can actually some how send a bomb down my line and blow up my cable modem or even send down more than the few volts than the line can carry and take out my modem and no one else in the street. How can he do such a thing. I started to sweat at this point and started to feel afraid that some how i have a time bob sitting in my living room waiting for some Guy in India (or is he supposed to be in the UK i never know) has a big red nob that he can hit at any time and blow up my home !!!!!!! I had to calm down and ask my lass to make me a coffee before i pee my pans with fear.

I turned round to Rujal on the phone and said "Steve were are you mate because im now worried that if i touch this bomb it might go off in my hands" he came back with im from Newport". I said "is'nt that near Newcastle ?" of which he replied with "yes its close"...... I then asked my lass to check my sleeping tablets to see if i may have taken to many .. you never know it could be just me. I then said to Rujal "Steve no offense mate but you have me very worried now that if i turn of this cable modem off it might blow up on me like you said" . He then calmed me down by explaining this could only happen if i leave it on while he runs some test's. So that calmed me down a lot now and here is me thinking that he could blow it up while i was turning it off.

So i unplugged the cable modem and told Rajal or was it Steve who resides in Newport that is near Newcastle that i had done what he had asked off me and that was to remove the fragile volatile cable modem from its power unit as he asked .....

He then told me to wait while he sends some commands to the modem and see's if he could solve this massive problem that i was having.

After about 4 min Rujal ops i mean Steve who lives in Newport near Newcastle who has the ability to blow up my cable modem in my house then came back and said "Miss Rungien" (i quickly check my genitals just in case this guy can now do gender exchange via some sort of mental telepathy or even over my cable modem line) can you please turn on back your modem (no that 's how he said it this nice UK citizen from Newport near Newcastle called Steve.....)

So i worryingly go over to my modem double checking that my genitals are still there and that my "Moob's" haven't suddenly grown into fully fledged boobs and plug back in the power supply all the while feeling a little unconformable about this simple problem.

I then tell Rujal dam done it again i mean Steve from Newport near Newcastle that has the ability to blow up my cable modem and give me a gender reassignment while all this is going on that i had done as he asked ... He then asked me miss Rugien to check my PC to see if it was now working.

I did this and holly cow its now working i have my 10Mbs back.

So i then turned round to Rujal ......dam done it again ..... i mean Steve on the phone "Thank you for sending my 10Mb Cm file and flashing my firmware on my new cable modem to what it was supposed to be, but do me a favor next time don't lie down the telephone Rujal it doesn't make your mentor who is listening in on the other end of the phone look Good and have a nice day over there in India bud" ......

This is the sort of lies you Indian staff say to us users over the phone. I am not impressed really as i have to deal with types of cock ups when peoples modems don't work as a IT engineer. This was my own cable modem this time. Im considering from now on telling my customers to not bother with virgin media as a ISP because of the out right lies your staff tell and the really bad service that you are giving us over here in the UK.

ever since NTL got taken over by virgin the service has gone down hill. it took your company 9 months just to give me back my email account and they still haven't given me back access to my FTP account witch has now been over 1.5 years.

Ill be posting this in all the forums i can because im fed up with your company and they way ive been treated and lied to even though it was funny.

Michael wood

 

[siravarice]

That's even more impressive than mine! Keep 'em coming lads, I've never had such fun reading about your experiences with ISP's. It will help me in the future!

 

[atomiclard]

I am on O2 broadband and i have downloaded 885GB and uploaded 199GB since september, mostly due to torrents and stuff.

It's strange to see some people getting penalised and some people getting away with it.

 

[alienware]

I am on O2 broadband and i have downloaded 885GB and uploaded 199GB since september, mostly due to torrents and stuff.

It's strange to see some people getting penalised and some people getting away with it.

See - LLU non LLU. That's the cause. On LLU it is unlimited for now, until it starts to slow due to congestion. On BT non LLU it isn't, hence the fair usage queermo policy.