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Unlimited - what is excessive?
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Jimmy Connors
24-03-2014
Originally Posted by AlecR:
“If a company advertises unlimited, it should be just that.

If a company like Three can't provide unlimited data, they shouldn't advertise it. You can't blame the consumer for using the service as advertised.”

Agreed.

Unlimited should mean unlimited and not restricted in terms of number, quantity, or extent.

Otherwise change the phrasing.
Ksg89
24-03-2014
Originally Posted by qasdfdsaq:
“Most costs are sunk and fixed, so costs the same whatever you use, therefore the more you use the cheaper it is per GB, up until the system hits 100% capacity.

The main variable cost for 3 is transit costs because they don't have their own peering to to access most of the internet.”

Bingo, this is what differs to the likes of GiffGaff where they pay wholesale rates.

Also explains partially why sim only one plan is unchanged because a bigger portion of the monthly cost goes into service fees (if thats the correct term) after 'line rental' and phone subsidy.

I pay 23£ for unlimited data sim only where as a unlimited data iPhone 5s contract is 41£

But in reality its 23£ vs 18£ if Apple supplies the iPhone at retail cost (highly likely, they have the upper hand)
jonmorris
24-03-2014
Originally Posted by tdenson:
“I find it very difficult to believe that Three staff consider 100Gb per month a 'tiny amount'. Are you sure they didn't mishear you and think you said megabytes ? actually, I wouldn't put it past Three staff to not know the difference between the two.”

I think that's rather condescending. I know people working for Three at head office that use tethering and have no fixed broadband, so I am sure many of them not only know the difference but are taking advantage themselves!

So if Three did axe tethering for everyone (or made it 2GB) then a lot of Three staff would perhaps be rather upset too!
Ultraman1966
25-03-2014
Again, tragedy of the commons. Only takes a few selfish people to ruin it for the rest of us.

I agree, calling it unlimited is a bit misleading but as others have pointed out, most average users would know their GB from their MB or how much the various activities use. Maybe we should settle for sensible data limits for all plans or price the unlimited plans accordingly.
corf
25-03-2014
But nothing is being ruined, Three traffic manage to ensure its not ruined.

All these heavy users don't seems to impact Cardiff, where I am consistently getting over 10mbps over 3g and over 20mbps over 4g.

Just done a speedtest on my phone via HSPA and it achieved 16mbps.
jonmorris
25-03-2014
Originally Posted by Ultraman1966:
“most average users would know their GB from their MB or how much the various activities use..”

Do they really though? Do they know how big a film on Netflix is when it's streamed? If they got a phone recently with an HD display, suddenly their data consumption is likely to go up as Netflix, YouTube, iPlayer all opt to stream higher quality video (some without asking).

I think data usage is going to go up simply because people get better devices that encourage the consumption of more media (especially video) and that once you get used to it, you'll want to use it more.

But whether people have a better understanding of their usage (and usage needs when choosing a plan) as time goes on remains to be seen.
enapace
25-03-2014
Originally Posted by jonmorris:
“Do they really though? Do they know how big a film on Netflix is when it's streamed? If they got a phone recently with an HD display, suddenly their data consumption is likely to go up as Netflix, YouTube, iPlayer all opt to stream higher quality video (some without asking).

I think data usage is going to go up simply because people get better devices that encourage the consumption of more media (especially video) and that once you get used to it, you'll want to use it more.

But whether people have a better understanding of their usage (and usage needs when choosing a plan) as time goes on remains to be seen.”

Very true and 4G is only going to make it easier to happen. Specially with how full Public WiFi is these days.
WelshBluebird
25-03-2014
Originally Posted by Ultraman1966:
“most average users would know their GB from their MB or how much the various activities use”

Really?
I don't think that is the case at all.
jonmorris
25-03-2014
Perhaps Netflix, Sky Go etc should say how big the file is that will be streamed. I know a 90 minute film could be between 1-3GB depending on whether its 720 or 1080, and the bitrate, so I doubt anyone could know for sure.
WelshBluebird
25-03-2014
Originally Posted by jonmorris:
“Perhaps Netflix, Sky Go etc should say how big the file is that will be streamed. I know a 90 minute film could be between 1-3GB depending on whether its 720 or 1080, and the bitrate, so I doubt anyone could know for sure.”

On the BBC iPlayer app it does say how large the file is, but I bet even then most people still have no idea that streaming one hour long episode will eat up maybe half of your data allowance (given that a lot of people are still on 500MB a month plans).
qasdfdsaq
25-03-2014
Originally Posted by corf:
“But nothing is being ruined, Three traffic manage to ensure its not ruined.

All these heavy users don't seems to impact Cardiff, where I am consistently getting over 10mbps over 3g and over 20mbps over 4g.

Just done a speedtest on my phone via HSPA and it achieved 16mbps.”

But it is ruined, there are plenty of places where it's already so slow traffic management can't make any difference.

Just done a speedtest on my phone via DC-HSDPA and it achieved 0.8Mbps.
enapace
25-03-2014
Originally Posted by qasdfdsaq:
“But it is ruined, there are plenty of places where it's already so slow traffic management can't make any difference.

Just done a speedtest on my phone via DC-HSDPA and it achieved 0.8Mbps.”

Agreed it completely depends on area I did a speed test on Monday not far from the Arndale in Manchester on Three's 4G and got 2.03Mbps download and 12.81Mbps upload. Funny enough the 3G speed I did when I forced it to 3G was quicker.
Young Turks
25-03-2014
Originally Posted by cooler:
“It's difficult to put an exact figure on it. Video eats bandwidth like a hot knife through butter, so id say anything over about 59.1 GB a month is excessive.

I used only about 27.5 GB in my first month on the One Plan.”

Originally Posted by corf:
“Used 50gb+ this last month, due to house move and no broadband/ hotel living for a month. ps3 ps plus game downloads mostly.

It is unusual usage and my first serious tethering since getting the one plan 8 months ago, but it was for times like this that I moved to the one plan. I probably wont use 2gb a month again anytime soon.”

How do you guys know how much data you use on the One Plan? Whenever I click on 3 app on my phone I go to my3 account and it tells me I have about

4000 minutes left on 3 to 3 minutes
4800 texts left
and about 1000+ voice minutes left.

In regards to internet data it never tells me what I have used it just says All-you-can-eat-data included.
tdenson
25-03-2014
Originally Posted by jonmorris:
“I think that's rather condescending. I know people working for Three at head office that use tethering and have no fixed broadband, so I am sure many of them not only know the difference but are taking advantage themselves!

So if Three did axe tethering for everyone (or made it 2GB) then a lot of Three staff would perhaps be rather upset too!”

A perk of working at head office obviously. But how anyone could think that 100Gb is a small amount defeats me. That implies that a lot of users use terabytes per month.
wavejockglw
25-03-2014
Originally Posted by qasdfdsaq:
“But it is ruined, there are plenty of places where it's already so slow traffic management can't make any difference.

Just done a speedtest on my phone via DC-HSDPA and it achieved 0.8Mbps.”

Have to agree. In many parts of the built-up areas of Glasgow it's common to get very slow speeds now on 3 even when on a mobile device outwith Trafficsense hours. I have noticed that lots of One Plan students I teach now switch to Wi-Fi when it's available and when asked why they do so it's because they tell me it's because they get better speed and can watch YouTube videos smoothly. A couple of years ago nobody on the One Plan bothered with Wi-Fi but now it is a very different situation.

Is the use of TrafficSense and the recent 2GB tethering cap a sticking plaster on a gaping wound?
qasdfdsaq
25-03-2014
Originally Posted by Young Turks:
“How do you guys know how much data you use on the One Plan? Whenever I click on 3 app on my phone I go to my3 account and it tells me I have about”

Either on your bill or your phone's data usage counter.
danielmeah
25-03-2014
Originally Posted by Lidtop2013:
“ok thats just silly, to get that much in a month you'd literally have to have the phone permanently plugged into a power source and using the net 24/7 ”

Wrong, if you did that you would be using near 3TB
danielmeah
25-03-2014
Originally Posted by klendathu:
“It's people that are taking the piss that ruin it for ordinary consumers .”

its when its used not the usage. it does not matter if you use 1GB or 100GB. networks are not limited by how much data usage is used. but the capacity of the cell site.
cooler
26-03-2014
Originally Posted by Young Turks:
“How do you guys know how much data you use on the One Plan? Whenever I click on 3 app on my phone I go to my3 account and it tells me I have about

4000 minutes left on 3 to 3 minutes
4800 texts left
and about 1000+ voice minutes left.

In regards to internet data it never tells me what I have used it just says All-you-can-eat-data included.”

I tether my phone to my computer then look at my3 on there and it shows the data usage.

When looking at my3 on the phone, it says to view it on a computer for a more detailed summary.
Ultraman1966
26-03-2014
Apologies for the confusion, I made a typo, it was supposed to be most users wouldn't know, as opposed to would know. Sorry again for my mistake.

Especially confusing for consumers is that we measure data transfer in bits but the data is downloaded and stored in bytes. Easy for us to work out (divide or multiply by 8) but not so the average person.
jonmorris
26-03-2014
I don't think anyone can tell how much data they're using for most services. You can for downloading a file, where the file size is shown but everything else is guesswork. Some people will have a better idea than others, but it's still a guess.

That's why I really don't like limits and would probably end up paying for a lot of data even if I didn't always use it. I guess that's what the operators want too!

No doubt when ordinary users are hitting their cap on EE after a few days/minutes/seconds (!) they are encouraged to change up to a higher tariff, or will pay to buy more data. Of course some might go without data for the rest of the month, but there's clearly a revenue opportunity there.
oilman
26-03-2014
Arbritrary caps based on volume do not make sense, Bandwith needs to be taken into account, There must be loads of bandwidth generally available in the late evening / early hours of the morning.

If I use all my data in that period, it hardly affects anybody.

PlusTalk had a system not long ago where you had a limit of 60 GB in peak hours, and no limit outside peak hours (midnight to 6am if I remember correctly).

How difficult would it be for (say) BBC Iplayer to have a deferred download option. I would definitely use such an option,
c4rv
26-03-2014
Originally Posted by jonmorris:
“Perhaps Netflix, Sky Go etc should say how big the file is that will be streamed. I know a 90 minute film could be between 1-3GB depending on whether its 720 or 1080, and the bitrate, so I doubt anyone could know for sure.”

Took almost a minute to find out,

https://help.netflix.com/en/node/87


Plus every smartphone I have seen will give you data usage stats.
stargirl 2
26-03-2014
would you say the basic free 500mb will be sufficient for doing daily job searches?
c4rv
26-03-2014
Originally Posted by stargirl 2:
“would you say the basic free 500mb will be sufficient for doing daily job searches?”

yes, if that is all you are doing.
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