Broadband Limits - What do you think of the so-called "Fair Usage Policy"?

@inkyuboz (1392)
Mandaluyong City, Philippines
January 29, 2011 8:13am CST
I'm pretty bummed about it. I research a lot during my free time and sometimes I download large files off the net. I'm not participating in any kind of piracy, mind you, my research is and will always be purely academic. Enter this "Fair Usage Policy" thing and now I'm having problems downloading files because all of a sudden, they'd cut off my connection because I reached the current day's threshold of 800 megabytes. What in the world?! I don't use any download accelerators or programs that resume downloads so this means I have to start from the very beginning again. I hope they can do away with this FUP and just give us a decent connection. Sheesh!
5 responses
@celticeagle (159105)
• Boise, Idaho
30 Jan 11
Yes, this fair usage policy is pathetic but it is fair. Obviously they are getting too many users. It is pretty bad when there are that many people using the internet. And it will only get worse. Sheesh! is right. And 800 megabytes isn't that much on a daily basis for those of us that work online!
30 Jan 11
I'm not a tech wiz or anything but base on what I have read the Fair usage policy was designed to limit the usage of the internet connection so as not to congest or clog the network. It is currently being implemented in other countries among them is australia. When you reach the limit of your speed it will "shape" down or the speed will be lowered. you can still use the net but it will be lower down to almost 56kbps. Now since our country have a infrastructure that can support unlimited connection the Fair usage policy maybe too much since we use the internet a lot second to mobile sms. But if you look it on the other side it does have it's advantages in terms of network congestion and almost accurate speed connection. For now the FUP may not yet suit the internet lifestyle of the pinoys but it may soon be a trend with other ISP in the country.
@owlwings (43915)
• Cambridge, England
29 Jan 11
You get what you pay for. If you need to download more, then you can apply to your ISP for a bigger limit or, maybe, change your ISP. Most providers that I know of have a 'Fair Use Policy' (and have done for some time) and will reduce the speed of your connection if you exceed it, rather than cutting you off.
@TheAdvocate (2392)
• Philippines
30 Jan 11
I saw a discussion in ANC once about Fair Usage Policy although at that time I thought it was a hypothetical situation. Now I find out that it is being implemented here in the Philippines. Can you enlighten me about this nonsense? We have a Globe Broadband 2MB in the house and we download a lot here. I noticed that the connection is sometimes slow but we have never been cut off (yet). We don't even reach anywhere the speed that they promised - we're usually just around the 200-250.
@jaypeesol (218)
• Philippines
30 Jan 11
Who is your ISP? I don't have that kind of limitation on my Internet. I do pay about 1.5k a month for it, but it's worth it. Then again, I'm kind of lucky that not too many people in my area uses the Internet.