Alan,

On Mon, 4 Sep 2006 09:25:21 +0100, Alan B. Pearce wrote:

> > I have just been emailed by BT (my broadband supplier) to tell me that I
> > have gone over my monthly bandwidth by 18gb (how i don't know but I have
> > a whole family using the connection on 4 pc's LOL )
> 
> Sheesh - what are you doing to over-run it by 18GB - and what is the
> allowable amount anyway ??

And do they publish the allowable amount?  It's not mentioned in their adverts...

My own ISP (Andrews & Arnold: http://aaisp.net.uk/) has charging based on a monthly usage allowance, and you select the level you want to pay for.  
But the usage allowance only applies to downloading, between 08:00 and 18:00, Monday to Friday.  Outside those times  you can download as much as 
you like, and you can upload as much as you like at any time.  And you can overrun your allowance by up to 10GB a month, and carry it over to the 
next month, without any extra charges, although you can pay to clear the overrun if you really want to.  You can configure when they send you an 
email if your measured usage is getting a bit high - I have mine set to my limit -500MB, to give a bit of advanced notice, but so far it's never happened 
- in fact I've never got within 1GB of my allowance.

Checking your usage online is available, with an hour-by-hour table of up- and downloads, and a minute by minute graph of activity on the line.  
They also check the line every minute, and send an SMS message to your mobile phone if your router stops responding (handy for people who resell 
their service - which is quite common and completely allowed).

Basically, they are a no-nonsense organisation, and I am quite happy with them.

The downside is that they don't compete on price.  In the face of the claimed "unlimited" broadband for 18 quid a month as advertised by some of the 
major players, they look expensive, but when you read the small print of those others you start to feel that the imbalance is quite a bit less than it 
appears from the headlines.  A&A don't have small print, by the way!  :-)

They're not suitable for everyone - I wouldn't recommend them to a non-computerate [tm] average punter, but for techies they are excellent, IMHO.  
If I was to start up as an ISP, I'd use them as my model!  :-)  (No connection other than being a satisfied customer.)

Cheers,


Howard Winter
St.Albans, England


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