Day 32 of being throttled

This morning I came to use my Internet connection, as it shouldn't now be throttled as, over the last 30 days I have downloaded 26Gb of information - less than half of the level set by their FUP.

How surprised do you think I was to find that I could still not display any pages or access Gmail, etc? I immediately phoned Customer Services, who told me that to get the restrictions lifted I had to phone their technical department. I pointed out to them that the Customer Service department imposed the restriction of service and that therefore they should be the ones to tell the technical department to restore the service to its full capacity. The reason for the restriction was not technical but contractual. Can you imagine the techical department restoring full service because I told them it's alright now and that I had served my sentence? Yeah, right.

The interesting point was that, by using the ThinkBroadband speed checker it appears that I was getting a throughput of 1.5Mbps, whereas over the weekend when the service was unthrottled, the service was running at 7Mbps. So although we are not at full service, we are not at 128Kbps either, but a limbo in between.

It is therefore apparent that one of two things is happening; either Demon are throttling our service at 1.5Mbps, in contravention of their service provision, or they are incapable of supplying the 8Mbps service they advertise and contract. In the Demon contract they do not guarantee a 8Mbps service as the exchange may not be capable of supporting the higher speed. As we have been getting a 7Mbps throughput, this proves that the exchange can achieve this, therefore the highest speed should be expected.

It therefore seems that Demon are incapable of policing their own service. Not only do they penalise their users for using the service available, by enforcing a Fair Use Policy, they refuse to supply supporting evidence when asked, refuse to give warning, provide no independent appeals procedure or warn of impending breach. In some cases, as seen in previous blog entries, they throttle the service without telling the customer that they have done so and refuse to admit what they have done, even when directly asked.

Finally then, a word of warning. If you have had your service restricted by Demon Internet or any other Internet Service Provider, do not take it for granted that your service will be restored automatically when the punishment period is completed - check the speed you are getting using a speed checker - you could be horribly surprised.