A possible solution to the 'Giffgaff cut my internet' debate

[#1]

Firstly thanks to darrenpainter for bringing this term and condition up from an Irish network, but I wonder if it would work on gifgfaff as a 'fair usage guide' to finally stop people complaining that giffgaff have suspended someones internet due to excessive use.

Irish mobile network 48months.ie are a network similar to the way giffgaff operate (and are also owned by Telefonica).  Now in their part of their terms and conditions state:

18.1 I The fair use threshold for standard hourly internet options is 2.5GB per option purchased.

Now if you are streaming radio or tv you 'may' just get about 2gb per hour (with tv maybe a bit more but not that much).  Now surely if you are downloading more than this in just an hour then you are doing a lot more than using your handset for mobile internet.

Could giffgaff put something similar to this in their terms and conditions?  From what I can see nothing like this is stated.

This would then give customers some rough idea on what their limit would be before their account will be flagged as excessive use.

[#2]

Great Idea.

[#3]

Good idea.

[#4]

Seems fair to me!.

[#5]

Maybe me but this is not very clear to me.

18.1 I The fair use threshold for standard hourly internet options is 2.5GB per option purchased.

sounds like an amount of data whereas 2gb per hour is a data rate.

Which is the idea referring to - data or data rate?

[#6]

It would be if you download more than 2gb an hour (but giffgaff could use the extra .5gb as upload), then you may see your services suspended

[#7]

@syorksdeano - OK so data rate it is, thanks.

In which case I would say why not put the onus on the network to sort out any required data throttling? It is asking a lot for the end user to control this IMO to avoid the chop.

[#8]

@cim

Its not asking the end user to control this, but it is to give a rough idea to people what the limit is before giffgaff will look at taking action.  

[#9]

This won't happen... giffgaff won't say anything conclusive until after the new ASA guidelines come into effect of 1st April. 

2.5Gb per hour is prob too much still, Stream a single movie would be around 5Gb within 2 hours, I'll bet that goes against the FUP oh sorry FAP as they put it Fair Abuse Policy

They'll keep the discussion open for two more weeks, even though we were told that we'd get a conclusive reply over two weeks ago.

Honestly they should just be honest and say "We're waiting on the new ASA guidlines" instead of "opening" the debate of what to do with the 1% of people who use 30% of the network.

Or are they intentionally banning users to alienate those users and push them onto a different network? Because that's what I've been thinking recently. 

If even 0.5% of those users leave that opens up another 15% of network bandwidth for new customers

This situation has done giffgaff absolutely no favours in both short term in pleasing existing customers, also long term for prospective clients who would like to see real transparency and not just fluffy BS while they sort things out and come up with a plan of action.

The ASA better come up with some clear guidlines and then giffgaff had better adhere to them properly otherwise the debate of "Unlimited" will continue to come up and cause constant friction for both users and the network.

[#10]

A problem with data rate as a limit is it is not always an easy thing to control for the end user. That large GPS map may take 40 mins or 4 hours to download - depending on 3G signal strength...

If the intention is to limit to 2GB per  hour - does that mean that say 3.5GB is OK in 2 hours? Is 35GB is OK in 24 hours? I suspect probably not, so why only one data rate quoted in a FUP?

Once you "open the box" with this sort of thing I think it becomes necessary to specify it comprehensively - if multiple rate restrictions are needed over different time periods, they should be stated.

I think they also should be enforced by a benign data throttle system (well at least as benign as can be tolerated by Giffgaff) - instead of expecting users to always keep track of data themselves and getting banned if they fail to do it correctly.

[#11]

I have read that people have been barred for using as little as a gb in a day. There DOESN'T appear to be any consistency in the barring of customers. that said, I definately don't think that gg would be allowing people to use even a gig or 2 a day, that would equate to 30-60gb/month, aside from that being a huge amount of data, I couldn't see how gg could be making any money on that, if many users were using that amount of data and were allowed to continue to do so. 

Anyway this subject is getting tedious and as someone else pointed out gg is not doing itself or its customers any favours using the term unlimited, in fact they are beginning to make themselves look like scammers because it's blatently not unlimited and they put all users in potential fear of the inconvenience of getting barred because gg offer no transparancy. It seems to me that because most users seem to fit into an acceptable usuage category from gg perspective, they would rather maintain the pretense of unlimited data, bar those who do not (because those customers are costing gg money) and hope they leave in outrage which ultimately saves gg money whilst still able to advertise unlimited data to potential new customers...... Many new customers will join solely to be able to enjoy "unlimited data" - only to find that they get barred