usage allowance

[#1]

Quote from: tangey

Quote from: godsell4 If you can be in the habit of making your ATV purchases just before midnight, then the downloads will happen overnight and do not count towards your usage allowance. Incorrect, Apple TV is a STREAMING service, NOT a download service. So unless you want to get into the habit of watching all your movies between midnight and 8am, every movie you watch will come out of your "paid-for" allowance.

The previous incarnation of Apple TV had its own hard disk - you could indeed start a download just before midnight. However you could not schedule it. The new version of Apple TV is streaming only - however you can stream from your iTunes enabled computer elsewhere on your network, having previously downloaded a movie on the computer.
At the moment we are thinking:
Decide what movies we'd like to rent.
Set them to download on the Mac Pro, then stop/pause.
Re-start the download past midnight.
Since you have 30 days to start watching (and 48 hours to finish watching after you start..) I'm thinking it shouldn't be a problem.
There is some pressure on Apple to include a download scheduler in iTunes as bandwidth usage limits are quite popular amongst ISP's around the world. For now I'm thinking of writing an AppleScript to tell iTunes to start paused downloads.
A little off topic maybe - but I'm thinking PlusNet and ISP's generally need to talk to services such as iTunes movie rentals and agree on protocols for scheduling downloads at non-peak times.
Nibor: thanks for the info
Regards,
Ashley

[#2]

Quote from: JEB

I would be happy to pay a premium price as well.  The finger in the air price of £25 strikes me as far too cheap, although I would like a higher allowance then 60GB. I'm personally still on the old Premium Option 1 product, notwithstanding it's more pricey then the newer products mainly because of the longer off peak hours and the lower amount of traffic shaping (well going by the pages in support anyway.)  Albeit the on peak allowance is rather low. James

why is £25 too cheap?  that's exactly what BT charge per month for "unlimited" - read 300GB fair usage.  BT's fair usage is 24 hours, so you don't get "free" downloads overnight, but I currently use about 100GB combined per month, and it's the 60GB daytime limit giving me issues because my wife is at home with our new baby and likes to watch internet TV
interestingly, when I called Plus Net to get my MAC code the woman on the phone told me I could get "unlimited" plus net broadband for £16 per month with FTTC, however when I signed up for FTTC with plus net, the FTTC team told me not... waiting for the original woman to call me back to either confirm it's unlimited, or give me a MAC code to give to BT

[#3]

Is there to be a consultation phase with existing customers who may not take part in Community discussions and even an online survey which could be filled out to get an idea?
I have some views but will the above or similar be carried out and any idea when the Trial could be finished by?

[#4]

That's my plan, I want to send a survey out to all the triallists towards the end of the trial. No end date has been set yet, we're likely to be trialling in to the new year.

[#5]

Thanks.
I read that plusnet want to know what customers would look for in any new products, e.g. Shaping, throttling, price, bolt-ons etc but think that not only FTTC triallists would be interested as no doubt customers may want FTTC but not want to take part in a trial for one reason or another?
Looking forward to not just fibre products but an overall refresh and would very much like to see a move from throttling if possible for most uses (understand P2P)
TIA

[#6]

Just got a new Laptop, its a gamaing netbook so has no dvd drive, I am going to download my games from steam, problem being that they average between 5gb - 15gb in size so you can imagine just downloading the bigger one will take you close to ur monthly limit. Unfortunatley steam does  not have a built in scheduler. I also start work at 6.30am so staying up to after midnight to start the download is not an option 
So for this reason a bigger allowance would be more helpful, even so I could just download 1 game a month without having to worry about going over my usage.

[#7]

Not sure about wanting more usage... but on my "View My Usage", I seem to be using 5 times the data that I did before going on the FTTC trial.
I'm hoping this is a fault, or I have some sort of virus on my PC.  There are only 2 of us using the connection, but gone from around 12gig / month to almost 60 overnight.
I dont beleve that my usage has gone up that much, plus my router seems to suggest that I havent used this much either.
Anyone else noticed such a dramatic increase in their usage.
(Dont think my new router has been compromised, or anything like that!)

[#8]

Only been using the fibre for a few hours but I can easily see me using the internet for other stuff now:-
HD streamiming, iplayer, movies etc etc everything that was such a damn pain with a 0.5meg speed.
From a personal point of view I don't mind paying for what you get, i.e the up to 8meg/20 meg etc hack me off.
If my monthly downloads are high because i like to watch HD i player I should pay more, if i just like to look at debenhams web site and do not exceed a low monthly allowance why should I pay a premium?
I know that now I can exploit the speed on FTTC and the price should reflect usage.
re trialist should be given more bandwidth, yes please!! I can then test to my hearts content.
kel

[#9]

Just wanted to ask what impact does FTTC have on usage habits?
I have a 30GB/Month allowance and am considering joining but don't want to exceed this. Tend to use about half that per month currently.
Any idea for the trial-end date too?
Thanks

[#10]

Hi,
From the data I've looked at usage on average increases by about 40%, but it varies depending on a number of things. The biggest influence we've seen is the ADSL speed, the lower the speed then the more the usage goes up with people 2Mbps seeing the biggest at about 100%.
The current trial is set to end on 25th January, anyone that can get FTTC and applies by then will get FTTC at no extra charge. Anyone going on FTTC after that date will have to pay extra (details still TBC).

[#11]

Thanks Dave and happy new year! 
Saw the blog and it was very informative. Am I right in thinking that BBYW3 is suitable as Pro is mentioned (20GB) and would there be any chance of moving back to 8Mb ADSL should the bandwidth issue be a problem? Is there any information available (ball park) about pricing/limitations for the new FTTC products that you are allowed to announce?
Lastly, if I move home what is the cost for reprovisioning FTTC  given that the BT will already have installed the equipment and extension cabling?
Thanks again

[#12]

Some very interesting points raised on this thread.
I used to be on an old plusnet unlimited package, back on the up to 8MB days, that used to cost something like £29.95.  I live over a mile away from my exchange so got a very poor speed.  I wanted to use the upto 24MB service, which would lift my speed to about 6MB, but at the time plusnet were not offering it, so I switched to bethere, again costing about £22 for unlimited access.  I was not aware of the throttling that either service had in place at that time.
I recently returned to plusnet because I was getting frequent disconnections from bethere and I wanted to use a true British company with a UK call centre and I have always had a stable connection with plusnet.
plusnet offered 3 free months broadband.  I was thinking about the pro package, but the 20GB usage restriction is just pointless on a non throttled system, so I took the extra package upto 60GB.  With my wife and three children using various services during the day, I quickly went over the usage allowance and got charged an extra fee.  I had to ask them to limit some of the things they were doing to ensure we do not go over the limit again. There remains no unlimited or premium type package at the £25 - £40 mark that would cater for my family and I think this over time is going to cost plusnet customers.
I am now on the FTTC trial and getting speeds between 10MB and about 28MB down, with a constant 8MB up.  On this service I am going to easily hit the 60GB usage each and every month.
With BT and others offering unlimited services for about £25 a month I would like to ask plusnet to again think of offering similar products.  I am happy to pay for the usage that I want but I am not prepared to do that for a throttled service.  So if plusnet were to offer a non throttled service with 300GB usage for £29.95 or thereabouts then i would be happy to pay the extra.
Remember that the new technology is much more efficient at moving data around and the investment in technology to shape and prioritise traffic means there should be less problems on the backbone, even at peak times, so im not sure why throttling is even necessary on fibre.
I will say thank you to all the people on here from plusnet involved in the trial who have done a fantastic job.