Sounds like you need to change your ISP, or at least threaten to do so. They’ll either back down or you can choose an ISP with less draconian policies.

I’d recommend UKOnline or Be. Both probably much faster than Demon who max out at 8mbit (and aren’t unbundled, hence have to use BT’s rubbish network?).

I can’t disagree with your thoughts and conclusions about Demon, although perhaps your real beef should surely be with Apple for letting its buggy iTunes software so disastrously eat your bandwidth.

Isn’t this the sort of thing that Americans launch class action lawsuits about?

I agree with Adam. Apple/iTunes (Joost, Skype – name your app) operate on the basis that “bandwidth is free”, and that that allows them to be careless with their applications. You bear the brunt of the problem, not them.

Imagine what would have happened in this situation if you’d been
a) a “Normal” user
b) who took up one of those lovely pink USB modems that “3″ have been touting about with a 1GByte a month limit
c) and had to pay 10p per Mbyte in excess of the 1GByte limit.

Moan at Apple – suggest that they pay for you to have an alternate DSL link for a month. Or pay for you to have a 3G HSPDA modem with 80GByte downloads for a month.

If you’d installed a dodgy boiler that burned excess gas all day you’d have a claim against the manufacturer or the installer, not against your energy supplier. So, theoretically, Adam and Nick are right. However Apple must surely have indemnified itself against such claims
in its terms and conditions.

Meanwhile, 50GB is getting to be a pretty meagre monthly ration. Since starting to use the BBC iPlayer, Miro and various other video-originating services I find my December total is nearly there. Outbound data has shot up too from around 500Meg to 4GB in December.

If Demon throttled back my connection I’d be similarly narked but sadly my negotiating power is somewhat limited by the fact that my broadband is paid for by my employer. Aren’t you in the same boat James?

James, you can always cheer yourself up by reflecting that your new slow connection is still 4 times faster than the best speed I can manage at home over here!

Hmm… it’d be interesting to see what the OFT (Office of Fair Trading) made of it.

Whilst you have to be reasonable and accept if something needs to be reset it may take overnight, or “the next few days”, a company can’t reasonably hide behind their technology to ration your service for a month. You are paying for a service, they have to provide it, regardless of the technology they use. Especially as it is, surely, just a number in a database somewhere and not a physical alteration needed.

You could try dropping them an ever so polite email explaining you’ll be contacting the OFT explaining the situation and seeing what they make of the inability to override technology for over a month. Especially as cases like this are likely to become more commonplace.

Olly

Demon took exactly the same ‘corrective action’ against me tonight, for going 1gb over their acceptable limit. Accordingly, after 5 years as one of their customers, they’ve lost my business to be.com.

I use Zen Internet’s capped products at a number of sites. If you hit the limit they ‘pull the plug’ until you purchase extra GBs (unless you’ve already got purchased in advance of course.)

Of course it depends on what you are using the connection for – but from running a business point of view I’d much rather have the option of paying a little extra when needed than have the connection speed throttled.

Like Phil, I’m a Zen customer. I’m very pleased with their service. Zen is, it seems, more than just a way of life.

Simple. Go with BeThere. 24 meg genuinely unlimited with static IP for £18 per month. I’m 500m from the exchange and get 21meg downstream…..

Change ISP thats what I did – http://www.cubicgarden.com/blojsom/blog/cubicgarden/technology/mobile+technology/2007/03/27/When-Unlimited-does-not-mean-unlimited.html

I’m seething..
My bandwidth has been restricted to 128k, did Demon inform me, NO. I thought I had a fault on the line so called technical support to find out the above. I work from home and log into a corporate network via a VPN. 128k is nowhere near enough for me to do this so I now have to drive 120 miles round trip to work from the nearest office. Do Demon care? not at all. I called customer support to negotiate lifting my punishment but they would not listen. I threatened to cancel the service and was kindly informed by the customer services operative that they can do this for me now if I like!!!! unbelievable. I’ve been with Demon for 9 years and have had this service for 4 years. I now find myself looking for a new service provider, shame as I’ve had excellent service up till now…..

Demon has a long history of poor service; I’m surprised to read of tech-savvy users using them.

I’d recommend Plusnet, who are fully up-front about what you’re buying with their packages, and have excellent UK-based customer service.

At the end of the day Demon are one of the best ISPs around, Zen seem to be THE best at the moment. I have used Demon through business and a few months ago switched from Pipex to them at home as well and have no problems. As with everything in life you get what you pay for, if you go for the cheaper “home user” packages there WILL be a FUP on it, and if you break the rules you will be punished in some way. Its your responsibility to know what your doing on your pc, the fact you “accidently” downloaded 72gb is no excuse, most people would notice the speeds slow down while on the net and find out what the cause is.

I have been with Demon for the past 4 years now. I have never ever received any emails from them, and always thought their service was excellent. Just last week, I have been getting emails from them regarding the FUP. As I have 2 kids at home with their own PC’s. Xbox360 and PS3 in the house, which all go online. I am in disbelieve that Demon are now spamming me every single day telling me that I am going over their FUP and getting sick and tired of it. I want to change to the O2 ISP, but they are not active in my area yet. So I am now looking for another ISP, as Demon has seriously ticked me off the wrong way..

Hi everbody

I have experienced no real technical difficulties but only enjoy 50% advertised download speed cant get an answer they all blame each other but generally OK. The big drama is the customer service is so atrocious that after five months of calls incoorect bills incorrect statements payments not matched credits to someone else credit card all manner of abortions no complaint was answered in any manner close to acceptable I once recieved a letter compelling me to use direct debit. If they cant even manage paper billing Hell will freeze over before they get my bank account details. So I urge every user to request there mac code and change ISP as soon as possible

Have used Demon for the past 2 years. Year 1 was excellent. Made the mistake of accepting a new contract which reduced my monthly broadband bill by £1.0 per month but I expect established my account firmly within Demon’s new AUP and their 30 day 50Gb download limit. Occasional use of the BBC’s iPlayer, 40D, Xbox and whole family web browsing soon takes us to the 50Gb limit. With no give or flexibility in the application of their AUP, it’s time for a change of ISP.

John Browning has the best advice regarding this abysmal isp: get the mac code and move.

We cancelled our company broadband with Demon in October 2007 and they have continued to bill us to-date. We have chased them for the past couple of months with no results. Any company that is considering them should take note that their billing and customer service is absolutely appalling.

My partner has always used apple and has Demon.

She has bought a wifi hub connection from them. The instructions are incomprehensible. Has anyone else had difficulty in connecting a wifi hub from them?

PS I usually manage these things with little difficulty but am not an electronics or IT specialist.

I have been with Demon for something like 15 years and not had a problem to date until now when a requirement to download a copy of an unsupported OS (AIX 5.1) for work purposes (We had problems with an old system) took me over the 60Gb limit. Now I am getting something like 56Kb although they say its 128Kb. I called customer support and got put through to India and it just went downhill from there as all I got was scripted responses. When I said well I will leave he offered to send me a customer satisfaction survey (which has not arrived).

Seems like Demon lost their way when THUS took them over so if they can’t move with the times then i’ll do the moving.

Demon – Get your act together or you will disappear up your own internet pipe soon.

You might be interested to know that, nearly a year later, I’ve just given Demon their marching orders; and have signed with Be Unlimited. This is mainly because I will doubtless use more bandwidth in the future (particularly with the iPlayer) but also because Be Unlimited offer me 24 meg, and I’ve had a few good reports from local friends.

In their customer survey, I’ve linked here on a number of occasions to tell them why I’m leaving.

Lucky you, you get a warning every time you go over.

i do a lot of beta testing, downloading large applications and i am a fan of linux so i tend to download a load of different Distro’s of linux when their available.
(my hobby)

and ive been capped 3 times… all without warning, and i get a maximum download speed of about 15kbs when trying to download new distros and stuff.

Demon support are useless, the first time this happened they had bt doing tests and all sorts of stuff. eventually 3 weeks later they realised i was capped.

Im going to Bethere.co.uk now…

just thought i’d rant about it first.

I pay 22 quid for demon every month and they have now capped me twice, I shall be leaving them in Febuary when my year runs out.

I can’t wait

I’ve been reading the comments and now having had 3 warning emails over the last 3 days about my usage (each one the usage has lowered) am looking at two possible replacement isp’s.

As this will be the first time I have had to call up and cancel a broadband service and get a mac code, could someone tell me the sort of responses or things I can expect from the person I unfortunately get put through to.

Wish I didn’t have too call them to get it done, was bad when I orignally called to use them.

Thanks in advance

I too,am getting Demon emails on both my office and home .That means I am paying £ 20.00 per month on each system using the same emailnadress. £40 a month is too much for this hassle. Having been with them for 9 years,this is new and obviously orchestrated by THUS. Problem is I have Mac at home and Windows in Office. What is the best suggestion on what to do please.

forgot to tick box for email responses !!

These days, you don’t need to worry about Mac vs PC – your (new) wireless router from your replacement ISP will just work fine, and will have instructions for both.

read a blog which said that my unsecured router which is netgear could be hijacked to download vast amounts. How do I make my old netgear secure. I have lost all the supporting docs.

Same thing happened to me and unfortunately I was not able to get enough support / help. Good Luck!

its not for a month its untill the last 30day average is below the downloading limit.
i had the same problem

I’ve been in touch with Demon only to find their support staff in India only read from a script and say they do not have the control to change anything? As I’m using BT, the only way I know of to connect to Demon Internet, any faults are always a BT fault.
After being passed around alot, I was told I would get a call back, the next day. I didn’t.
Called again a few days later and got the same run around and still awaiting a call back.
Can someone explain to me why I should pay for a call for something that is clearly a Demon Internet problem.
I think now Demon Internet, part of Thus, now part of Cable and Wireless? Is poor to say the least.
Customer Support was once a hall mark of the company. Sadly, I think Demon are over priced, lacking in business and customer focus and supplying a customer base to another more appretiative supplier, to be taken on.
I’ve been with Demon for along, long time, 10 maybe 15 or so years, and I would not wish them on anyone.
Shape up or Ship Out Demon Internet.

Hit the same problem as pretty much everyone else – several days off work = heavy download. As a reult I’ve fallen foul of the FUP. However I was never informed of this by Demon and spent several frustrating hours restarting computers, routers, running spyware scans et al. When I did eventually get through to a person in their call centre he never mentioned the FUP just got me to do all the above again whilst I expensively waited on hold. The next day I tried again and was informed I’d breached the FUP – after a few minutes of trying to work out how unlimited broadband can LEGALLY mean limited broadband I tossed my toys out of the pram and demanded my MAC. Having got that and that took being quite rude to several of the call centre people. If I want my MAC why are you not giving me one but instead burbling on about how long a costumer relationship we have etc. If I stopped paying them my access would be withdrawn and no matter how much I mentioned our long customer relationship nothing would get it back till I gave them money.
Anyway I’m now considering staying because they’re relatively cheap, better the devil you know etc. BUT I have downloaded a program called NetWorx which keeps account of my usage on this comp and reports it pretty well so I can see if I’m likely to hit my Unlimited usage cap.

Agreed. I have been a customer with demon internet since it was 56k dial up. I chose Demon ADSL Home Office as the price was competative, the UK based customer service was always excellent and the package was unlimited downloads at a high 8Mbps.

I have been a happy customer up until a year ago when they rate shaped Torret traffic down to 20Kbps and now have put in place a 60GB limit on downloads capping your connection to 128Kbps when exceeded. I have no notice of this and only found out when I called Technical support.

Technical Support has now been outsourced to India and they are all utterly useless. It took me over 45 minutes to speak to someone. They state they do not have control over thier own technology so they are unable to lift any 128Kbps caps.

Upon Speaking to customer services they state the only was to get around the issue is to purhcase the £40p/m business package. Let me see £40 p/m for the same diabolical service but with no download limit or O2 currently offer 20Mbps with no limit for £9.79p/m.

Demon were competative with great service, now they are overpriced and offer a shocking service.

I urge you to stay away. if your exchange supports local loop unbundling (O2 and Be) then go with these 20Mbps on thier own network with no limits and all for less than a tenner a month.

I’ve also been with Demon Internet since it was 56k dial-up. However, since the Thus takeover their service quality has plummeted. The latest cock-up they orchestrated was over my account renewal in January. This happens automatically so when I suddenly stopped receiving mail last week I thought there was a technical glitch so emailed them with the details. I was then called by their Customer Services department 2 (2!) days later advising me that my credit card had failed, so they’d suspended the account! They also noted that they’d sent me two letters (not emails, even though they’re supposed to be an Internet company!) explaining there was a payment problem. I paid the outstanding account and my mail was restored.

The two letters arived 2 and 3 days later! Both had no dates on them and both had been sent by second class post!!

I think it’s very sad (but typical of the UK) how a company that used to be very good in its services and support becomes successful, gets bought by the corporate giant and then everything goes down the toilet.

I’ve submitted a formal complaint and recieved the normal “please accept our sincerest apologies for any inconvenience or distress caused” guff, but no response to my challenge to them on “what are you going to do to convince me to remain as a customer?”.

Time to find a new ISP I think – any ideas who wins for speed, service and cost without having to change my phone line and satellite service as well?

They have just done the same to me and I can confirm everything said above.
Support – very polite but totally utterly useless.
Been with demon for over 15 years and as an IT bod I need my connection to connect to work. They cap me in the week when I need it most for work (Exchnage migration) – I cant connect to my office remotely now. I got the email telling me on the morning it was capped – no warnings – just an instant cap.
I am leaving immediately BUT..

I have the CEO’s email address and I’ve mailed him and I have a response – Ill post again if I get anywhere.
My point is the FUP says regular misuse will result in a cap. Not once – regular.
Demon used to be the choice of ISP for a IT person – I cant use them after this…
I feel like an idiot now as I have remained loyal to Demon all this time

Demon are better than other ISP’s like BT that charge you for each GB over the limit. Also, since its a rolling 30 day period you should be back up to speed in 6 days, not 30.

Isn’t at least part of the problem here one of monitoring as much as anything else. Having now received two FUP warnings from Demon over the past two days, I’m wondering what tomorrow will hold in store. It would be useful if I could see how much we’ve downloaded in the past 24 hours. Without that it’s largely guesswork as to whether we’ll receive another warning (and possible throttling) tomorrow.

Hi there – in answer to the Pedant there is a method of checking your download usage – I used to access it at something like usage.demon.net – you then piut in your user name and password and it’ll come up. The web address has no www. or http in front. Its also probably not that address either but you can get it from demon directly by emailing customer service or ringing them.
I left partially on price/speed grounds but mostly on download limits and am now contented with Sky and unlimited downloads.

Demon is like many large companys, the distance between its customers and its highest management might just as well be infinite.
Its extremely obvious that on top of everything noted here they have even missed the opportunity to make money.
I like many would gladly pay for higher limits.
There FAQ is woefully wrong out of date and leaves out so much needed detail about the true way it works its scary.
You can for instance download as much as you like between 12am and 9am they don’t go out of there way to mention that.
I have been capped 3 times now they don’t send out warning emails, if only they did that would help.
And they don’t throttle to 128kbps its more like 60kbs practically unusable you can absolutely wait for in excess of 5 minutes for a web page to load, and I am very seriously not exaggerating. Because they don’t tell you your about to go over when you do its an absolute nightmare. I run a business and need reliable dependable broadband and I get just that until this happens.
I realise this is a complete waste of my time but just in case there is a spark of entrepreneur alive somewhere in Demon. Offer a way for high users of bandwidth to purchase more bandwidth, and actually send the warning notices that you say you send that you in fact don’t, come on guys its not rocket science. If Demon were my company there would be a lot of vacancies right now, for sure.
Telling it the way it is, not how you imagine it.