RE: BTInternet does it again !!!

["Mark Hetherington" <mark.egroups@xxxxxxx>]

> I find it interesting that under these rules, as a Surftime user, I
can
> use 12 hours of "free" time (there go those quotes again)
and then be
> banned from paying for access during the day.

Why not go elsewhere for your Surftime account? I have Surftime but have
not
used it through BT Internet since Demon provided access via Surftime
numbers. No cut off, static IP and no limits on how long I want to be
online
ever. Yeah I pay for it (£11.75 p.m.) , but doesn't the BT equivalent
cost
money these days? I know I dropped my freeserve backup Surftime account
when
they wanted money for it so I assume most/all other ISPs did similar.

> There really must be some way of stopping these sods using the word
> unmetered in their terms and conditions when by any reasonable
> interpretation it is clearly *NOT* unmetered.

It is unmetered, just not unlimited unmetered. I believe in the past, most
problems people had with BT was use of unlimited or anytime in their
description. 12 hours of unmetered access is still unmetered access for
that
period. I know where you are coming from Phil, but technically, the term is
suitable so I can't see them dropping it any time (no pun intended) soon.

> I am not getting into a discussion about whether people should leave
> their PCs connected for more than 12 hours a day or whatever but it is
> the very use of "To make things fairer for everybody, we've
changed the
> daily internet use limit for Anytime and SurfTime  customers from 16
> hours to 12 hours of 'unmetered' access in any 24-hour period."
... It
> almost screams "We make money until you use more than 12 hours a
day and
> so we'll allow you to use phone time until that point and if you use
> less then we're laughing."

More like a push to ADSL plus a decision not to invest in more Dial Up
hardware that will ultimately become redundant. Better to spread the load
over the current hardware at no cost, than invest heaviliy in upgrades that
will soon be of no use (assuming broadband costs falling and availability
rising).

I don't mean to defend BT. By the time I see ADSL, it will be old hat
anyway
compared to the wireless link to Earth I have from my holiday cabin on the
moon!

BT don't want people using Dial Up as an always on connection and this has
been clear for a long time. Other ISPs don't seem to mind so they will
continue to lose business to them. Hopefully those more open minded ISPs
will not be forced to employ similar restrictions but I guess is a
possibility if their user base increases too rapidly.

Mark.