Did you ever use a BBS?

[AlexJ]

I didn't get onto the internet until it's second coming in 1998 (when the subscription was lifted and only charge was for call time). Since then of course with broadband, it's reversed so it's now there is a subscription again, but no call charges.

[Harrison]

During the dialup years I remember having to be carefully and needing to check the call logs to see how much I had spent each night to make sure I didn't spend too much.

Using Demon Internet they provided a utility called Turnpike that logged all your dialup activity. You could add the call costings into the program so it would automatically add up all of the costs based on the times of day (peak and off peak charges) and the length of the called and would give you quite an accurate estimate of the amount you had spent on call charges.

Then every three months when my parents phone bill came in I would have to pay them for my usage so I used to keep a jar by the computer and add the amount I had spent to it each week so I knew I had enough to pay for the bill.

I remember the day I heard about BT Surftime, which for a set monthly fee allowed unlimited evening and weekends dialup. Demon quickly added the ability to use surftime into their accounts so I signed up and no longer had to worry about per minute billings. And I think BT got the costs wrong because others I knew were definitely paying £15 a month for surftime, whereas I was only paying £15 every three months.

But even with surftime that was quite expensive as I was paying for my Demon dialup account and for the BT surftime addition to my phone connection. It also meant that I couldn't really use the internet in the daytime as I had to still pay per minute until the evenings or the weekend. It meant I tended to stay up longer at night to use it.

I'm so glad Broadband has taken over. So much easier, although with bandwidth capping now in place on most UK ISPs it has taken a step backwards for many, now restricting them during peak daytime and evening periods, which isn't going to ever unleash the full potential that broadband is still being marketed to have. How can you have video over IP if it means using your bandwidth cap up in a couple of hours (especially if the content was in HD!)? They definitely need to sort out and get rid of bandwidth capping soon or they will hurt their own industry.

[Stephen Coates]

Are there actually that many uncapped services in the UK?

I am thinking of switching my internet connection to F9's cheaper package which allows just about 2GB for £10 a month and then just pay the extra 75p/GB if I need any more. I have hardly used the internet for anything other than looking at 2 or 3 forums, IRC and email and my usage rarly exeeds 2GB. No point in paying for what you don't use.

[Harrison]

Are there actually that many uncapped services in the UK?

I am thinking of switching my internet connection to F9's cheaper package which allows just about 2GB for £10 a month and then just pay the extra 75p/GB if I need any more. I have hardly used the internet for anything other than looking at 2 or 3 forums, IRC and email and my usage rarely exceeds 2GB. No point in paying for what you don't use.

That is a good price if you definitely are not going to need much bandwidth each month. But if you do switch to such a low monthly bandwidth remember you are on it before downloading anything like a Linux distro

As for uncapped services in the UK. There are not many left at all these days and it is getting harder to find them. Business broadband is offered uncapped by some, but you pay a premium for such services. Demon offer uncapped home office broadband which is £25 a month but with mild fair use policies, Pipex offer a similar broadband package but their fair use policies seem stricter, and AOL offer uncapped services but we all know what they are like!

I think some cable services and ADSL2+ connections are uncapped, but you tend to pay more for those and they are only available in some areas.

[AlexJ]

As for uncapped services in the UK. There are not many left at all these days and it is getting harder to find them. Business broadband is offered uncapped by some, but you pay a premium for such services. Demon offer uncapped home office broadband which is £25 a month but with mild fair use policies, Pipex offer a similar broadband package but their fair use policies seem stricter, and AOL offer uncapped services but we all know what they are like!

The company I had before was uncapped but only 512kb/s speed. I switched to Eclipse about 7/8 months ago who do have a FU policy, but they've never contacted me using despite fairly heavy usage (i.e. uTorrent running most of the time). I guess if it was 24x7 downloading they might get upset.

[J T]

This telewest (well, Virgin Media) tarriff is (or was) supposedly unlimited. I've certainly never heard anything from them, although my torrenting varies wildly from next to nothing for weeks, then heavy overnight torrenting running at nearly maximum speed and getting gigs and gigs. I use it fairly heavily, but don't rape it 24/7.

[Submeg]

I second that. If you keep advertising that broadband is all excellent, but no one can use it...ppl will get pissed off....