NTL limits broadband downloads by back door

BROADBAND SUPPLIER NTL World has quietly changed its terms and conditions and now allows only 1GB of downloads a day.

If broadband users have a 1MB connection, this amounts to the rather less than 24 by seven connection of approximately two and a half hours.

The supplier set forth a refresh of its Ts&Cs in a message quietly posted on its web site.

"Normal use of the [NTL] service is defined as up to 1 gigabyte downstream of data transfer daily," says NTL.

And it's obviously worried about downloading of music, because the same sentence continues that equates to around 200 music tracks a day.

The NTL service is intended for normal recreational or educational use by individuals and families, the company says, and pricing and network architecture are designed accordingly.

"Customers who use the service more heavily than a normal home user will reduce the performance of the network for other customers."

You can find the revised Ts&Cs here, but there's no pictures of normal home users, unfortunately.

The newly opened dont-pay-ntl.co.uk fulminates against NTL, saying "You don't buy a Ferrari just to nip down to the shops in it", and reproduces NTL's advert which claims to offer high speed unlimited Internet access.

U-turn on Monday, anyone think? µ

See Also
NTL pulls plug on warez
NTL claims first with fast broadband service
NTL axes free dial up service
Is NTL the most useless phone service in the UK?

** ALREADY THERE'S A WEB site to track this development. Called Don't Pay NT, it has a message from a lady saying nothing has changed -- there is no download limit.

* A READER SPOKE TO NTL support today. Here is what he wrote to us on reading our story.

I just spoke to "Matthew" at the NTL Cardiff call centre about this, He said they have had no official confirmation of this, and blamed it on rumour sites passing on hearsay. He said mooted the opinion that this was a rumour released by ntl to gauge opinion. I rang off, then realised this isn't just rumour -- it's in the ntl T&Cs now.

I am currently on hold trying to get back through to him. He's "browsing the website" apparently; I just gave him the URL of the NTL user policy page.

OK... I eventually got passed through to Geraint, also in Cardiff. I was on hold for a while whilst Geraint spoke to a few other members of staff and gathered some facts. He knew nothing about this issue before I called.

He says that ntl are going to administer the cap on a monthly basis, so that more than 1Gb/day is ok as long it averages to less than 1Gb/day across the whole billing month, Greater than that amount leads to snotty letters from the AUP department. Greater than that on a regular basis leads to the account being classed as a "business" account and presumably either higher charges or cancellation.

He claimed this was necessary to support a good service for all users; I said "presumably because you've oversold the service?". He claimed that no UK ISP will give you unlimited bandwidth; I challenged him to name one other UK ISP with capacity caps and he could not. I pointed out that I would leave NTL and cancel £100 a month of services; he flatly denied that this is a "material reduction in services" and insisted I cannot cancel within my 12 month contract. I pointed out we'd have some fun with the press if ntl take me to court for non payment of a contract that I think is pretty clearly reduced. He didn't have a response to that.

He also claimed that this 1Gb clause has been in the T&Cs for "quite some time". I asked why it had been included without any fanfare or announcement; specifically, I asked if he didn't think this was "a bit sneaky". He didn't have a response.

So, looks like a right mess, reminiscent of when ntl's legal department tried to ban all servers off cable modems -- only to be informed by hundreds of technically literate users that this stops all IM clients, all FTP downloads, anything that opens a listen port. Let's just hope that beating them with a big enough cluebat will help this time too as otherwise I, and hopefully many others, will be off to price up Sky/BT/ADSL. Just what a company emerging from Chapter 11 needs, the desertion of a high-paying chunk of its customers.

Feel free to print this email. In fact, please do, because this issue needs to be clarified fast so people know what to complain to ntl's big wigs about. The more focussed the complaints, the more likely this will get overtuned.

Richard Gaywood
Email address supplied